The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-08-05
THE CAUSE OF PROSPERITY.

The starting up of the Union steel
mills at Chicago after a period of
idleness lasting nearly three years, as
stated by the News of that city, is re-
garded by everybody who looks at it
with rational vision as of more than
ordinary Importance. That paper
thinks it indicates more certainly
than anything else can that days of
prosperity are coning-slowly, per-
haps, but without fail 1t is almost
an axiom that the condition of the
steel and iron industry reflects the
general condition of the country.
When the mills are idle business in
other lines is more or less stagnant;
when they are active trade f1ourishes
and money circulates in greater album
dance.
The Chicago News says further:
The resumption of work at the
Union steel mills will make things
brighter, not only in Bridgeport and
the regions in the immediate vicinity
of the plant, but will help materially
| to put an end to the persent state of
dullness throughout the city and
country.
ing on this, remarks:
1t is eminently fitting that the rail-
road companies should lend most lib
eral aid to the iron industry; for they
are themselves the largest gamers by
activity in iron and steel manufac-
lures. Every ton of iron that is made
means many tons of freight for the
railroad companies in handling the
raw materials ard in carrying the
many products into which iron and
steel enter in various forms.
This provokes some sneers from
near contemporary about the Record
having desired that the railroads
should get their rails across the sea
duty free and it goes on to argue
that eff the miners and the cookers
and the furnace men get employment,
all would get good pay, and that
means prosperity" And it winds up
by intimating that the free trade
Record gives itself dead away
1t is always funny to watch the gy-
rations in argument of our dense
contemporary. 1t is but a little while
since it endeavored to show that the
starting up of a whole lot of mills, a
long list of which was given, with in
crease of wages and with more de-
mand for material than they could
fill, was no particular sign of pros
perity, and further that it was but a
trick of the goldites to make things
appear prosperous so as to head off
free silveri
Just now. in order to turn a point, it
declares that the starting up of one
steel works at Chicago, with the en-
means prosperity"
But does it make that point as
against what it calls the ''hidebound
free trader?" Does it not rather
give itself dead away?" Here is ac-
tual prosperity under the Democratic
tariff reform bill, the opening of mills
that have been closed for three years,
which was before there was any
threat of free trade" And this in
opposition to our neighbours prediction
Of utter ruin to the iron and steel in
dustry.
The intimation that the Record or
any free trader" wants iron rails or
any other commodity brought from
beyond the sea, is so false and foolish
that only a few of the very lowest
fabricators of the Republican press
are mendacious enough to repeat it
The purpose of the demand for the re-
duction of duties was that by fair
competition the American manufac-
turers should be brought TO a point
where they would have to reduce pri-
ces. Not that the goods might be i'm
ported, but that they should be made
here at figures which the consumers
could pay.
Numberless proofs have been afford
ed that the high rates of duty imposed
for protection were needless. The re-
auctions made have been beneficial
They have not ruined the industries,
cut down the wages or flooded the
country with foreign cheap goods"
The very contrary has been the effect.
Prosperity is the result. 1t is useless
to deny it. Times are frightening, all
the indications are encouraging, and
only by the foolery of Republican at
tempt to upset the Democratic tariff
can the tide of prosperity be turned
back and ruin return again.