OCR Text |
Show Theories and Solid Facts. H Mr. Bryan's Commoner says: "Now Is the !H time to dissolve the trusts, reform the tariff and H roduce railroad rates, and no threat of panic H should scare the public." H That was all included in the Democratic plat- H form of 1892; the people took the word of the :H party and elected its candidate for Prosldent. But jH the state of beatitude that was to follow did not H materialize to any largo extent. The trusts were H not disturbed, but the tariff Avas remodeled In the H House exactly to suit Mr. Bryan's ideas. Fortu- H nately Mr. Gorman in the Senate revised it some- H what when It reached that body. Had ho not thero would never more over have been any Dem- HI ocratlc party. Under that rovision the country be- H gan to slowly recover. True thero was not so H much money In the country as there at present iH is, but like causes produce like offocts everywhere H and always. Now the trusts In the United States H are larger, somo of them, than the trusts of the jH old world, but In merciless extortion, the man- lH agors of our trusts are more amateurs by com- JH parison. And their existence is patent proof that H tho trust is not the child of the tariff as Mr. Dry- H an fondly believes. The trust Is but a device of H capital to extort greater revenue by combining. H There are two kinds of trusts. One is honest and H II clean, the other descend to graft and oppression. Now it has been proven In the last two years that what Is Illegal and unjuat in the latter class can be reached and corrected by the natural action ac-tion of the laws when they are honestly enforced. The tariff, in our judgment, ought to be revised, but Mr. Bryan's idea of revision is annihilation. Again the complaint against railroads is not in the prices charged, but in the discriminations produced. pro-duced. And the fact remains that notwithstanding notwithstand-ing the seven last fat years which tho railroads have enjoyed, almost all of them are seeking to borrow money, and Mr. J. J. Hill, who ought to bo good authority, declares that a round bllli- . of money will bo required annually for five years to come, to put tho roads in order to enable them to handle tho traffic of tho country. Mr. Bryan says no panic need be feared bo-i bo-i cause there Is so much money in the country. I Now lot a President be elected on the platform which he outlines above, and where would tho ; surplus money of tho country go between tho day of election and tho day of inauguration? We had an example after tho election in 1892. "What surplus money thero was wont into hiding. Tho trusts no longer bothered; the tariff no longer lon-ger oppressed; tho railroads as a rule went into tho hands of receivers. There was a much worse feature. Men who depended upon their dally toll through which to procure their daily food, were denied the chance to earn the bread their families fam-ilies needed and armies of tramps wandered aimlessly aim-lessly up and down tho land. Can Mr. Bryan guarantoo us against a repetition repeti-tion of that? He says thero is more money, but the surplus money is always in a few hands. Could not a man lock up $10,000 next year, as easily eas-ily as ho did $1,000 in the winter of 1802-1893? Mr. Bryan is in many Ways a brilliant man, but he has never yet figured out how to apply a theory E to strict business without smashing the business. |