The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1893-06-22

example. The whole system OF trusts
was imported into this country from
England. When the panic in 1884 had
nearly come about through failure OF
Grant & Ward, representatives OF
foreign banking houAes FASTENED to
New York, and wheh the, Earrings
failed, men Of the same class appeared,
to assure the Americans that they
were in much sounder condition than
Europe. In point of fact, we were in
position to lend mo1fey to the Old
World, to sustain it after it's mistakes.
A plethora of money in Europe had
led to disastrous investments in remote
colonies and republics, such as South
America and Australia. South Africa
has not revived from her calamities,
and Australia has had general over.
throw Of all her American credits.
Seeing the weak spot in our currency,
gold has commenced the backward
march. Since the commencement Of
the present year, nearly seventy mil
lions of gold have been shipped to
Europe, or nearly three times as
much as in the corresponding period of
1892. The banks in the east, and gen.
orally throughout the country, having
been educated by experience in taking
care of themselves, have regarded all
American speculative investments with
a severe eye, and, therefore, we see
towns, trusts, remote banking associa-
tions and factories going by the BOARD
because their banks will no longer
carry them. Misbehaving banks have
also succumbed in the tightness of
the money market. The tightness is
the result of the want of confidence,
which invariably follows too much faith
and credit.
Labor has been a serious plague to
investment for good many years back.
The tendency of labor organizations is
to be aggressive, as they are political
in their nature, their active directors
being In effect ofticeholders who draw
their pay from the labor funds, and
must therefore discover grievances and
exert pressure, like politicians who
want votes. Ten years ago it was the
rule in several of the western cities
for builders to bar strikes in making
their contracts. They said, in effect:
"A new and uncertain element has
come up which we cannot handle, and
the strike has got to be considered, for
we cannot work against impossible
ties" In the effort to be.relieved from
existing labor tyrannies some of the
promoters in the mines and railroads
began to import foreigners. Politics
was sought out as remedy against
this, and for a good while past any
man sure of a job in America was liable
to be turned back at the frontier,
while those sure of nothing were al
lowed to come in, as if they we're the
only people to be considered. A result
has been the extension of the striking
material to these more brutalized for
eigners. The great Prick and Carnegie
strike last year was a nearly violent
attempt to check this tendency. Great
mills were closed and their fires shut
down, and in the attempt to open
them riots took place. These riots un-
doubtedly affected the presidential
election. The coagulated evil has gone
on, until we have seen in the past
week seventy furniture factories in the
old staid city of Cincinnati discharge
all their workmen, thousands in num-
Der, saying in. effect: 1--WE need not
work at all, if you do not want to
work. We are going to wait and see. -
Another evil of recent years has been
the perpetual reorganization of fixed
system of all railroads which had over
done themselves, intermediate bank
ers drawing great sums of money from
these readjustments. The effect, of
course, has been to weaken our
credit. The Reading railroad, which
has several times been put through
this course of sweating, present
ed such picture of frantic am
bition and collapse that when the
riot in Wall street was over it
appeared that investors would no
longer plague themselves with person
al property. The wreckage VS. too
great not 20 leave some lesson. In
short, certain kind of banking in
this country has become suck-,sole to
engulf corporations and swir-le the
public
The freedom with which our differ
emit states allow the paralleling Of rail-
road enterprises has gone to swell the
area of prostration. The Nickel Plate
railroad, q thorough-going and sue
cessful scheme to force a new proper
ty upon unwilling capitalists other
wise menaced with destruction, has
worked out it's result in very little adj
ditional service to the public and more
railroad stagnations, gluts and fail
ures. Some of the banks reformed
their ways and refused to lend any
more money to the speculative inter-
ests. When the Earrings failed the
American national banks presented a
noble phalanx of resistance, and
brought us out of that crisis for the
time triumphantly. But the criticism
of Europe upon our silverrdilution has
also become a conviction. and the
banks haVe, for the first time in
MANY years, parted company with
speculation as a science. And that
speculation has been pushed to ex-
traerdinary results. AS we had ceased