Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1888 — Page 3

JOHN SHERMAN.

His War-Tariff Speech Answered by the Chicago Tribune. A Strong Editorial from the Leading Republican Journal of the Northwest. The burden of John Sherman’s speech ■on the tariff was, “No redaction of war-tax burdens on the people of the West; no relief to the plundered, robbed, overcharged Western farmers.” To avoid any reduction ■of taxation Sherman has innumerable schemes for dissipating surplus revenues and making continued high taxation necessary—premature bond redemptions, wasteful expenditures for coast defenses, indiscriminate pensioning, refunding direct war taxes to the States, adoption of lavish river and harbor appropriations, the Blair humbug educational bill, etc., etc. Aiming' to place every possible obstacle in the way of tariff reform and reduced taxation, Sherman made just such a speech as might have been expected from an Eastern Senator from a coddled, protected State and representing a constituency of trust monopolists and mill barons, but not one that does any credit to a Senator from the West. Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania; Senator McPherson, of New Jersey; Aldrich, of Rhode Island; Sam Randall or Pig-Iron Kelley, could not make any more ultra, never-let-up, tariff-robber - harangue, Sherman thinks he has found the straight path to the White House, but is only proving his demoralization through too great intimacy with Eastern coupon-clippers and monopolists. Sherman’s speech would have done well enough twenty-five years ago, when every cent that could be squeezed out of the people was needed, and when it sweetened the bitter dose to make them believe they were swallowing sugar-coated high-protection pills. High tariffs now stand on an entirely different footing. The Government is collecting 100 millions not needed for any justifiable or proper purpose, and the exaction ought to be thrown off in the interest particularly of Western farmers, who are working for a profit of 50 cents a day, and whose demand for reduced fixes must be heeded. These farmers know that their condition can be improved only by cutting down taxes and lessening th#-cost of living. They have to sell their surplus products in low free-trade markets, and they cannot go on buying their goods and manufactured articles at ultra high- protection prices. They submitted to this burden when the revenues were needed to carry on the war and to pay the war debt, but now that the tax levies are being piled up in useless hoards in the Treasury, all John Sherman’s sophistry will not convince them that the blood-letting must go on. Among his various schemes to perpetuale high taxation and tariff protected monopolies, Sherman thinks none would be more effective than the repeal of the tobacco tax and the payment of a direct bounty to the Louisiana sugar-growers. But if a bounty is to be paid on sugargrowing, why not on wheat, corn, barley, oats and live stock? Who needs or deserves a bounty more than the hard-working and miserably paid Western farmers who sell their surplus productions in the free trade markets of Europe and buy all their goods, tools, machinery, clothing and necessaries from American tariff-protected trusts and monopolies. Western farmers would be glad to'have a bounty of 15 cents a bushel on corn, 25 cents a bushel on wheat, 10 cents a pound on butter, 2 cents on pork, and on other products in like measure, and if a Treasury bonus is to be paid any department of agriculture, why should it not go to that branch which has deserved the most, suffered longest, and received the least? Sherman loses his bearings altogether when he proposes to bonus the ex-rebels who are working she sugar plantations of Louisiana with negro labor and to leave Western farmers out in the cold. Surely this scheme is not in the interests of the negroes on the sugar plantations. They get no protection now, and would not under the bounty system, and would still be required to toil for a bare subsistence. If Sherman would look to the interest of the toiling blacks instead of their ex-rebel bosses on the sugar plantations he would advocate a far different policy. If the monopoly plantations were broken up, find the land devoted to the more profitable culture of cotton, many of the blacks might get patches of land for themselves instead of depending for a livelihood on the beggarly wages paid by the plantation bosses. Nor need Sherman feel alarmed lest the removal of the sugar duty would give sugar-producing countries an opportunity to replace the levy with'an export tax, and so transfer to their own coffers the revenues now paid into the United States Treasury while keeping unthe price of sugar to consumers. That difficulty could be met by a discriminating tariff so arranged as to preserve the duties against any country that levied an export tax. Senator Sherman revamps old protectionist dogmas with poor success. His claim that the wool duty has “encouraged the production of wool” is squarely and emphatically refuted by the record. The lowest price wool has reached in thirty years —25 cents —was under the high protective tariff, and when the duty was lowered in 1883 the price began to advance and rose steadily until it is now at 32 cents. Nor did the lessening of the duty lead so an increase of importations. In the four years preceding the reduction the imports of clothing wool were valued at $16,772,000, and in the four years following at $16,377,000, a decrease of $400,000. Mi. Sherman’s talents as a financier and statistician might perhaps be employed to advantage in showing how a lessening of the duty was followed by improved prices and a check of importations. He would haidly succeed better in the undertaking, however, than he does in renewing the claim that high tariffs are preserved solely to benefit labor and insure higher wages. It is notorious that the worst paid labor in the United .States is that employed in the high protected industries. Beggarly wages forced Americans out of the mills and factories of New England to give place to the Irish, whose discontent was expressed in strikes until they were made to give way to the wretched, superstitious, priestridden French-Canadian imported operatives, who can live on less and endure more than any other class the mill barons have yet found. Woman and child labor is the distinctive curse of the industries having the heaviest tariff protection. New

