Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-06-06


put that picture side by side with that
which we see in the columns of every news
paper, with that which comes home to us
whenever we walk our streets, with that
| condition which is no longer a theory in
blank despair that follows Democratic
rule.
We have not made up the statistics of
Democratic destructiveness. 1t will take a
long time to add up the columns of that ter
| rible problem, but we already have inklings
and indications of its extent. In seven
months after the 4th of March, lS93 that
day which will be marked in the history of
this country with black stone for many
generations to come, in seven months the
shrinkage of the bank clearings in this
| country amounted to about five billions of
dollars. That en- normous amount withdrawn
| from activity because that activity had been
threatened and denounced by the Demo-
cratic platform and endangered by the ac-
cession of the Democrats to the control of
our public affairs.
In one year from November, 1892, by
the best estimates that could be made, the
decrease in labor was estimated at 60 1-2
per cent. more than one-half of the labor
ing activities of this country stricken down
in II months. The decrease in wages was
greater because men were not only put out
of employment, but those who were re-
tanned were compelled to work at reduced
rates, and the decrease in wages was 50
per cent. The decrease in the volume of
business was AZ per cent. And that only
brought us to 1898, and we have, as / said
before, no accurate statistics of the extent
to which this disaster has been carried
since.
And now. in the face of this condition of
our public affairs what is the Democratic
party offering to this country today? They
have the power which they have sought for
years, unchecked and absolute, from the
Executive mansion through the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United
States. What do they offer us? What do
they offer to the country? What solutions
have they presented? If Benjamin Harri-
sons administration should find successor
in that of Republicans in the Executive and
in Congress of the United States, the exist
ing condition arising from the passage of
the Mckinley tariff bill would have fur
nished us with the money that we needed to
carry on this governms Mt literally and
patriotically. But coming into power on
the basis of their threat to destroy the in
dustries of the country and thereby produc-
ing Immediately that anticipatory paralysis
which cut off the rivulets and streams of
business that have been much to the pros
perity of the United States, they met in
Congress with loud clamor of the neces-
sity for replenishing the depleted treasury
of the government.
How did they proceed?
Figuring on the glaring deficit in the
treasury the ways and means committee
of the House of Representatives locked
themselves up in a secret chamber and af-
ter weary months of solitary deliberation
came into the House with a measure that
was to solve the trouble and furnish rev.
enue required in the shape of the Wilson
tariff bill. This, according to the estimates
of the men who framed it was calculated to
cause an additional deficit to that already
existing of from 20 to so millions of dollars.
That was the first stroke of craftsmanship
| And then what?
That measure would suffice to strike down
the great industries of the country. 1t left
the treasury without money, and then be-
cause they hated the name of "bonds" be-
cause it was associated in the public mind
with the triumph OF the Union over rebel
| lion, they had to cast about for some other
method of providing for the needs of gov
ernment and brought forth . measure
known as the income tax bill. This is as
fer as they got in the House. They sent it
into the Senate, this hodge-podge. This
revenue bill did not provide revenue. villa
bay window nailed onto it in the
shape of the income tax bill
was sent to the Senate. Well
they took that into the committee in the
Senate and they sat upon it and tried to
warm it-warm it over, if I might use the
expression. They had interviews. They
were interviewed By trusts here and there.
They put on little more duty here and .
little more there to placate their own Dem
ocratic brethren. Well, they kept at it for
three or four weeks until rumors began to
be fioated about that another transmutation
was about to take place, and although Re-