Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1888 — Page 3

KENNA ON THE TARIFF.

The West Virginia Senator Replies to . the Ohio Protectionist’s Harangue. A Vlgorons Defense of the President’s Message and Administration. The Republican Party Arraigned for Its Sacrifice of Workingmen’s Interests. Mr. Kenna, of West Virginia, recently delivered an able speech in the Senate on the subject of the President’s message on the surplus, revenue and tariff matters. He said that Senator Sherman was conspicuous in the councils of his party and had much to do with the shaping of its policy, so that his assault on the President s position in favor of revenue reform and reduction of taxation was to be regarded as significant Time and thought had been devoted to the preparation of that speech, and the assault had been deliberate. It might, therefore, be fairly assumed that the Senator’s “reply” was exhaustive of his own and of his party’s resources on that important subject, and the speech might justly be regarded as a challenge. The speech, taken in connection with the Senator’s former utterances on

the same and similar subjects, presented an astounding contrast and irreconcilable 'conflict—an enigma which he would proceed briefly to analyze. After quoting some extracts from Mr. Sherman’s speech, and also extracts from the works of Jefferson, from messages of Presidents Jackson and Arthur, from the reports of Secretary Folger, Secretary McCulloch, and Secretary Manning, he summed up by saying that two Republican and two Democratic Secretaries of the Tresury and one Republican and one Democratic President had successively united in condemnation of a surplus revenue and in demanding a reduction in the public burdens. There never had been a time when the unnecessary withdrawal from circulation of the currency of the country and its hoarding in the Treasury was justifted or calmly contemplated. The Senator from Ohio was the only derson who seemed to regard such a condition as a “good fortune.” Such a condition had always created apprehension, and had sometimes contributed to panic and financial disaster. And yet. when the President, inspired by the teachings of his country’s history, dared to raise his voice to arrest impending calamity, the Senator from Ohio would laugh to scorn the admonition, and would hold up its author to ridicule. The Senator had forgotten his own anxieties when, surrounded in Congress by a majority of his own party friends in 1882, he exclaimed that there was no sentiment in the country stronger than that Congress had neglected its duty in not repealing taxes that were obnoxious and unnecessary, and that he was determined that the sin should hot lie at his door. The Senator from Ohio had assailed the President because of the statement in the message that there appeared be no just complaint of the taxes on spirits, tobacco, and beer, and had argued that “the traditions in policy of our people are against internal taxes.” When, asked Mr. Kenna, had the Senator undergone a change of heart on that important subject? The Senator had declared in 1867 that spirits, wine and tobacco were “undoubtedly the first objects that should be taxed.” He should not follow the Senator in all that he had said as to the surplus in the Treasury, but two instances would suffice. The Senator had denounced Congress for its failure to provide subsidies for postal comm unication with South American States, and had denounced the President for his failure to approve the river and harbor bill. But the question'of subsidies was familiar to the whole people. The antagonism of the President and of his party to the subsidizing of special interests or classes needed no defense at his hands. That invention of the Republican party had never found favor with the Democracy, It was against the fairness and spirit and genius of American institutions. This country had no ships. The pretended policy of protection had driven them from the high seas. They could not be built to compete with the Clyde ships, and the Republican obstructive policy would not allow them to be sailed under the American flag. Turning to the subject of the tariff, Mr. Kenna said that the tariff laws in force now, with some modifications, adopted by peculiar and questionable methods in 1882, are substantially those known as the “Morrill tariff of 1867.” The Senator from Ohio aided largely in passing that tariff. He denied that the large increase of that period was intended for the protection of labor. He denied that reducing the duties increased the revenue. The Senator has recognized the fact which all were bound to admit, that whether lowering or increasing the duty will add to the revenue is a question depending upon other considerations than the arbitrary amount of the schedule. A duty might be so high as to S revent importations and yield no revenue. 'he other extreme was free trade, which would likewise destroy the income, and nobody asked for free trade. The true solution was a fair and just mean which would produce exactly the revenues the country needed, according to the plain dictates of common honesty, as declared by the last Democratic platform, in “a spirit of fairness to all interests.” Mr. Kenna compared the present attitude of Senator Sherman with his former utterances on the subject of the tariff. The Senator had appealed to the labor of the country, and had declared that to lift the burdens of the laboring man and to give him equal opportunities in the great struggle ot life would be to degrade him. To show the Senator’s inconsistency on that point, he referred to the law ot July 4, 1864, passed under the special patronage of Mr. Sherihan, allowing immigration under contract This, Mr. Kenna said, was the first formal and official introduction of foreign serfdom into free America. In very recent years the Senator voted against a bill to restrict the immigration of Chinamen. He afterward pleaded for a limitation of the term of the exclusion to five years, and finally voted for the last bill, insisting that every skilled laborer in China should be excluded from its operation. It was undoubtedly true, Mr. Kenna said, that while our excess of import duties had a tendency to build up and foster monopolies and enrich the few at the expense of the many, it had a like tendency to invoke free competition to labor and to

