The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1903-02-27
NOW ANOTHER SCARE
ONE ALARM 10 SUCCEEDED BY
ANOTHER.
Ten Years Ago We Were Frightened
by Coxey's Army of Tramps; To-day
We Are Worrying Because the
Country Is Too Prosperous.

The Des Moines Capital, RepuD-
lican newspaper that is edited with
marked ability and forcefulness, has
performed a public service of value in
printing a review and contrast OF the
conditions prevailing from 1888 10
1897. Under Cleveland and tariff re-
form, and from 1897 to 1903, under
II spublican rule and tariff protection.
The picture is wildly drawn and the
contrasts effectively brought out. All
err reciting with much detail the nor
rors of the panic period, beginning
ten years ago, promptly upon the cleo
ton of a free-trade administration and
congress, and pausing long enough 10
describe with much dramatic force
the terrible march of Coxey's tramps,
the story comes down to the present
period of unparalleled prosperity,
when all labor is profitably employed
at the highest wage rate ever known,
and when the accumulation OF wealth
among all classes, poor as well as rich,
is going forward at rate hitherto
unrecorded in the worlds history.
Right at this point comes the moral
of the tale, and a striking moral 1t IS.
From great depression we have
changed to great buoyancy, from great
poverty to great riches, from great
want to great abundance. All this has
happened and it is with us today
! That which alarmed and terrified US
from '93 to '97 alarms us no more
But a new alarm has risen. AS the
Capital well says:
"The alarm of poverty which some
people thought endangered the repub-
lie was out of the way scarcely three
years until the alarm of riches came
into view.
"And now we are where people have
again lost their heads. There are
| those who look out of the upper win
dows and once more look upon the
tragedy which they think will end this
free republic. Sensation mongers on
the stump and in congress have
caught the popular ear and are in the
center of the stage. They are playing
to packed houses, in fact, to standing
room only. The demagogue is shak-
ing his NAME"
True it is, singuarly, sadly, shame
fully true, that under the spell OF the
sensation mongers in congress and on
the stump, in governors chairs and
editorial sanctums, in the columns OF
newspapers professedly conducted in
the interests of prosperity and peace,
the alarm has changed. We are no
longer afraid of poverty. That danger
has been removed, at least for time.
We are now afraid Of being too rich!
So we are told that to guard against
this new peril we must rip up things,
tear them wide open, upset our laws
and systems that have brought us
from the abyss of want and suffering
up to the very pinnacle of plenty and
prosperity! That is the situation to-
day, and in no part of the country is
the condition more marked than in
the state in which the Des Moines
Capital is printed and circulated.
Surely it was time to tell this story,
time to point this moral, time to call
back to their senses this great Ameri-
can people who are now listening too
intently to what the demagogues and
sensation mongers are shouting. Time
to call a halt, time to have some
sense!