The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 41, October 27, 1894 Page: 1
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VO]
THURBER, TEXAS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1894.
NO. 41
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
NEW YORK, October 22 1894.
Editor of THE TEXAS MINER :
business situation here continues without material change,
i Prices are tow, the volume of distributive business moder-
ate and everybody in the mood of saying things mi^ht be better
and they might be worse. The dry goods trade has been rather
quieter than groceries. Some large auction sates in speciat tines
has attracted many targe buyers, and in a targe way has given
some animation to the market, but the regutar distributive trade
has been rather stow. Such houses as the H. B. Claflm Co.,
Teft, Wetter & Co.. Sweetzer Penbrook & Co., Dunham Buck-
tey & Co. and other targe dry goods jobbers are not tooking
forward to targe dividends m profits at the end of the year, and
are agitating the subject of cuttmg down wages on the ground
that at) profits are reduced cotrespondingly, that a dottar witt
buy more of everything than heretotore. and that wages cannot
tong remain an exception to this rute. Thus - history repeats
itself.'' and at) experience goes to show that you cannot injure
one or benefit one without injuring pr benefiting many. The
free traders ctaim that we mu.--t make the cost of living as cheap
as possibte. The protectionists ctaim that we shoutd protect the
producer; that if the producer can't buv the manufacturer cannot
manufacture, and operatives must starve. Free traders retort
that if the producer cannot get as much for his produce he can
buy much more for what he does realize for it, and is as welt off
as if he sold his produce for more and paid more for hat he
bought. And, as with att questions, there is a certain amount of
truth on both sides— good in all. none ait good"—and the aiii-
culty is in judging of the whole situation and deciding where the
weight of evidence lies. " To a man up a tree," as General
Sherman said it tooks as if the weight of evidence was on the
side of the protectionist, for the reason that nations are compet-
itors. and what is good for us is not good for our competitors.
We have free trade in the United States and if the whote world
was a United States, with the same scale of living and the same
scale of wages, everything would work out equitably, but it is
not, and hence unless we are witting to bring our labor down to
the same scale of living that the Italians and the Potes and the
Chinese are satisfied with at home, we must put up the bariers
for the benefit of ourseives and those Itatians. Poles and Chinese
who have already come here. Tennyson's dream of "the par-
liament of man. the federation of the world." was a beautiful
ideal, but the average working man is too selfish to appreciate it.
The average man is satisfied with the ideal of patriot-
ism. which, being interpreted, means what is for the benefit of
his own home and his own country. Bovee said that "in former
times war was a business, but that in modern times business is
war." To an outsider it tooks as if the Democrats had adopted
the ideal of "the parliament of man, the federation of the
world," and that the Republicans had espoused the idea of
patriotism, embodied in the idea that our own countrv is a wide
enough field to operate in. and that it is safer to "endure the itts
we have than to fly to others we know not of." I he verdict of
the country, expressed in the election this fall, wilt probably de-
cide the question for a few years, and. if we do not have a cur-
rency panic, the country will go along producing more than other
nations, and with a larger area of free trade among oursetves.
will lead in the international race for commercial supremacy.
The currency panic is. however, not only a possibility, but a
probability. A large portion of our citizens believe that we want
more currency; that free coinage of sitver is a necessitv. Another
targe and influential portion believes that we cannot afford to at-
tempt this without the co-operation of the principat commercial
nations of the world, and this difference of opinion is iikety to
result in a lack of confidence, which is'onty another name for a
Commercial panic. Peopie next year may not be as easily stam-
peded as thev were last year.
"Vice is a creature of such hideous mein,
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft familiar with her face.
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
The goldbugs will insist that free coinage of sitver is vice.
The tree-coinage men are very likety to keep the issue to the
front untit the masses embrace it. Such men as Mr. St. John,
president of the Mercantile National bank of New York, think
that the bottom wouldn't drop out if the embrace took place,
but he is in the minority here at present; somewhat as Tammany
Hallis. potiticatty. It tooks as if Tammany had met its water-
loo. - The common sense of most" has combined against it, and
the next three weeks wit! be mighty interesting weeks, potiticallv.
to a targe nui'nber of citizens, not onty here but throughout the
country. Yours for truth, F. B. T.
OUR WASHiNGTON LETTER.
[Special Correspondence of Tun TEXAS MwKH.]
WASHINGTON. D. C.. October 22. 1894.
POLITICIANS are scarce around Washington just now. and
i everything is unusuatty quiet at the Congressional head-
quarters of the parties. The reason is not far to seek. The
Washington end of the campaign—makmg plans and sending
out documents—is about over, and the potiticians are in the
field trying to clinch their printed- arguments with talk. The
officials at the several headquarters keep up their assertions of
confidence, but none of them care to back up their ctaims with
details showing the districts they expect to carry and the vote
they expect to get, at) giving the same reason, that to do so
would aid their opponents. The opinion of the most disinter-
ested men in Washington is that the Democrats will not elect a
majority of the House, and many of them are also of the
opinion that the Repubticans will do no better, which means
that they believe the Poputists have a better chance to elect a
sufficient number of members to hotd the balance of power than
either the Democrats or Republicans have to elect a majority.
Your correspondent believes that the South is the doubtfut factor
intheprobtem. Ifthe Democrats can hold their own in the
South they will stand an excellent chance of retaining the House
by a very smalt majority, but if the Populists make the gains
they expect to make in that secdon the Democrats wilt have a
slim chance.
The museum of the postofUce department was opened to the
public today, and it is weil worth a visit. It embraces the ex-
hibit the department had at the World's fair, which has been
largely added to, and shows practicalty the manner in which the
mails have been handled from the days of the pony express to
the present, the exhibts including a pony post mounted and
equipped, a $7,000 dollar model of the steamship City of Paris,
a model of the side-wheel steamer Southerner, which carried the
first mails across the Atlantic, an up-to-date postal car, and tots
of other things connected with the mail service at various periods
inits history.
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McAdams, Walter B. The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 41, October 27, 1894, newspaper, October 27, 1894; Thurber, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth200488/m1/1/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.