St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-01-27
A GRAPHIC PICTURE.
The Effects Of False Economic
Policies in National
Laws.
A Non-Paptisan Discussion of
the Protective System in
Vogue.
Views Of One of the CleareSt
Thinkers and Ablest Minds
of st. Paul.
A Sketch Of the Relations Of
a High Tariff to the Gen.
eral Veal.

The numbers of people that suffer
from a failure to receive all those sup
plies which are essential and necessary
to the greatest human comfort was
never greater than at the present day.
What is the occasion of this? Has the
earth refused to yield her increase?
has man refused to make that effort
and perform that labor, light as it is,
which natur demands of him as the
price of his bread? No, none of these
things are the occasion of this misery.
1t is the avgrice and s~elfishness which
still exists, and which, if they do not
rule the world absolutely, are influences
arrayed against all philantrOphy, and
all justice, so potent, not only as to vic.
late all natural law of supply and de-
mand, but either to secure such munich
pal laws, or to violate such as good
men have passed. that countless mill
ions of the human race of every genera
ton are made to mourn and suffer for
wants to meet which the earth has af-
forded abundant supplies, but which
fail to reach their intended destination,
where they would be productive of the
greatest good, and greatest increase of
human happiness.
Undue avarice in individuals is a
trait that takes from them all the power
OF doing good to others: it compelS it's
pOSseSSor to become the oppressor of all
classes, and all people; it knows no
mercy: 1t is deaf to all cries of affection
and want, it exercises all the powers
and faculties of the individual for the
sole purpose of drawing to itself that
which can do it no good, while it de-
prives others, not only of their natural
rights, but of the opportunities of OBJ
tanning those supplies designed for
them by nature. and without which life
is miserable.
1t is beyond the power of the human
mind to conceive the magnitude of this
evil operating through states and gov
ernments. 1t is here that it does it's
most deadly and destructive work. In
monarchies, absolute and limited, and
in governments ariStocratic in form,
it demands for and causes to be
consumed or destroyed by a
numerically small class of the
plies, that in no respect promotes
the happiness of those who consume or
destroy them, while it deprives a great
mass of the lower class of people of the
necessaries of life, and produces want.
suffering and crime that no pen can
describe and no mind comprehend. In
governments republican in form, it re-
sorts to every subtlety and every device
TO turn the eyes of electors away from
the
REAL. ISSUES INVOLVED
in the questions upon which they have
a right to vote, and will sometimes
reach the lengths of satisfying quite in
telligent men of the s9undness of the
mathematical proposition, that by de-
Quoting 100 from 100 at least 200 will re-
main. 1t will continue the blindness
thus produced and keep the right of
those who have a right to participate in
the affairs of the government turned
away from those questions which solely
affect their material welfare until they
are aroused by the fact that thy are
stepping from the class where all their
demands of the neceSSarieS of life have
been fully supplied down to that lower
class where want and suffering exists.
when this condition is reached avarice
cries out to them, "Overproduction,"
and the suffering class eXclaims, alt is
not that | have too much, but too little.
Inability to pay for supplies demanded
for the comforts and c~onveniences of
life is my difficulty" Depression and
financial loss follow. Supplies remain
abundant, but a numerically large class
are unable 10 procure them. What has
produced this result? Certainly it is not
war, nor pestilence, nor fire, nor fam
Inc.
No matter what pubIicists or states
men may say about causes of depres-
sion, the older portion of this audi
ence have lived through a war that
called into its service in a single nation
more than three millions of men,; that
led TO expenditures throughout the ma
ton of more than eleven thousand mill
ions of dollars; that was carried on in
the same country, and consisted of OBJ
posing armies that devoted themselves
to the destruction of each other.
and to the destruction of prop
erty with a zeal and ability before
unknown in human affairs; that, as one
result, one single item or class of prop
erty was destroyed of the value of more
than two thousand millions of dollars.
and that after all this had transpired in
the short period of four years, there was
no financial depression or panic, no
extraordinary suffering for the want of
supplies with any class of the people of
that land; and yet, learned and eX-
perlenced statesmen will now say, after
this expenditure and destruction of
more than fourteen thousand millions
OF dollars. without mentioning the in
calculable loss of a half a million of the
young men of the generation, without
the production of a panic, that the loss
OF three hundred millions of dollars by
fire contributed more to the financial
panic of 1878 than most people consider.
1t is a case of sequence converted into
consequence, and no argument and no
Subtlety is so binding ard bewiidering
&c the masses of mankind.
Depression. inadequate supplies for
the laboring masses followed the years
of 1916. of 1886, 1857 and 1878. Specula-
tive and buoyant periods have followed
the years 1928, l64S, 1868 and 1880. Low
taxes with little. if any, protection was
afforded by law between the Years 1916
II 1925. between the years 1888 and
1871, between the years 1874 and 1862:
WHILE ENORMOUS TAXES
and the highest protection has existed
all the time since 1862. Buoyancy, busi-
ness activity and speculation. labor and
supplies for all classes that would work.
have existed between the years of 1928
and 1855, between the years of 1850 and
1857, between the years 1868 and 1878,
n between the years 1886 and 1887.
From this statement of facts one class
of %reaSOnerS deduce the conclusion that
all business activity and buoyant times
in all these periods has been in conse-
Quence of a protective tariff of those
periods. Another class deduce the con-
clusion that all business activity and
buoyancy and good times have been
simply the result of the increased in
dustry, frugality and economy learned
and practlced by the great mass of the
people as a matter of necessity during
the long periods of these business de-
pr~essiOnS. While the business depres
sion of 1878 and succeeding years is
enough of itself to dispose of the theory
that the good times were the result of a
protective tariff, it is interesting to con-
side some of the other reasons support
ing the other view.
Few are they who ever stop to con-
slider the force of great numbers, and
the losses that accrue to the numerically
large class of society by small items
gathered or taken from each under the
operation of the laws, more especially
under those laws relating to indirect