The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-07-22
PlONEtRS OF A NEW era.

zenship then emerging from the revolu- |
ton, and who lived in sort or
disputative nightmare through which
stalked the ogre of republican govern
ment, the clamor of pessimism and the
prophecy of evil have been the humor-
Gus leaven in every chapter of our ma
tional progress. From the moment that
Hamilton and his co-workers set them !
selves at the problem of liquidating the
confederated debt, establishing the fed
eral credit and providing for revenue,
the exaction of which should promote
rather than retard internal and indus
trial development, the mental habit of
conjuring revolution and disaster has
grown in political controversy.
No great American ever held respon-
sible for the execution of a policy which
has been justified by time and approved
by history. escaped contemporary SIAN
der and abuse. The statesmen and pa
triot presidents whom now we revere
have been tried at the bar of political
opposition and condemned as traitors,
tyrants, or conspirators against the
public veal.
No notable measure Of American statc-
craft, proved with experience to have
been planned and enacted for the great
est good, but has been combatted with a
political hostility that survived it's bene-
| fetal and happy effects.
Hence it is that among a certain class
| ent day it is fashionable to assail the
character of President McKinley, and to
condemn the tariff system of which he is
the master exponent. The false issue
| raised is that the president is the occult
ally Of the capitalistic forces of the coun-
try; that the protective tariff is respon-
sible for the trust, which is pointed out
with dread and shuddering, as the
I; Borgia of our political morality and the
Juggernaut Of our liberties.
Proportionate to it's population and in
dustries, Montana has as much reason
as any state in the Union to regard
President Mckinley in the light of per-
sonal friendship and to support the pres
ent tariff system as the keystone OF
American prosperity. From the rancher
to the miner. all along the line of hui
man industry, we have learned an i'm
portant economic lesson in the ten
years which have given US the trials Of
the Mckinley, Wilson and Dingley laws
la lesson which should not be forgotten,
or lightly discussed. During the period
in which the Wilson law was in force,
the products of the range and farm were
made to shrink in value by the surrender
Of our markets to foreign producers.
Meanwhile the same so-called tariff re-
form law failed to dispossess or destroy
the copper trust. This by virtue of
vastness of investment and solidarity OF
interest had assumed toward copper the
position that Mckinley would have the
national revenue law maintain toward
all products of skill and labor While
the rest of Montana. and the country as a
whole suffered; while the national credit
was rapidly declining because of dimin-
ishing revenue resulting from the repres-
sion of home industry, Butte lived on
! serenely; it's copper mines in operation,
it's miners well paid. and its merchants
uninjured. Likewise Anaconda, whose
prosperity depends upon the price and
output of copper, experienced none of
the calamity and despair common to
every city and town in the country
whose life sustaining industries were at
fected by the Wilson schedules. The
entire state, in some measure, benefited
from the continuance Of the Industrial
| activities of Butte and Anaconda, and
| folf nr1x ho ~
hard times.
Trust and subsidy are words the DEM
agogue and half-thinker have infused
with evil meaning; one cooperative
force and the other a government in
. vestment to which are unthinkingly
. ascribed wholly wicked motives OF
greedy conspiracy. Like all things mum
dane, after the makeup of man. they in
clude the good and bad. The trust is
not necessarily the coincidence or crea-
ture of tariff system. Neither is II
originally American in conception
though the American trust is somewha,
? original in character. We are improving
greatly on the trusts Of ancient and
, medieval times. Trusts relatively
richer than those of the limited States
were founded on freedom Of trade four
centuries ago. Their power and profits
came from the control of imports, and
the governments under which they pros.
, pered vainly tried to legislate them on,
of existence. They were destroyed ir
course of time by the practical sciences
and the capacity for invention developed
nv the AnglO-Saxon race
Every American trust has a scientific
auxiliary, tireless Of research, and the
= prime cause of success lies in the imme.
date application of new inventions o.
of secrets wrested from nature. tina,