Jf J
'Che Conservative , a
admitted that .he had accomplished
ratification.
By what right cau Bryan and his
disciples criticise the results iii the
Philippines ? Did
. . _ .
not the Bryaus ,
Baileys , "Chump" Olark and other
chumps brag that they had forced the
administration ? Are such statesmen
estopped or not estopped from criticism ?
A POSSIBILITY.
and conservative
citizen the political outlookwith MoKin-
leyisin and Bryauarchy the prevailing
atmosphere , is not reassuring as to the
perpetuation of the American republic.
It is quite possible that the best class
of republicans and the gold standard
democrats may yet formulate a new
political party and proclaim its principles
to be the constitution , economy , civil-
service reform and a rigid adherence to
the honest and patriotic methods of ad
ministration instituted by the founders
of this government. Such an organiza
tion , when seventy million of people are
menaced with candidature , which is
controlled by two sets of political bosses ,
is a possibility , if not a probability in
1900.
But if no such new party is born this
year , the study of thoughtful Ameri
cans will be to determine the least of
the two evils presented for their
suffrages by the Platt-Quay-Hanua
bossooraoy on the one side and the Allen-
Butler-Coin Harvey-Altgeld and W. J.
Stone syndicate of bosses on the part of
Bryauarchy.
Who of the two fore-ordained candi
dates will be least destructive ?
Possibly Bryan will gain numbers oi
voters in the East , but not enough to
carry any electoral college. Possibly he
will fall off in votes in the Rooky Moun
tain and Pacific states and fail to get
all the electoral votes in those sections
which he did get in 1896.
Is it possible for any man to show
whore Bryan , with a reiteration of the
financial and other vagaries of the
Chicago platform of 1896 , cau get elec
toral votes which were lost in that year
or possible to hold all those which he
then secured ?
KETKACTION
NECKSSAKY.of California , one
of the leading gold
democrats of the country , has given GUI
the conditions upon which sound money
democrats will support Mr. Bryan
They consist in a complete renunciation
of the Chicago platform and a public
apology by Mr. Bryan for the many
heresies he then advocated. The state
meut of Mr. Irish will be a revelation to
those Bryauarohists who deceived them
selves into believing that the calamity
prognosticator of 1896 would receive the
support of a reunited party. The con
ditions , laid down by Mr. Irish , wil
iv - . ' >
hardly bo complied with. Mr. Bryan is
too skillful in politics to go before the
) cople as a self-confessed demagogue ,
) y acknowledging that ho promulgated
nothing but heresy in 1896 and admit-
ing that every direful prophecy was
'also. He realizes that to bo consistent
ho must persist in error.
Mr. Irish thus names the conditions
of gold democratic support :
"First , that Mr. Bryan shall publicly
disavow the Chicago platform of 1896 ;
, , . , , . second , that ho
Itcinuliuto Populism. , , , , . , , , ,
shall admit that
the silver issue of that year was a false
issue and that his advocacy of it involved
the falsification of the financial views of
Jefferson andJackson. _ Then he must
admit that every prophecy made by him
in that campaign regarding the disas
trous effects which would follow ad
herence to the gold standard has failed
to come true. If he will do these things ,
repudiate the populistic nomination
given him at Sioux Falls , terminate all
relations with the silver republicans and
declare that the financial measures of
Mr. Cleveland's administration were
sound and democratic , he will easily
receive the unanimous vote of the gold
democracy of the country.
"If the attitude of Mr. Bryan remains
unchanged , the gold democracy will
stand with great unanimity in defense
of the gold standard , already crystallized
into the law of the land , and in urging
the accomplishment by legislation of
other financial declarations of the In
dianapolis platform of 1896.
"Surely , as we were right in those
declarations then , we will now be right
in supporting these policies until all are
imbedded in safety in the law. Every
one knows that if populism should suc
ceed under the leadership of Mr. Bryan ,
not only would there be no further
legislation in the interest of a sound
system of finance , but what has already
been accomplished would be swept
away. Chaos would come again. "
1TREEAVOOI. .
Forum , Mr. Jacob
Schoenhof contributes an article en
titled , "An Unwritten Chapter in Recent
Tariff History , " that brings out some
interesting truths about the Wilson
tariff. Under this act , for the first time
manufacturers were able to purchase
wool in the open market and were pro
tected by a duty upon the manufactured
product. That free raw materials
greatly stimulated domestic manufacture
is proven by the statistics for that period
For September and October 1896 , after
the economic principles of the law became -
came operative , the imports of woolen
goods were $881,886 against $2,086,762
for the corresponding period of 1895
For the four mouths ending December
81st , they were 1800,850 against $4,028 ,
684 for the like period of 1895.
This does not mean , however , a fall
ng off in the use of wool. On the
contrary the per
Per Cupltu Con-
Humptlon. capita consump
tion of wool was
; he largest it has been for the last
iwouty years , amounting to 8.2 pounds.
The per capita consumption for the
period 1884-86 was 7.55 ; 1887-90 , 0.85 ;
1891-94 ( McKinley tariff ) 0.8 ; 1895-90
( Wilson tariff ) 8.2 ; 1897-1900 ( Dingley
tariff ) 5.9. The year 1900 , depending
upon domestic resources , will have a per
capita consumption of but 4.8 against
6.59 for Germany.
Mr. Schoenhof establishes the fact
that a tariff on wool only serves to raise
the price of woolen goods to the con
sumer , thereby placing the manufac
tured product beyond the purchasing
capacity of the wage-earning classes
who must content themselves with
shoddy goods , composed principally of
cotton , for which they must pay more
than the cost of a good all-wool article
under the Wilson tariff.
In the year 1877
RAILKOADS.
thirty - nine per
cent of the entire railway mileage of the
United States was controlled by 862
different railway companies. Twenty-
one years later , in 1898 , the unification
of railways progressed to such a degree
that fifty-six per cent of the mileage of
the country was under the management
of only 44 companies. In these twenty-
one years the rate of freight per ton per
mile in the United States has declined
from about 15 mills to 7) < j mills per ton
per mile.
* One
JACKSON AND
SIXTEEN TO ONE.Bryanarchists ,
who claim to be
Andrew Jackson democrats , will find
small comfort in the opinion of Roger
B. Tauey , Jackson's secretary of the
treasury. The following is taken from
the Omaha Times ( democratic ) of Jan.
27 , 1858 :
"In 1884 , the present chief justice of
the United States , Roger B. Taney , at
that time secretary of the treasury , laid
down the following economical axiom ,
the truth of which has been abundantly
corroborated by the experience of recent
years :
" 'It will invariably happen , that when
the circulating medium is composed of
different kinds of money , and one of
them is less valuable than the other ,
but not sufficiently depreciated to be
discredited , the inferior will , after a
time , become the general currency and
the more valuable will entirely dis
appear. ' "
It is quite evident from the above that
Jackson was not an advocate of the use
of 100 cent gold dollars and 50-cent sil
ver dollars which Bryauarohists call
"bimetallism. " As Tauey puts it the
use of two metals of different value at
the same time at a fixed legal ratio is a
commercial impossibility.