The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-02-25
THE spEorER OF ANrI-orTIoN.

THE sPECTEB oF ANii-ofiioN'
The adverse vote Of the past two days
on the anti-option bill has practically
settled the fate of this nonsensical prop
osition, for this session at least.
OF all the schemes which have been
evolved from the brain OF the rainbow
chasing idealists who are vainly seeking
panacea for all ills Of life and some
practical solution of the question
of how to get a forty-acre lot
aud mule for each of us, this
plan of the anti-optionists is the latest
and most curious. There have been
men in Congress who believed that the
government can unlimitedly make sill
yer money by its stamp; and there have
been those who have believed that If by
some magical, mysterious, necromantic
method hitherto undiscovered money
could be made plentiful to all without
any return consideration the coun-
try would blossom like the rose
and the millennium would be at hand,
but until recently no one ever devised
method for depriving man of his nat
ural and instructive rights to trade ex-
| pecting thereby to irrigate the Western
farmers lands with brooks of running
gold and transform the wicked and
speculative tradesman who has entered
the mad race for the almighty dollar
with the sainted mendicant
To such men the old, time-honored
and conservative methods of making
money in trade are antiquated, and their
modern economics stop at nothing, not
even such trivial obstacles as the newt
able laws of natural supply and demand.
1t is generally considered proper to al
low the buyer and seller to arrange
their own terms in a transaction,
and if man needs coat, there
is no special objection on part OF the
public to his paying cash, getting
trusted or ordering it even before the
wool To make il with has grown on the
sheep's back. But the anti optionists
will stop all that. BY his law you must
reach ont one hand for your coat and
tender the money in payment with the
other, BY no means must the Office boy
be allowed TO go for it or the errand
boy deliver it, because they are middle
men. The ideal way would be to go tc
the farmer and buy the wool and pay
for each stage in the process of construc
ton as you go along. 1t makes no diff
/ ference if you do have to go tC
, Argentina to buy the wool, yor
r are serving in the great cause of crush
ing the middle man. All profits mus
be shared between the producer and the
consumer, say these theorists, and th
consuming housewife or Providence
, must not mind the little Inconvenience
of arising early and walking out Z
4 Dakota TO buy some wheat of the pro
ducing farmer and returning in time &
make hot biscuit for breakfast
This great expedient that proposes Il
make everybody rich at everybody's els
J expense, and enable your neighbor
I, pay your taxes for you, lives only i'll the
present. He proposes 10 eliminate tn
e future entirely. He doesn't realize tina
he must revolutionize society in orde
to accomplish that result. No futur
at all! No, the farmer must go out an
/ reap his crop whenever he wants t
1t whether he has plowed, sowed an
n titled or not, and whether or not the su
d has shone and the rains fell. Agricu
Ie tural necessities and natural law are a
e TO yield to the wand Of the anti-optic
magician.
why2 Because futures are the sul
20 ject Of gambling, and because when Il
ne absurdity of the argument becom
he noticeable at all other points, the ant
In optionist poses as a moral reformer. Il
he will shut the future from all mems ey
is and bind them over to keep the peac
ny But the future will probably contin'
es despite the forty odd sensational vot
~ that were cast against IL, and all forr
oo Of speculative gambling will continu
I....tt. l.c,tal.tt,u a. the cantraFv