Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1883 — SENATOR M’DONALD. [ARTICLE]

SENATOR M’DONALD.

THE GREAT INDIANA STATESMAN IN lOWA. Ex. Senator McDonald has been meeting with a grand series of sac cesses in lowa. His meetings ware largely attended, and his clear, logical utterances met responsive echoes in the hearts of a people ridden to death for many years by that hag of the century, “the Republican party.” At Des Moines the other day, from an account which wo find in the Dee Moines State Leader, the distinguish«f ex-Senator spoke as follows: Fxllow-Citizeks or thk State or loWa— Although it has been my fortune to engage In the political contests of this country it is only within the last few days that I have had the pleasure of standing before an audi once of tho citizens of your State, and I am glad, fellow-citizens, that in this grand, great country of ours wo may travel toward the setting sun, not one day, but many, and address the people whom we meet as our fel-low-citizens. And I trust that this great eonntry of ours is to continue under the benign influence es its Democratic principles and Republican Government for ages yot to come. [Cheers] You, fellow citizens of the State of owa. are just new celebratingyoursemi centennial. Fifty years ago the first white man ma ie his heme on this side of the Mississippi, withiu your border*. I remember wh*n the Mississippi River was regarded as the confines of civilization and all beyond that was looked upon as the home and hunting ground of the savage- - My first recollrctlon of your State politically goes back to 1850, when I was representing my State in Con* gress. You wore then entitled to but. two members of Congress on an rpportionment of 60,000 inhabitants. You now have eleven members of Congress on an apportionment oi 130,000 inhabitants. At that time there were but few Counties organized on your border, and they only to the ex* ti nt of two tiers of Counties. Where dow the flourishing city of Council Bluffs is located, with a large population, there was no settlement of any kind then? There was notning hut boundless prairie extending to the Missouri River. They opened up the pol s that year for the purpose of holding an election, and cast their votes, but they were so far west of any organized Counties that they did not know to what county to make their return and they returned to the wrong county. But they are now teeming with civilization, and are no doubt as prosperous as any equal number of counties in all our broad land. The virgin soil had not then, been penetrated with the plow. But the white man crossed the Mississippi and soon this great commonwealth sprang into existence. In traveling through your State, fellow-citizens, I have sometimes thought I was traveling in my own State, I have met so many Indiana men In It. On yesterday at the conclusion of nay remarks* at Chariton the Indlanians took possession of the platform and it was not strong enough to bear them up, but we remained on the platform all the same although it fell. [Laughter and applause ] I want to address you to-night as fellow-citlzenefrorn the stand point of my party, and to express my views honestly and fairly, but I am not here to abuse any one. If Ido not convince your Judgments, I do not want to smid yon away any the woi se for your being here. I look upon you as the best people upon the globe, beeause you are made up of these whose voice is sovereign, and in whose hands is the greatest of polit ical power oa the face of the earth, taking it all in all. Fellow-citizens, I understand that I am in a State that for years past has been governed and controlled by a party that is >p posed to me in politics. It has been my fortune to follow the Democratic party from my youth up. I have fought many battles In its defense, and never one against it, and I never will. [Applause.] In discussing the questions before the cut try at this time I want to deal with them fairly. There are two questions perhaps of the most importance. At least they are questions that more particularly engage the attention of the parties at this time. The one is national; the other is a domestic question, which peculiarly belongs" to the people of this State. I desire you to boar this fact in mind: that the Republican party bat< connolled the National policy ever since 1861, and all praise or blame for good Government or bad Government rest s upon It Is true that from 1875 tn 1881 the Democratic party had a majority in this Lower Branch of Congress; they had the power of originating bills, and during that six years the savings to the peo> pie in expenditures amounted to about $20,000,000 a year as compared with the Republican rule. Oversloo.000,000. according to the statements of the Treasury Department, was ex.-

