The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-05-31
REPUBLICAN, ExAGGERAT1oNs.

There can be no doubt that though
there was an immense amount of dis
tress in the country following the
financial panic of 1893, it was greatly
exaggerated by Republican papers for
partisan ends. A letter from Paterson,
N. J., to the New York Post gives some
illustrations of this which are worthy
Of attention. The writer who signs
himself "A SILK Worker says:
In one of your editorials last Satur-
day you speak of the large part played
by "unscrupulous and mendacious
Gus proportions the financial depression
of the past year. Perhaps in the
whole of the United States it would not
be possible to find a better illustration
of the truth of your remark than is
furnished here in the city Of Paterson.
During the panic proper perhaps about
four silk mills shut down, but only for
a period of four or five weeks. The Re
publicans, however, made the most of
it, and although the panic came at the
close of the best season of prosperity
for silk that we have known for years,
almost Immediately the air began to be
filled with accounts of the most abject
poverty said to be prevailing in the city.
We had stories in the Republican news
papers here of little children found in
cradles with nothing but straw for a
covering, of famished mothers stealing
bags of flower from prominent grocers,
and when these poor women were fol-
lowed home by kind-hearted policemen.
the horrid spectacle was presented of
starving children eating raw flour with
the appetite OF ravenouS wolves. The
result was that in the fall election the
Republicans carried all before them.
The silk trade began to mend in
February, but the wheels had no sooner
been set in motion than they were
stopped again. The work-people be-
came possessed at once with a sort of
publish feeling, and the belief not
only that the period of panic had
passed, but that the condition of the
silk market by some extraordinary
change had become such as to warrant
not only cessation of wage reduction,
but an immediate advance. Some adj
vances were made by the manufacture
ers, but these were rejected in many
cases as insufficient, and strikes became
the order Of the day. The great rib
bon strike which has just ended has
been one of twelve weeks duration.
l am not discussing the wisdom or
otherwise of these disputes, which have
almost paralyzed the business of the
city for the last ten weeks or more:
what / want to point out is the mys-
ferrous disappearance of those heart
rending cases of poverty when no 20
litical object was to be gained by their
publication. The strikes were popular,
and it would not have paid even Re
publican politicians to Dear the mar
ket while the workmen were de-
handing higher wages. The
stoppage of labor caused by the strikes.
coming as it did at the close of the
financial depression, must have been
productive of extreme suffering, but
poverty in this case, although ten times
greater, never seemed to attract the at
tention Of those Republican orators and
scribes whose zeal in bringing to light
so many cases of alleged starvation last
ran was so remarkably conspicuous.
This, L think, serves as a good illus
tratlon OF the extent to which the panic
was exaggerated by that "unscrupulous
and mendacious partisanship' to which
you refer During the strike agitation
the Wilson BILL once such a terrible
bugbear, has been utterly ignored. If
has passed away from considera ton as
completely as last winters snow. and
any one who would have ventured ia
allude TO 1t as factor in the considera-
tlon OF the wage question would have
been secuted, not only by Democrats
among the worhngmen, but by the
same Republican silk-workers who
three months ago were sending deputa-
lions to Washington to urge its de-