Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-09-15
Our "Rampant Pro.peritv.n

1t now begins to look as if "Republi-
can luck" was going 10 desert the
G. o. P. Shrewd political observers
of both parties recognize the fact that
the Republican party has been as for
tunate in its defeats as in its victories.
All well-informed and fair-minded men
know that the panic of 1898 and the
succeeding years of depression would
have occurred, no matter who had been
elected President in 1892. The Harri-
son administration was put to its wits
end to conceal treasury deficits and
stave off a bond issue until Cleveland
was inaugurated. In fact the plates
for new issue of bonds were ready
before Harrison eft the White House.
The 1898 panic was partly due to the
Republican spendthrifts who, before
1898, had blown in" all of the big
surplus left by Cleveland in 1888. 1t
would have been fortunate for the
Democrats had they lost in 1892
But the Republicans have overstayed
their time and are almost certain to
have TO take their own medicine next
year. They are doing their best to pre-
vent a business collapse before next
year and are whistling hard to keep
up their courage But many recognize
that the jig is up with them. This idea
is beginning to find expression in Re
publican papers. One of the oldest and
staunchest Of them, the Chicago Jour-
hot "a
belief is strong that the tide of pros
perity is turning, or is about to turn. I"
The Government bulletins and re-
ports, of course, tell us at length all
about the prosperity items, but say
little about the gloomy items which
are getting more numerous from day
to day. Thus the Bureau of Statistics
Bulletin of Aug shows up the favor
able features of our internal commerce,
says that 1.-The current year compares
favorably with the corresponding period
in 1902 or 1901 and then hastens TO
say that there is no evidence of a
general recession in commercial activi-
ties, corresponding to the extraordinary
shrinkage in speculative values"
The American Economist, the organ
of the Protective Tariff League, is
working harder than ever to demon
strate on paper that prosperity is still
here. Some of the headlines in its issue
of Aug. 81 are: Prosperity Rampant"
General Prosperity Untouched" THE
Facts of Prosperity" Significant Fig
ures; Our Commercial Expansion I'm
der Protective Tariffs" "Labor's Pros
perity."
When the Republican papers are as
serting that Prosperity is still here, =
and are trying to prove it by publish
ing statistics showing that Pennsyl-
vanias iron and steel industry paid
twice as much in wages in 1902 as in
1896; that our imports were greater
last year than ever before; that our
postoffice receipts were higher than
ever last year; and other favorable sta
tistics which they tell us are reliable
barometers of trade; while we are be
ing assured that our crop prospects are
again good, and that the railroads are
threatened with another ''car famine;'
and while the Secretary of Agriculture
is telling us that everything is lovely
with the farmers, who are simply wor-
rying about how and where to invest
their rapidly accommodating profits, it
may be we'll to mention some of the
signs that point in the opposite direc-
ton. Here are a few of them:
/. Great depression in Wall street.
Stocks have shrunk from 20 to 100
points during the last year, the average
shrinkage being about 30 per cent.
Financial experts do not agree with
Republican politicians that there is no
connection between Wall street and the
rest of the country. They know that
business is done mainly upon a credit
basis, and that Wall street is the heart
Of the credit system. Hence when the
heart is disordered and diseased the
whole system is deranged and debili-
tated. Thus, Mr. Cuthbert Mills, for
many years the financial expert of the
New York Tribune, the leading Repub-
lican paper in the country, said in its
issue Of Aug. 8:
THE country is beginning to wake
up to what is liable to happen in mer-
camille and industrial affairs. There
is less boasting than was recently
heard about the country not being con-
cerned with the gambling operations of
Wall street. These operations, when
they are on such a scale as we see
them now, are the sign and forerunner
Of a business contraction, in produc-
ton and prices, which will put the
country through much the same expe-
rience that Wall street has had. Good
crops will mitigate this considerably,
but will not prevent it. And it may
be repeated what was said last week,
that the merchant or manufacturer
who is much spread out at this time,
is in the same dangerous position as
was the spread out Wall street man six
months ago"
Hambeton & Company and other
financial authorities have recently
written in the same vein.
=. 1UlS Is year VI HuuleIouS anu
great strikes. History shows that the
sequels to such years are years of de-
preston and panic. The strike years
of 1872, 1888 and 1892 are examples
By the middle of 1892 there were be-
tween 500 and 600 strikes on and the
number increased later The year 1898
saw a collapse in business and a finan-
cial crisis not equa,led since 1887. I'm
doubtedly the 1898 panic owed much
of its severity to the fiotation of num-
erous protected trusts with watered
stocks and to the high trust prices and
stock-kiting which followed the pass
age of the Mckinley bill in 1890, with
its outrageous high duties. The 1904
depression is likely TO be as much
more severe than the 1898 one as the
number. size, and power of trusts and
the watering and kiting of stocks were