The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-03-15
DEMOCRATIC plsINTeeRATloN.
Ex-speaker Reeds Opinion of the Effects
 of the Wilson Hill

OGmOShAiIS OiSlNI E1HAI ISN. EI-speaker Reeds Opinion of the Effects
 of tho Wilson Bill.
 In the opinion of ex-Speaker Reed the passage of the Wilson bill in its present form by the senate will lead to the destruction of the democratic party in the north, and with its destruction will come great damage to the repub- lie" ''I should like" he adds, ito see the party wreck itself, but feel that patriotism should take the place of party now"
 The purblind democratic leaders and their organs will ridicule these views of Mir. Reed, and attribute them to what they will characterize as his intense partisanship;" but before the year is out his prediction may prove to be an accomplished fact The democratic party has been one year in control of the government, and a more destructive year to every substantial interest this generation has not witnessed. In the campaign of iS92 democracy promised the country that its advent to power would be followed by a great wave of prosperity. Tke people believed it, and gave 1t the opportunity to redeem its pledges. They see now that the hopes they entertained of better times have proved to be delusions, that the change" they voted for has been a change for the worse, and that there is no prospect whatever of improvement until the old industrial conditions are restored. Capital foresees that it will have to face the keenest foreign com petition it ever encountered, and labor awaits Tn fear the inevitable reduction in wages that must follow the coming adjustment of economic conditions,
 The wage question is the cloud that hangs over the country. Mir. Reeds views on this point are full of interest There is no way" he says, ito put money in circulation except through wages paid. Issuing government bonds doesn't make circulation. The labor CTS must earn it and spend it, and that will made it flush. The statisticians say the 2O,OOO,OO laboring people in this country earn, when they are at work, from $50, 900, 900 to S40,0O0, 900 a day. The Wilson tariff bill will cut these wages from 10 to 25 per cent. The 10 per cent GU: on $40, ,00O, 900 will be loss of S4, 900, 900 day to laboring men, or q, POO, 900, 900 in year. A 25 per cent. cut in wages will take 3,OO0,- 900, 900 out of circulation. One-third of our labor is idle now. This idleness is costing us probably slO, 900, 900 day. do not wonder that the times are hard and that money is tight There is money enough in the banks. They are glutted; but labor is not getting it twill stay there till labor gets it out" This is the rock on which Mir. Reed believes the democratic party of the north will go to pieces, while the wage loss will be the great damage to the republic" Is he not right? Has not, in fact, the destruction" of the party already begun? In this city, few weeks ago, democratic candidate for congress was beaten in one of the great strongholds of the party, and in another the democratic nominee was saved from defeat solely because of his popularity. The town elections all over the state show enormous re- publican gains, while the avalanche in Pennsylvania is one of the most re- markable revolutions in our entire political history, The tariff question and the wage question will have been decided long before the congressional elections of next November take place. What workingman will vote for the candidate of the party whose policy has reduced his weekly earnings? There are as many democratic capital ists as there are publican ones. Is it likely that they will support party which has impaired the value of their holdings and property interests?
 The southern free traders as Mir. Reed points out, are in power. In 1860 the democratic party of the north was nearly destroyed on the question of secession and free trade. Secession is dead; but free trade still lives, and its advocates are in the saddle.-N. Y. Recorder.