England has two strongly distinguished classes of population: tariff-protected monopolists and coupon-clippers so ruh that they don't know how to spend their money, and the pauper factory hands who never get a cent s worth of protection out of the tardf. But while John Sherman wants the tariff preserved for .he benefit of persons who never get a dime from it he hasn’t even a crocodile tear for the underpaid Western farmer. Not only in New England, but in every marc of the country, is it true that low wages are paid in industries having the highest protection. The census of 1880 gives the following: Unskilled labor m blast furnaces in Virginia, b 2 cents per day; in Alabama, 08 cents; in Pennsylvania, SI.OJ; and in Missouri, $1.20. The iron industry, having 50 to 90 per cent, protection, makes the following showing of average wages for the year in different sections of the Union: Eastern States, $417 per annum; Western, $396; .Pacific, $354; Southern, $304. The average wages varying from $1 to $1.33 per day. Ihe average weekly wages paid to workers in woolen goods (enjoying a protection of 70 per cent.) in Massachusetts in 1884 was $0.90, or $1.15 per day, while the average to workers in flax, linen, and hemp (30 to 40 per cent, protection) was only $6 per week, or $1 per day; to glass-workers (50 to 100 per cent protection), $lO per week, or $1.66 per day; to cotton operatives (40 to 50 per cent protection), $7.68 per week, or $1.28 per day; and to clothing operatives (70 per cent, protection), sb.i>B per week, or $1.43 per day. The unprotected classes, especially the mechanics, do far better, the lowest grade of daylaborers averaging higher pay than the best class of skilled operatives in New England. So many of the latter are women and children, employed at starvation wages, that the average is reduced to a low figure. It should be noted also that the statistics we have given as to wages of protected classes in New England include in tho averages the cost of superintendence, the figures in this respect being deceptive and probably intended to deceive. Attributing to the tariff the prosperity flowing from the natural weath of the country, the abundance and cheapness of rich land, and the invention of laborsaving machinery, John Sherman is unable to escape the fact that where protection is highest wages are relatively low and slow to rise. Necessarily it must be so. Ultra protectionism fosters monopoly and gives manufacturers power to squeeze bo.h the laborer and the consumer. When not needed for purposes of revenue there can be no justification for duties so high that they exclude and prohibit foreign competition and offer home manufacturers a bribe to combine in pools and trusts to extort high prices, depress wages, and mononolize the market.

