Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1884 — HARD TIMES. [ARTICLE]

HARD TIMES.

One of the Causes That Produce Them. [Speech of Col. John R. Fellows at Cincinnati.) Oh. it is easy to scatter promises of protection from the rear platform of railroad trains. [Applause.] But it is a different thing to look into the laces of hungry men, anxious for those dearer to them t.ian their own lives, and tell them about the prosperous condlt on of the American laborer. Let Mr. Blume go into the Hocking Valley, if he does, and look into the faces ot the anxious men; look into the pale, p nched features of the women; look into the pleading eyes of little children who a few months or years ago had comfortable homes and employment. Let him now find them living in tents along the wayside, in tents that the benevoltnoe of your Democratic Governor in this btato has provided. [Great applause.] Let him see them turned out of their little cabins, under the shade of which for years they have prospered. Talk to those men about the blessings and beneficence that the Republican party has brought to them. Why is it? Hus there been a pestilence In the land? Has famine wasted our fields? Has war destroyed our population? Oh, no! For twenty years no hostile shot has been heard, and God's smile has rested like a perpetual benediction upon our fields. Our valleys are clothed in their sheaths of corn. Our mountains and hili sides are dripping with fatness. Six hundred million bushels of wheat this year—enough to give twelve bushels to every man, woman, child, and little infant in all this land—a full year’s supply for every soul within our borders. We have raised 1,800,000,'>00 bushels of corn this year in this country. We have raised a corresponding quantity of rye, and barley, and oats, and potatoes, and everything that cofitr butes to supply the daily necessities of man and beast. Out West, with ttie benefits of protection, our granaries are filled to bursting. Our storehouses are full to overflowing. Corn is being used for fuel, and wheat is being used for fertilizing, because it is the cheapest fuel and? fertilizer. You hear the cry of “Hard times!" "hard times!" going up throughout the land. You see ihe shadow of an impending evil brooding like a specter at 1 o.OJo firesides, with all this matchless wealth of production around ns. In the face of that a great caravan in palace cars is going through your State ov r the bodies of thousands of prostrate lajjprers, shouting for protection to American labor and American industries, and asking vou to continue them in power that they may perpetuate that policv. What is the cause of this woe? It can be told in a word. It is overtaxation.