The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-08-02
CAUSE AND EFFECT.

close study or the relation OF leSlsld-
tion to business affairs very pertinently
says Compare the conditions of today
and one yearago ana what do we see:
Then every day noted the addition to
factories, the location of new ones and
rises in the wages of employees. Today
you only hear the slamming and closing
of bank and factory doors. If the mere
threat to put in execution the Demo
cratic platform can accomplish such
terrible change in nations affairs,
what will be the condition of things
when it is an accomplished fact p
That is the situation in nut
shell. With the country in the
hands Of those who rescued it from des-
truction, restored its credit, placed it
among the foremoss nations of the
world, built up its industries and
developed its resources, there was that
public confidence that is absolutely
necessary to insure prosperity. The
country knew what protection had
accomplished. 1t knew that under
wise protective laws. we could compete
with the nations of the earth, while
retaining our home market. The
Democrats propose to alter these
conditions, entirely upset the entire
commercial policy of nation OF 81, ,0OO,-
600 of people, rsvolutionize from the
very beginning the existing order of
things, and yet the leaders claim that
to do this means no injury to our busi-
ness interests.
Were the leaders, only, deceived there
would never have been any Democratic
party in power, but by cunningly
w rled appeals, by statements that
were deceptive, by specious promises,
they secured hundreds of thousands of
voters, and cajoled them into voting
against their own and the nations best
interest.
To the masses it is always easy to
appeal by glittering generalities. The
poor man, the ignorant man, who is
working ten or twelve hours day, and
who sees wealthy men on every hand
possessing every luxury, contrasts
their condition. and if promised
by those whom he looks up 10 ms
leaders that he may one day possess
like luxu-ies when once the "dis-
elimination in favor of the rich
and against tine poor is withdrawn by
legislation, he will vote first, last and
all the time to bring about so desirable
a change, not seeing that in the very
nature of things there must always be
a capitalist class and a working class.
1t was men like this who were told
that they were being taxed to DEATH"
who saw in free trade panac Ell for all
their ills, to whom the slogan, BUY in
the cheapest and sell in the dearest
markets of the world without let or
hindrance, appealed.
Today these men see in the closing
down OF mills and factories, in the silent
spindles and the noiseless looms, in the
lack Of employment, what free trade
means.
They are now getting an object les.
son.
They are beginning to realize that the
men who owned the mills, who had
studied the markets of the world, who
had examined into the labor question,
knew their own business much better
than the philosophical theorists who
make politics : business, whose hold on
public cfiice is an absolute necessity TO
them if they are TO obtain livelihood,
and who propose to peIpetuate that
hold at any cost to the country 50 long
as they may remain in power.
Under protection prosperity, under
free trade financial trouble.
BY this proposal of the Democracy TO
upset the commercial policy of the
country, to overturn the existing order
of things, confidence, that open sesame
to prosperity, was destroyed. The manu-
facturers knew not what to expect, the
NlNtlN itiuSth w
self to be caught with a lot of goods on
his hands, when cheaper goods, the out
put Of tie underpaid labor of Europe,
was to supply his neighbor, the demand
ceased, the supply increased and then
the mills began closing down. Pro
ducers became consumers only, vast
armies of the unemployed looked and
locked in vain for work. and all this
because of the threatened change.
When that change becomes an actu.
ality more mills will close. more facto-
ries stand idle, and the workingman of
America will see the wages that he has
heretofore lie n receiving 20 across tho
sea to support the workingman of
Europe and our Anglo maniacs will en-
Joy the prosperity of the mother
country.