The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1897-02-12
THAT PROMISED PROSPERITY.
win the Policy Of Protection Bring It
About! Should Every Tub Stand
on its own Bottom9

win the Policy Of Protection Bring it
About7 Should Every Tub Stand
on its own Bottoml
Republished by speaiaI request.
Edit = Manufacturers Record.
s
I can readily understand that high
paid officials, whether going in or
coming out Of office. can feel jubilant
and imagine that the country is pros
porous and lovely and that the goose
hangs high"
But a few years ago his fees were 50
small as lawyer that one, Grover
Cleveland, regarded the office of sher
iff as promotion. Since which time
he has been governor of New York
and president of these United States
and retires to private life many times
a millionaire; counting his millions,
he may well image that the country
is on a reasonably prosperous basis.
Because the bankers, or most of
them, have weathered the past two of
three years without joining the ever
increasing army of hobos, Mr.. Eckels,
comptroller of the currency, drawing
salary of five thousand per year,
believes that the talk of distressful
conditions is simply the insane raw
ings of a few misguided ''calmity
howlers.''
Mr.. ]. Sterling Morton, head of the
agricultural department, with a
knowledge of farming that almost
equals III trace Greeley's, whose book on
farming was said by the New York
Sun to be the "most brilliant work of
fiction of the century," like Mr.. Eek
els, drawing large salary, believes
that the farming industry of the coun-
try was never more prosperous.
But, pardon me for observing that
high paid Office holders and the mill
ionaire class are not the ones to give
information of the true conditions Of
the country. The editor and economist
must look elsewhere for this informa-
ton. Where there is one palace there
are many novels. You know and
know and everyone else outside of lu-
matte asylums know, that the great
masses of the American people are not
prosperous. To pretend to believe
that they are, is nonsense. To insist
that they are, is deception in its worst
form.
Railroads and electric lights and the
various kinds of labor saving inven-
lions, while they mark the progress
and advancement of the race, are not
selt-evident proofs that the great
masses of the American people are
prosperous and happy.
Men died of hunger in Babylon at
the time of Belshazzar's great feast +;
though Dives table was laden with
rich wines and costly victuals, there
were beggars at his gates longing for
the crumbs that might fall from his
table.
The history of the Roman Empire,
just before its downfall, is so similar
to our own that in reading it one
might easily believe he was reading
the history of his own country. The
concentration of power and increase
of crime proceeded with equal step.
In its early ages the Roman admins
tration was exercised by thousands of
persons. After time it passed into
the hands of a score of families. 1t
was at last seized by one man who be-
came master of double the present
population of the United States. AS
the process went on, the virtues which
adorned the earlier stages of the re-
public, disappeared.
1t is an evil day in the history of
any nation when wealth is recognized
as the sole standard of social distinc-
ton. That day made its approach in
Rome. 1t is fast making its appear
ance in the United States. The most
evil consequences followed. The ac-
emulation of wealth and power gave
place to universal depravity. OFF,
Gals, including judges, became cor
rupt and the social fabric vas Tester
ing mass of rotteness.
Are We not fastening along the same
lines? And what is done, or proposed
to be done, to correct them? First, the
issue of gold Understanding bonds.
And what will be the result of their
issue? Simply to make the rich few
vastly richer. How is it possible to
conceive that the issue of bonds can
help the great body of our INDECENT
poor?
Second, Protection of the few at the
expense of the great army of consum-
ers.
The editor of the Manufacturers
Record ought 10 know that these
.'make-shiftsp can only touch the up
per fringes of society and cannot pos
sibly reach down to the middle and
under classes to better whose condi-
ton the attention of statesmen should
be directed. Why should we want to
make richer the already rich? Why
the necessity, what the reason for it?
Riches are menace to simplicity and
simplicity is supposed to have been
one of the foundation stones-one of
the chief pillars on which the struc-
ture or our government rests. The
policy of Mckinley, the policy of
Mark Hanna, the policy of the repub-