Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1888 — Page 3

REVENUE REFORM.

Nine Out of Ten of Our Protected Industries Do Not Need Protection. There’s Millions in Protected for the Three Great Refining Finns of This Country. Protection the Natural Parent of Monopoly Proved by a Powerful Array of Facts and Figures. Labor Driven to the Wall and Nearly Half a Man’s W ages Goes to Enrich Monopolies. "If free trade should prevail our shops would he shut down and our workmen be thrown out of employment. ” This is a scare, pure and simple. Thorold Rogers has conclusively pointed out that there are three classes of industries which can get along without protection: First, those that have no competition ; second, those that can produce their goods with marked superiority over all other countries; third, those that are shielded from foreign competition by the cost of transportation. Nine out of ten of our protected industries fall in the one or the other of these classes. The tenth one, being maintained purely by taxation, is a nuisance and ought to be abolished, because it is a subtraction from the general wealth of the people, and from the earnings of the unprotected workman. “But, Mr. Free Trader, what will the poor workmen in that tenth industry, which you call a nuisance, do when your free trade abolishes it?” Here, I confess, is where the protectionist has the advantage of the free trader. He can always point to some local misfortune which npight be caused by free trade, and the free trader has to resort to argument to show that what might be locally a misfortune is yet a gain for all. When John and James lose their job everybody sees that, but an argument not everybody can see. What would become of John and James who are thus thrown out of employment when the industry that exists purely by and for taxation is abolished? I answer, that for one chance of employment which they may lose free trade will give them two chances. Let me illustrate. By the grace of the tariff we have become a sugar-producing country. The tariff has helped to make sugar-growing a profitable business for some planters in Louisiana. They produced last year, trying their utmost, not quite 500,000,000 pounds of raw sugar. That is hardly one-sixth of our entire home consumption, for we import every year about 2,500,000,000 pounds more, on which we pay some fifty-one or fifty-two million dollars of tax, which makes every pound of sugar we buy cost from 1 to 3'<i cents more than it ought to. It is an unneccessary tax, too. Our government does not need it, for it is getting now $125,000,000 more a year than it knows what to do with. That tax takes from $5 to $lO at least out of each housekeeper for sugar and piles them up in the. United States Treasury. Would they not do far ‘more good in the pocket of the man who earned them, than to hoard them away as a temptation to thievish public schemes ? Why do they not abolish the sugar tax? Because it is “protection” to the three great sugar refining firms of the country against the ■“pauper labor of Europe." There’s millions in it, and they have made vast fortunes, every man of them, at the expense of. the people. But to our illustration: These firms sell sugar to the American consumer for 6’,.j cents (wholesale) and to the English consumer for 3% cents. Why the difference in favor of the foreigner? I will tell you. When they import raw sugar for refining into crushed, granulated, and loaf sugars, our Government allows them a drawback from the duty, amounting to 50 cents on the hundred. [Here the writer errs. The drawback is paid when refined sugar is exported. It is by law equal to the duty on the raw sugar of which the refined is made, less 10 per cent, That, however, does not impair the general truthfulness or force of the illustration. —Editor.] Do they give the American consumer—that is, you and me—the benefit of the drawback. Oh, no. They sell us sugar at full tariff rates, and then send their surplus sugar across the ocean to the Englishman and let him have it for 2% cents per pound less. The English sugar-refiners have, therefore, been undersold and have gone out of business, J’he English Johns and Jameses in sugar-refining were thrown out of employment and raised an outcry. Parliament appointed a commission to inquire into their grievances. What did they find? They found that instead of 4,000 Johns and Jameses employed in sugar-refining there were now 12,000 of them working in the jam and confectionery trades which had sprung up from the cheap sugars which their foreign friends, and we among the number, have been kindly taxing themselves to furnish them. And so, Mr. Protectionist, it will be with us when free trade brings us the cheap products of foreign countries. It will not take so much labor to satisfy our wants as under your system, and thus we can devote our surplus time to new forms of industry and the satisfaction of new wants.

