The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1904-10-16

Senate and House of Representatives
of his own political faith, the manu-
facturers, realizing that the tariff
laws would now be altered, began to
curtail the production of their facto-
ries and workshops. Men became idle
and were unemployed. With the
opening of the regular session of Con-
gress in 1893 tariff tinkering began.
More mills and workshops banked
their fires and closed their doors. At
ter many months of wrangling and
contention the Wilson-Gorman tariff
bill was passed. 1t became law
without the Presidents signature be-
cause, in his opinion, 1t did not go
far enough.
And then came Coxeys army and
the tramp of the unemployed rever-
berated throughout the length and
breadth of the land. Samuel Gompers,
the head of the American Federation
of Labor, gave it as his opinion that
5000, 600 of our fellow citizens were
out of work. Free souphouses had to
be established in every section of our
common country. The distress of our
people was complete and thorough
And then, in 1896, after as severe and
costly an experiment as our country
men had ever INDUCED in, they re-
versed their actions of four years be-
fore, the lamented William Mckinley
was elected by an overwhelming ma
jority and again the executive and
legislative branches of our Govern
ment came into the hands of the Re-
MI antxy I. .
after his Inauguration President Nc
Kinley called the Congress of the
United States in extraordinary ses-
sion for the purpose of framing a new
tariff law. Within a few months the
Dingley bill was written on the statute
books of the United States and in an
incredibly short space of time wave
of prosperity swept over our country
that has never been equaled in this or
any other land or cline.
During those four years of famine
how did the citizens of San Francisco
and of the State of California fare?
And what has been their portion of
the marvellous era of plenty that we
enjoyed during the last seven and a
half years of bountiful abundance?
which were furnished me by ]. Cal
Ewing, secretary of the Board of
Bank Commissioners of this State.
During the four years of Democratic
administration what with tariff tin
kering agitation and the Wilson-Gor-
man tariff act in force there was a
decrease in the deposits Of the three
largest savings banks in San Fran
cisco, to wit, the Hibernia, the Ger
man and the San Francisco Savings
Union, of $4,059,20S. Now the saw
ings banks represent the surplus of
the money earned by the working peo-
pie. And according to these figures
the deposits dropped over $4,000, 900
from what they were at the close of
THE administration of Benjamin Har-
rison at the beginning of 1893. In
other words, the working people had
to draw upon the funds which they
had set apart for rainy day-and, in
verify. the proverbial rainy day came
with the advent of complete Demo-
cratic administration in 1898.
YEARS OF PLENTY.
Then like a transformation scene
in some magnificent spectacle, came
the four years of plenty under Will
liam Mckinley. Instead of drawing
cut their hard-earned dollars, they be-
gan again to make their deposits and
from July, 1897, to July, 1901, there
was an increase in the deposits in
these three banks of $21,977,774. Dur
ing the succeeding three years and
one month, from July, 1901, to August,
Continued on Page 20, Column 3.