The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-05
THE PANIC UNDER
 HIGH TARIFF An Attempt to Charge It To the Repub-
 cans.
ONE WAY TOLOOK AT IT
The New York Evening Posts Ingenious
 Notion.

AAOWA dS IHe RoOSeN6II pdHlC, Iudt is comparatively unimportant The certain and significant thing is that 1t will be known as Republican and 1 hightariff panic. Protest as Republi- cans may, they will be held responsi- ble. And 1t will be not only poetic but political justice that they should | be.
 Out of their own mouths the Re- publican party and the Dingleyites will stand condemned. They fixed in 1896 the standard by which they can not escape being judged. In the par ty platform of that year, they referred to the panic of 1893. and the hard times following, squarely to charge up the entire accountability to the party in control of the national government. Not one word did they utter about the hand of the Lord having been heavy upon the country in crop failures; not q syllable was admitted about the unwise fiscal measures. and the dis honest silver legislation, for which the Republican party was alrectly respon- sible, and which all impartial students of the time agree had a great deal to do with the financial disturbances that came later, No; everything was charged up to the imbecile govern ment It was the Democratic ad- ministration which, the Republicans fervently alleged in 1896, had "pre- cipitated panic" and halted enter prise" And the political inference was stated with merciless logic. "Ev- cry consideration of public safety and individual interest demands that the government be rescued from the hands of those who have shown them selves incapable of conducting it-- and shall be restored to the party which for thirty years administered l. with unequaled success and prosper ity."
 Now, what are the Republicans go- ing to do when the Democrats hand them back their poisoned chalice? !? What above all, are they going to say about the tariff as an infallible and magical creator of wealth and guarantor of prosperity? A great emergency has come, and the high l tariff Is seen to be of no avail what ever. It was to keep us all rich and | prosperous. If any man talked about laying a rash revising hand upon 1t he was to be denounced and squelched, as President Roosevelt was lest even to question the supernatural virtues of St. Tarifa might cause her 1 to withdraw her favor when we should all be Aiserably ruined.
 1 It is, in fact, an extraordinary feat ure of this period of apprehension and panic that no mortal man has, to our knowledge, thought of the protective tariff as of any help whatever in the time of trouble. Yet If there is a word of truth in what has been said 1 by Republicans all these years, the tariff is the first thing everybody should have been turning to in the crisis. Is 1t not high customs duties 1 which keep wages high and everybody employed, make the trade balance favorable, and stuff the banks with money7 So we had fondly believed. Al the first alarm, however, the Repub. licans dropped their tariff fetich. They had not even the consistency of the worshipers of Baal who stood by their idol even when 1t did not seen to be doing its work we'll What wt should have witnessed these past few weeks if Republicans have writ theii prosperity annals true, was & loud de. mand for a higher tariff as our only salvation. As in 1896 the Republicans should have initiated the prophets oi Baal cried aloud and cut themselves with knives and lancets, and from morning until noon called out, "oh Tariff, hear us.' One reeson they die not may possibly have been that they feared lest some free-trader Hiitat might stand by and mock them; 'CrJ aloud; for he is god; either he 1, talking or he is pursuing, or he Is 1T a journey, or peradventure he sleep eth, and must be awaked." But Baa was a respectable object of worship compared with the tariff.
 Of course sensible Republicans have never believed a thous.ndth part o. the nonsense about the tariff as oul sole hope and stay, They have thought of 1t as a clever potitial dodge to dilate on their party as the only one that can make the nation prosper ous by means of protective taxes and have only hoped that their good luck in avoiding panics would keep on. The panic of 1898 was really their panic but they ran and left it on Cleveland's doorstep. For some time past they have been praying that the good times might not fail till after the next presidential election. This shows how they have thought of the whole thing as political But now theii panic chickens have come home tC roost Here we are in an "off" year the little talk there is of tariff re- form comes more from Republicans than from Democrats; no politica bugaboo can be alleged to be interfer ing with the beneficent workings O the high tariff, yet it is visib1y failing to do what its champions have VOW ed 1t always would do. The advance agent of prosperity has been replaced by the bill collector of diversity. Whatever other effects the panit may have it has at least dealt death-blow to the tariff superstition Perhaps in no other way could W, have got rid of it. Hereafter an! man who uses the argument that yo, must not demand the abolition of tar if outrages, since, if you do, you vii imperil prosperity, will be laughed at The way is at last open to at tack the question of protective dutlei in statesmanlike fashion, without hay