The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-22

the weapons provided by its inventors.
The theory of the protectionists is
that the country enjoyed unparalleled
prosperity under high tariffs, and they
have the assurance to claim that the
system of exorbitant taxation which it
embodies was the cause of that pros
perity., And pursuing that theory,
they assert with equal impudence that
the advent to power of the Democracy
was the occasion of the financial panic
and its succeeding distresses because
they occurred about that time.
That country will grow rich by in
ordinate taxation is a peculiar hy-
pothesis, but it is good enough for Re
publican politics. It is equal to the
theory that a crop of noxious weeds
in the national field, instead of being
the result of previous sowing or bad
farming is the harvest of something
that has not yet been planted; which
is the Republican way of foisting the
fruits of their evil trees upon their
successors who had not made a move
to till the ground or prume a limb.
Our obituary neighbor has several
iC1CIleQ " liz
boast of President Harrison. just be-
fore he left Office, of the wonderful
prosperity the country had increasing
ly enjoyed up to that time under "the
blessings of protection" And it has
laid the entire blame for recent hard
times on. the Democratic party. The
fear of free trade" it claimed, was
the cause. When confronted with its
own utterances to the contrary, it then
hedged around and admitted thai
"the decentralization of silver was
partly the cause and the rest was due
to Democratic ascendency.
When the editor of the obituary or
gan was in Washington last year. he
addressed letter to President Cleve-
land which was published in his paper
editorially. Just by way of contrast tc
some OF his recent utterances we will
reproduce a paragraph or two from
that letter. They will do for the pres
ent as a club to knock on the head his
later diatribes against the Democracy
This is the condition which he pictured
of the land enjoying unparalleled
prosperity under protection" and also
the theory for the sole and only cause
of existing troubles, and it is signed
c. c. Goodwin
The people, the great working hosts
of the land are very poor. The great
middle class, they who have a little
capital, and by their capital and labor
and by the work they are able to give
to others poorer than themselves, be-
cause of the harvests to ripen the
wheat to turn to gold and the cotton
to snow.
'They have made no money for ter
years, except in the one year when 8
famine across the sea gave the farm.
ers, despite the methods at home. g
profitable foreign market for food. Ii
they were in debt ten years ago, they
are more in debt now and they do not
know which way to turn. While the
millions in the land have been swelling
and doubling they have seen a steady
decline in the value of their products
and in the land which they till They
think this is monstrous in great free
land like this: They ascribe it to but
one cause and the instincts of a great
free people are never wrong.
You Mr.. President, would be shock.
ed were a proposition to be seriously
made to take one half the money OF
our country and cast it into the sea
You would cry out: Why this is purs
lunacy: it would destroy half the
values in the land and make the pay.
ing of debts impossible, by taking from
the debtor the ability to pay Mr.
President, that was precisely what
was done by our lawmakers twenty
ago and hence the congestion since"
Now it is evident from that letter
that the country had not been prosper.
ing under protection but that fol-
twenty years it had been struggling
against adversely. Also that for ter
years even the middle classes had beer
growing poorer. The troubles of 1898
then, were the elimination of previous
ly growing disasters. And the ONE
CAUSE according to "the instincts of
great free people who are a never
wrong, was not Democratic oscend
ancy, not the threat of free trade.
not danger to high tariffs, but, only
and solely. the demonstration of silver
by the Republican party in 1873
Whenever the obituary maker get.
away from his proper occupation anC
begins to pitch into the Democracy, he
should take up this club that he offer
ed to Cleveland and smite himself hir
and thigh.