The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1895-08-22
TARIFF, NOT SILVER, REAL
ISSUE.

around the silver question to cove
the miserableness of the administra
ton is daily becoming more disma
failure. It is clear to everybody tina
the so-called sound money campaign
is mere decoy issue. Like the mo
Popery" cry so frequently used by
the Tories in England and the "No-
Experimentation in the South, it i:
piece of "consecrated bluff" used
solely to detract the peoples atten
ton from the real issue, the tariff.
The danger point in the silver
question is already passed. What.
ever real danger there was in that
question is Of Cleveland's creation.
The present free silver movement had
its rise, not in monetary theory, but
in business disaster. It was not
until factories, mines and furnaces
were closed and laborers discharged,
not until bankruptcy stalked abroad
throughout the land, that the silver
question assumed any acute form as
a popular issue. Previously its main
support has been the influence of sill
Yer mine owners. Under panic con-
ditions it is easy to make the people
regard superficial causes as funda-
mental. The panic showed itself
most conspicuoUsly in financial circles
and transactions. Hence it was com
paratively easy to fasten the public
mind upon currency conditions as the
immediate cause and free coinage of
silver as the remedy.
But when the panic had subsidized
and there came long period Of utter
industrial prostration, nobody could
or did fail to see that the direct cause
of both was Cleve]and's blow at in
dustry We say Cleveland's blow,
because prompted by the Mugwumps
and sustained by their fulsome praise,
the democratic party surrendered it
self absolutely to it's dictation, and at
it's command made it's violent on
slaught on our tariff system and sent
CONSERVATION and ruin throughout
our financial and industrial relations,
and at the same time destroyed the
National revenues. As the immediate
result of this bankruptcy creating,
wage-reducing and revenue-destroy
ing policy, American .laborers are
still receiving 20 per cent. less wages
and the nation has run 100000, 600
in debt, with the prospect of imposi-
ton of another hundred millions be-
lore Cleveland's term expires. For
the party which has caused all this
financial havoc and has given what
ever force there was to the free silver
-heresy to pretend to lead ''sound
money" campaign is very much like
pickpocket preaching honesty.
There is need Of improvement in
our currency system, but the first
step in this reform is to increase the
revenues. All that Cleveland and
the sound money flakes" have done
and are doing is to incre ase the de-
ficiency. Not one of the seventeen
''sound- currency" pamphlets issued
by the Sound currency committee
tends toward either reforming our
currency or increasing the revenues.
They are merely a chasing Of the
free silver shadow. Not one of them
points cut how the greenbacks are to
be retired, how the redemption Of
paper money in coin is to be brought
about, or how the work of stuf6ng
new bonds into the syndicate rat
hole is to be stopped. To run in
debt increasingly for the means to
appear able to pay ones debts is
more like buncoing than sound finan-
ciering.
AS we have said, the first step
toward sound fnanciering is to stop
the deficiency in the treasury by in
creasing the revenues of the govern
ment. It would be premature to
undertake to improve the quality of
the wine in our monetary barrel un-
til the leak at the treasury bung is
stopped. So long as the deficit in
revenues continues and the govern
ment is daily running into perman-
ent debt to pay ordinary expenses,
our system Of taxation is at fault,
and the tariff question has the right
Of way. When we once more see a
surplus running into the treasury as
there was from 1879 to 1890 we shall
be in condition nationally to deal
with reforms in our monetary system.
Until then the tariff question must
have first rank as a national issue.
W.. ~ 3