Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — Pennsylvania Farmers and the Tariff. [ARTICLE]

Pennsylvania Farmers and the Tariff.

Thanks to U. 8. Senator Turpie for favors. Mr. Cleveland favors “cheap blankets.” Jingo Blaine is in lavor of a “cheap chaw.” Our friends, Senator T. ompson and M. F. Chilcote, attorneys, represented the labor interests of Jasper county in the late Republican convention at Indianapolis No wonder laboring men smile.

A few days since a .Republican convention was held at Indian ipolis. It bemoaned the fate of the agr cultural and labor interests, and was loud in advocacy of high taxes as a means of protection.— While the convention was eng ged in these exercises, the managers of certain protected industries in P*nnsvlvanis were employed in devising plans to enable them to evade the United States laws vs. foreign contract labor, that they might fill the places of laboring men, who had struck for living wages, with pauper labor from Belgium mines. At the same time, too, district granges were holding sessions in different parts of this State, and resolved very strongly in favor of President Cleveland’s tariff recommendations.

In a recent interview, at J. N. McCullough, oj Pittsburgh, vice President of the Pennsylva_ ilia Railroad, said that the Presi dent's message has not created tha kind of a stir in Pennsylvania that the outside world seemed to imagine. Pennsylvanians beLeve in a protective tariff because of its great manufacturing interests, but Pennsylvanians also believe that the taxes ought to be redu ed. “I think it can be done safely, and I have traveled over the country pretty entensively I find that the sentiment is with President Cleveland because he has brought the issue squarely before the people.’’

The Pennsylvania State Grange last week in session at Harrisburg had a sensation in the shape of a very powerful report from it State Overseer, Mr. i. S. McSpar row, of Lancaster county, sustaining roundly and effectively the President’s plan of revenue reform. There is no reason that we know of why this delive .’epee of Overseer Mr Sparrow should have Caused a sensation, except that it occurred in Pennsylvania, and in a body whose platform on simila occasions, has generally been < c cupied by certain very loud and ob'rusivo advocates of a Chinese tariff That these latter do o; represent the views of the ph n dered farmers of Pennsylvania any more than they do those of any other section of the country, 1 s apparent from the reception accorded Mr. McSparrow’s s< nsib’e and courageous report. The Overseer did not, like so many oth ir farmers, haggle and protest at the wool enormity, while anxiously seeking relief from other enormous taxes. A reliable report of his speech says: He appealed to the farmers not to be misled on the raw material, and gave figures to show that to prote t a wool industry amounting to $45,000,000 th people pay as consumers an excess of 146,000,000. TbeD h * quoted from figures showing the ass ssed vUr a tion of farms t</. la tat - o Vi.g'it discrlai

nations, unjust taxations and high tariffs are crippling the agricultural resources. From 1850 to 1800, „nder low tariff, farms increased 100 per cent, in valuation; irom 1860 to 1870, under high tariff, 41 per cent., and from 1870 toIW also under high tariff, only » per cent He opposed the repeal ot the internal revenue tax, and labored tariff reform, but not indiscriminate free trade. The Overseer is supported in his course by the exceptionally able and thoroughly infoimed State Lecturer and Senator, Gerard C. Brown, from York. It was intended by the tariff mongers to induce the State grange of Pennsylvania to pass a resolution condemning the President’s message, and declaring that the farmers were extremely anxious to continue the contribution of all the surplus earnings of their industry toward the maintenance of the tariff monopoly. But the does not seem to have. prospered; tho*e who had it in charge nad not counted on an encounter with farm, ers enlightened upon ther: own int rests, and led by such men as Brown and McSparrow. Those gentlemen have done a good day’s work for their order. — The Grange is capable of an infinite amount of good, but it can accomplish none unless it opens its eyes to the light of the new day which has dawned upon the naturally productive industries of the country. —N. Y. Star.