94 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



by the existence of the Sherman law. How then must 

 capital feel when it beholds the hourly growth of the 

 sentiment for the free and unlimited coinage of silver 

 by the United States, with or without the consent of 

 the European powers? If the investor was afraid of 

 one little pill, how will he be affected by the sight of 

 a whole bottle of pills? The fact is undeniable that 

 the free coinage movement is stronger to-day than it 

 was when the fierce demand for the repeal of the 

 Sherman law induced the President to convene Con- 

 gress in extra session in August of last year. The 

 great West is unanimous for it, from the Missouri 

 river to the western sea. The South is overwhelm- 

 ingly in favor of it. Organized labor in every great 

 city of the North and East is preparing to desert old 

 political idols and to fight for it. It is not yet certain 

 that the silver cause will prevail, but it is certain 

 beyond all possibility of successful dispute that it is 

 a hundred times more menacing to-day than it was 

 when the Sherman law practically bounded the pos- 

 sibilities of silver coinage. 



Under tariff and silver lie deeper ques- 

 Stahle Con- . r 



dit ioasYears tions, also, of continental dimensions. 



Hence. Does anybody believe that the mighty 

 forces so recently marshalled at the mouths of mines, 

 at the doors of factories and along the lines of rail- 

 ways have been permanently subdued? If so, he is 

 greatly mistaken. There is a place where the gat- 

 ling gun and the judicial injunction do not restrain 

 the individual will, and that place is the ballot box. 

 Again leaving the merits of the question wholly aside, 

 only the blind can deny that the great industrial forces 

 which shook the whole fabric of industry and com- 

 merce in July are to-day crystalizing in the form of 

 political potentialities. They may succeed or they 

 may fail, as the tariff may be preserved or destroyed, 

 and as silver may win or lose, but they will continue 

 to be pitiless of national repose, and hence we can ex- 

 pect no return to the solid ground of universal con- 

 fidence and activity for a long time to come. We 

 should predict that the earliest hour when anything 

 approaching enduring conditions can be reached will 

 be the close of the presidential election in 1896. We 

 are more inclined to predict that the election of 1900 

 will usher in the era of peace and settled conditions. 

 The new century will come in with a blaze of glory, 

 tut the old century will die amid the din of warring 

 elements, political, social and industrial, but not we 

 hope and believe physical. 



This brief review of general conditions 

 Outlook in . . , . ^ ... 



Western is a necessary prelude to an intelligent 



America. cons id e ration of the situation in Western 

 America. The panic weeded out weak banks, stores 

 and other commercial enterprises, and the fall in sil- 

 ver closed the largest mines. Staple agriculture 

 went down with the money of the people, bringing the 



wheat-grower and cotton-planter to the perilous edge 

 of ruin. Forty-three thousand miles of railway, most- 

 ly in the West and South, fell into the hands of re- 

 ceivers. It hardly needs to be said that under such 

 circumstances most enterprises in process of develop- 

 ment stopped short, while the brood of ambitious 

 new undertakings hid their diminished heads. As a 

 result of all these things everything in the West is 

 down to hard pan. Only the glorious climate and the 

 eternal mountains have gone through the past fifteen 

 months without apology or change. Now, what of 

 the future? So far as the tariff and silver issue are 

 concerned, the West is in the same boat as the rest of 

 the country. It can merely vote and patiently await 

 the outcome. The one western product for which 

 there is a boundless demand is gold, and this will be 

 mined with the utmost energy wherever it can be 

 found. Is there any respect in which the destiny of 

 the West is very largely in its own hands, so that it is 

 possible for its people to proceed with the expansion 

 of their industrial life, their population and their 

 wealth, regardless of the menace to business con- 

 fidence which must continue for an indefinite period, 

 or until gold or silver, protection or free trade, the 

 fanaticism of capital or the fanaticism of labor, are de- 

 cisively disposed of at the polls? Has the West any 



F. H. BRIGHAM, OF OREGON, 



Member of National Executive Committee of Irrigation 

 Congress. 



