The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1894-01-09
PROVO CITY. JAN. 8. 1884.
PUBLIC DIsCoNTRNT.

len years Since, on q line nOICn anu
south, the center of population was
east Of the Alleghanies and the money
center was within one or two degrees
of the same place. Up. to that date
national politics were formed and car
ried forward with reference alone to the
fact that the east having the votes and
the money was the only section of the
country which national conventions
and platform makers need consult.
This has been the policy eyre since the
government was founded, is the case
today, Notwithstanding that this
center has moved within ten years
very nearly, if not quite west to the
Mississippi river. All legislation, all
national policy has been pTedicated
upon the clamorously stated wishes of
the east. The west was not-is not
in it. 1t was boasted in New York
often and again, openly and shame
lessly, that it mattered not which,
Harrison or Cleveland, was elected,
the financial administration would be
the same-formed to forward the inter
ests of the bond-holders who insisted
upon the privilege of cashing bonds
bought at double standard valHe, at
single or rRoid standard rate.
Into this heartless policy no thought
of the interests of the trembling and
distressed west was allowed to enter.
1t was arranged on this basis, it is be.
ing carried out faithfully. The west is
indignant that her industries have been
brought to a stand-still by the clos
ing down of her silver mines
by the scarcity of money, by the policy
of contraction to which the demone-
tization of silver was bat the fret step
ping stone. Discomfort? We should
say so. 1t is unfortunate that the fell
force Of this wretched policy should
break on the country during demo-
cratic administration. The policy is
and has ever been one of the republic
can contractionists of the Sherman
stamp who inaugurated it in fraud and
carried it forward ruthlessly to its logi-
cal sequence Of panic and public dis
tress, discomfort and de5paire. We
have not at best a sixth of the money
necessary in conducting our enormous
commerce on lines extended as ours are,
and the proposition to still further re-
duce the per capita money of the peo
pie seems heartless and cruel to the
last degree.
We regret, we say, that this storm
with all Of its black consequences has
broken upon us of the west, during a
democratic administration. We must
face it as men. The west must assert
herself and while it is yet possible, or
the democracy may as well crawl off
into the mountains and quietly see the
black consequences unfold themselves
as they are now doing in Utah, Utah !
democratic state, now being run by
the republican party, with a republi-
can senate and lower house-demo-
cratic in nothing save the majority of !
the people and the few offices filled by
democr attic appointees, doled out ap-
parently with niggardly reluctance
by national democratic administra-
tion.
The people are discontented. They
become more and more so as the days
fit by. Is it wise or well in anyway to
continue this policy? We must re-
verse ere long or a single democrat
will soon be hard to find and demo-
cratic majority will exist only as dim
memory of the past. The time has
come to talk plainly and to act descis-
;iyely.