The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-15


and distress would reign everywhere;
but we rejoice today to point TO an m
eXampled prosperity in the nation,
with labor more generally employed,
at higher rates, shorter hours, ana
better conditions than ever before.
Our Republican friends tell US that al
ter the war is over that poor, stricken,
PROSTATE. torn, bleeding Europe Will
take our home market here from Us;
that this young, Virile republic. With
100, 900, 900 freemen, that has gone out
to take the foreign markets of the
world, must trembie in great fear lest
these war-torn countries with millions
OF their men-the flower and strength
of their manhood-buried in the
trenches. with their factories destroy
ed, their country laid waste, their
charred and blood-soaked land titled
with widows and orphans and crippled
men and upon them the heaviest debt
of all ages will come here to this
happy land. uncursed by wars ravages
or its burden of debt, and take our
home market from u.s. No, gentle
men; 1 have no such fear; America is
going to take the markets of the
world; we are going to meet our COM
petitors in the other markets of the
earth and take them, and this great
people here fears no competitor at
home that we are willing to meet away
from home. With the freight rate and
cost of transportation in our favor
here, we certainly have nothing to
fear when we are meeting them where
the freight rate and transportation
and many times adverse tariffs are in
their favor. But we shall cut from
them last hope of having even false
issue. for we shall pass a bill Great
/ ing a tariff board to gather the facts
created by the new war conditions or
the conditions that may exist after
peace is declared, and upon these Of
1 facts hU
terested in enriching themselves by
| taxing others. and with this gathered
/ information be ready to meet every
new condition which may arise.
| Federal Reserve Law.
| Would our Republican opponents
repe al the present federal reserve law
that emancipated the credit of a ga
ticD; that made the credit of the coun-
try to run in lfe-giving currents
through the avenues of business? I'm
create panic as the whole nation
witnessed in 1907. when all the
world was at peace and enjoy
ing unusual prosperity small
group of men upon Manhattan
| Island precipitated overnight one
of the greatest panics in the his
ter of the nation. 1t toppled values,
wrecked fortunes, destroyed holdings,
tul ned out of employment thousands
of men and locked the door of almost
every bank in the country against the
depositor who called for his own
money. The Republican party-in
control for forty years of our national
! life-either did not have the ability or
the courage or the desire to remedy
this brutal system that lodged the
money of a nation in the control of
this heartless group of men. The
Democratic party took control of this
nation, and under the leadership of
Woodrow Wilson met this great prob
lem We took the money control out
of the hands of this oligarchy; We
lodged it's control in the hands of the
government and created the federal
reserve banks of the country. We
rested the finances of the great peo-
pie of this nation upon what they
own, and not upon what they owe
The output of the factory, the prod
uct of the farm, the ore of the mine,
the business achievements of the peo-
pie. was the basis of the morey issued
! under this new system, and not the
bonds that were resting upon the peo-
pie What would have been the result
f the old Republican system had been
in effect when the worlds war broke
upon us? The stock exchanges in
every city in the world were closed,
Europe poured its vast holdings IN
pIethargic streams upon our shores.
The cry that went up from all the
nations of the old world was. we
want gold" Who thinks that the Re
publican system of finance under the
guidance of these patriotic guardians
would have been able to Withstand
this mighty cataclysm in the peace
and credit of the world? But what
was the result? Not a bank closed Its
doors: not a laborer was thrown out
of employment; not business was
forced into bankruptcy; but there
stood strong, serving. the masses OF
mankind this great legislative
achievement of the Democratic party
Panics no longer are possible me
truth of it is, they have only come
during the histoy of this nation, when
the Republican party either was IN
it had enacted were unrepeaied upon
our statute books
The panic of 1873 is familiar to the
older of our citizens. The Republican
party was in control The pane o., o.
1898 came while the laws written by
the Republican party were unre-
nealed upon the statute books, and the
plates for the issuance of bonds mad
been prepared by the outgoing Har-
, rison administration. And so we are
quite familiar with the panic OF Iso ;
: but as the master achievement OF
woodrow Wilson. to my mind, next to
keeping 100 million people at peace
: with the world. the historian will re-
: cord the federal reserve law that ere
. ated a democracy of credit in a re-
public of freemen and tablished a
: currency system controlled by the
government that is quickly responsive
, to the business needs of the country
Would our Republican friends sug-
l gest a repeal of this law? l imagine
} not, though we enacted it over their
; intense and bitter opposition. They
: stood upon the floor of the senate and
: with all the eoquence and logic at cir
[ command declared in solemn tones
| that if we did enact it into law that
! in so days the mightiest panic thai
.. ever broke upon a nation would be
!. with us. They said it was but re
l crudescence of greenba cl<ism and the
old free-silver craze. They declared
that the national banks, 5000 strong
would not go into it. We discarded
this advice. We weathered these evi
forebodings. and in the interest OF
> mankind we wrote the law. No Re
rnt,hlicarl cnnN-entinn from that day II