The Louisiana populist. [volume] (Natchitoches, Natchitoches Parish, La.) 1894-1898, 1895-08-23
BUSINESS REVIVAL.
SO-CALLED RETURNING PROS
PERITY ACCOUNTED FOR.
Condition and ProsperI But Uncer-
tainty is the Most Powerful Brake Ever
Applied to the Wheels of Progress"

The free-traders and thick-and- thin
administration organs are almost
hysterical with Joy over the gradual
revival OF business. OF course every
body is glad that the shadow of hard
times is passing-that there will soon
be a smoke out of every mans
chimney; but there is absolutely no
more reason for attributing improv-
ing industrial conditions to the re-
vised tariff or increase OF the national
debt to bolster up that financial fraud
known as the gold reserve, than for
attrlbuting the speed OF a runner to
the clothes he wears. The panic of
'93 is not the first one from which
this country has recovered-despite
the politicians. II it survived the
Others without the adventitious aid of
that political pot-pourri known as the
Wilson bill. and the omniscient states
manship OF President Cleveland, it is
reasonable to infer that it would have
pulled through this time had Harri-
son been reelected and the economic
ideas of the Buckeye Napoleon con-
tinued to dominate our tariff
policy. We are not here dis
cussing the causes of financial
crashes nor the relative merits of
tariff and free trade; but we know
that spanics and periods of business
depression have occurred when the
tariff was low as well as when it was
high. We know likewise that when
ha ic
in aud the body industrial comes
slowly back to normal health regard
less of the brand Of economic doctors
that may chance to be on deck. At
the imminent risk of being read
out of the Democratic party
by the Dallas News and
other hypnotized bacchants indulging
in delirious stag dance about
the Dionysius of Buzzard's Bay, we con-
fess the belief that had Harrison been
reelected in '92 the financial crisis
OF '93 would not have been SO acute.
America could hardly have escaped
the business depression which swept
around the world like the grip or the
bicycle craze; but the belief of capi-
talists-whose bete-noire is innova-
tion-that radical departure would
be made both in our tariff policy aud
currency system, was what turned a
retreat into a route, depression into
a panic. The Democracy came
into power at a time when
policy OF ultra-conserva-
tism was necessary to reassure
the commerce of the country; but a
course the direct antithesis of this
was adopted by the Democratic cap
tains. And SO distrust was augment
ed, commerce paralyzed and the land
filled with tramps, while our public
servants-paid to guard the general
welfare-indulged in interminable
talk and added TO the confusion worse
coufounded. For weary months the
mighty tide of dialectical ditch water
ebbed and flowed, while capital waited
for order to evolve itself from the
wide-weltering chaos and labor stood
with folded hands and starved.
Commerce can adapt itself to almost
any condition and prosper; but un-
certainty is the most powerful brake
ever applied to the wheels of the car
of progress. At length the gab-mill,
wore out its main-spring and stopped,
and Immediately the goddess OF in
dustry began to repair the incalcula-
bic damage done by Democratic stu
pidity. This partisan organ
ization claiming credit for the
business revival, which it did
SO much in delaying, for
curing the panic for which it was
chiefly responsible, must provoke the
worlds admiration. for men instinct
lively adore the monumental--even in
audacity. AS it is but a step. how
ever from the sublime to the ridicu-
lous, so may alteration easily decline
into disgust. That after the party
was condemned by the people as ut
terly unworthy and irremediably
inept, mouthpieces of the admins
tration should complacently point
to the slight betterment in business
made despite tie almost criminal
blunders of Cleveland, his half baked
cabinet aud Kilkenny congress, as
blessings of Democratic rule, were
enough to make q consistent Chris
tian fracture the Third Command
ment. The best thing the Democracy
can do is to follow the advice given
by Grover Cleveland when futile at
tempt was made to lie him out of the
Maria Halpin escapade, and '.tell the
truth" II the party will but muster
up sufficient moral courage to ac-
knowledge that its assininity has cost
the country some billions OF money,
profess penitence and promise to ma
terially reduce the length of its ears,
perhaps the people will trust it again
sometime-but not during the present
century. .-Brann's (Waco) Iconoclast.
The bonds Come Back.
The $50. 900. 600 81 per cent gov
ernment bonds. sold abroad by the
BelmoDt-Morgan syndicate and but
lately delivered in London by govern