reduce the workingmen to the minimum of compensation. It had drawn a vast army from Europe to compete with labor in America. By the increased cost of living it had made life a burden to workingipen here. By a false stimulus to his industries for a time it had invited millions to become his open competitors from every hilltop and valley in our own country, and from every quarter and section of the civilized world. The Hungarian, the Italian, and the Chinaman had crowded him alike. They had “come from every nation, come from every way.” Yet laboring men are blandly told they are to bind themselves, hand and foot, forever and forever, to a system which gives them all the free trade and competition, and to others and the priviliged few the monopoly and the profit Mr. Kenna said he was mistaken in the intelligence of American labor if it allowed that condition longer to exist. He had no further purpose in the discussion than to indicate his co-operation with the President in the interest of the people. A bill to reform the revenue system and to reduce taxation would come from the House of Representatives, and be did not doubt that it would be framed in a spirit of conservative fairness to all sections of the country, and to all interests. The cry of the demagogue that the President and his policy were aiming at the lessening of a just reward of labor was as indecent as it was false. The system of taxation in this country for the last twenty years had been a standing menace, and a'constant injury to the laborer himself. Wno would deny that the system which had prevailed under Republican administrations in this country and for years past had made more strikes, driven more men from employment, filled the country with more tramps, created more discontent, and produced more starvation and death than any other system the country ever saw? Was it not time for a change? And yet, when the President of the United States, confronting bravely the solemn requirements of his high office and daring to preserve a patriotic regard for his public responsibilities, ventured the suggestion of a remedy which had been demanded by one administration after another, he was assailed by one of the acknowedged leaders of the Republican organization as frivolous in his action or bent on destruction. It might as well be understood now as hereafter that this movement for reform and the relief of public burdens, in which the President baa gallantly and manfully taken the lead, meant practical results. The country was aroused to the justice of its demands. The ranks would be closed. A spirit of fairness and of justice would prevail in all things, and both the benefits and the burdens of our system of taxation would be distributed fairly. That system, both internal and external, would be treated as a whole. The tax on tobacco he had no doubt would be reduced or repealed. Iron and coal and wool and other products of labor and care and enterprise would not be sacrificed in the revision. They would stand as other industries stood, subject to their fair share, in the benefits of whatever the system as revised might be, and bearing their fair share of the burdens of the common lot. The Senator from Ohio had been greatly agitated over the wool question. It might be that his vote in 1882 to reduce the duty on wool, when, as a leading member of the Conference Committee which practically framed that revision, he led in the movement, had made him unduly sensitive on that subject. Having aided in reducing the product of the wool growers, he might now feel impelled to “pull the wool over their eyes." A statement had been made in open Senate and in the hearing of the country by an honorable Senator in 1881, that “anything that will beat down that party and build up our own is justifiable in morals and in law.” There was ample room for a reduction of the existing taxes without violence to any interest. No extremes needed to be resorted to. The measure of duty which filled the difference between the cost of production in the United States and abroad (with cost of transportation! was protection to labor and fair competition to the employer. The measure that went beyond that was monopoly to the employer and unfair competition to labor. The Democratic party had never been the enemy of labor. Maintaining the ancient doctrine of home rule, special privileges to none, and equality before the law, it had ever been the safest guardian of the poor and the humble. Labor would find under its control of the Government a fairer, a securer, and a better reward: but monopoly, fortified and intrenched behind twenty years and more of Republican exaction and misrule, would have to go. Its citadel would be stormed, and in this Congress its oxactions would be denied. Its hold on the throats of the masses would be broken. The mask of Republican protection would be torn from the face of hypocrisy and deceit and extortion. In conclusion, Mr. Kenna said:

The question before us at this time is the bare reference to the President’s message. The debate upon that question has been precipitated and calculated to alarm and to territy the country. But the country has been long preparing for this conflict. It is now ready for the fray. It is my candid judgment that the great masses of the people will indorse and support this brave struggle for their rights, and for relief from their bondage. A generation of young men is rising up about us who are to control the dest nies of the republic. They are to be taught that the password to their future advancement is “Equality before the law." They are to realize their obligations to country, but they are to realize and cherish as well the obligations of country to them. The child of labor and the child of fortune, linked in a common destiny, bound by the ties which should know no breaking, are to go on together, guided by the spirit of our institutions and inspired by the genius of our country’s freedom. These are to constitute the men of the republic

LABOR AND THE TARIFF.

Increases of Wages from 1850 to 1880, with Comparisons. [From the Philadelphia Record.] The most important gain of the President’s message is in the fact that it has called the workingmen, more than did any previous utterance or happening, to the serious consideration of the question whether the retention of the war tariff taxes are not, after all, a reducer rather than an advancer of their wages or earnings. Heretofore a large proportion of them, especially in this Slate, have accepted the pretenses of the monppolists in the blindest of faith. They have assumed—not beoauee they knew, but because they were told, and because there was a certain plausibility in the argument—that if the tariff should be modified by the merest shaving the door would be thrown open immediately to such an influx of “paupermade" goods from abroad as would either throw them out of employment altogether or bring their wages down to the European level. It was natural almost that they should thus deceive themselves, and one

of the chief reasons why it was natural was in the fact that all the literature, o i nearly all, on the revenue-reform side cf the agitation either appealed to them as consumers only, or was constructed upo>* lines beyond their comprehension. As a result the cry in the factories is no longer for protection against foreign importations of goods so much as against high-priced raw materials, which of necessity make low wages, and high-priceJ necessaries, which make them still lower by decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar. The workingmen begin to appreciate the importance of this materials question. They are looking up the figures, and have found, for instance, that according to the 1880 census the total cost of materials in the manufactories for that year was $3,396,324,549, while the amount paid for wages was but $947,953,795, the former figure being more thnn three and one-half times the latter, with the wages considerably less than 25 per cent, of the total. Of course they know that much of this material was not what is called raw material, but they know, also, that much of it was, and their eyes are open to the relative importance of the raw materials question as never before.

And while looking up these figures in the census they have learned other things important to the elucidation of the tariff question as it affects the question of wages. They have found, among other things, that the average earnings of the workingmen in the factories of the country, according to the last four censuses, were as follows: In 1850 $247 la 1870* $302 In 1800 288 In 1830 340 This shows that the average is constantly increasing, as it most certainly should in a great country like this, with its wonderful resources, improvements in machinery, aud increasing general intelligence. But it shows, also, that the increase from 1850 to 1860 was as great as during any other decade, though the period marked no great tariff advances, and was far greater than the average of the two decades from 1860 to 1880, notwithstanding the very deluge of “protection” the latter period gave us. The teaching of all this is in line with the teaching of the message, that whatever benefits accrue to the workingman from a tariff on manufactured products are more than neutralized by the insane policy of high duties on raw materials and the necessaries of life.

♦The actual figures of the census are 377, but 21 per cent, is deducted to allow for the difference between the inflated currency values of 1870 and the hard money values of 1880. See Remarks Compendium of last census, Fart 2.

MORTGAGES ON OUR FARMS.