Senator Sherman took exceptions to the President’s policy because he had, on what he (Mr. Sherman) regarded as a frivolous reason, refused his signature to the river and harbor bill, “which would have appropriated more than $10,000,000 for necessary (?) public works,” and by his veto of the dependent pension bill “he had withheld from Union soldiers appropriations made for their relief.” President Cleveland vetoed the river and harbor bill because there were jobs and steals in it involving thousands upon thousands of dollars which he could not prevent without vetoing it entire. The bill Was full of these jobs, set up by local bosses and engineered by log-rolling’ Congressmen who were anxious to secure the influence of these bosses and to spend public money among their constituents, It is a matter of public notoriety that surveys of rivers and creeks have been ordered that could not be found by the surveyors. The history of Clark’s Creek and Mingo Creek, alleged to be in South Carolina, whose existence was unknown to any person in that State, is top familiar to need repetition. It is notorious that the bill contained numerous similar steals and jobs for dredging and improving goose ponds and duck creeks, involving an immense amount of money. Would it not have been more statesmanlike for the Senator to have pointed out these steals, and, more than this, to have demanded that the President shall have the authority to veto items in such a bill just as the State authorities of New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, and the Mayor of Chicago have, for the protection of taxpayers? The President took a justifiable position when hp voted the bill, and the Senator’s attack upon him was not well made. The vetoing of extravagant river and harbor bills is not a distinctive Democratic policy. President Grant vetoed some of these bills, and President Arthur did the same. Has it come to this—that the Republican party must assume responsibility for all the swindling river and harbor grabs that may be logrolled through Congress in the future, and must denounce any Democratic President who may have the courage to veto them? Is an annual river and harbor swindle as well ,$s belief in an immutable ultra war tariff to be adopted as a new article of faith in the Republican creed; and is every Republican who does not believe in the policy of improving goose ponds and dry creeks to be “read out of the party?” This is where'Senator Sherman, with his ferocious and bigoted partisanship, seems to be leading his followers. If consistent they must abandon the policy of Grant and Arthur in order to be justified in assailing Cleveland for doing precisely what his Republican predecessors had ddne. How many more fundamental principles of Republicanism shall the followers of Sherman be required to give up, and how many more meritorious acts of Republican Presidents are to be ignored or apologized for by them?

“A TARIFF-CURSED STATE.”

What the Michigan Farmers Pay for “Protection.” Editor cf the New York Times • You published a few days ago statistics furnished by the Commissioner of Labor, showing the extent to which the farms of Michigan are mortgaged. The statistics are misleading for many reasons, one of which is that they must be obtained mainly from public records, and these for the most part show only the original amounts, without the payments that may have been made. Then it often happens that mortgages are paid in full and carelessly left undischarged of record. From somewhat extended observation I am led to the conclusion that the farms of Michigan are on the average less burdened by debt than those of some other Northwestern States. Michigan, however, is a tariff-cursed State, and if its farmers once awake to the fact of their burdens from oppressive taxation they will insist upon some relief. The tariff on lumber is peculiarly severe upon them; nearly every farmer in Michigan has

paid contribution to the pine-land barons for the privilege of building a house to shelter his family and barns for his grain and stock. There never was a more indefensible duty than that imposed upon lumber; it operates as a bounty for the speedy destruction of Michigan forests, and the payment of the bounty must be shared in by every man woo makes use of a pine stick or board for any purpose of comfort or industry. A few men, by means of the lumber duty, become rapidly enormously rich; that is to say, they are enabled to add to profits that would otherwise be very large a further sum equal to the duty which the Government imposes for their benefit. And whoever has observed the run of politics in Michigan of late can not fail to have noticed how these very rich men, who have little besides their wealth to give them importance, aspire to and find means of obtaining the chief political positions. For the lumber tax there is not even the excuse that it benefits American labor; for the Michigan woods and saw-mills are full of Canadian workmen, who come for the busy season, and bear away their earnings to spend elsewhere. If the taking off the duty were to result in importations of lumber from Canada it would be all the better for Michigan, not only because the price of lumber would be brought to more reasonable figures, but because the forests of Michigan, which constitute a large part of its natural wealth, would be dealt with more prudently and with more regard for the future. The motto with the lumberman now is, “Let me be quickly rich,” and he leaves behind him desolation. But the war tariff, which has been suffered to exist so long after the need had ceased, is a fraud in every aspect in which it may be viewed. It is amusing that the people of Michigan can look upon it as a scheme for the protection of industry. There are some interests in Michigan which are benefited by it, but they are not numerous, and do not embrace large numbers of persons. All small industries are oppressed by the tariff. The tax which tho small manufacturer or mechanic pays upon the material he works up is in a great many cases sufficient to render profit impossible. I have under my eye at this moment the following illustration of the working of “protection to American industry.” Fifteen years ago five neighbors put $20,000 each into the manufacture of certain tools. They were tools of a kind never imported, and the tariff could be to them of no benefit. The chief materials required were wood, iron, and other metals, and the working them up required labor of unusual skill. For ten years, though they kept steadily at work with a large force, they made nothing. Since then they have been enabled by their earnings to increase their piant considerably, though they have paid no dividend. If these men could have been relieved from the payment of any tax “for the protection of American industry, ” and at the saine time could have sold their tools at the price they actually received, they might easily have taken in annual dividends of ten per cent, on their investment. What is trhe of them is true of all the small industries of the country. They bear the burden of protection while others reap the profits. The interests which, if any do, need protection are interests which existing tariff oppresses. A Citizen of Michigan.

