The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-11-13
.WHERE ARE WE ATT"

| relegated, but as an editor, like Tenny-
| sons brook, must go on forever, it may
prove as profitable to join the big ex-
perience meeting and talk Of the reason
| for the faith within us as to groan over
pains of heart and brain that must
finally lapse by Limitation and cease to
hurt.
AS all of the great statesmen of the
country, including an EXPIRE 5ident, who
was reelected, and president who
wasn't, and who therefore be-
comes in turn the ex-presi-
dent, are airing their opinions
as to the sudden, overwhelming and evil
IDENTIFY unexpected knocking out of Billy
Patterson, it might not be amiss, if even
presumptive, for the EAGLE to fill in
little space on its own account.
There appears great unanimity upon
the part of the gentlemen cited touching
the observation that the Mckinley bill
proved catapult that worked like
petard in its hosting tendencies; that as
protective piece of steel armor it too
much resembled seive when it came 10
resisting tie penetrating projectiles
of the free (trade) and now
easy enemy. Our readers all
know the EAGLES opinion of the
Mckinley bill, which is now so unani-
mously cited as being a suicidal dose
done up in reciprocity sugar. But we
hope that these same readers will not
forget the Rebellion" and casus belli
we cited. While it is party politics to
attribute the disaster on the one side and
the victory of the other to platforms, to
protective tariffs, to inactivity begotten
of overconfidence, and so forth, we have
belive these to have been merely SUBJ
sidiary. Back of all these reasons, and
reaching deeper, are other and more
potent troubles. 1t was not so much
Cleveland more than Harrison, so much
free trade more than protection as an all
round protest against existing conditions
which are fostered just as much by the
Democratic party and by its leaders as
by the Republican organization. The
truth is that American craftsmanship
has not kept pace with American
growth and civilization. ont of which
development have arisen abuses, in.
CAPABILITIES and burthens that must be
righted or the Rebellion" will become
Revolution. The only reason the Re-
publican party was voted out was be-
cause it was in, and was therefore held
responsible for the unsatisfactory condi-
tions and discomfort to which we allude.
The Democratic party, holding to either
free trade or to protection, would have
just as surely been defeated had it been
in power. "Plutocracy" is the newly
coined word which expresses perhaps
more clearly than any other the sum
total of the specific trouble no less than
the outcropping discontents. in which
the wings of Clevelands private
yacht are as conspicuous as the
livery of Whitelaw Reeds retinue
of obsequious servants. These are of the
red flags which corporate greed waves in
the face of labor that is demanding more
beef soup and less bean soup or other
wise that there be less champagne
drank on Cleveland's private yacht and
on Reds private car. 1t is demand
that organized labor shall receive the
same consideration at the hands of the
law making power as is commanded by
organized capital. The verdict of last
Tuesday was not against protection to
American labor and American markets,
SO much as against the Mckinley kind
of protection, that kind of protection
which takes care of the shoe manufac-
turer while it lets the producer of the
hide shift for himself; that holds up and
pampers incorporated capital at the ex-
pense of the struggling individual. Pro-
lection, if right as a principle, must be
equitable and universal, and not
for the few as against the
many, not for the powerful
as against the weak. Corporations not
only ride while the lame individual
walks or crawls, but corporate power
drives through national, state and
municipal governments and marches
with its money penant flying through
legislative halls. The protest of Tues
day was not against corporations, per
Sc, but agains: the status of things and
the inequalities and burthens which have
come to the people through failure to
limit and control such powers efficiently
and properly, to the end, or rather to the
death, of all the combines and trusts
that now control all our markets as
against the producer, and out of which
organizations grow all the abuses and
stealings of corporate stocks that in turn
absorb the wealth of the country-faster
than it is produced in some lines-by
systematic watering and by option
gambling whereby present values are de-
pressed and the future discounted.
In short, the Republican party was de-
feated last Tuesday, not because its prin-
ciples lack in exalted patriotism, or for
ANYTHING of that sort, but because it was