Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-07-14
WILLIAMS SHARP TALK.
Temporary Chairman of St. Louis Conven.
ton Makes Special Point of Exposing
Republican Claims That Party
Makes Prosperity"

of paragraphs and in many schedules.
These duties affect a vast number of in
terests which are often conflicting. If
necessary for our welfare, then of course
congress must consider the question of
changing the law as a whole or changing
any given rates of duty, but We must re-
member that whenever even a single
schedule is considered some interests
will appear to demand a change in al
most every schedule in the law; and
when it comes to upsetting the schedules
generally the effect upon the country
would be ruinous." Verify, "two souls
with but a single thought; two speeches
that read like one"
And that single thought so harmoni-
ously expressed is not to force a sin
gle special interest to take its lips from
the public breast for fear the public
finding them unnecessary might shake
them all off.
But to go on to the authoritative ut
vention assembled. The platform, like
the temporary chairman's speech, deals
chiefly in the boast that the republican
party is responsible for everything good
which has happened. 1t also deals
much in ancient history. 1t did we'll to
go back SO years ago. The present re-
publican party needs a running start of
fully so years to enable the Imagination
of the American people to jump over its
present obstructiveness and its evasion
of live issues which lie in it's pathway
to success in this year of 1904. The plat
form in speaking Of the access OF the
republican party to power after Mr..
Cleveland's second administration had
expired, uses this language: I'VE then
found the country, after four years of
democratic rule, in evil plight, oppressed
with misfortune and doubtful of the fu-
ture. Public credit had been lowered,
revenues we're declining, the debt was
growing, the administrations attitude
towards Spain vas feeble and mortify-
ing, its standard of values was threat
ened and uncertain. Labor was unem-
ployed. Business was sunk in the de-
preston which succeeded the panic of
1893. Hope wa faint and confidence
was gone" Suppose | p%araphrase that
utterance by saying that when Mr..
Cleveland succeeded to the presidency
t in March, 1898, after four years of re-
t publican administration under Mr.. Har-
. rison, the democratic party found the
country, after a long period of public
misrule and extravaganza, in evil plight,
oppressed with misfortune and doubtful
: of the future. Public credit had been
t lowered, the revenues were declining"
t The outgoing administration was pre-
pairing and had prepared to issue bonds.
| A government deficit was confessed.
The panic which had devastated the
: world was relentlessly approaching our
T shores. A long saturnalia of extrava-
: gance, public and private, and of reck-
less speculation had been already fol-
lowed by depression. Corn was burned
t for fuel in Kansas and elsewhere in the
t west in 1890 and after. Cotton was at OF
below the price of production. The
g acute reaction which W. call panic was
g inevitably approaching, even before Mr.,
f Cleveland was elected. Business was
S sunk in the depression" which preced-
ed the panic of 1893. Labor was unem-
o ployed," or poorly remunerated in fac
t tory or field, especially in the latter
e Indeed, business depression, especially
in agriculture and the lack of adequate
d remuneration for labor, taken together
y with the high prices of manufactures
h under the Mckinley act (high prices
o especially accentuated to public realiza.
e ton by the contrasting starvation prices
of agricultural products which had be-
gun to prevail in 1890 and had contin'
ued more or less persistently since)
these constituted the chief industrial
reasons in the public mind for turning
Mr.. Harrison and the republicans GU
and putting Mr.. Cleveland and the dem
ocrats in. To go on with the para
Is phrase: Under Harrison's administra
l. ton for three years hope was faint AM
confidence gone" The plight of tn
70 people" was so desperate that, Xix
Is drowning men, they were catching a
straws." Many nostrums were bein,
If suggested. Agrarianism and state so
ID cialism in the shape Of subtreasury an,
n other schemes were rife from 1890 an,
thence on. The "two old parties" a
If they we're called, were blamed for it all
Of but the one in power was blamed most
Of hence the out Of power got in. Men ad
er vocating these nostrums, in the stat
l. of public desperation then existing
70 counted their audience throughout tn
to suffering west and depressed south, n,
At longer by numbers but by the acre.
is Who will deny the historical truth Q
r a single sentence Of the %paraphrase
a Why pretend to have forgotten all this
De Why not be honest with the people, a
IS men ought to be? 1t is true that afte
4 the election of Mr.. Cleveland tn
m chronic business depression continued
!" It is true that it became acute; in a wor
In reached the banks-and then the frigh
IN or panic of 1893 came, which was not
In local or American condition, but on
r which had existed from where Vienn
II, nestles on the Danube to where Bueno
it Ayres commands its bay, one who's
to foundations had been laid long before
n reached us, almost last among the ma
lg lions. Then with the panic upon u
more nostrums of a national characte
were suggested to cure an evil of worl
ct character. One Of them, as you will a.
ty remember, was the repeal of the pun
It. chasing clause of the Sherman act. Thi
lie nostrum was suggested by wise men an
it was administered to the patient. ]
IL did no good, of curse. The panic wer
is on, went on until when? 1t went 0