FIGURES THAT DO NOT LIE.

Prices of Wool’Under Different Tariff's as a Test of Protection. I Columbus (Ohio) cor. Now York World.] Columbus Delano, ex-Secretary of the Interior and Chairman of the Republican annex known as the National Wool-Grow-ers’ Association, as heretofore reported, has sent out an “appeal” from this city urging the farmers and “dockmasters” of the country to unite against a reduction of tax burdens, and telling them that the slight reduction on wool made in 1883 has well-nigh destroyed the wool industry of the country and put prices at a figure ruinously low. He insists on a restoration of the tariff*bf 1867 as the only thing that will restore prices and stimulate production. This “appeal” was framed in the Neil House, in this city, by Mr. Delano and George L. Converse, the gentleman on whose motion the enacting clause of the Morrison bill was stricken out, and for which act his constituents retired him to private life with rare unanimity. This “appeal” is one of the preliminaries to Mr. Delano’s candidacy for Glongress next year on the Republican ticket. The best possible answer to this misleading document is to take the average price of wool at Boston, the controlling wool market of the United States, for a series of years. The following figures are as nearly official as may be procured: 1' 24.... ,70c 181050 c 185660c|1872. ,50c 182560 c 181152 c 185760 c 187341 c 182652 c 184248 c 185855 c. 187440 C 182744 c 184366 O 1859... 60c1b75 ..39c 182848 c 184450 c 18606 Cc 1876.7.’..35c 182955 c 184545 c 186147 c 1877 ... .330 183070 c 184650 c 186257 c 1878 .310 1831... ,75c 181747 c 186370 c 1879.... .30c 183265 c 184845 c 186475 c 188080 c 183365 c 184942 c 186575 c 188129 c 183470 c 185047 c 186660 c 188225 c 183565 c 185150 c 186761 c 1883 . 25c 183670 c 185250 c! 186843 c 188426 c 181770 C 185360c[186940c 188527 c 183855 c 185457 c 1187037c 188632 c 183960 c 185352c11871.... .46c 1887 32c This shows the price of wool under all the tariff systems we have had in this country, and explodes the fallacy of “protection.” The highest and best price ever obtained for wool was previous to the 1867. With that tariff came a decline which ran down to 25 cents in 1883, when a portion of the tariff was removed, since when prices have improved.

The Blessed Tariff on Wool.

Philadelphia Record: In 1867, when the high wool tariff went into effect, there were 5,117,148 sheep in the State of New York. Under the prostrating policy of taxing imported wools the number of sheep in that State has been reduced to 1,579,866, and the price of wool is lower than it has been in forty years.

Bad Effects of the Tariff.

Louisville Courier-Journal: One of the worst things about the dishonest tariff is its tendency to the production of inferior articles. With no competition but that at home, our progress must necessarily be slow. It is an insignificant nation that cannot stand up and take its chances with the world.

An Element of Corruption.

There is no element in the politics of this country so corrupt and so corrupting as the influence of the favoritism in legislation called the “protective” tariff.— New York Times,

GEN. E. S. BRAGG.

