The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-14
MIR. REED ON CONFIDENCE AND
PROSPERITY.

A letter is published from Speaker Reed
which is evidently intended as reply to
Mr.. Bryan's recent letter, though it does
Tot refer directly to either. The letter is
written in Mr.. Reeds picturesque style and
shows his faculty for putting familiar
truths in an original way. Beginning with
review of the processes by which nations
gradually learn by experience the great
laws of trade and the relation of cause and
effect, he concludes that lin time no one
will dispute the sure succession of events,
and thereafter patent remedies for hard
times and patent elxirs for prosperity will
have had their day" Leaving the field of
philosophy for that of facts, Mr.. Reed finds
remarkable similarity between the condi-
tons in 1896 and 1897 and those in 1878 and
1879. He says:
In 1873 the air was resonant with denun-
Citations of the wicked men who would not
issue all the greenbackS which a. suffering
people demanded. Here was a sure remedy
for great ills and yet the remorseless rulers
would not stir hnger or print single bit
OF paper. John Sherman was denounced on
all hands; Samuel j. Tilden declared that
only vast central reservoir of coin could
protect us against the failure of the pro-
posed return TO specie payments IN 1879
The farmer was at shis worst, ruined, de-
Stroyed, eaten up by taxes and uSury. Down
almost to the very day of resumption the
croaking came with dismal and damnable
iteration. Some capitalist even proclaimed
his readiness to give thousands and thou
sands or dollars 10 stand at the treasury
first in the row of that vast multitude
which would surely assemble on the first re-
sumption day. When the 1st OF, January
came no crowds thronged the subtreasury
corridors. Hardly greenback was pre-
sented and we got back to the currency of
the world without a movement or jar.
The free-silver craze of 1886 was an evo-
luton and repetition of the greenback craze
of 1878, and as the overthrow of greenback-
ism was followed by an era of great pros
perity is the overthrow of free silver
likely to be. Mr. Reed discovers in this
analogy the operation of natural laws, un-
der which, when the time is ripe for re-
turn of confidence and prosperity, some
suspicious event opens the door and they
come in. He says prosperity for nation
means to have all it's people at work, and
this, like hard times, comes about through
states of mind common to the whole mass
of people. In one case it is confidence and
in the other lack of it. At present, thanks
to the enactment of a new tariff law, there
is a condition of growing confidence and in
creasing prosperity. There is plenty of
money in the country; those who have it
are willing to lend it, and shrewd business
men are willing to take it and risk it in
new enterprises. This means confidence,
and confidence means prosperity. Another
encouraging symptom" says Mr.. Reed, lis
that the financial medicine men are now
explaining in low tone of voice why what
they said in such loud tones last year was
not so. This is the prelude to the utter ST.
lence which will fall upon them in due time
a silence which will be the signal that the
world has settled one other financial prob
lem in the only way it can be settled, and
that is in the minds of the people," This
is the nearest to a personal allusion in the
letter, the phrase financial medicine men"
evidently referring to Bryan and his co.
workers. After pointing out how the pro-
ceeds of good crops, operating in conjunc-
ton with the restoration of confidence, have
started the nation to work, Mr.. Reed con-
cludes:
Every historic period of revival has been
like this. Some event at the ripe moment
happens, like the resumption of species pay
ments, the setting of money in motion by
reduction of the interest on part of the ma
tional debt, the passage OF a tariff bill,
which, rightly or wrongly, the people be-
lieved in. Human nature and human af-
fairs made ready for the change, have al
ways done the rest. This talk OF these gen.
tlemen about prices and accidents and this
recriminaton about dead and buried
speeches show them to be still cropping
about among the underbrush, while sensible
men are standing on the mountain top and
beholding the earth to the very horizons
edge. The view may not be of the whole
round EARTH but it is better than the view
from the jungle.
This is the philosophy of the situation as
seen from a cheerful, Republican point of
view. Mr.. Reed is too good a Republican
to conceal the fact that every return of
prosperity and good times in recent years
has been due to some act or policy of the
Republican party, while at the same time
he is too sagacious to ignore the potency
of natural causes in aiding and accelerating
the results of wise legislation. A better
wheat crop than that of 1897, at even better
prices than now prevail, would not have
helped to restore confidence and prosperity
if Bryan had been elected.