The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-03-14

CIOSed the OankS last summer. Money
panlcs and business disasters have come
In season and out of season SO far as the
tariff is commemorative low tariff in
1887 and 1857, with an extreme war
tariff still pressing in 1878. and last of
all under strong projection policy that
not only had not been voted down, but
had not even been threatened when the
decline began. No, it is not the tariff.
Next we come to one of the strangest
yet most instructive views upon finance
that any eastern gold monometallist has
yet put forth. After descanting upon
the Utopian state of things prevailing
under "a sound economic policy''-the
Mckinley law-the address tells US
what happened las soon as the secre-
tary OF the treasury fired his bomb into
the business community last June,
threatening to pay government obIiga-
lions in silver!" That threat certainly
was never heard in the west and the
south. If it had been made and if it had
been carried into effect. Mr.. Dodge
would today have all the market he
wants for his goods and at fair prices.
Poor Carlisle! How he does suffer at
the hands of his friends! Just imagine
for moment Mr.. Carlisle seriously
proposing to make any use of silver that
he could possibly avoid, and that, too, at
the time when his New York hackers
were working their little bankers pan
ic game to serve as pretext for pushing
the silver purchase repeal bill through.
Is not this fair example of the Gre
dulity of those of the gold advocates who
argue against their own interests, who
are not, like the money lenders, inter-
ested in pinching the circulation and
curtailing credits, but who fully shut
their eyes to the facts and are satisfied
to misapprehend the whole subject?
Here is man apparently in his senses
who has been forced to suspend bust
ness because the banks would not ex-
tend credit that is, because money is
actually clamoring because of a
threat, which was never made. to widen
a sound circulation and thus relieve the
strain.
So it was silver that caused the panic
then. We believe that it had a great
deal to do with it, only it was in the re-
verse way. 1t was not the continued
use of silver, still less any proposed in
creased use, but the practical wiping
out of large part of its money func-
ton in India and the threatening hostil-
ity of the majority in the American con-
gress, that put the finishing touch. 1t
was to be supposed that everybody knew
that, except perhaps those who are I'M
willing to know anything, yet it appears
that Mr.. Dodge didn't. 1t seems waste
Of time at this late day to go over this
old, old ground, and only notice the
matter to inquire once more why is it.
if the silver purchase law was the cause
of the money stringency and if, as Mr..
Cleveland and his friends so confidently
promised, the repeal of that law was to
bring about revival of business and
millennium of rosperity-why is it,
l ask, that things are worse now than
before? l do not speak of Colorado and
the silver mining states and territories,
which are slightly recuperating, but of
the country at large, which is today in
worse plight than it has ever been.
When Mr.. Dodge gets on the silver
question, he again, of course, "has it in"
for the poor Democrats, especially the
free trade Democrats. 1t would be a
good idea for him to look up the record
and see how many protectionist Repub
licans stood on the silver side in the
late debates and votes.
Mr.. Dolge's double headed explana-
ton Of hard times does not explain
Neither silver nor the Wilson bill is
chargeabIe. Legislation concerning sill
yer took precisely the course that he
would have wished. The Wilson bill
had not begun to loom up when the trou-
BILE began. He is still living under the
Mckinley law and at the worst has
plenty of time left to make and market
his goods under it. And yet he is not
happy. Both as tC silver and as to the
tariff all the conditions are in his favor,
according to his view. but in spite OF
these advantages he has just closed his
factories, and his unemployed neigh
bors are in need. Surely if these two
bugbears of silver and the Wilson bill
are lnSumC1enC causes. or ralnor not
causes at ALL there must be other and
real causes to account for the present
deplorable state of affairs.
Into these l do not propose to enter
now. My views are pretty we'll known.
But may add here that while the plat
form of the Peoples Party is broad
enough to admit latitude of opinion as
to the best tariff policy do not foresee
danger in the comparatively small
changes that the new bill will effect if
it becomes law. We hope in time
through the awakened intelligence and
the earnest efforts of the American peo-
pie, speaking for themselves and for the
right and making their will felt by their
ballots, to secure an honest, economic
al administration of public affairs.
We hope to shut off this needless ex-
travagance, this criminal waste in the
handling of the peoples moneys. We
hope to Tighten the burden of the al
ready too oppressed real producers and
by fair distribution place part of it
where it belongs.
For the immediate present the nation
boo oor<o;,, GvoI ob1ioo%;opc r. ,,ooo%