The Wisconsin ExCcngreisman's Nomination as Minister to Mexico Sent to the Senate. A Portrait and Brief Biographical Sketch of the New Appointee. I Washington special.] The President, on Thursday last, sent to the Senate the nomination of Gen. E. S. Bragg, of Wisconsin, to be Minister to the Republic of Mexico. The General is now in this city, and will probably remain here until his confirmation, and then go to Wisconsin to wind up his affairs there. He is in good health and spirits. Mr. Connery, the present Secretary of Legation in Mexico, will presently return to the United States. He took the position of Secretary with some sort of understanding that he was to be Minister when a vacancy occurred, and that a vacancy was likely to occur. He was very strongly indorsed for the place, and might have got the appoint-

ment, but is said to have meddled in the internal politics of the country, siding with the clericals in their contest with Diaz, and this, of course, made him undesirable to the precent political powers of the republic. Gen. Edward 8. Bragg was born at Unadilla, N. Y., Feb. 20, 1827. He received a classical education, which was completed at Geneva College. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar. Removing to Fond du Lac, Wis., he practiced his profession there. In 1868 and 1869 he was a member of the State Senate. Upon the breaking out of the war he entered the Union army as a Captain. This ■was in May, 1861. In October, 1855, he was mustered out of service with the full rank of Brigadier General. He was sent to represent his district in the Forty-fifth Congress, and was re-elected to the Fortysixth, Forty-seventh, and Forty-ninth Congresses. He was defeated in the nominating conventions of the Forty-eighth and Fiftieth Congresses. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago which nominated Cleveland, and in eulogizing the then Governor of New York, said: “We love him for the enemies he has made,” alluding to Tammany’s opposition.

GAS GALORE.

It Is Discovered in a Half Dozen Places in the City of Chicago. The Fluid Burns with an Intense Heat—Pittsburg Capitalists Interested. • [Chicago special.! There seems little doubt that natural gas exists under Chicago. Since the first discovery was made at a brewery on the South Side, three or four weeks ago, several artesian wells in different parts of the city have shown an inclination to spout gas instead of water. In the Leland Hotel artesian well the aqueous has been wholly supplanted by the illuminating fluid, and hundreds of curious people daily visit the hostelry for the purpose of viewing the brilliant flame which shoots from the mouth of the bore. Gas has also been discovered in Marshall Field’s and Mandel Brothers’ large dry goods stores on State street, and in the National Tube Works, on Clinton and Fulton streets, West Side. At the Leland Hotel the flow of gas is greater than at any previous time. The volume seems to increase from day to day, and it is now passing through the pipe at the rate of twenty cubic feet an hour. Only a portion of the supply is allowed to pass through. The quality is also improved. The heat of the jet is remarkable. A coil of copper wire was melted in less than a minute, something that cannot be done very easily without the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe. With ordinary gas or gasoline, even when a Bunsen burner and the common blow-pipe are used, it is impossible to fuse copper. The unusual heating powers of this gas will make it of great value for manufacturing and heating puri poses. Pittsburg gas men are taking a very active interest in the development of natural gas for Chicago, but are working very quietly. Their agents are scattered all along the line between here and the end of the Indiana gas belt at Kokomo. They are leasing thousands of acres of land wherever they find any indications of gas. Last week a tract of 2,000 acres was secured near Valparaiso. I The Pittsburghers were on the ground very soon after the discovery of the Cooke brewery gas, and carq£ully inspected the region about Chicago. For some reason or other, they place their faith in the theory that there is no gas under Chicago, but that there are oceans of it near by. They believe the field is in Indiana. The prospects are favorable near Valparaiso, whence gas could be easily piped into Chicago, a distance of but forty-seven miles.

FACED DEATH BRAVELY.

Henry Schmidt, the Youthful lowa Murderer, Hanged Without Flinching. A Confession Made on the Scaffold Involving Ellison T. Smith in His Crime. * - Henry Schmidt, the second man to die at tho hands of the hangman in lowa in the last twenty years, was hanged at West Union on Friday, the 13th inst, for the murder of Lucretia Peek. He was also charged with having murdered Abram, the husband of Lucretia Peek, and with having shot and attempted to kill Abram Leonard at the same time. Schmidt was taken to West Union from the Penitentiary at Asamosa on Tuesday, the 10th

HENRY SCHMIDT.

