The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-07

currency at his will. What do the
men believe that the government
ought to go out of the banking bus
mess and the men who believe that
the banks ought to go out of the gov
erning business, think of this re-
narkable, this boastful assertion that
one man in the United States can and
does contract and expand the curren-
CIV which furnishes the life blood OF
commerce, at his own sweet will.
But to go into the authoritative ut
terance of the Republicans in conven-.
ton assembled. The platform like
the temporary chairman's speech,
deals chiefly in the boast that the Re-
publican party is responsible for eV-
erything good which has happened.
1t also deals much in ancient history.
1t did we'll to go back fifty years ago.
The present Republican party needs
q running start of fully fifty years to-
enable the imagination of the Amer
lean people to jump over it's present
obstructiveness and it's evasion of live
issues which lie in it's pathway to sue
cess i'm this year of 1904. The plat
form in speaking of the access of the
Republican party to power after Mr..
Cleveland second administration had
expired, uses this language:
1--WE then found the country. after
four, wears of Democratic rule in EVIL
plight. oppressed with misfortunes
and doubtful of the future. Public
credit had been lowered, revenues
were declining, the debt was grow
ing the administrations attitude to-
ward Spain was feeble and mortify-
ing. its standard of values was threat
ened and uncertain. Labor was un-
employed. Business was sunk in the
depression which succeeded the panic
of 1898. Hope was faint and conf
dence was gone"
/ Out Of Their Own Mouths.
Suppose l paraphase that utterance
BY saving that, when Mr.. Cleveland
succeeded to the Presidency in March,
1898, after four years Of Republican
administration under Mr.. Harrison,
the Democratic party found the coun-
try, after long period of pubic mis-
rule and extravaganza, in evil pllgnt
oppressed with misfortune and doup-'
full of the future.
Pubic credit had been lowered, rev.
enues were declining. The outgoing
administration We're preparing ana
had prepared to issue bonds. gov
eminent deficit was confessed. Inc
panic which had devastated the Worlo
was relentlessly approaching our
shores A long Saturnalia of eXtlaVa-
gance. public and private and of reck-
less speculation bad been already fol-
lowed by depression. Corn was burn
ed for fuel in Kansas and elsewhere in
the West in 1890, and after. Cotton
was at or below the price of pro-
duction. The acute reaction which
we call panic was inevitably APP
preaching, even before Mr.. Cleveland
was elected. Business was sunk in
the depression" which preceded the
panic of 1898 Labor was unempfoy-
ed" or poorly remunerated in factory
or field, especially in the latter. IN
deed business depression, especially
in agriculture and the lack or ade-
ullate enumeration for labor, taken to-
gether with the high prices of manu-
factrues under the Mckinley act.
these constituted the chief industrial
reasons in the public mind for turning
Harrison and the Republicans out and
putting Mr.. Cleveland and the Demo
Gratis in. To go on with the para
phrase: Under Harrison's admins
tration for three years hope was falnt
and confidence gone" The pllght Oh
the people was so desperate that
like drowning men they were catch
ing at straws" Many nostrums were
being suggested. Agrarianism ana
state socialism in the shape of sub
Treasury and other schemes were rlte
from 1890 and thence on. The TWO
old parties as they were called, were
blamed for it all, but the one in pow
er was blamed most, hence the one
out of power got in. Men advocating
these nostrums, in the state or pubhc
desperation then existing counted
their audiences throughout the suf-
fering West and depressed South no
longer by numbers but by the acre.
Who will deny the historical truth
of a single sentence of the para
phrase? Why pretend to have forgot
ten all this? Why not be honest with
the people, as men ought to be? IL
is true that after the election of Mr..
cleveland the chronic business de-
preston continued. 1t is true that II
became acute: in word reached the
banks-and then the fight or panic OF
1898 came which was not local. or
American condition; but one which eX-
listed from where Vienna, now lies on
the Danube to where Buenos Ayres
commands it's bay one whose tounda-
tions had been laid long before II
reached us almost last among the ma
tons. Then with the panic upon us
more nostrums of a national charac-
ter were suggested to cure an evil OF
world wide character. One of them, as
you will remember, was the repeal OF
the purchasing clause of the sherman
act. This noStrum was suggested Dy
wise men ana II was aQlnlnlSlefeU 10
the patient. 1t did no good, of course.
The panic went on, went on, until the
boil upon the body commercial hav-
ing burst the poison of speculation,
boom values and credit operations was
released from the system. 1t went
on until agriculture, the basic indus
try, revived. In the midst of the panic
all the wise men. and chief among
them, the Republican leaders, told us
that at was lack of confidence in the
money of the country that had
brought on the panic.
The Gold Basis.
The Democratic administration with
a sufficient number of votes of both
parties in the two houses behind it
took that view of the situation and
demanded and secured the passage of
the act repeating the purchasing
clause of the Sherman act, thereby
for the first time, practically estab-
fishing the gold standard in the United
States. Without either free or limited
coinage of standard silver money, the
country was Immediately after the
passage of that act actually as it has
been since and as it is now. and as it
is destined to remain for a length of
time beyond my power of computa-
ton on a gold basis. was not one