Nevada County picayune., 1891-06-18
CARLISLE INTERVIEWED.

 interview. He Is always courteous and his meaning is never obscured by useless verbiagc. But as q dele gation of Peoples party patriots who recently visited him at his home in Covington Ky. opposite Cincinnati discovered he sometimes turns inter- viewer and asks questions not easily answered satisfactorily. In the course of conversation the delegates unfolded the various schemes their party has taken in hand, including control and probable ownership Of railways and teIcgraphs. Then Mir. Carlisle began asking quertlons.
 Do you propose to get possession of these properties by conliscation :" he asked them.
 No that wouldn't be fair" they admitted.
 Then you must buy them" was the reply. 'sand to buy them you must pay for them and you must tax yourselves. Have you any idea how much it would cost? Our Govern ment debt at the close of the war was more than two thousand million and we have been almost thirty pears in paying half of it. The railroads, telegraphs telephone lines and steamboats in the country represent about S10, ,000, ,000, ,000 in- vested capital; S4,000, ,0OO, GOO Is bonded indebtedness which must be paid. Are you ready to tax your selves to raise money? Then after you have got the property are you ready to tax yourselves to operate It for the Government never yet suc- ceeded in doing business at a profit. Consider another effect; such plan would add perhaps 200, ,000 men to the Government employees. How would you ever succeed in turning out of power an administration with such resources at it's command! {! The more corrupt it was the more difficult it would be to displace it.
 Nobody present seemed disposed to answer, for the Senator had sprung a few practical points that were puzzlers, and developed the diff ference between action and formu- lating demands. The financial question involved had never occur red to these reformers, whose econ omy had never gone beyond writing few whereases and resolutions and putting them through with whoop. But one of the Senator's visitors found a gleam of light in the ques- tiou: "Anyhow don't you think the money is getting into too few hands !
 "Ies, l admit it's bad sign, re- piled Mir. Carlisle. But how are you going 10 remedy it? By an act of LegisIature? Do you propose to say by your Legislature that when q man has earned S100 or 1000 or Sl0, ,OOO, that he shall not earn any more?"
 Again there was no response. The visitors presented two or three more of the grievances which form the basis of their revolt, and Mir. Car lisle tested them one after the other with the question: How can they be remedied by legislation?" And no practical answer was suggested.
 The trouble with this class of re- formers is their inability to compre- hend the differences between the practical and the impossible, and to understand the real functions of gov ernment in legislation. They are centralizationistS without knowing it, and demand changes impossible without substituting for popular gov crnmcnt the most odious form of pa ternalism. If their financial schemes could prevail for one year the coun- try would become hopclessly bank rupt, with a currency utterly worth less, because it's value could not be determined for single day Only the richer classes, able to take ad- vantage of the chaotic conditions thus produced, could prosper. The poorer classes would go to the wall, crushed and lifeless. -[ Gazette.
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