they had misrepresented him. The only press representative that he consented to receive was an acquaintance of his in West Union. To him he related uolhing particularly new. He told over again his connection with the crime, declaring that he was hired for SSOO by El lison T. Smith to murder Leonard; that he would not have killed Mrs. Peek had she not got in his way, and that Ellison T. Smith killed Mr. Peek by beating him to death with a club near the gate. He said SSOO was too strong a temptation for him. He declared himself willing to die for the murder of Mrs. Peek, but he thought Ellison T. Smith should also be hanged for killing her husband. Schmidt was only 20 years old. About forty persons witnessed the hanging. Schmidt was escorted to the scaffold by Bher-

iff O’Neil and addressed a low remarks to the crowd before him. Ho repeated his confession before made, reiterating the charge against Bmith. His voice was clear and rang out upon the frosty air with remarkable distinctness. His face did not betray the least emotion, and only once when

he recognized the three sons of the murdered woman m the crowd before him did hie voice falter. He assisted the Sheriff in adjusting the noose, and when the cap was drawn over his eyes, shutting out the light of earth forever, he awaited the end without tho tremor of a muscle. Exactly at 10:86 the dbop fell, and hie body shot through the drop. In three minutes his heart ceased lie a ting. Hie neck was broken by the fall, and death camo to him almost without pain. There were no convulsions of the body until tho final moment of dissolution, when the muscles of his face contracted slightly and then instantly relaxed

THE SCENE OF SCHMIDT'S CRIME.

—then all was over. The gallows was the same used in the execution of Chester Bellows at Charles City last month, and was an exact model of those used in the execution of the Chicago anarchists. THE BTOBY OF THE CEIME. The story of Schmidt’s crime, as brought out at the trial, is as follows: Mr. and Mts. Peek lived on a farm near West Union and Abram Leonard resided with them. All were aged people. Mr. Peek was 75 years old and Mrs. Peek wafc 66. On Sunday, Jan. 5, 1887, as the day dawned. Leonard, halfdressed, dazed, and bleeding, aroused a neighbor, and announced that Peek had been murdered, his wife badly wounded, and that he {Leonard) had two bullets in his side. Neighbors went at once to the Peek house.

ABRAM LEONARD.

employed by Mr. Peek. He and Peek had disagreed about the amount due from Peek to him, and a lawsuit between them was pending. Schmidt was arrested and identified as her asssailant by Mrs. Peek, who lived until Sept 25. Schmidt was tried, and, on Oct. 29, convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hanged. The evidence brought out in the trial of Schmidt showed that the murderer entered

the Peek house some time in the night, carrying some straw, to which he immediately set fire. He then began shooting into the room,, where there were two beds, occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Peek and by Leonard. The latter was shot first, and Mrs. Peek made an attempt to jump from the win-

dow, when she was shot from the outside. She said: “Henry, why would you hurt me?” and the assassin said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mrs. Peek.” Later a desperate struggle was had near the gate whore Schmidt brained Peek. Eleven days after the trial Schmidt made a confession in which he made the charges against Ellison T. Smith, reiterated on the scaffold. Schmidt was at the time in the employ of Smith. The latter’s wife would inherit property from Leonard upon hi» and this was the implied motive of the alleged instigation. Smith was arrested and tried, but there was so little evidence against him that he was acquitted. AUTOPSY. An autopsy was held on the remains. Tha bra n weighed forty-four ounces, and the top of the head was quite noticeably flattened, making the transverse diameter greater than normal The liver was very much enlarged and showed a slight scar, but the cause of it could not be ascertained. The body was placed in the town-hall, where all who wished were allowed to view it

inst., and from that time up to the hour of his execution he occupied himself in conversing freely and pleasantly with acquaintances, reading the newspapers, and smoking cigarettes. He looked calnuy upon his impending doom and declared he would die bravely. He displayed a strong aversion to newspaper men, for the reason that he believed

LUCRETIA PEEK.

and found Mr. Peek lying dead near his gate, with his head and face terribly mutilated. A fence board, with which evidently he had been beaten to death, lay near. Mrs. Peek was found on her bed, suffering from gunshot wounds. Suspicion fell at once upon Henry Schmidt, a Bavarian then but 19 years old, who had recently come to this country, and had been

ABRAM PEEK.