pended less, under the Democratic rule, than was expended during tne six jears|t>recedlng that. [Applause.] So mueh greater the to the people than when the Republicans gained the majority in Lower House of Congress. I insist, gentlemen, that it is ycur duty to collect no more from the people than what is necessary for the use of the Feder* al Government. Tne taxes that go iato the Treasury of the United States as well aa the tuxea tnat go to the State, are all paid by the people- Do not let any one deceive irnself by thinking for a moment that any people or any one nation is paying your taxes except yotfrself. The Treasury of the United States is filled by coining the sweat on th® brow of labor had placing it into the Treasury Therefore the first duty of those who administer your affairs is to see that no more is taken from the business of the country, from the hard industries of the country, than what is necessary for the administra* tion of your affairs. iThe Republican Administra ions have been extrava* gout. Retrenchment only prevails when a different state of ass xirs exists. I do net denounce the Republican party as corrupt, par excelien e.— They a e like other people, no doub*; not any better, and I do not charge that they are any worse, but they have been so Jlong in power. They have had the books of the Nation in their own hands so long that if you want to examine their books you want a new set of book-keepers. THE TARIFF. But gentlemen another question g along wRh the question of re ve nue. Now upon that subject, fellow* citizens, I desire to be explicitly understood. I regard he question of revenue, so far as tho Federal Govr. eminent is concerned both in regaid to the collection and disbursement, as well as the effect of its collection may have upon the country, I am in favor of the most strict revenue reform. I look upon the tariff duties, as they are termed, us a question of revenue. The Constiutio’n of the United States confers upon Congress the power to lay taxes, duties and imposts for revenue purposes. It is a taxing power and snould be so ex - ercised. It is true, also, that the Federal Government has the right to levy direct taxes. Its power, however, is coupled with such conditiohs as make it impracticable. The field of direct taxation is now occupied to its fullest extent by the States for local purposes. In tired taxes are of two kinds, a tariff upon imported merchandise and internal taxes Now, I prefer the imposition of tariff duties rather than by direct taxation, but our syutem of internal taxes should be maintained at least until the int rest upon tne public debt has disappeared with the public debt itself. Our Republican friends have endeavored to place us in a false position upon the question of free trade, as it is called. There has been no party in this country from the formation of the Government down to the present time, that has ever advocated us a practical measure unconditional free t.ade.— The Republican party, on the other hand, insist that there shall be specific protection; protection beyond the necessity of revenue, for the benefit of certain classes in this country. That I stand opposed to. I am in favor of a tariff for revenue, with such protection only as will result iu the equal adjustment of a tariff for revenue purposes. (Applause.) And I propose now to vindicate that proposition, Fellow citizen , let me ask you to bear this in mind, tuat a tariff is a tax upon the consumer; tne man who purchases an article far use upon which the tariff Is laid. I know that there has been a theory that the consumer did not pay it. I never could understand how an intelligent man up in an intelligent community and state such a thing as that. If the manufacturer could not add the tariff like that of the raw material to the price of the article he would lake it somewhere else, — Bat these men do not believe their theories upon that subject. When Chicago was swept with a besom of destruction, with a great fire, what was the first act that was done? If you would believe these Republicans it should have been to put a tariff on all building material. But they took all tariff off the building material used in rebuilding the city. Why? Because it cheapens the article to those who used it. It took off this burden which this tariff imposes. Fellow-citizens, as it is a tax upon th* consumer, the man who buys these articles for use. the tax snould be levied and so adjusted that a man should have to pay in proportion to in .uility and t<» tn degree o' protec iou nffurded by the Government. Especially, there sho’d be the lowest tax upon the articles which are used most, and that tho poor have to buy for their support, and the higher tax upon those articles termed luxvries- I insist that there are many poor men in the Bute of lowa to-day who are paying more taxes into the Treasury than Jay Gould, John Jacob Astor or Vander; erbilt. They only pay on what they i buy, and the poorest man you have in your land has to do ihe same.

OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE lias grown. Il wus always cherished. But lately it has grown without much fostering. Last year our exports of merchandise amounted to $23,000,000. Nire-tenths of that whole quantity, that entire value, was the products of the farm. They ’were articles you could count upon your fingers -wheat, flour, corn, cornmeal, provisions, cotton, petroleum, tobacco, efc. These are the articles we shipped to foreign countries in competition with the world and tue world’s prices- Bat, fellow-citizens, that was not only so, hut they fixed the prices at home. It is not necessary for me to tell you that as the prices of wheat wept up and down in Liverpool, they went up or down in Chicago or St. Louis—and r in fact, in the United States market. We imported last year es foreign meichandise $723,000,000 worth. On •hat, under the tariff act in force, we raised $213,000,000 revenue. And you purchased those goods and paid that $213,000,000 revenue. You who purchased sugar, trace chains, clothing, lumber and material tor house gliding, and all that, have paid your ehare of that $213,000,000, So that the farmers in this country are purchasing their supplies at an enhanced value. (A veiee: How will we get .rid of it?) Repeal it; (laughter.) reduce it; (cheers,) take it off the necessaries and put It on the luxuries. (Loud applause and cheers.) So, my friends, you see that we are just in this position; that THE AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS in this country are selling in the lowest market and buyiag in the highest market The manufacturer is buying in the lowest market and selling his productions (the domestic manufacturer, under this system of protection,) at the highest price and iu the highest market. Now, fellow-citi-zens, I ask you il this is fair. If it is just;if itisrlght? (Voices: No! No! No!) When you submit to taxation of that kind for the benefit of the Government, it is asking too much of poor nature, that you should submit to taxation for the benefit of elass legislation. Take this revised tariff —I won’t say enacted by Congress, although it bears that stamp; .out consented to by a majority, influenced by the wishes of certain manufacturers of the United States. [Loud applause.] It is Known- to you as a historical fact that the two Houses of Congress last year wrestled with tho tariff question, and a majority voted to put the tariff in commission; that is to investigate and report. Tuat was dvne, and this inve.-tigaiiox Committee started out in a palace ear from Long Branch, where they had their headquarters, and in passing, stopped the whole of one day at Indianapolis because it could not get away sooner. [Laughter.] How long they were in your Stato I do not know. I do not suppose that one man under the sound of my voice knows how long they were here because that was a Tariff Commission on wheels. They made their repot t. Both Houses of Congress wrestled with it. The Senate engrafted a bill on a little revenue relic left over from thto preceding session The House took th question up de novo as the lawyers say, and when they got through with it did not agre®.—. There was a Committee appointed; it was called the Committee of Conference; it was another Tariff Commission, and it did not harmonize either of the bills that had been referred to it. For example, the Senate after nr ture deliberation had decided that 50 cents on a toh of crude iron or® was sufficient. The House agreed that that was sufficient. But this packed Cemmitte® decided that that was not enough, so they added 50 per cent, to it. They put it up to 75 cents a ton, and th< majority of both Houses agreed to this bill. That Is only one instance. THE TARIFF REVIEWED. Now, then, let us look into this bill itself for awhile. First, let us look at the tariff upon steel rails and steel blosms. Steel blooms are manufactured by a new process, and the right to use this process is possessed by only eleven great mills or corporations banded iogether under what is known as the American Iron and Steel Association. No other comnany l *in the United States can make what" is called Bessemer steel. They possess almost unlimited power. It dught to be spelled “steal” in that cpse [Applause.[ This Committee, called a Committee of Congress, reduced the tariff on steel rails from about S2B a ton to sl6 a ton. It is pretty hard to figure on it. But when they came to the steel blooms they net only did not reduce the tariff upon them, but increased it. So that today the rolling mills thatfare not in ' with these Association ■ ov-> not roll a steel rail. I i,y tile <‘;>i I, for we have such a mill in Indianapolis. When the steel rails were in demand they put in a plant to make them, but this new tariff catno irf, and, to this day, they have not roiled ’a single steel rail, except to see whether tho machinery would work well, I. i 3 cause they were compelled to buy steel blooms at these exorbitant prices. It would cost Ihe; i ?.;17 a t.r>n or the steel bl >o n - and .th ... n dUwii

