Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-06-12

Is the Republican claim justified by the dis
tress and low prices that followed the panic o.
of 1873?
In 1877, fat hogs, in Kansas, sold as low as
$I.6o per 100, and in Illinois as low as So 90
We then had high protective tariff, but very
few people out of Wall street came out of that
period of wreck without impaired fortunes.
No reasonable man can claim, who has closely
studied the situation that the hard times OF
to-day are the result of the Democratic tariff,
and no reasonable man can claim that the panic
of 1893 was produced by the modification OF
the Mckinley tariff. There is not enough of
difference in the trriffs, and not enough of diff
ference in the imports to justify such claim.
We must look further and go deeper.
Undoubtedly, debt and money stringency is
one of the causes of to-day's hard times An
immense debt mounting away up into the bill
lions, with small volume of currency, have
cut off the demand tor labor and, with the di-
minished deman for labor came the dimished
demand for food and clothing. The one Grip
pied or destroyed the other, and both went
down in heap, and in the wreck, no one pros
pered but him who had the money with which
to purchase property at far less than its value,
or to loan at ruinous raies of interest. Where
such conditions as existed i'll 1893, or that eX-
list to-day, prevail, it is only necessary for the
great bankers to agree on general tightening
of the purse-strngs to send debt-laden property
into the hands of the sherifs and receivers. If
we had Chinese WALL with our present debt,
the panic could still be precipitated.
Demand is regulated by the capacity to buy,
not on time, but for spot cash. Demand, for
time, may come on borrowed capital, but when
the evening-up comes, in our panics, the
slump has left less than an average. 1t is like
going on a drunk-reaction follows intoXica-
ton. The people, or nation, that incurs debt
goes on a drunk, and finally wallows in the
gutter 1t is easier to discover sickness than
to cure it. McKinleyisn offers high protection
and a gold standard. Gold standard is the
poison that is killing the patient and high
protection, as an antidote will not save the life
of the patient, much less cure. Republican
ism, from Mckinley down to the ragged voter,
is permeated with the diocy that, inasinuch as
we are borrowers, we should keep our credit
good, so we can continue to borrow. The old
topper keeps his hide full of whisky to keep it
(whisky) tight, but the end is delirium tre-
mems. 1t never occurs to Republican that
the credit of man out of debt is great deal
better than the credit of man who is in debt.
The end of gold standard is delirium tre-
mems. Already has the nation had two fits,
and, under gold standard, it will have more
fits, until some day, not fifty years hence, it
will go off in a fit.
Coxey's scheme would give the patient tenn
porary relief, but McKinleyism, like the topper.
is afraid that the drunkard might take notion
to sober up under Coxeyism to the great detr-
ment of the trade.
The Democratic hosts are marshalling under
the free-siver banner, which is step in the
country will never have permanent prosperity
until the volume of currency Is enlarged, and
until its circulation is controlled by the masses
instead of few great banking houses.
Once in our day have we seen good times
and that was in 1866, and there was no coin of
either metal in circulation. Our money then
was the so-caled deprecated currency-but it
bore good times on its wings, for the simple
reason that it was plentiful, and all out among
the people, where money always should be-
More work and plenty of currency means bet
ter prices, less poverty and no pancs.
ST. LOUIS refuses to entertain the colored