The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-05-27

favored class. which, once formed,
cever relaxes its efforts until it absorbs
The mainsprings of political power and
perpetuates its despotism to the full
limit possible to human nature. It is
questionable now if any process of
quiet reform, as by reducing tariff.
would be of any avail. The process of
concentration of wealth has gone too
Tar. and has become too strongly en-
trenched in the laws and commercial
habits of the nation to be undone by
quiet, natural methods, for the reason
that the machinery of government has
passed from the people, and any pro-
cess of cure entails disasters of its
own
The French revolution was caused by
an identical condition. Louis XVI.
honestly endeavored to reform the pro-
digious abuses of his predecessors by
creating equality in taxation. Then
land was the principal source of
wealth. Now it is paper hypothecation
of land and its products that is the re-
source of the wealthy class. The king,
with the advice of Neckar, his finance
minister, strove to compel an equal
division of the land tax, but was re-
fused by the church and nobility, that
together owned three-fourths Of the
land. The parliament of Paris, a tri-
bunal constituted expressly for a pur-
pose to protect the people against I'M
due eXaction by the aristocracy, fatty
refused to register his DEGREES, when it
was dissolved. the states general con-
vened, and the revolution began.
Revolutions never go backwards.
The so-called lower class. led on by
the trades unions. nave been in In
cipient revolt for years. The farmers
Of the west have also been in a sort
Of political revolt against the policy of
the long predominant party that is
equally symptomatic. 1t is the lowest
strata that feel its pressure first and
worst. But the disease spreads. and
the manufacturers, miners and capt.
talists engaged in productive industry
now perceive what they failed TO see
until their interests in turn became in
volved in the same direful conse.
quences. And now we. have general
political revolt, concentrated in the
silver question, but checkmated by
legal decision that leaves the main
question unsolvable, because the IMAM
cial question. when reduced to its low
est terms, is but one of the EXPIRES
sions for intolerable and inequitabie
taxation.
1t was to render the tax equivalent
noney-more and more valuable, that
the paper contraction of 1S67'72, was
enforced. 1t was to fortify the same
end that silver was demonetized IN
1873. 1t was to gain control of the pro-
perty of the nation that money was
poured into this country in a heavy
stream to loan at low rates, and it was
to inaugurate a series of foreclosures
and property destruction that repay
ment was enforced in 1898. 1t was 10
wiring the last dollar of surplus from
the masses that the Mckinley tariff
was pushed through with the consent
of a people and a Congress intoxicated
with visionary prosperity, that van
ished the instant the result was &C
complished. 1t was to nulify efforts
for reform in tariff on finance that the
has taken control of the $780,
100000 of gold, and have forbidden
taxation of its billions of paper payable
in gold. The result, which the Supreme
Court has just precipitated, is the
logical outcome OF a gigantic and in
sidious system of taxation that was
bound to absorb every element of
national energy, liberty and life. What
Jefferson, Jackson and
Lincoln feared worst appears to be
near at hand.