len. Just before I came to yourfState I mst one of the officers es this mill, and he said he was going East to try and make some arrangement to make them for a time. You have in this very instance the piincipie of protection. No revenue comes from that, bat it enables them to nave monopoly, not only in steel blooms, but io steel rails in the United States. That gives them a complete monopoly, se far as taking their products is con.•erned, of from $lO to sl2 per ton. - When tuey supply the home market when they have manufactured t e steel rails up to the demand they can not sell their steel rails abroad, because there is competition at that rate. We art throwing our railroads down across the Rio Grande into Mexico- On this side of the river our rails cost $42 a ton, on the other side S3O. When they hava glutted the home market they shut down, and then they say they must have a higher tariff or the operators in this country cau not get employment (Applaus**.) BOOTS AND SHOES Again let me call your attention to the boot and shoe trade. It is fnsceptible of demonstration, that by reason o p tn is tariff the raw material put in a shoe to be manufactured in he United States cost sixty cents a pair more than the raw material in the same kind of a shoe in England. Before s he workman has done anything *o turn it into the finished product the difference in the cost is sixty cents a pair over that of the same material and the same quality in England. Yet five cents a pair will run an American out of any foreign market. The foreign manufacturer will get the benefit of the market. — Yet, our manufacturers have already sunk sixty eants over and above the raw material before they start. It is known that in this particular branch of the trade the manufacture is 25 per cent, ever the home demand, and that In nine months they manufacture enough to supply the home market for 12 months.J Inconsequence thereof we have to pay them for three months of idleness.

WOOLEN GOODS. Again, take the subject of woolen goods. It is difficult for us to realize this tax, and wo really forget that there is any place on the face cf the globe wheie these articles sell for any less. Yet if you will go into Europe and price woolen goods you will find that the price there is from a third to a half (and in some instanc es more than that) lower than it is on this side. A day or two ago I saw a person who stood up bufnre me and said: “Bore is a suit of tweed I paid $22 for the suit in London, England, and. when I came hero I priced the’same suit in Burlington and found it would cost me $45.” If you will go into Windsor Canada, opposite and make a purchase of a a suit at this reduced rate, as you approach the American shore, before you can laud on your own shore, a Custom House officer will meet you and say: “Where did you buy this suit of clothes?” “In Windsor.” “You must pay 70 per cent, on that, tariff duty. If you do not 1 will confiscate the ft bole suit.” Tuere is noth.ng between those two interests but the river. Oh. yes, fellow citizens, there is a tariff between them! (A voice: "A genii- man behind me savs that the differenc in the price of those f oods is the difference in the price of labor,”) Has he ever made a’calculation on that? - (A voice; “I dor. t know.”) Well, I have. (Cheers) J have Burchard’s tables here; he is Director of the mint, and a good Republican, and I find the facts to be accurate tlia: the whois cost of the labor tha* enters into the pt ice of a manufactured article in this country is from 15 to 20 per cent.—the whole t osi of labor—minu you not the dis ferehco—of any gi'e.j article inasufaoured. Even in iron it does not amount to over 22 per cent Now, fellow-citizens, evbn ,f it w s 25 per cent, the whole cost of the labor that enters iu;o the m nufacture of be article would not be over 25 per cent, Du you nut see that all the labor wo’d not, mal e upjthe whole difference in the tariff cost? Yet. these articl es that I have culled your attention to are tsjxed from GO to 70 per cent No. my friends, this phut that this is in He nu<-r r. of labor will not do. The diffeieuuj is less than 10 per cent, beivveen th<- •..