Figures Showing Mow Enormous Is the Burden Imposed. [From the New York Times.] The amounts represented by the faces of the farm mortgages in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, lowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri are: Jn Ohio $ 701,001,000 In Indiana 308,000,000 In Illinois 620,000,000 In Wisconsin 250,000,000 In Michigan...., 350.000,000 In Minnesota 175,000,000 In lowa 351.000,000 In Nebraska 140,000,000 In Kansas 200,000,000 In Missouri 237,000,000 Total farm mortgages in the ,„.,jjen States $3,422,000,000 The actual value of the farms lying in the ten States is to-day about $13,931,000,000. In this valuation due allowance has been made for the enormous volume of emigration which has poured into Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota, and into the northern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin since 1880. All talk relative to this vast sum of money ever being paid is utter folly. No agricultural people can pay such sums. The profit derived from American agriculture is now so small as to be unworthy of the slightest consideration. To illustrate this fact: The interest money annually drawn from the ten States listed, if they pay 7 per cent, only, amounts to $239,000,000. The profits of agrioultnre do not warrant the payment of so great a sum. The total value of the farm products of the United States was, in 1879, $2,213,000,000. Of this value the ten States I have listed produced $839,000,000. This was the total value sold, consumed, and on hand. Say that the ten States now produce to the value of $1,000,000,000. If but one-half the farms are mortgaged the produce they yield is worth $500,000,000. At least $239,000,000 of that value goes to pay interest money, leaving $261,000,000 of produce to support 886,000 farmers and their families, or $294 to each farmer. Out of this small sum they must pay labor, pay taxes, supply seed, buy tools, and they and their families live. The sum is entirely inadequate. It is not possible for these mortgaged farmers, as a class, to ever lift their mortgages. Legislative enactment cannot increase the price these men receive for their products, but it is possible to decrease the price they now pay for the goods which they consume. These men, though their names are borne on the assessment rolls as the owners of the farms they till, are actually tenants. They ceased to be freeholders the instant they mortgaged their land. The price they have paid for American manufacturing industries has been their birthright. A continuance of the system will surely cause the larger portion of the farmers whose land is still unincumbered to mortgage their lands. Under our present tariff the Eastern manufacturers have accumulated all that the agricultural West has created without being able to save.

As to Wages.

All ultra-protectionists harp continually upon the alleged high wages paid by American protected manufacturers to their foreign imported laborers, but an examination of the pay-rolls shows that the‘claim consists chiefly of imaginary money, and that in point of fact they are the poorest paid town laborers in the United States, and the more highly protected the factories are the less the wages. For example: In the silk factories, enjoying 50 per cent, bounty; woolen factories, enjoying 60 to 100 per cent.; cotton factories, enjoying 35 to 50 per cent., and in some lines still higher protection, the wages are just a grade above pauper pay. The wages paid in the coal mines are barely above the pauper standard, and the great bulk of the workmen in and about iron and steel works and ooke and salt works receive a compensation just one point higher than is paid to their fellow-workmen in Europe. The nominal wages they receive, if more, have less purchasing power.— Chicago Tribune.

BLAINE MEANS BUSINESS.

The Maine Man Positively Asserts that He Is Not a Candidate. He Maintains that No Defeated Candi- * date Should Again Make the Contest. The New York World prints a threecolumn interview with Mr. Blaine which has been cabled from Florence by Mr. T. C. Crawford: Mr. Blaine, in the course of a long conversation, distinctly asserted that under no circumstances whatever would he allow his noma to be used in connection with the next Presidential nomination. He insists on the sincerity of his withdrawal, and asserts that he had made np his mind thereto long ago. He considers, first, that any man whose name has been associated with a defeat in a Presidential campaign owes it to his party not to allow himself to be renominated, and, secondly, he is unequal to facing the fatigues, worry and excitement of another canvass, all the more as he. would feel himself bound to work as hard os on previous occasions. Mrs. Blaine and the other members of his family are most emphatio in their approval of his withdrawal, which is definitive, and neither hasty nor recent in its decision. Mr. Blaine will not return from Europe until June, and not until after the Republican convention. He deolines to express himself on the subject of the Republican candidates in the field, but asserts that he did not retire In favor of any particular one of them. He is convinced of a Republican victory, basing his conviction in particular on the tariff question. When Mr. Blaine was asked the direot question whether he would under any circumstances permit his name to be used again as a candidate, he replied in the most emphatio negative, but then added: ‘I do not wish to make any new affirmations upon the subject. I have said all that I wish to say upon this subject in that letter. That letter, as you must know,was not a haphazard, off-hand affair. It was the result of much deliberation and oareftil thought. You will remember that I told you In Paris lost December that I hod no Intention of being a candidate again, and that I hod practically made up my mind at that time to forbid the use of my name in the approaching convention. “I hold, “ he said later in the conversation, “that I have no right to bo a candidate again. A man who has onoe been the candidate of his party and defeated owes it to his party to withdraw and not be a candidate a second time. More than this,there is anotherlplain reason for my withdrawing. loould not go through the burden and fatigue of another Presidential oon-vass—-such a oue as the canvass of the last campaign. To aooept a nomination, and to do less than before, would be impossible. *

