Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1880 — BUSINESS. [ARTICLE]

BUSINESS.

As Understood by Real Business IVlen —ls Cartield tbe Only Man Who Can Save the Country .’-And Is the Republican the Only Party Worthy of Confidence I—Here1 —Here Are Some Actual Business Men Who Answer Both Questions Decidedly in the Negative. The following address, signed by Levi Z. Leiter, of Field, Leiter & Co., Chas. Gossage, of Charles Gossage & Co., the two great dry-gOods houses of the Northwest; Cyrus H. McCormick, of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company; J. V. Clark, President of the Hibernian National Bank; Robert Law, the great coal merchant; Clinton Briggs, of the Crescent flour-mills ; W. C. D. Grannis, wholesale grocer; B. I Loewenthal, President of the International Bank; J. H. Prentiss, of Charles P. Kellogg & Co.,’and H. A. Kohn, of H. A. Kohn & Co., two of the largest wholesale clothing-houses in the United States ; John R. Walsh, of the Western News Company; Potter Palmer, of the Palmer House ; Conrad Seipp, proprietor of the mammoth Seipp brewery ; John W. Doane, of J. W. Doane & Co., J. K. Fisher, Francis B. Peabody, Best, Russell & Co., and other leading bankers, manufacturers, merchants and capitalists of Chicago, was printed in a late issue of the Chicago Times : To the People : A studious effort is being made to create an impression in financial, mercantile and industrial circles in Chicago and elsewhere that a change in the administration of the Genera] Government, by transferring its powers and duties from one of the two great political parties to the other, will check reviving confidence and prosperity, and bring untold financial disaster upon the country. This statement is so often repeated on the hustings and in the partisan press as to lead some thinking persons to believe that those who use this argument in behalf of the election of their candidate entertain a very contemptible opinion of the average intelligence of the business classes of the country. It is certainly an insult to their common sense to suppose that they can be made to believe that the Government is so weak that the mere transfer of power from one party to the other can have any such effect upon the business interests of the country. It is equally presumptuous to claim that the era of prosperity now opening throughout the land, from its center to its remotest extremities, is attributable exclusively to the Republican party, and the wisdom and purity of its several administrations. On the contrary, it is a historical fact that the worst and longest period of bankruptcy that has ever been experienced in the United States has occurred during the administration of the Government by the party now possessing its reins. Thousands of merchants who had passed unscathed through all previous panics went down in the crash of the last seven years, and their estates passed through the bankruptcy courts. Even- merchant knows the general causes which brought about this dire condition of things. General extravagance was a prominent ono. The chronic condition of poverty and distress in the South, continued and aggravated by local bad government and the diligent cultivation of hostility toward that section by venomous and unscrupulous politicians, whose continuance in power, depends upon keeping up such feeling in the North, w’as another. Widespread corruption in some of the departments of the General Government, especially in the bureau for the collection of internal revenue, which led to the debauchment of the public morals, was a third. The causes which have contributed most largely to restoration of confidence in business and the starting up of another career of prosperity are, in the first place, the general economy and industry, following the period of extravagance, imposed upon and practiced by the people, as evidenced, in part, by the large excess of exports over imports for the last five years. Secondly, the abundant crops with which kind nature has responded for several years past, wherever the soil has been tickled by the farmer; and the general failure of the crops in Europe, which created an immense demand for our cereals and provisions cf every kind, and brought us in return an abundance of gold. The prosecution and conviction in the courts of law of dishonest officials and other revenue rogues, thus restoring, in part, a healthy tone in the administration of one of the important branches of government, which had been partially paralyzed for years ; and, lastly, the restoration of honest local government in the Southern States, which has enabled the psople occupying those States to go to work, without disturbance from without or within, and raise in the past two years the largest crops ever known in the history of cotton-growirg ; and thus the immediate fruit of the conciliatory policy latterly adopted toward the South, and which policy is directly in harmony with that declared by Hancock and his supporters, has been not only to stimulate industry immensely down there, but to open once more another and very valuable market for the country, and especially for the Northwest, which is thereby adding' every day to its wealth. Hence the claim that the country owes its prosperity to the party in power, or that it will go to ruin if that party is turned out of power, is an audacious one, and an insult to the intelligence of every business man. It is the opinion of the undersigned, in common, as they believe, with a majority of the American people,Ahat a change of administration is desirable after the lapse of twenty years, even were the party wielding the powers of the Government less guilty of faults than the party now in possession appears tote It is time to take an account of stock by agents who have not been handling the trust many years. Levi Z. Leiter, Cyrus H. McCobmxcb, H. A. Kohn, Potter Palmeb, John R. Walsh, J. V. Clarke, B. Lowenthal, A. F. Sbkbebobb, D. A. Hewes, John H. Chas. Gossage, Clinton Bbioss, W. C. D. Grannm, H. D. Colvin, Lambert Tbke, Conrad Shipp, Robert Law, . Perry H. Smith, Francis B. Peabody, Best, Russell A Co., J. K. Fisher, Chas. Henbotin, Geo. L. Dunlap, W. D. Kerfoot, A. M. Watebbuby, M. W. Shebwin, John A. Kino, John W. Doane, J. H. McVickeb, Lucius B. Otis, Xavieb L. Otis, Fbedebick R. Otis. CtaiOAGO, Oct 9, 1880,