The Monte Vista journal., 1915-12-25
BY EDWARD KEATING.
from the Third Colo

RADIO District.)
WASHINGTON, D. C.-Prosperity
is with us! We have the word of all
the recognized authorities to support
this statement.
Another Republican prophecy has
been knocked into cooked hat. The
years of Democratic rule are not
necessarily lean years for the nation.
The full dinner-pail is not depend
ent on a high-protective tariff.
During the last session of Con-
gress every Republican orator who
took the floor emitted calamity
howl which could be heard from
ocean to ocean. We were assured that
the country was going to the dem
milton bow-wows and that its only
hope of escape lay in the election of
a Republican Congress. The people
ignored the advice and continued the
Democrats in control of the govern
ment with the result that in world
of woe the United States is the sole
oasis where peace, happiness and
prosperity prevail.
The Washington Post, an organ of
the standpatters, sums up the situa-
ton, editorially, as follows:
viewing the business situation
from a financial, a commercial, an
agricultural or an Industrial stand
point. the present is very bright and
the future looks most brilliant.
Viewing it from an impartial po-
litical position, no party ever in
power in this country has produced
such prosperity as now exists, and
handicapped as is the Republican
party by its undeniable failure to
maintain good times after 1906 and
it's years of business confusion and
depression from 1906 to 1913, it
will have to show cause for the GUST
ing of the Democrats in 1916 and
make new pledges to the American
people If they would win.
"It is not now entitled to win on
it's old record.
That old record was neither ac-
ceptable to big business, to little
business nor to the masses of the
people,"
Leader Kitchens Debut.
Congressman Claude Kitchen of
North Carolina last Thursday made
his initial appearance as the leader
of the Democratic majority in the
House, and he more than sustained
the hopes of his friends.
For an hour and half, before
House, he defended the record of his
party. The Republicans hurled
their chosen champions against him
but he overthrew them with a smil-
ing ease which aroused the widest
enthusiasm on the Democratic side
With presidential campaign only
few months away, both sides are
in "scrappy" mood. Kitchen from
the beginning indicated that he had
no desire to fight on the defensive,
but, on the contrary, would endeavor
to carry war into the enemy's camp
He insisted that the Underwood
tariff bill was success from every
standpoint; that 1t had produced
more revenue than the Payne-Aldrich
tariff bill, and that on August 1,
1914-the day the European war
broke out-the United States trea-
sury contained larger surplus than
had been available on the same day
in any year of Taft's administra-
ton.
The effect on business, he said,
was best evidenced by the fact that
the railroads of the East confessed
they could not handle the business
offered them by American mills and
mines and quarries.
How the Tariff "Protects."
To illustrate how little some
business men know concerning the
effect of the tariff on their business,
Kitchen tells good story on one
OF the largest manufacturers OF shoes
in this country.
This gentleman, who is exceeding
pompous, appeared before the Ways
and Means Committee to protest
against placing shoes on the free