OUR NAVY.

Four New YesSels Soon to Be Added— The New Cruisers Nearing Completion. [Washington special to Chicago News.] I encountered the familiar faee of Charles Cramp, the great Philadelphia shipbuilder, at the Riggs House, and took occasion to ask him about his work on the three new cruisers, dynamite cruiser, and gunboat, for which be a year ago contracted with Secretary. Whitney. “Excellent progress is being made,” he said. “We are working night and day. The gunboat Yorktown will be launched m

CHARLES CRAMP.

a fortnight and the cruiser Baltimore, of 4,000 tons, during the early summer. The cruisers Philadelphia and Newark are well along, and will be launched in the fall. The Baltimore mu9t make nineteen knots, but I rather think we will get as high speed out of the Philadelphia. ” I asked him if there were any new developments of interest to the public. “Yes,” he said, “the experiment of casting steol guns in Pittsburg is of the highest interest, and its result will be watched with much anxiety. If steel cannon can be cast in this way instead of being forged it will revolutionize the art of arming forts and ships, for it will tremendously reduce the expense without much diminishing the effectivensss.” Mr. Cramp is a small-sized, pleasantvoiced man, his brown bair and full, red whiskers both turning gray, and his eyebrows drawn downward by those lines of thoughtfulness that reappear so often in the faces of business men that they might be called tbe lines of commercial anxiety.

MARTIN IRONS IN A RAGE.

He Is Acquitted of Wire-Tapping, but Calls Judge Laflin a Liar. I St. Louis special.] Martin Irons, the leader of the great strike of railroad men on the Missouri Pacific system two years ago, who was indicted on the charge of attempting to tap telegraph wires and obtain dispatches going to and from Jay Gould and General Manager Hoxie, has just been tried and acquitted, greatly to the delight of his friends and the Knights of Labor generally. Daring the summing up by counsel, Judge Laughlin, one of the attorneys for the prosecution, called Irons an anarchist, whereupon Irons called Mr. Laughlin a liar. The Judge paid no attention to the remark of Irons, Dut a moment later bitterly denounced him as an agitator and an anarchist of the Spies and Johann Most type. Irons sprang to his feet, and in a highly excited manner and still louder voice, bjnadww the Judge as a liar. Tne scene was quite dramatic and exciting, but two deputy sheriffs soon squelched the irate defendant, and Mr. Laughlin continued his speech.

