The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1894-09-12

Now that the country knows what is to
take the place of the Mckinley bill and that
the policy of an artificial trade stimulus is
to be retired in favor of a system directed
toward the permanentinterests of commerce,
the revival of business in commensurate
degree is logical sequence. Already the
return tide has set in, and in place of uni
versal stagnation are seen on every hand
signs of industrial awakening.
But it is something more than return to
the conditions prevailing under Mckinley
ism. 1t means going back to the principles
that underlaid the genuine prosperity of the
country under the Walker tariff, when the
people, irrespective of former political be-
lief or economic persuasions, united in ac-
cepting the system as the best for the true
interests of the country, and Joined in petit
tioning Congress for astill further reduction
of customs duties. History will repeat itself
and with no disastrous war to necessitate ex-
traordinary methods of raising revenue, a
gradual approach to free commerce and per-
manent stability in the circles of trade and
industry is as certain ito ensue as that the
Declaration of Independence will live in the
world. 1t remains simply for Republican
leaders and the Republican press to accept
the situation in the spirit of that true Amer
icanism and patriotism they have been so
fond of appropriating to themselves and
party, in print and on the stump, to the ex-
| clusion of the great majority of the Ameri-
can people. 1t will not take long for the
people to discover where their true interests
lie, and to realize that they made no mistake
in voting so as to bring about beginning
toward tariff reform, in the direction of freer
conditions of trade. Butwhile some of their
writer's and speakers will have the tact and
good sense to abandon the old hulk of pre-
tended protectiont to American Labor" we
apprehend the majority of them will do so
only when compelled to by the inevitable
course of events, when they hear the rush of
waters about their ears. We shall expect to
hear wholesale prophesies of industrial
failure and ruin and witness an increased
output of lettered scarecrows in their daily
press, trying to make somebody believe that
| it is better for the masses to be taxed for the
classes. Like the despots of Europe, they
will continue to stigmatize every reform
movement away from their unjust institu-
tutions and characterize as dangerous dis
turbers those who expose the true inward
ness of what they Uphold. Like the infuri.
ated tremblers who leave no measure of mon
archical coercion untriedto arrest and stamp
out the enlightened advancement destined
/ to overthrow the social feudalism under
which the millions have groaned for centu-
ries, those organs that have for years been
the exponents of class elevation, will con-
tinue to preach for their masters. And it
will be well that they do, for it will simply
hasten the downfall of the false system that
1 has concentrated SO much of the wealth of
the land and its attendant power in the hands
of a monied oligarchy. The Democratic
party is the only party that has ever dared
to iegislate against the behests of protected
millionaires and trusts, and there will be no
retreat from the advance realized in the
Wilson bill. The " experiment of the theo-
rists" will speedily develop into factof the
statesman, and will be something more than
rehabilitation of the protection skeleton.
A few months trial of tariff reduction will
forever cure any latent uneasiness that may
exist in the minds of nervous people, and
nation will be united in the onward march
toward industrial redemption.
The words of Victor Hugo are very appli-
cable to the present situation: "To give a
new shape to the evil is not useful task.
Toremodel the old slavery would be stupid. .