Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-07-27
The "Pretsetion" In 1t.

Rep, Of Saturday, agrees with EVERY
EVENING of the same Gate, that the dis
employed silver miners of Aspen, Col,
have no more reason to call upon the
government to aid them than have dis
smployed producers of any other COM
modify, but it fails to draw the obvious
conclusion on the very threshold Of
which it stops short--that in this appeal
we have one Of the results of the teach
ings of Republican protection, that
when any industry proves unsuccessful
1t is the duty of the government to tax
the rest of the people to make it sue
cessful. The Bulletin says that the
remedy which these disemployed miners
have to suggest sis the continued pur-
chase of their product at price above
the market figure, a proposition at
once illogical, impracticable and
immoral. The market price of any
product is all any man has right to
demand. But lot US assume for mo-
ment that their request is fair, and
whittier are we led? No less than 1000
operatives in cottons and the textile
works are surely out of employment in
this country, and unless the business
outlook improves, will be in want Of
many things before long. A wide par
alysis holds some of our coal industries,
and the iron and steel business is slug
gish when not suicidal. Win Colorado
contend that it is the duty OF this gov
ernment to buy the product of the fac
tories, mines and mills, so that the old
regions may continue prosperous and
new ones be developed9 1t is not likely,
and yet there would be just as much
Justice in such demand as in the re-
quest which the Colorado people make
of Mr.. Powderly. The fatal error of
the miners appeal is the assumption
that the cause for which it pleads is the
cause of labor everywhere"
In this last sentence the Euenia1 Blllie-
tin exposes the precise fallacy upon
which the Republican policy of protec-
ton has been reared-the assumption
that the cause of the beneficiaries of
that protection is the "cause of labor
everywhere" The difference between
the plea of the silver miners and the
plea of the party is one of degree
merely, not of principle. 1t has been
conclusively shown by statistics that at
least nine-ienths of the labor of the
country is not and cannot be protected
even by such a drastic measure as the
Mckinley bill. Yet the principle of that
measure is the taxation of the whole
people for the protection of the remain
ing one-tenth or less-not taxation fol
revenue but taxation for protection!
The Hon. Thomas f. Bayard vel
stated this correlation of silver protec
ton and Mckinley protection in hi
able contribution to the Forum of Jun,
1892. In that paper Mr.. Bayard said:
Among those who have come to believ,
that the fostering Of special individual in
dustries at the public cost was justifiel
under our system were the owners Of silve
mines in group of States newly admitte,
under Republican administration in orde
to strengthen and prolong the control o
that party in the national Senate. Thi
class of citizens are vigorous, intelligen
and influential controlling extensive cap
tai and giving profitable employment I
large bodies of laboring men. They wer
consequently potential in the States wher
their interests lay and their business Wa
conducted. and were all members of th
association of co-psrtners with the govern
ment in the business of determining tn
objects and the degree of taxation to whic
the people of the country should be sui
jected Unfortunately for the plans of thei
silver kings, they did not confine then
selves as did the boilers of maple sugar,
the demand for cash bounty, or, like IL
associated iron and steel makers, to Ia
excluding foreign competition with the
productions; but they made the extrav
giant and alarming demand that the COVER
ment of the United States should by la
ordain the free coinage of all the silv
bullion they could produce or which cou
be presented at the mint from any qua
ter, and ordain an arbitrary value for eat
ounce OF that metal, and declare and
force its receivability as full legal tend
in all contracts, public and private, at
declared ratio of value 10 gold, more thi
one-third above its actual price current
every open market of the civilized worl
If the claim of this association of silv
producers for share in the profit arisi
from an exercise of public powers 1
private use had taken The ordinary sha
of a percentage ad valorem upon tn
product, with the avowal that IT was
tended to foster the meritorious indust
of silver production in the usual manT
by laying tax upon the rest Of the co
munity to support it, il would have be
difficult for consistent protectionist
have denied the reasonableness and ju
ness of the demand according to the ru
of the architects of the Mckinley bill.
bounty of 40 or so per centnm to the sill
associates would have been less in prop
ton than the present duties collected UP
imported wool and woolens, and yet W
is not more sacred than silver. Not c.
tent. however, with the demand for a p
tectiye tax, they insist upon such "
+ exercise of statutory power as would nee
sarily plunge the government and peo
of the United States into an inextrica
and hopeless contest with the opinions
interests of the rest of the mercan
world. 1t is a demand that the Uni
States shall assume the fiscal autocrac,
the world, and by its sole legislative
establish a ratio and parity of value
tween the metal of silver and the meta
gold. This claim of right
power TO make the private property OF
ldiyiduals more valuable to them by an
ercise of the powers Of public taxatio
precisely the same in its nature and is
distinguishable from the same claim
presented in nearly every feature of
Mckinley tariff bill. The I
principle which underlies both these m
ures, the recognition OF the false posi-
IA winch the government has been pla
BY these enactments, and the increal
comprehension of the dangers attend
upon our losing our gold standard
value, have at last been so far apprecii
by the American people that nothin
now clearer or more undeniable than
no political party and no candidate car
ceive a majority of the popular vot'