Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1888 — LESSON OF THE MICHIGAN SPECIAL ELECTION. [ARTICLE]

LESSON OF THE MICHIGAN SPECIAL ELECTION.

1 he leading of the Northwest, the Chicago Tribune, draws the following lesson from the recent Michigan special election, and earnestly warns its partisan friends of the protection element to take heed: The vote cast in the iron ore and copper country ot Michig .n—the Eleventh District —a few days ago to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Moffatft (Rep.) is significant and must have given the ultra-protectionists a severe shock. Moffatt was electe . ; n 1886 by a majori y of 2,243 over Powers (Dem.) who ran as a fmsion candidate and received the labor vote of the district. The district vas "regarded as reliably Republican bv two or three thousand majority, and much more if the Democrats would join issue on the protection question, the district being considered completely under the control of its two “protected” interests copper and iron ore. The Republican convention nominated Mr. Seymour, who was rated as the strongest protectionist and most popular man in the party, and the Democrats put up one Breen, who indorsed Cleveland’s so-called “free-trade” message.— Breen was denounced over the district as a ‘ Cobden Club free-tra-der,” and dark hints were thrown out that he was defraying his expenses out of British free-trade gold. With that awful insinuation against him it was believed that he would be buried out of sight un ier indignant high-proteotion ballots deeper than the earth was hidden under its six feet of snow, but, as the election turned out, he was not. On the contrary, he came so near being elected, that it wifi require the official count to establish his defeat. It was the ultra-pro-tectionist Seymour and the great Republican majority that were almost wiped ot and not the alleged •Tree-Trader” Breen. It is owed as an excuse for so nearly losing the dlsirictjthat in consequence of the deep snow and cold weather the vote cast was light; but was the snow any deeper or the weather any colder for the alleged Cleveland free-traders than for the enthusiastic, shouting high-protec-tiomsts?

The simple solution of the antiprotection revolution in the Lake Superior region of Michigan is that the workmen there as elsewhere are losing taith in the efflea-. e y ©f war dutirs as a protection to them. They have pretty generally arrived at the conclusion that the enwmous protection tax on the consumers of copper only benefits the stockholders of the copper ts ust monopoly and not the miners, and that the duty levied on iron ore is of no advantage to them. They are of opinion that if copper and iron ore were placed on the freelist as part of a general revision of the war tariff their own wages wo’d

not be reduced a cent a day, while, on the other hand, nearly all the necessaries of life except food, which is cheap enough now, could be bought at much lower prices, and thereby their, wages would greater purchasing power.— They see nothing in Cleveland’s message to alarm them. It only advocates a moderate reduction of the high duties and the plaoing of raw materials on the free-list, because the reveuue from the war tariff takes 100 millions a year too much out of the pockets of the people. Such necessary revision and reduction are not “free trade” by any manner of means; but, in fact, are strictly in accordance with the solemn pledge given in the iast National Republican platform, which the truit and monopoly schemers controlling some of the Republican members of Congress are intent on violating and repudiating. It hrs not escaped the knowledge of the workmen that under the shelter of high duties the Calumet & Hecla copper mirnrs have already paid 30 millions of dividends to their ultra protection Boston stockholders while the miners have received nothing for their hard’toil beyond what was deemed enough to sup ort existence. Their wages wer* screwed down to the lowest notch; there was no protection for them. Last year the copper taken out of the Tamarack mine cost laid down in New York 5.4 cents per pound, and the same copper was sold for 12.88 cents. Who got this “protection” ? Not the work - man who extracted the red metal from the bowels of the earth. The cost of production and the pri. e received were about the same in the Calumet & Heela, and that company has bound, or is abontto bind, itself to the French ring on terms that will enable it to squeeze out of the American consumers the present extortionate price of 16$ cents per pound for years to come —a price which is fully equal te three times the expense of producing the metal. The workingmen were not shown by Seymour or his ultra high-tariff backers what interest they had in protection that wo ked that way—that never said “turkey” to +hem once—and therefore the / bolted their party and voted for the Cleveland “free-trader” for Congress.— That is the whole story in a nutshell.

Michigan is said 1b be dominated by anti-tariff reform sentiment It is alleged that high prctecionism is rampant in the Peninsular State. But hew happens it that in the election eighteen months ago the low-tariff Democrats elected five low-tariff Democrats to Congress to six high-fariff Republicans, and have now **lmo t carried a strong Republican district for a Cleveland free trader against an anti-reform Republican? We have tned to impress on Illinois and other Western Republican m‘ mbsrs es Congress th t a defense of unnecessary war duties

in time of peace is the weakest possible position for* them to occuI py before the people when +hey are canvassing for a re-election.— It will require altogether too much explanation to satisfy their constituents of its wisdom and to show wherein :heir interests are promoted by extorting 00 millions a year too much revenue irom the packets of the farmers and other toilers in 1 order that special classes like the ccpper-menopoly trusts may be enabled to filch 500 millions a year *n the shape of bounties from the people. No Representative who upholds this rapacious system of extortion *ill make a popular or winning record. The Western members who play in the hands of the trust monopolies, who are using and abusing the excessive protection which the war tariff affords, will wake up the morning after election wise.' and sadder men than they now seem to be while engaged in defending the interests of blood-suoking syndicates.