For one industry suppressed by free trade, two •will spring up in its place. It is free trade ■which tends to diversify the industries of a country and to create that abundance of everything which constitutes real national wealth. It is the tendency of protection to concentrate the industry of a country into the particular forms favored by law, and to drive them into combination with each other. Protection is the natural parent of monopoly. An industry guaranteed handsome profits by Governmental taxation soon draws a host of rivals into competition with it. They want their share of the ■“good thing,” too. The result is that the market is soon" overstocked with their goods, and there is what is called a “glut." Prices fall, wages are cut, production goes on. The oversupply is not decreased, for there is no outlet. Smail rivals •drop out of the business ruined, and then the large ones, to ,save themselves and quit playing “cutthroat” on each other, combine into an “association,” “union,” or “trust,” pool their capital, agree with each other to regulate production, pay a uniform rate of wages, and divide profits. All over the land we therefore see these protected industries leagued together into these monopoly combinations, dictating their own prices, paying labor what they choose, regulating production, and at the sometime lessening by forced stoppages and short time-work the wages of their workmen. Even but a partial list of these protected monopolies is appalling. First, we have the National Association of Timber Dealers, with headquarters at Chicago. They meet every year to determine the questions of the amount of lumber they will get out and the wages they will pay the coming year. Then they have a banquet and adjourn. Then comes the Seven-Railroad coal monopoly, which owns two-thirds of the anthracite coal lands. The representatives of the companies composing the great combination meet two or three times a year, agree with each other not to transport the coal of independent producers to market, arrange the time for shutting down or working on short time in order to regulate production, decide what wages they will pay until they next meet, fix prices, and then adjourn. Then we have the coke associations of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Then the friction match combination that was—you see the tax on matches was taken off, so the monopoly went to pieces, and the people now get cheap matches ■once more—then we have the Wall-Paper association, the Western Wrapping-Paper association, the American Paper association, and behind them the Old Rag and Old Paper association; then we have the Western Woodenware association, the India-Rubber association, the CrackerBakers’ association, the Stove-Dealers’ association, the Sugar association, the Salt monopoly, the Western Starch association, the Nail Manufacturers’ association, tho Barbed-Wire combination, the Western Pig-Iron association, the Empire Iron company, the Central Tack Manufacturers’ Association of Boston, the American Window-Glass Manufacturers’ association, and the American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manufacturers, the Patent-Medicine association, the Flax and Hemp Spinners and Growers’ association, the Mutual Association of Carriage Hardware Manufacturers, the School Book Publishers’ Association, and last, but not least, the National Burial Case Association—all of them protected “infants,” supposed, under our present blessed tariff, to be encouraging industry and multiplying manufactures, but all of

them, under cover of that very tariff, combining with each other to limit and restrict manufacturing by working on short time, so as to keep up the prices agreed upon in secret meeting, and sometimes even paying, out ot the profits guaranteed by protection, one or another, in the combination,' for shutting down entirely. The Vulcan steel mill in St. Louis was paid $400,000 per annum by the thirty-million-dollar steel monopoly to stand idle. Eour wall-paper manufacturers in the Wall-paper Association have been receiving $20,000 a year for the last five or six years for standing idle, and to-day some of the West Virginia salt works are paid by the salt| combination for lying idle. Now, whom do these protected industries benefit beyond their immediate owners? Is it the great body of the people? Plainly, no. The great body of the people are all those, first, who are engaged in agriculture, comprising one-half of all the labor of the country, and, next, they are our carpenters, our masons' our blacksmiths, our bricklayers, our plasterers, and every man outside these protected industries who is working—whether in manual or mental toil —to support himself or his family. They outnumber their protected brethren nineteen to one, and whenever they spend the wages of their labor for any article produced by these combinations they give on the average under our tariff—averaging last year 45 per cent. —just 45 cents out of every dollar of their earnings to support, it is supposed, their protected brethren, but really to' enrich these protected monopolies. The slave of the South was a slave because all his earnings were subject to protection and seizure by another. He was 100 per cent, a slave because all his earnings were taken from him. Why, then, under the present protective tariff, does not the farmer and every other man who pays an average of 45 per cent, tax on his lumber, window-glass, salt, rice, sugar, woolen clothing, earthenware and china, tools, machinery, kitchen utensils, etc., only lack 55 per cent, of being just as much a slave as the colored man was in the South before the war?

