The San Francisco call., 1904-10-02
Continued From Page 25, Column !


abroad at less than domestic prices.
Revision Will be effected in such way
as to bring about a gradual readjust-
ment of the tariff and reformation of
existing abuses without injury to the
abor of the country or to honest indus
tries now existing. Judge Parker, in
his letter Of acceptance, expresses the
desire to accomplish a wise and bene-
ficial reformation of the tariff without
creating uncertainty or instability. I'm
der such assurances no one need fear
radical or disturbing readjustments.
The financial policy Of the Republic
can party has always been blunder-
Ing one. The Civil War came at time
when the country had but a small sup
ply of either. gold or silver. owing to the
State bank note system, which had ex-
isted for years and which had diverted
the gold and silver production of our
country to other lands The Republi-
can party therefore devised the green
back and made it a legal tender for all
debts, public and private except Gus
toms dues. Having issued large
amount of these during the war, the
wise thing to have done would have
been to gradually restore specie pay
ments by covering the greenbacks
with gold and silver produced from our
mines. But, no; the national banks
were determined to monopolize the cur
rency of the country, and silver was
demonetized at a time when it stood on
a par with gold, and this country took
the first step in the gradual process of
destroying the parity between gold and
silver.
The greenbacks were destroyed in
order to make room for bank currency,
and the. country entered upon a finan-
cial depression from 1873 to 1877, only
paralleled by that of 1893 to 1897, a pc
riod during which mortgages were
changed into deeds and almost the en-
tire property of the country was trans
ferred from the debtor to the creditor
class, thus causing a concentration of
wealth unprecedented in our history
and only equaled by the subsequent
concentration by the dep.=s sion of 1853
to 1897.
INCREASE IN MONEY.
THE depression of 1873 to 1877 was
broken only by the passage of the
Bland act, which gave the country a
moderate increase in basic money.
Again in 1898 money famine seized
the country caused largely by the
withdrawal of gold to meet the de-
mands of Austria and Russia, then 60
ing upon a gold basis. The Republican
party sought to increase this famine by
the repeal of the Sherman act, and with
y hn afI Of
plished it.
THE Republican party in its plat
form alludes to the Cleveland era of de-
preston and congratulates itself upon
the work accomplished by that party
upon being restored to power. All this
is asserted regardless of the fact that
the period Of depression lasting from
1893 to 1887 under Democratic admins
tration had its parallel in the depres-
sion of 1873 TO 1877 under Republican
administration, and that the depression
of 1893 to 1897 had its source in the pre-
ceding Republican administration,
which was preparing to issue bonds for
the relief of the Government only few
weeks before the Democratic admins
tration came into power
Il have no excuse to offer for the
mistakes of the Cleveland administra-
tion of that period, which sought first,
instead of inaugurating Democratic
policies, to trade with the Republican
party for the establishment of a Re-
publican policy. And l do not pur-
pose entering upon the defense of
Cleveland or of his administration, but
1 insist that the Republican policy in
augurated by the aid of this Demo-
cratic President and the subsequent
passage of the Dingley act brought no
favorable results, and that it was not
until 1898, after a wheat famine
throughout the world had brought to
the, American farmers better prices
and to our country larger volume
of money, and after the increased
production of gold had commenced to
ease the money famine heretofore ex-
listing, that the industries of this coun-
I try, agricultural as we'll as manufac-
turing, obtained relief. These new con-
ditions were created not by Repub-
lican policies but by nature, by discov-
cry and the invention and industry OF
man.