Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-03-17
EDITOR PnoT =

EDITOR PnoT =
The Wausau Record Herald Of yester-
day in long editorial on the blessings
of protective tariff, and particularly
of the Mckinley bill, says of the cleo
ton of 1892: 1.-The election returns he'd
hardly been counted and reported when
a panic spread over the land from one
end to the other" That statement is
strictly true, but Harrison remained
president, until the 4th of March follow
ing. The republican congress con-
vened on the first Monday of December
thereafter and continued until the end
of Harrison's term, the blessed McKin-
ley bill still continuing its beneficent
work.
President Cleveland called a special
session of congress to meet in August,
1893, to repeal the Sherman silver pur-
chase act of the Harrison administra-
ton, which had wrought such havoc.
During the year ending June Both, 1898.
over one hundred eight million dollars
of gold had been exported ana the
endless chain" was being operated by
spectators at home to rob the treasury
of its gold. To replenish the treasury's
supply of gold before leaving office,
President Harrison had engraved plates
for the printing of government bonds.
At the last moment he changed his
mind, deciding to defer payment of
current expenses, amounting to some
sixty millions of dollars, and by scraping
the treasury of defaced and subsidiary
coin to the extent of several millions,
deferred the issue of bonds to his sue
cessor, who used his plates.
The Record Herald says: 'There was
large treasury cash balance at the
close of Mr.. Cleveland's first term of
$40, 900, 600" This vast sum with vast
current revenues the Harrison admins
tration squandered and lett the treasury
bankrupt. Before that administration
had been in power sixteen months, John
Sherman warned his fellow republicans
that treasury deficit was already in
sight, and urged retrenchment in ex-
penditures, to which mis- fellow partisans
gave no heed.
The Wilson tariff bill was prepared in
the House and sent to the Senate, the
bulwark of privileges and the trusts.
There it was so transformed to promote
''the interests" by the republicans, aided
by few recalcitrant democrats, Boyce,
German, Murphy, etc., that its authors
could not recognize it. Fruitless efforts
of conference committees of the two
houses of congress to modify its most
outrageous provisions ended in its pass
age. President Cleveland refused to
sign the bill and denounced it in
scathing terms. The greatest political
mistake in his political career was his
failure to veto that bill and read the
riot act to those whose had so basely
betrayed their country.
The Wilson tariff bill went into effect
Aug. 90, 1894, near the middle of Mr..
Cleveland's term when the panic
had well nigh spent its force.
1t was a high protective meas
ure, the highest in our history ex-
cept the Mckinley bill and the most in
famous one of all, the present Dingley
bill. The panic of 1893, occurred under
the Mckinley bill. Inasmuch as the
panics of 1878, 1893 and 1907 occurred
l.
it not folly to attribute prosperity to the
tariff Is it not about time to wrap in
the "bloody shirt" this hoary- headed,
moss backed lie that Cleveland S election
caused the panic of 1893, and lay it by
the side of the payment of the rebel
debt by the democrats, and other buga-
boos, on a shelf in the crypt of republi-
can issues and falsehoods
OBSERVER.