Do these protected associations benefit their workingmen? Do they pay them better wages than other laborers get? No, they pay them less —just as little as they can get off with, and in some instances not enough to keep soul and body together. Manhood labor in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal mines got last year an average of 79 cents a day, and the bituminous coal miner got an a. erage of 64 cents a day. The tariff of 75 cents a ton on coal is supposed to be for the benefit of the miner, as “protection against the pauper labor of Europe.” Does he get it? Why, the “pauper” miner of Scotland gets four shillings—that is $1 —a day for his work. The tariff a benefit to the workingman! Ah, no. It is only a benefit*to protected capital by enabling it to enter into combinations to control both production and wages, to squeeze the public with one hand, and with the other to grind labor into abject slavery. Do the employes in any of these protected monopolies ever get an inerease of wages without a labor union or a strike? Never. In many cases the strike is brought on purposely by the employer by a cut in wages, and when the workmen strike against the cut, they finally have to yield in the end, because of the disadvantage in which the tariff puts them. For, with a large stock on hand, the manufacturer feels easy, because he is safe from outside competition, and he knows that it will take a long time before there is such a scarcity in the market as to make prices rise, and cause foreign goods to be brought in. In some States there are laws making it a penal offense for workingmen to even combine against these protected monopolies. Has it ever yet been thought of to make it a penal offense for our monopolists to combine against the workingman ? Protection is always for the employer, not for the employe. When he can not get the wages, which his employer tells him at election time the high tariff is going to (but never does) give him, and he strikes, his place is filled with a cheap Hungarian or Italian imported by contract, duty free. Talk about the disinterestedness of the protectionist and his love for the workingman! After the burning of Chicago, when Senator Logan introduced a special bill in Congress to allow her to import every sort of building material free of duty—such as glass, iron, nails, paints, oils, and lumber —who murmured against the boon ? Why the protected glass men, the iron men, tbe paint men, the oil men; and. the protected lumber barons of Michigan and Wisconsin chartered a train of Pullman palace cars and went down to Washington, pleaded with the Committee of Ways and Means, and got lumber stricken Off the list, and so Chicago got free trade and cheap materials in everything but lumber for rebuilding the city after the fire. The lumbermen couldn’t see it. They wanted their pound of flesh. They knew on whiqh side the tariff on lumber had buttered their bread. There were, according to the last census, 1,268 men in the State of Michigan employed in the salt industry, in the most disagreeable work in the world, breathing the steam from the salt-vats all day long with scarcely any clothing on. Their average wages was $1.37 a day, and the profits of the salt manufacturers each day upon each man employed were $1.84, and still the protectionist’s heart bleeds for the poor laboring man—at election times. When the yellow fever ravaged the South in 1878 and the poor were dying daily by thousands, who ran the price of quinine, the great specific in that dread disease, up to $8 an ounce—more than six times its retail price now ? The three great quinine firms of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The tariff had given them a monopoly of the business, and they saw their chance. The heads of these three firms are millionaires to-day, and one of them, a twenty-millionaire, is the richest man in,Philadelphia, all made out of the groans and sighs and agony of the sick and the dying; and still protection’s heart is ever bleeding for the people. These firms made so much out of the yellow-fever epidemic then that they were enabled to buy up all the cinehona forests in South America, and they control them to-day. When Congress put quinine on the free list in 1879 these three great firms loudly protested against the action of Congress in the name of “American labor" (as usual); that it would be “disastrous to their industry;” that they would have to discharge their men; that they would quit the business and move their establishments to Germany, where they could get cheaper labor. Their protest was like that usually made by nil such monopolies when their tariff favors are threatened to be taken away—mere so.und and fury—for these firms never discharged a single man that the public knows of, and they are as flourishing to-day as ever. Indeed, "it can be historically demonstrated that no protective duty was ever laid in the United States from the beginning of the government to this hour except at the instance and under the pressure of the very men who expected thereby to get artificial prices for their wares at the cost of their countrymen.” President Garfield admitted that the individuals and delegations who came before the Committee on Ways and Means while he was a member of it came in the basest selfishness, without a thought or care but for the extra price of their own products. The interests of labor are the last thing protectionists think about. It is not a question of labor at all; it is a question of capital always. Protect Workingmen by protecting capital! There never was a more abominable principle brought out of perdition ! Protect workingmen by protecting the manufacturer! There never was such an insane delusion!

