The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1904-07-06
IGNORANT
Or WilfulIu Disappointing
The Truth.
[Lexington HERALD

'<NNAii > e~f' AA~-"3
Our Republican friends are in
the habit Of making confident state
ments Of alleged historleal facts !.
sometimes in criticism and censure
If the Democrats, sometimes in
comm ndstion of their own conduct
Among other such confident and
inaccurate statements in the plat
ioim adopted by the res ent Repub-
ican convention in obsdience to
the order OF the President ARE two:
That Democratic tariff has al
ways beel foIIowel by business adj
versity, a Republican tariff by bus
mess prosperity" By the fatuous
and unfortunate division OF the
Democratic party at Charleston in
1860 Mr.. Lincoln was electe Presi-
dent and was inaugurated March
lS61--forty-three years ago. Since
tlat day the Democratic party
have had possession OF the Presi-
dency and both Houses of Con
eress for only two years and, there
fore, could not enact tariff law
during that long period except
during that short int rival of two
years. Those two years were from
March 4th, 1898, to March 4th,
1896. So it is certain that every
tariff act passed from March, 1861,
to March 1898, was Republican
act. Was there continuous, I'M
broken period of business prosper
ity from 1861 to 1882 Were
there no periods of depressionS
No bankruptcies2 The New York
Times Answers that question as
follows:
The Republican party came into
power in 1861; this clearly fixes the
period in which comparison between
the Republican and Democratic tariffs
and their consequences must be made.
Since that date there have been half a
dozen times of great depression in bus
mess which were accompanied by
enough excitement Of the public mind
to be called panics. The first occurred
in the spring of 1851 and wac due
wholly to the impending contest with
secession. The second occurred in
1866 7, when the number of failures
ran up to also and the liabilities Of
failed concerns to 500, 500 900. In 1873
there was third depression, which has
become memorable in our history,
when the failures reached 5,I83 and
the liabilities the then unprecedented
amount of $72S, 4oo,o 600. Five years
later there was a fourth interval of stag
nation and disturbance, when the num-
Der of failures nearly doubled and the
70 $s5i, 55SS5,T57. in 1854 the fifth de-
preston caused the record of failures
TO reach almost the same figures. Fin
ally in 1898 we had the appalling total
of failures at I5,542 end the total of
liabilities at $346,779, $50.
Here are five periods of panic of
...1,:o1, H. -ooo~J ;e a,,t,~a1.- oo...~fa4a
and all but the earliest of which are
within the memory of a very large
number of experienced business men.
Every one of them occurred under a
Republican tariff. Not one of them
followed a Democratic tariff, for the
conclusive reason that no Democratic
tariff was in existence from the first to
the last If they were caused by tariffs
at all--and the tariff had much to do
with them indirectly-it must be that
they were caused by Republican tariffs.
Hssops wolf was not more mandacious
or more silly, than the writer of the
Republican platform"
The Democrats organized the
5Srd Congress at the extra session
in August, 1898. Under the oper
alton of the Sherman act the silver
question had become acute, and it
was clear that unless some unusual
measures were adopted the run on
the treasury would be disastrous.
Mr.. Cleveland called Congress in
extra session and at it the purchss-
ing clause of the Sherman act was
repealed, and the Wilson bill adopt
ed, and at that session no tariff
legislation was enacted. The finan-
cial depression had commenced in