Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-09-15
CAMPAIGN NOTES.

One of the anomalies of this cam
paign is that the business man whose
wisdom and experience is sought for by
farmers and laboring men in their private
matters is considered by many of them
al an unsafe adviser in political matters.
The issues of this national election are
business issues. The question is, how
can the industries of the nation be re-
vived? 1t would seem as if the judgment
of the men who manage the industries
should be consulted.
1t is an odd spectacle to see a free sill
YER orator who never did q days work
in his life, who has had no experience
i'll managing business affairs, who has
never organized or managed labor en-
ploying industry, who has never paid a
laboring man dollar for work, and who
never evolved practical plan which
resulted in giving employment to unem-
ployed people, delivering an grafton over
the fallen ruins of a dead industry"
telling how it can be revived.
1t took Bryan and the other Democrat
ic orators two and a quarter years to
pass the Wilson bill, although they had
been telling the American people for
thirty years that they knew the tariff
question all by heart, and were agreed
as to what they were going to do. How
long will it take these same Democratic
free silver orators to pass free coinage
bill? And what will happen TO the coun-
try in the meantime!
The Democratic orators talked tariff
reform thirty years before they got the
consent of the American people to put
their plans into effect. When at last
the people consented to let them try their
tariff reform, it took those orators two
and quarter years to agree upon the
exact wording of their tariff law. In
the meantime, while they held the coun-
try in suspense, the industries of the ma
ton became paralyZed from doubt and
uncertainty. If it took these tariff re-
form orators two and one-half years to
make law after thirty years of study,
how long will it take these free silver
orators to make a law after only five
years of study? And if these two and
one-half years of dispute and uncertainty
ON the tariff paralyzed the industries,
what will become of these industries if
another series of free silver speeches
is hurled against them, seeing that these
industries are more afraid of free coin
age than they were of free trade?
The crop now in the fields of Nebraska
would under ordinary conditions be worth
$1OO,0OO,0OO. If the laboring men of
the country were at work there would
be demand in the East for this crop
In every town of Nebraska the process
of loading this crop into cars would be
going on all over the state. As fast
as the cars were loaded sight drafts
would be drawn on Chicago, New York,
Baltimore and other market centers and
by means of these sight drafts the bal
ance of credit would be transferred from
the East to the West. Every bank in
every Nebraska town would be easy,
money would be plenty and we would
call that good times. Good times will
come to the Western farmer when the
Eastern laborer goes TO work. and not
till then. What would it avail the
Western farmer TO see trainloads of sill
yer bullion passing through the country
on it's way TO the Eastern mint to be
coined, if the factories in the East were
still idle, and the people out of employ
ment. Would the mere coming of these
Western silver dollars make a demand