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Show at nominal price, getting title to it. This the president put aside with the remark that there were not rery many of thee problems outside of Utah, and that, as he hai reported already, al-ready, his friend Smoot had agreed to fix the electoral elec-toral vote all right no matter what might he done. The secretary of the treasury was nest appealed to. and he said that affairs were not altogether satisfactory sat-isfactory in his department; that just now rnn-gress rnn-gress was trying to patch up some repairs on the tariff, but that a new diffievly had appeared. That because of the silver legislation of 1803 the money of the orient had. measured by our money, fallen "0 per cent in value; that still the orientals hired their laborer and bought their raw products with the same silver coins that they did twenty years ago; and when they came to ship their products to our coast, asking the old price for them in our money, they found they could sell them HO per cent cheaper and still make'the same pro'its that they made in the long ago. That this had caused ex-chrnge ex-chrnge to rie between the orient and the I'niteil States to a figure that made it impossible to ship anything from our country there, and at the same time enabled the oriental to hrinjr in their products and aell to u in the term of onir money 60 per cent cheaper than they formerly Hid and make the name profit. That thii being true, the tariff tinkerers realized at once that it wan iiKelea to try to make a tariff which would exclude these foreipn goods; thaL!Jieyjffejenpwjiivadiiigthe coal and iron mar-keta, mar-keta, and very oon 'Would close down our coal mine and our iron mine, because in San Franoittco and Seattle and Portland it would be cheaper for an iron master to buy hi coal and iron from the whip that came in from the orient, than to pay miner min-er honest wages, and have our own mines working. work-ing. That the tariff makers had discovered that it was useless to try to fix any tariff to keep these thing out, and that the variety of products from the orient was increasing every day; that now they can make ateel rail aa good a they make in Pittsburg, Pitts-burg, in China at one-fifteenth the cost of those in Pittsburg. That that same legislation on silver had confused our business in all South America where our best markets should he, and there were constant fluctuation of the price of their monev comnared A CABINET MEETING. There was a cabinet meeting in Washington the other day, which waa intended to be private, but tie- news ftf what happened got out and we got a report of it, on the underground telegraph. Presi-"-"dent-Taft opened the wee-tiagy-aaying-tluitJie wanted to consult with hi official advisers on the state of the country. Continuing, he said : "The Democrats are interfering with the tariff, declaring thst it doe not cornt1 up to Republican -. promise, and a you gentlemen all are aware, there will be another election next year for president, presi-dent, and it i necessary for u to get -our fences in the "best kind of repair." ; And he a.ked for an expression from Mr. Knox, the secretary of state. Mr. Knox wa forced to declare that business was not in good form throughout the country; that the people were more or less dissatisfied because the present financial system did not seem to meet the want of the country, and it waa impossible for the people ny 'a, to pursue their industry with our own. At this the secretary of the navy spoke up and said that while it was possible for us tn build as fine battleship a were built anywhere, that though the Panama canal, which had cost a vast amount of money, wa nearing completion, by the time it was finished it would simply be for the convenience of outside nations that we had no merchant ships. That even when we sent our battleships off on vny. ages we had to charter foreign collier to carry coal for them. That it wa crippling our trade in every direction ; that while we bought more from South America than all Europe combined, com-bined, the people of South America the mashes did not know that there was such a -.ountry as ours, because all they sold us they sold really to Oerman or English merchants, took their pay in German or English goods, then sent what they had bought to us by Herman or English ships, and that when they reached our coast we had paid not only for the original ori-ginal cost of the goods, but, the freight out from Europe to South America, back from South America Amer-ica to Europe, and then across the Atlantic to our shore. And that that policy gave them the pref. erence of all the trade, made the goods cost us two prices, destroyed our prestige in foreign lands, and further that when our products were sent abroad and when our tourists went abroad, they paid their money to foreign ship owners, which drained us of $:2."0,000.n00 a year. And that congress saw all this, saw how much we were paying to build up British and German shipping, but when a proposition was made to substitute American ships, there was a because they could not obtain money enough at fair rates to go on with their work. The preaident thought thi wa trange. the bank were flooded with money and there should not be any trouble; that the people had some $3.1 or $34 per capita to do business on. Mr. Knox said that that wa true on paper, but it waa not true in fact ; that the gold combine in New York held the country by tha throat an8 banker to the extreme limita of the republic were afraid tn go ahead lest some of the big plunger in New York City should do something