The truth is, protection never concedes to labor its just wages, and without a struggle it never will. With some of these gigantic monopolies labor is already driven to the wall and the poor laborer is compelled to put wife and children to work to earn bread enough for the family. A year or two ago I saw three thousand little children from 6 to 15 years of age working in the coal breakers of Luzerne County, and I have seen women, naked to the waist and barefooted, wheeling cool into the coke ovens of Connellsville to help husband or brother to earn the pittance necessary to keep the family. Is this the labor of protection, so beautifully gictured by a recent presidential candidate in is letter of acceptance, as “earning enough to live in comfort, educating his children, and putting by a competency for old age?” No wonder, that under such a system honest industry is throttled and that the difference between the very rich and the very poor is becoming more and more marked. No wonder that where we had but ten millionaires in 1860 we now have a thousand. No wonder that our foams along the lake shore are paying to-day 86.50 of tax to $1 that they paid in 1860. No wonder that rents are twice as heavy, clothing twice as dear, and the necessaries of life generally 25 per cent, higher now than then. In the days of Rome the Government raised its revenues by selling the privilege of collecting them to the highest bidder. He remunerated himself in turn by wringing from the people their last coin and by selling those who could not ]>uy into the service of the rich, 'rhe tax-farmer then invariably acquired a vast fortune. Our Government, with like wisdom, grants a tariff, or tax privilege, to our protectionists, out of which the Government gets annually about 8180,000,000, and the protectionist beneficiaries take from the people 8600,000,000 to $800,000,000. The protected monopolist invariably becomes a millionaire, and the workman becomes his slave, or one

of the great army of tramps. That is tbe grand result. What a transparent game of robbery and swindle it is! First, the tariff, the foundation ol the whole business, then the killing off of small rivals by a combination of the big concerns, then higher prices by "regulating" production through stoppages or short-time work, and then squeezing of the people—both the unprotected nineteen twentieths who have to pay for the fun and the protected one-twentieth out of whose hand the robber protection, with his monopoly brood, filches back a part of tbe scanty dole of wages which he paid them for being the unwitting instruments of the conspiracy. How these monopolists must enjoy each other’s company when I they meet in annual convention, and banquet to ! fix prices for another year. Occasionally they I fall out in the game of grab, and then the people i get the benefit of low prices, but this does not occur often. It was Adam Smith who said, in 1776: “People of the same trade hardly meet together even for merriment and diversion, I but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” President Gowan pointed out to a committee of Congress a year or two ago that "every pound of rope we buy for our home, for our vessels, or for our mines is bought at a price fixed by a committee of the rope manufacturers of the United States. Every keg of nails, every paper of tacks, ■ all our screws and wrenches and hinges, the boiler-flues for our locomotives, are never bought except at a price fixed by the representatives of the mills that manufacture them. