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Show THE TARIFF TINKERS. The Commoner copies from a recent intenie with Secretary Shaw, the burden of which is hat the country is prosperous, but that it is running at a high rate of speed; that the peoples' monev is being largely invested in the industrial combine stocks, and that any great agitation affecting the finances of the country would be disastrous. Upon this the Commoner dilates, declares that the Re. publican tariff favors tho trusts, which are at-sorbing at-sorbing the money of the banks, which is the peoples' peo-ples' money. This is no doubt true. But there are other considerations. The peoples' money would not go that way if the people did not -wish it to. A warfare on the tariff and trusts would not stop the desire in the hearts of the people to make money, to get for it the highest possible in-terest. in-terest. Legislation can no more stop the desire of men to speculate than it can kill any of the vices that attach to poor humanity. Legislation can do what it did eight and nine years ago it can tie up all the money in the country and stop the wheels of every enterprise and every industry; but that is not a very desirable consummation to look forward for-ward to. Mr. Bryan's Commoner shouts, "Does a protective tariff put the country in a position where gross injustice and high-handed extortion must bo meekly submitted to as tho alternative of a panic?" The answer is, the people do not feel the injustice, do not smart under the extortion The present situation suits them better than they were suited in the days when the Wilson bill was incubating. As to the danger of a panic, that is always present, when speculation is running wild in a country, as it is now, as it always is when there is a surplus of money. Through some unfor-seen unfor-seen and entirely unexpected circumstances between be-tween 1897 and 1901 this country drew from the outside world a balance of 2000 millions of dollars. That set every wheel of industry rolling and gave work to every man who desired to work. Interest sunk so low that men with capital began to look arourd for investments which would pay more than Government bonds pay. Because of the mighty surplus of money, combines began to form wjiicii men in every State hurried to invest in. This rage for speculation continues still at high pressure. The Commoner asks: "To what will Republicans attribute the precarious condition?" Char ie Fair, with his wife, was running an automobile auto-mobile at the rate of seventy-two miles an hour in F'ance the other day. A tire broke which deflected de-flected the machine; it struck a tree and in a moment mo-ment both the unfortunates were dead. There was no fault in the machine, it was of the costliest pattern, pat-tern, there was no fault in the road, it was beautifully beau-tifully mecademized; the fault was in the speed. That is the present danger in this country. The vast surplus of 2000 millions, together with all tho country's products and all the mighty aggregate aggre-gate of the country's labor, is not so vast a sum that reckless speculation cannot precipitate panics and tie up the treasure. It is not so great that the banks of the country cannot do what they did in 1893, combine to close their vaults against any loans, paralyze tho land and cause every enterprise to be transfixed in a day. The natural advice of a journal anxious for the welfare of the people would be to caution them that the country is carrying too much steam and to slow down. But the Commoner's Com-moner's advice is to break a tire and run into the first tree. When Mr. Shaw welcomed a sensible revision of the tariff he talked good sense; when any man or newspaper advocates the smashing of It as was done in 1893-94, it is but advocating wholesale ruin. |