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Show THE SMOOT WAIL. Wc sec that Apostle Smool has not yet got over his mulligrubs with to. spect to the Democratic partisan tariff bill, and he is opposing it on the same old ground that tho passago of the Wilson tariff bill was opposed eighteen years ago. and making the same laments la-ments that wore mado then, on its passage. But, as every one knows, tho condition? aTc -so different now from the conditions" then that no proper comparison can bo dmwn. When Cleveland was elf;fe.l in 1S92, things went to smash alircst at once, and as soon as the country found that President Cleveland was determined to smash the. silver purchase law. and to put through a tariff bill that was substantially sub-stantially a free-trade measure, everybody every-body was caught unaware and tho conditions con-ditions were ripe for a panic. The panic ensued, and filled the country with "industrial armies," so called, which pap'scd from one part, of th country to another like swarms of grasshoppers, devouring as they wcur. No such condition cxistf now, nor has it existed sjuee the election of 'President 'Presi-dent Wilson. There was no such pessimism pessi-mism in business and industrial circles upon tho. election of President Wilson as thcro was upon the election of President Clcvelaud, with his repudiation repudia-tion of tho silver plank in the platform upon which he was elected, and his determination de-termination to put this country in its unprepared state in direct competition with the manufactories of Great Britain, Brit-ain, Germany, and France. What Apostle Smoot fails to take note of is that the United States in the eighteen years that have passed since then, has had such a development qf manufacturing industries that in many lines wc oxcel the world, and ask no odds of any country or of any workmen. work-men. Specifically, after it was announced an-nounced from Washington a fortnight or so ago thai the tariff was to be taken off from sugar, the Republican Senators agreed that taking the tariff off of sugar would not reduce the price to tho consumer. This being truo, as wo bcliove it to be, it is impossible for us to see the destruction of this industry that Apostle Smoot seems to consider so imminent. There will be thrco years to work up to the taking off of the tariff on sugar. Tn that thrco years, if thcro is anylacutcness in the sugar situation, the people 'f the United States can, and doubtless will, elect a Congress that will modify; tho tariff on sugar in such a way as to preserve the sugar industries. Bui in the meantime the sugar business is so thoroughly organized in combinations combina-tions and trusts that it is impossible to imagine any great change in the price of sugar to the consumers in the United States. But if there is not to be such a change in the price, the sugar trusts can keep right along selling at tho same old rate and pay the same old prices for sugar beets. We are sorry to see that Apostle Smoot does not get up to dale in his tariff discussions. Ilia mind appears to be so thoroughly saturated -with tho sadness of the troubles which ensued upon tho election of President ''Move-land ''Move-land in 1S92. that not a ray of sunshine can permeate tho gloom. 'Our advice to him is to brace up, and see if lie cannot note a ray or two of light at the present time, as compnrcd with the gloom which settled upon the country and appears to have dwelt within the Smoot 'mind ever since the Cleveland disasters fell upon ns with such crushing crush-ing force. The truth is that the fariir bill has been pretty well discounted, and while it is a bad bill ouough, it is sure that it- is designed to cast scarcely a shadow compared with tins conditions which prevailed and which traveled the downward path aleng with the industries of the country upon the passage of the Wilson tariff bill o." 'rS9 |