The Butler weekly times., 1896-07-16

currency sweeps away with the
silent and resistless force of gravita-
ton the annual profits OF thei, en-
terprise and investments. They
know, too, that the gold standard
means contraction and the organlza-
ton of disaster. What hope is there
for the country and what hope for
the democracy unless the views OF
the majority here shall be adopted?
Do not the people know that it was
not silver Legislation dictated BY the
advocates of the gold standard,
that has caused aud now continues
the financial depression? Do they
not know that, when their demands
upon democracy were complied with
In 1898, and the Sherman Law re-
pealed without substitute, the
very states of the east that demand
ed it turned against the democracy
who granted it and swept away their
maj critics in a torrent Of ballots
Had the silver men had their way
then, instead Of gold monometalists
what storms of abuse would here
today be emptied upon their heads
But the people, applying the power
of memory and analysis alike to dis
cover the causes of their interested
prosperity, need not 60 far to find
them.
They do not forget when democ-
racy came to power in 1898 it inher-
tied from its republican predecessor
the tax system and the currency
system, of which the Mckinley law
and the Sherman law were the cul.
minating atrocities. It came to
power amidst a panic which ftly
followed upon their enactment-with
strikes. lock outs, riots and civic com.
motions, while the scenes of peaceful
industry in Pennsylvania were mill
tarv camps Besides manifold
Oppressive features, the Mckinley
law had thrown away fifty millions
of revenue derived from sugar under
the special FLEA of free breakfast
table, and had substituted bounties
to sugar planters, thus decreasing
revenue and increasing expenditure,
thus burning the candle at both
ends, and making the people pay at
least for the alleged free breakfast.
From the joint operation of the
Mckinley law and Sherman law an
adverse balance of trade was
forced against us in 1898. A surplus
of S10O,0O0,00O in the Treasury was
converted into a deficit of $4,000,
900 in 1894, and engraved bonds
prepared by Republican Secretary,
to borrow money to support the
Government, were the Ill omens of
the programmed ruin that awaited
the incoming Democracy, and de
pleted Treasury.
THE SHERMAN LAW
More significant still, the very au
thors of the i'll starred Sherman law
makeshift were already at confes.
sional upon the stool of penitence
and were begging Democrats to help
them to pu: out the confagration of
disaster that they themselves had
kindled. SO far as revenue to sup
port the Government is concerned,
the Democratic party, with but q
slender majority in the Senate. was
not long providing it, and had not
the Supreme Court of the United
States reversed it's settled doctrine
100 years. the income tax incorpor
porated in the tariff bill would lone
since have abundantiy supplied it.
| Respecting finance, the republi
cans, populists and democrats. Will,
Offerings upon almost all other sub
jects, had united in 1892 IN declar
ing for the restoration of our Amer
lean system of bimetallism By re
publican and Democratic efforts
alike, the Sherman law was swep
from the statute books, the eager
ness to rid the country Of that re
publican incubus being so great tha
no prudent effort was made to pro
vide substitute
y In the very act Of the Sherman