The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-04-15
THE MAsTERLY INACTIVITY
POLICY.

The silver leaders neve{ displayed
more wisdom than they are now by
pursuing policy of mastery inactiv-
ity. The forces that were combined
against silver last year are slowly but
surely disintegrating. There has been
no appreciable improvement in bust
ness while the promised prosperity has
not come and the high hopes held out
TO the people last year have been
broken. Those who held out these
hopes, who have themselves been dis
appointed and can scarcely hide their
chagrin, are telling the people to wait
and be patient, that the return of pros
perity is necessarily a slow process.
And how they are scurrying around to
find something that will still blind the
people and prevent them seeing just
what is the matter with the country.
The supporters of the tariff bill are
beginning to realize that if it fails in
accomplishing the object for which it is
being enacted; if in consequence Of it
there is no revival of business. no re-
turn of prosperity, the tariff game is
UP. IF it does not bring prosperity
within a year." said a member Of the
ways and means committee the other
day. and who halls from a Mississippi
valley state, Il, for one, shall retire
from public life. Certainly in my state
the protective issue will not again avail
against free silver and the onslaught
of the Populists unless this bill gives
US good times"
The Washington correspondent of the
New York Evening Post, writing his
paper on the silver question and tariff,
under date of the 10th inst, says:
1t is now nearly half year since the.
national campaign on the silver ques-
ton. The time has already arrived
in the opinion of Washington observers
when it is possible to look about lit
tie and see what has become, or is
likely to become, of the great silver
craze which resulted in the capture of
the Democratic national convention
and the nomination of William j.
Bryan. All sorts Of predictions were
ventured the day after election Many
persons believed that the silver cause
had suffered such overwhelming defeat
that it would never rise again; there
was certainly a time when a considera-
BILE part OF the Bryan voters seemed
to be awaiting a favorable opportunity
to throw the silver issue to one side.
The sound money element Of the
southern Democracy were especially
FESTIVE under free silver leadership.
They had submitted to the Chicago
platform for party regularity's sake.
but in many instances declared that
they would never do so again. 1t is
easy TO believe that, had there been
a substantial revival of business after
the November election, or even after
the Inauguration of President McKin-
ley, the silver movement would have
begun to disintegrate. Circumstances
may yet arise which will produce this
hoped-for result, but it must be con-
fessed in honesty that events which are
stronger than men have thus far
tended to shape things in the other di-
rection.
No one will contend that the silver
cause did not meet with a reversal last
November, but still it was far from be-
ing as great as its opponents had
thought for. It should never be forgot
ten that it was the first time it had
ever been presented to the people as a
national issue. While so far as being
dead as an issue is concerned it is far
from it, apparently farther than is
protection itself. 1t is a most living
issue today. though not being agitated.
and the fact is being realized by those
who a few months ago We're shouting
most vociferously that the silver issue
was dead.
The policy that the people declared
for last November should be given,
and is being given, every opportunity
to prove its own impotency to effect
any considerable or permanent change
for the better in the business condition
Of the country. It is working its own
destruction without let or hindrance
from the silver people. Their present
policy of inactivity is in every respect
a mastery one.