St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-12-10

ity for It's disastrous prOlOngation. But
Mr.. Reed now dismisSeS all these as
minor influences, and works himself up
to the point of declaring that it was the
fear OF coming tariff changes that really
precipitated the panic and brought
about the paralysis of business. This,
| submit to every candid man, Is par
tiSan defiance of history.
If ever panic in its outset was dis
tinctively and exclusively a political
scare. the recent one was such. 1t be-
gan with the banks. 1t struck the
money centerS, not the centers of in
dustry. 1t was only when money ceased
to circulate, when loans conld no longer
be negotiated, nor checks on solvent
banks be cashed. that factories began to
close down and labor to lose employ
ment.
A few politicians and partisan papers
of the baser sort began shouting tariff,
but they were rebuked by the more in
telligent and self-respecting men and
journals of their party. 1t would be
easy TO fill large volume with reSolu-
tons ana reports and solemn declara-
tons of Republican chambers of COM
merce, boards of trade, bankers. trade
organizations and business men, includ
ing such we'll known Republican
manufacturers and protectIonists as
Thomas Dolan and others, unani-
mously charging the disturbance to the
tariff changes. The tariff scare was so
evidently an afterthought that for 3
long time only the demagogue was will
ing to take stock in 1t. OF course, so
acute a financial panic, so terrible a
money famine, quickly affected and
naturally benumbed all industries.
If men could not get money to buy
with. production languished and came
to full stop. If men could nof get
money to pay wages with. labor suffered
for lack of employment. But it
that it is very probable that with
or without the Sherman bill. we should
not have escaped the same industrial
crisis. There is mysterious but we'll
known periodicity about commercial
crises We have brief era OF bu0yant
prosperity. Everything goes with
great swing, but suddenly we plunge
into some hidden pitfall, and ruin and
disaster are piled around us. The best
currency and tariff laws might not avert
these recurring disasters. but bad cur
rency and tariff laws-statutes which
violate the natural and normal laws of
hasten their coming and fearfully ag-
gravate their effects. Commercial crises
are boru out of the past. They are not
phantoms which frightened men see in
the possible future. And it is incontro-
vertible history that during the exist
| ence of our high tariff system such
crises have come oftener, have Stald
longer, and have been more disastrous
| than ever before. We have long ceased
| TO expect more than two or three good
years in succession. A distinguished
| ri in in
| the Galaxy magazine, said that since
| September, 1873, the bankruptcy courts
| had been grinding six days in the week.
and the grist was scarcely diminished.
"Our iron and coal trade are in their
| last gasp. There has been gigantic
| revolt of laboring men in the Middle
and Western states, accompanied by
bloodshed, pillage and incendiarism."
| Equally dark was the picture drawn by
| Mr.. Evarts, then secretary of state.
Similar depressions. though less acute.
have required every four years since,
under rising tariff. So far, therefore.
as our present distress is chargeable to
! vicious laws, it must be laid at the
| doors of the Sherman and Mckinley
bills and of the other legislation OF the
Fifty first congress, which immensely
increased expenditures and tax bur-
| denS, while it diverted revenues from
tine public treasury into private Golfers.
The Sherman law unsettled our cur
rency, the Mckinley bill bottled up
American industry, colossal permanent
| appropriations hardened the struggle
for existence. Private tax laws in
| creased the peoples burden while they
starved the peoples treasury. Such
briefly sketched, and emitting many
things, is the situation to which the
Democratic party has succeeded, and
for whose terrible stress it must
for a while suffer blind popular dis
content, although in no wise responsible
1 for it. Under such circumstances even
the tightening of burdens and the free
ing of industry may be made to appear
as public dangers. The natural curtail-
ing of production and trade which ex-
pected tariff changes would ordinarily
produce, and which under healthy con-
ditions would have proved but brief
and inconsiderable Inconvenience, has
been exaggerated into the real
cause of the business paralysis.
Protected employers. who. in DAYS
past, worked so vigorously the