Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1906-12-28

.6SluellG I1drrlSOD, WlGn Tie NC
Kinley high tariff law in full
operation. These refer to the
year 1892 as beginning of the
panic" which they allege resulted
from alarm of manufacturers due
to prospective tariff readjustment,
whereas the difficulty was not so
much from panic" as from the
prolonged period of ruiroas fall
in prices with resulting stagnation
In all lines of business.
In the political campaign of
1883 the advocates of high tariff
promised relief from the then ex-
listing conditions of falling prices
and growing depression, and upon
this promise elected Harrison and
a congress which enacte the Nc
Kmley tariff, u law put forward
as the relief measure and redemp-
tlon of campaign promise, logical
Interpretation of which was re
lief of agricultural distress. by
farmers paying more for supplies
of factory and shop" Under the
stimulus of that law, factories and
shops resumed business an operat-
ed until their warehouses be we're
piled with goods, but these sup
plies unpurChased, shops and fac
tories again closed their doors.
The experiment having served to
demonstrate the fact, that with
sufficient bounty in prospect,
manufacturers would reklndle
their fires and re-employ labor.
The more important fact. how
ever, demonstrated, was that
tariff prices for agricultural
stables and as at prevailing prices
for these staples, agricultural
classes were without means to
purchase, goods of shop and fac
tory remained unsold and hence
shop and factory we're forced to
again close their doors.
The promise of relief from fall
ling prices. made to agricultural
by theorists and bene6-
Charles of high trifs failed to
under the operations
of a law, containing a higher
schedule of duties than ever be-
fore enacted by Congress. And
disappointed with result of the
Mckinley law, farmers who had
been led to hope that falling
prices for their products might
be checked by payment of in
creased prices for goods of shop
and factory, turnd in 1890 in cleo
ton of congress against the high
tariff administration of Harrison
and Mckinley, and still later with
no alienation from growing dis
tress, turned with despair in 1892
to Cleveland, ready to take
chances with anything as against
existing conditions, with faint
hope of escape from impending
ruin.
With cheapened steerage pas
sage and quick transit, hordes of
labor from the Pan.Slavic races
of Southern Europe-Polanders,
Italians, Greeks and Russians
reach our shores in numbers never
before equalled, these competing
everywhere with the American
workman, Representing the
lowest type of European labor,
these people herd together in un-
sanitary aud filthy apartments and
subsisting largely upon the off fall
of butcher shop and vegetable
stores, lead an existence most re-
pulsive to the American laborer.
A workman of this class acc umu-
lating a sufficient sum returns to
the Land of his nativity, where be
buys a few acres upon which be
thereafter lives in a style looked
upon as lordly by his associates.
This labor is now more &C cessible
to employers than was the labor
of Connecticut to the farm and
shop in Ohio forty years ago.
From the labor markets of the
world comaS thia staadv and dae-