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

—Much interest is centered at present on Mrs. Hooker, a well-known Indy of Elkhart, who has appeared before the Pension Board und made formal claim to a pension, based on the fact that she was an enlisted soldier of the late war, served three years, and was twice wounded. At the breaking out of the war Mr. Hooker was appointed First Lieutenant, and his wife accompanied him to the front. She was enabled to do this by a clever piece of strategy. A yonng man who bore some resemblance to her was induced to submit himself to the necessary examination, and when an opportunity presented itself the young woman, properly uniformed, exchanged places with him. Her enlistment took place in Ohio, and her assumed name was Brown. With her husbaud she has lived here several years, and is familiarly known as “Colonel" Hooker. The outcome of her claim is looked forward to with much curiosity. —The Soldiers’ Monument Commission met at Indianapolis, recently, and formally contracted with Bruno Schmitz, the Berlin architect, for the erection of the monument. The structure is lo cost $200,000, and will be erected in (he spot now occupied by the Morton statue, in the center of Circle Park, the statue to occupy a site just south of the monument. Schmitz is to receive SIO,OOO for furnishing plans and specifications and superintending the work. He is now putting the design in water colors, and it will then be copyrighted and cuts and photographs will be sold for the benefit of the fund. —Patents have been issped to Indiana inventors as follows: Louis Adams, Terre Haute, balanced slide-valve; Henry Ader, Somerset, valve; Frank Brough, Indianapolis, handle attachment; Charlos G. Conn, Elkhart, wind instrument; Levi P. Fordioa/ Westfield, slate-pencil holder; William A. Frashoar, Urbann, fence; Reymond O. Piton, Terre Haute, stove for burning light fuel; George W. Rodecap, door-closer; Ralph Stuckmisch, Cory, egg-tester; Alvin W. Vandurslen, South Bend, carbumper. —The Central Indiana Poultry Association has elected the following officers: President, Justus Clapp, of Wayne County; Vice President, William Kinsley; Recording Secretary, E B Johnson; Corresponding Secretary, C. B. Cage; Treasurer, John M. Ross, Union County; Executive Committee: George Kinsley, William Kinsley, J. W. Elliot, J. K. Bowers, and T. E. Goodrich; Superintendent, S. L. Lange. —The discovory of gold in quartz Tit a (lepth of 133 feet in Cooley’s gas well, At Hartford City, is causing great excitement in that city. The precious metal is visible to the naked eye iu the specimens on exhibition. It has been proved to be the genuine article by old miners and goldhunters. People are flocking from all parts of the country attracted by the discovery.

—The wheat throughout Houthern Indian a has the appearance of being damaged considerably. The heavy ice and severe freeze during the month of January was quite severo on the late wheat especially. If the remainder of tbe season shall be favorable the crop may be a fair one, but certainly the prospect, at this lime, is anything but flattering. —The little son and daughter of James Hustons, who resides near Elwood, Miami Connty, while playing about the house got hold of a bottle of belladonna, which had been carelessly left on a window sill, and drank therefrom sufficient quantities to throw them into violent spasms. The boy, aged 4, died soon thereafter, but the little girl will recover. —Jesse W. Cumberland is a Justice of the Peace at Crawfordsville, and is the largest mau in Montgomery County. Recently he was called npon to go to a honse for the purpose of marrying a couple. When he arrived at the house he could not get through the front gate, and he had to go around and pass through the wagon gate.

—Mrs. John Burns, aged 55, was walk* ing across the Thirteenth-street crossing of the Vandalia Railroad at Terre Haute, when a west-bound passenger train ran over her, killing her instantly. She had the neuralgia, and had her face bundled up in a thick shawl. This prevented her from hearing the approaching train. —Judge Gresham,in the Indianapolis tally* sheet forgery cases against Coy and Bern* hamer, denied the granting of the writ of habeas corpus prayed for, and sustained the demurrer of the United States authorities at Indianapolis. The defendants mnßt go to prison, pending an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. —Prof. Thomas Gray, of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, widely known in this country for his contributions to science in electricity and seismology, has been appointed to the chair of dynamic engineer* ing in the Rose Polytechnic Institute of Terre Haute, and has signified his aocept* ance of the the same. —From all the reports that have so far come in, from the southern part of the State, touching the condition of the fruit buds, it is noted that the prospect for pears, peaches, and cherries is very promising. and if no accident happens from now on there will be an immense yield. —At Fort Wayne . a verdict of $1,500 was awarded Louis Boegle for damages received while in the employ of Keller & Roth, contractors. Boegle was struck by a falling brick daring the construction of St. Mary’s Church. He sued for 0. —The Board of Trustees of 1 1 e Soldiers' Orphans’ Home at Knighstown have appointed W. H. Lester, of Indianapolis, steward in place of W. C. David, resigned, —The postoffice at Columbia City was entered by burglars, who secured S3OO in •tamps, S7O in cash and valuable letters.