•ost of labor at the prices paid in England. There is a greater difference in Fiance and a still treat* er one in Get many. bit- Low does it come v.iiijc the ita Vv« nig n protec.ive tariff?. (Cheers and appl lusej The v.hu.e question isfreo trade upon all these manufactured articles, so f.r as it is consistent for the Government to give it. Consistent with its wants and mce sitie.--. (Applause) This act to repeal is something more titan a lai iff act. It. repealed quite uh amount of internal-revenue taxes. It took the ’ax off of bank c eeks. I'his is for the relief ot the people! [Laughter.] It relieved every man who had u ban'; deposit; Lip it did not rt 11 v? anybody else! (Applause.) It reli’'’ e I the bunks-. of th<- -com ' y. «.t bit ... >he f: V < r L ■ k “ - JhOfh-1." ” lit .. <1 the banks from- paying the taxes on them I It took ’.he tariff off rhe cigars and cigarettes! (Applause.) Fellow-citizens, it has not •been a great while ■ ince you' saw a cigarette. The young men of the cour/ry who stand around our'sTvet rOibt-is and smoke Ihom ought io .... .- i solutions of i.ha.'l s to rb la t Cr.iu'ress But, Ido not see th a- ’he iieopi ■ li.ivc derived nTu-h benefit from that, because that just adv.-c.e-ed the price of the cigarettes, and' they put the tax in their poekets They repealed the stamps upon

matches.” John Sherman said he I wanted to give the poor Irishman a chean match to light his pipe with after a hard day’s work. (Laughter.) But the tax has been kept up on tobacco. Fellowscitizena, how did that work? When this stamp tax of two cents a box was placed upon friction matches Cungres- advanced the price upon foreign matches 35 per cent, ad valorem. They nave left the 35 pel cent, tax ad valorem on the foreign match, and the manufacturer of the match puts the tax in his pocket and the poor Irishman has to pay the same for his tobacco. In order to equalize these things the Senators aud Representatives ot your State allowed- the Republican Senators of Michigan and' Wisconsin, representing those immense tracts of pine timber, to place a tariff upon timber amounting to about 20 per eent., so that every farmer who pujs a fence post down on the prairie has to pay about 2o per cent on that Jpost. At the same time, tae Government is remarkably liberal upon that question. Ii says to those who settle upon pras iries, it shall be credited to your homestead account. We place a price upon timber for the purpose of keeping out the foreign article, and give a bonus for cutting and using it up. SHIPS AND SHIPPING. Fellow-citizens, we have Janother very wise provision in reference to our National affairs that bears somewhat upon this question. We are now carrying on the very largest foreign commerce that we ever carried on since that commenced under the old confederation. It is now equal to any country in the world except England. But it is carried in foreign vessels. From 1850 to 1860 we carried about 70 tier cent, in our own vessels. Now we carry from 15 to 20 per cent, only and Great Britain carries the rest. Suppose tnere she’d □ome a war that would cripple her commerce, who wu’d carry it abroad? You have got no vessele of your own to do It. But how did we reach this condition of things? During the civil war many of our merchant vessels were compelled to take foreign protection under foreign flags, and before the Geneva arbitrators we made comflaint against England that she had stripped us of our merchant marine, aud then we turned round and passed an act saying that any vessel that had taken the protection of ajfereign flag should never be permitted to sail as an American vessel, and we made the damage perpetual. GRADUAL BUT SURE REFORM. Fellow citizens, you will understand that I favor what is known as revenue reform. Notin any destructive way. I believe in doing tlm greatest good to the greatest number of people, and to regard the rights that have been secured, although it may have been under a system of false legislation. I propose to come to it as the business of th United Stites will admit, but to come to it surely; aud to say to the people of of this country that we are in favor of equal and xact justice to all men, and that we are not -in favor of exclusive privileges to any. ]Applause.] - Soldiers’ Re-union at Fowler , September 19th. 20th and 21st. A young daughter gladdens the home of Sam Duvall. Monday eve. To the Ladies of Jasper County.— It is an oid saying—“ You might a g Well be OU. of the world as out of' tb L . fashion.” So call at ii eimphill & Honan’s and see the latest styles and fashions in millinery and dress rnuk ing-