St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-10-21

by tax on the latter; but the remain-
ing eighteen or twenty million workers
engage in industries not so sheltered.
such as printers ana bindery girls. for
instance. Ii this demand is greater than
the supply. wages are high. aud vice
versa. Here again we are happy to be
III accord with our esteemed and oc.
casionaily estimable contemporary.
3 The market for labor Is not as good as
II was. not only in 1892, to which our
contemporary prefers to limit it. follow
ing the cue given by Mckinley, but up
to May. 1898. 1t has begun to get better
since Sept. l. though. Why is it not as
good? Because in 1898 there was
panic. What caused the panic? Now,
III the midst of campaign. the Pioneer
Press declares it was because Demo-
cratic administration was elected. We
aren't going to give any Democratic
reason for that panic. We don't have
to. We prefer Republican reasons when
they are true; Republicans cannot very
well dispute them. We don't think the
Pioneer Press will.
About June l last year the panic
struck the country. Banks failed be-
cause the depoSitOrs took out their
money. They stopped loaning money
and called in their loans. This made
shops shut down, factories close, fur
Daces bank their fires. and labor began
to ''eat the bread of idleness." Condi-
lions have been bad ever since, but are
mending rapidly. Labor has been cOn-
petipg with labor in an OverStocked mar
ket. Two men were hunting one job.
Now what caused that panic and shut
the mills and sent labor adrift and
wages down? Tue Pioneer Press now
says: ut lies in the substitution of the
Democratic tariff) policy for the Re-
publican policy" 1t said another thing
last year. On July IL. 1898. it said: 1T
is quite probable that the apprehension
of changes in the tariff may have some
effect i'll aggravating the distrust caused
by the unsound condition of the cur
rency. but it can at present exert no
such serious influence as is attributed
to it in some quarters in producing the
existing financial disturbances"
On July IA, having pondered on the
causes couple of days. the Pioneer
Press said: I'VE have been years in
coming to this crisis. The trouble is
not of sudden origin. If we want to
find the first root of it we should have
to go back to the beginning of currency
depreciation. Even since the passage
of the Sherman bill. that made the crisis
inevitable, three years have elapsed.
In all that time the poison has been
working" So the panic had been years
in coming, years before that "substitu.
ton" of policies was even deemed a pos
slbility.
On July % its first impressions be-
came confirmed, and the Pioneer Press
declared that 1.-THE financial and COM
mercial troubles of the United States
are almost entirely due to mistakes on
the money question:" made by the Re-
publican party. On the 25th it declared
the panic ''most senseless scare" By
the 29th of that month our neighbor had
further diagnosed the case and had de-
clded that it was "a psychological
panic" with its cause in the distrust
caused by the Allison act of 1878 and
permeated the whole mass of the people
the conviction that crisis was not far
distant, and in that frame of mind all
that was needed is single spark to fire
the mine. This was supplied by the
heavy export of gold last spring."
The crisis had been coming for
years" 1.-The Sherman act precipitated
it," The export of gold in the spring
of 1898 fired the mine" Nothing here
about the election of 1892; the substitu-
ton of Democratic for Republican
policy; nothing but frank admission
that the panic was the result of the bad
financial legislation of the Republican
party. But then there was no cam
paign OIL at that time, nothing but a
plain, common Republican panic, and
our neighDor felt itself free to be candid
with its readers. But now it is differ
ent, and the wage earners' votes are
sadly wanted, and what it admitted
then was panic roofing back in Re
publican legislation is now ascribed to
mere fear of Democratic legislation.
Well, that Democratic legislation has
come. 1t has been in effect fifty.rOur
days. Where is the panic that should
be OH us if the Substitution of policies
causes panics? Democratic legislation
removed the panic-causing Sherman
act, and it removed the Mckinley act,
and we have no panic, but everywhere
the press teens with news of busy mills
and men. The Democratic substitution
is giving to labor again good market,
of which Republican legislation de-
prived it. and one that will grow better
under further legislation of the same
sort. Labor is neither fool nor with.
out memory or ability to reason, and to
make the comparisons" our contem-
porary lashly invites.