Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-01-05
LIVE AND DEAD ISSUES
POLITICAL SURPRISES IN THE
RECENT ELECTIONS.
How Republican Control of Congress
Was Gained by the Strength of the
Tariff Issue in States Previously
Welded TO Free Silver.

The potency of the tariff issue in de-
termining the results Of the November
elections becomes more and more APP
parent from a survey of the leading
events of the campaign and of the
marked changes wrought thereby. 1t
was in the Middle West and the far
West, in States where the free silver
craze had been the strongest, that the
battle was fought and won. Party man.
ayers were never before so completely
at fault. They figured that the East
would be found more solid than ever
for the gold standard, and that the
West was and would remain unsound
on the money question. They were dla-
metrically wrong in both calculations
In the Eastern States the losses to
sound money and the gains to the free
coinage ranks were so great as to Who'll
Iy reverse the alignment Of parties in
the House of Representatives, giving
the control Of that body to the Demo-
Gratis, Populists and other free silver
ties by safe working majority. In the
West, on the contrary, there were enor-
nous gains for Republicanism and
sound money, and by these gains the
control Of the House was saved to and
now rests with the Republican party.
What caused this extraordinary re-
versal Of political form In the States OF
the West and far West-in California,
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming,
North and South Dakota, Utah, Color
ado, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri?
Wherefore the gain for sound Republl-
can doctrines and the loss for Populls-
tic heresies in these twelve States? Let
the question be answered by the
Chronicle, an ably conducted daily
newspaper of Spokane, Wash. No
where in the country has the case been
more plainly or more truthfully stated
than in the following, from the paper
Just mentioned:
There is something vastly more impor-
tant to this section than free silver, even
if this were not the delusion that it is.
That something is a proper protective
tariff. Why was it that the West was so
Frustrated that it grasped at free silver
or any other remedy that even promised
relief? Because Democratic policy had
enacted free WOOL and fiocks Of sheep
that cover our mountains and feed in our
valleys were burden rather than
source of profit. Because Democratic pol
icy had declared for free lumber, and the
mighty wealth of our boundless forests
was unclaimed and could not be realized.
Because Democratic policy had made
lead free, and our richest mines lay idle
since it would not pay to work them in
competition with the cheap lead brought
in from without These three items of
Democratic free trade meant depression
and ruin to the West. And that section,
in it's misery and distress, knew not GER
tainly what was it's disease or what the
remedy, but sought blindly for relief, from
free silver Or from anything that might
remove the new conditions and restore
the old. 1t distrusted both the old parties;
and the Republicans, remembering the
slump to free silver, distrusted it.
After adverting to the fact that in
some of the old tariffs the interests of
the West had been slaughtered by the
cry for low duties on raw materials,
whereas in the Dngley tariff the bal
ance was held equally and the Western
producers of lumber, coal, wool and
lead received fair treatment, the ChrOn-
icle continues:
Now comes the proof, and these States,
supposed to be devoted to the worship Of
cheap money and Populism, wheel solidly
into line. The answer to a Republican
protective tariff, which for almost the first
time does full justice to the West and
gives it it's rightful place in the national
~
ington, another in Oregon, another in Cal
ifornia 1t is the redemption of the Da-
kotas. 1t is success in Wyoming 1t is
such tremendous gain in Idaho that the
State is surely Republican at the next
election. And all these gains are won not
only without any compromise or conces-
sion to the cheap money sentiment, but on
platforms that declare outright for the
maintenance of the gold standard and
against the free coinage of silver.
This is the magnificent answer of the
West to the offer by the Republican party
of a scheme of protection that protects all
adequately and equally. This is it's answer
to the charge that it was so infected with
the cheap money virus that it would never
return to sound national policy. This is
it's answer to the Democratic claim that
the West had renowned it's Republican,
ism permanently. And that answer is
proclaimed at time when it means most
for the party and the country; at time
when it saves the House from Demo
cratic majority, and restores the United
States Senate to Republican control. 1t
is, in all ways, a most happy event for us.
1t comes at a time and in a manner when
it will be most to our advantage. The
West will be restored to its old seat of
honor in the Republican party. 1t has
shown that it needs but consideration and
fair treatment to be loyal when others
falter. 1t has proved that it can lay aside
manfully an error and accept it's party
gospel from the lips of a majority, if only
it believes that equal justice will be done
to all and that it is not to be a sacrifice
to older and more influential sections.
The West knows now what it owes to
the Republican party, and the Republican