to precipitate precipi-tate a panic which would apread over the country il day from Maine to Han Diego. Tha' the whole ayetem ought to be changed. . At this the president said; "Thai may be true, but we cannot interfere with that great gold.com-bine gold.com-bine because it takes a great deal oj money to run presidential campaign and next year we will need . some money," He next asked the new secretary of the interior how he found his department. . He reporte; that there was very much complaint, com-plaint, especially from the west on the conservation conserva-tion policy nf the administration, and explained that the people of the west were so stupid that taey could not aee how things were going to be helped by tying up all the water power in the west when the water waa all the time running to waste. And he said they were so stupid they couKl not see why !th coal measures of the west should be put in res-ervationt, res-ervationt, because the reason given for it, that it wa the property of the whole country and must not fall into the hand of monopolists, was insufficient insuffi-cient for the reason that poor men could not work foal mines, and it would require money in large amount to develop them. Then again he said the west was greatly dissatisfied dissat-isfied because of the recent advance made hy his 'department in the price of coal lands; that there had been but one price from the beginning and the only result would be that they would have to lie .' aa they were, because no man. rich or poor, would buy them at present prices, which practically gave : monopoly to those who already had mines with pat. ent on them and were working them. At this the president responded that most f that complaint came from I'tah. and that his fricn I. Senator Smoot. had assured him that he could count en the Republican electoral vote in I'tah, because h bad already arranged with his commander, the president of th Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Latter-day Saints, that the vote should he Republican. Then the secretary of the interior said there - was another complaint that an Indian reservation had been laid over a desert portion of I'tah and that the people familiar with that region said th.jt in the first plaee thtre were no Indians that needed the reservation, and in the second that su Indian could nut get enough to live on from a hundred . square mile of all that region. At thij the prcsi-, prcsi-, dent smiled and said that he had consulted Senator ' Smoot on that question, that the senator said there ; waa every prospect in that region of rinding a very ' auperior article of oil in vast quantities, and if that could be held up for a few years, there were a class of men in his community that would, after a while, furnish the money to open those fields. .' Then the secretary of the interior said that question had been asked him whirh he could Dot 'answer, and asked the advice of the gentlemen present, which wa. that if the oil fields and the eoal measure and the water power on the government govern-ment land weii to b tied, up in reservations, what : there wa left for the people to work upon and why - they should be discriminated against at this latu day in the republic, when in all the previous his- lory of the country the pioneer was given the prjvi-1 prjvi-1 zetif goitig out and finding what could and clas of men in congress that had no higher argument argu-ment than that they did not propose to let some men who were already rich in New York and Boston and Philadelphia accumulate more wealth hy putting put-ting ships of our own on the sea. He stated further that if any people anywhere in this country wanted to build a little line of railroad rail-road or a long line of railroad, they incorporated the road, issued bonds, sold them and built the road, hut that the bonds gravitated to Kiirope. niHking an annual pay roll of interest which, with what was paid for ocean travel, absorbed all the T4U).0lO,0On which we claimed a the balance of trade in our favor, and left us in a position -if working simply for board and clothes, and thst one failure of a crop could not help but paralyze evecy industry in our country. At this the president admitted that things were wrong, hut that the demonetization of silver was necessary, that it had depreciated so much below gold that it wa a swindle to use it as money, a swindle for people to pay their debts in a depreciated depreci-ated currency, and that whatever the . hardships might coipe from it wa necessary to maintain the integrity of our republic. Then the secretary of agriculture told the president presi-dent that recoguition wa what money needed, and that while the same recognition was given silver that wa given gold, it never depreciated one fraction frac-tion of a penny on the ounce. That the depreciation deprecia-tion came when that same combine, of New York and Leundon interest gatherer -by stealth had it do-monetized do-monetized that they might get in a position whirh they are now, to control the money of the world. At thi the president was not impressed. He said it might be) so, but that was ancient history, that now nothing could be done to take away the favor of those same interest gatherers because the money would be needed next year in the campaign. And there we are. If there, is any sign in the earth or the sky that anything can be hoped for from either the administration or from congress, it u not apparent to the naked eye. because in point of fact there seems to be no comprehension in Washington Wash-ington of the real state of our country and what i needed. ' . - . |