The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1900-03-23
THE DEMOCRATIC ATTACK.
Under the Pre,sxt of Fighting the Trusts
II 10 Hooed 10 Smash the Tariff

Shoe' viz EieVAt vi r'tniihB tHc iius'o
1t Is Hoped to Smash the Tariff
| One has but to give attention TO the
editorial utterances of the democratic
organs on the trust question to be fully
convinced that the present attitude of
the party on that question Is in reality
not an attack upon the trusts at all, but
simply covert attack upon the protec
tive tariff system. The only cure for
the trust evil proposed by these organs.
or democratic party leaders, is the re-
peal of the tariff laws. Fearing to make
direct attack upon the protective
principle, they propose striking down
the tariff, through the antitrust howl.
The people had an experience with The
Wilson tariff and the democracy's first
approach toward free trade during the
Cleveland administration, and that ex-
perience was enough for one generation
at least. A direct attack upon the
tariff, the democrats know, would not
be popular. But there is determined
opposition to trusts, and so hiding be-
hind that issue they see chance of
knocking out the tariff.
In other words, they propose Kidding
the barn of rats by burning the barn.
They would destroy trusts by destroy
ing the country's industries. Do the
people want such wholesale destruc-
ton in order to correct an abuse, COR
rectible by other less damaging means?
Is this the only remedy democracy has
to propose? If it is it has utterly failed
to grasp the situation or to measure the
temper of the American people. Much
as the people may be opposed to the
trust octopus, they are not going to
take such radical and dangerous means
to exterminate the evil.
There are other ways of reaching the
disease without killing the patient. If
the democratic party has not the ca
pacity to discover needed remedies, the |
republicans have and will at the proper |
time apply the remedies The people,
however, are gradually seeing through
the thin disguise of the democratic
antitrust cry, and are not going TO
down the tariff to reach few corpora
lions that are violators of law and bust
ness principles. Many of the evils of
trust combinations will cure themselves
in time. The body polite will throw
Off the disease, just as the human body
does, working naturally under natural
laws. The peoples eyes are being
opened and already the trust mania has
been halted. The bubble is bursting
and those who have their fingers
burned are likely to profit by their ex
perience and their fate is warning to
others. The flour trust is in the hands
of receivers because it found itself un-
able to float its bonds Other similar
are likely to meet similar
fate. and thus the oyerdone trust evil is
its own cure. Legitimate
will survive, while the
others go to the wall. Proper laws
governing combinations of capital will
eventually cure existing evils, the tariff
will stand and the anti trust democratic
scare will pass into history Let the
people have but a little patience and
not go off at a tangent under the leader
ship of a Organized free-trade demo
tracy that will promise anything to
secure success, land utterly fail when in
power to do anything that will enhance
he nations welfare. 1t was tried in
1899 and found wanting it can do no
better in l9O0.-York (Pa.) Dispatch.