The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-11-28
TWO PANiCS COMPARED.
One nder Free Trade, the Other
Under Protection

One tnder Free Trade, the other
Under Protection.
Many have been the explanations OF
the stock market crash and the runs on
banks. President Roosevelt and a ma
jority of the American people are
agreed that the financial shock was due
to a elimination of abuses by men who
have played fast and loose with honest
and honorable business principles.
There have been those, however, who
have blamed not the evils which were
threatening our most sacred institu-
tions, but the President for turning the
light on the evils. Some have accused
newspaper headlines for announcing
that the Clearing House Committee was
throwing high financiers out OF the
presidencies OF banks and trust com
panies, and for telling that there were
runs on repositories when there were
runs. Others have charged the dis
turbances to the defects of our cur
rency system. Still others have offered
different reasons-some weird. yet not
insane; some picturesque. yet partly
true.
But it has remained for the saplent
tariff editor of the Evening Post TO
discover that the thing 10 blame for
the whole business is the Dingley law,
or, since the panic befell us under the
Dingley act that no one ever again
shall be able to say. that the Wilson law
was responsible for the bankruptcy,
poverty and misery which overwhelmed
us at the beginning of President Cleve-
lands second administration and con-
tinued to rage like a plague until the
voters OF the United States went to the
polls in 1896 and cast their ballots for
the restoration of the American tariff
system now in operation.
There are some facts of sensational
difference, of course. in the two events.
The Wilson law panic did not expire in
forty-eight hours it endured for sew
eral years. Then, season after season,
farmers burned their crops in their
stoves for fuel and in the fields to clear
them, because it did not pay To send
them to market Now there are hun
dreds of millions of profits in the crops.
and at this moment the farmers, with
mortgages paid off and bank accounts
fat. are sending to market some six or
seven billions of products bid Tor by
our people and by the world at prosper
ity prices. As they receive their checks
for their new wealth now pouring upon
them the farmers, going to their banks
to deposit the proceeds. ride in automo-
biles. Then the factories and mills and
FORCES closed they remained closed
through the gloomy weeks and months
and years Now there is an unbroken
hum of Industry over the land. Then
wage earners had their pay cut, lost it
altogether. ate UP their savings in the
banks and Joined the bread lines. For
full presidential term the most con-
Dicuous thing in the world was the
empty dinner pail of America. the most
active industry in this country the
charity soup house. Now this is ma
ton of workers on full time. with
surplus of wages and profits, the week
after the panic as the week before. to
swell the savings banks accounts by
millions, TO buy homes and to give the
best living anywhere on earth. Then
the United States government, along
with the public went broke 1t had
not enough income TO equal its expendi-
lures it could scarcely borrow enough
money TO pay its bills from day to day.
Now the treasury piles up such
daily surplus that it can toss few
hundred millions into the banks to SUP
ply currency and stop prosperity
panic.
In the Wilson law period there was
panic of long duration, not because
there was insufficient currency with
which to do the business of the people.
but because there was no business to
provide American bread and butter.
Farms were wastes, mills and factories
were abandoned. Industry was pros
trate. And this misery-the misery of
a poverty panic-was long continued.
Yet the joeose free trade oracle tells
us. though the facts of the two panics-
the prosperity panic and the poverty
panic-are different. the principles in
yolved are the same. Wherefore Is pro-
lection now banished from us as a SUI
perstition; wherefore shall this be the
end OF the American tariff system.
Perhaps-when the people of the Unit
ed States are able TO suDsist on green
cheese imported from the moon.VNew
York Press.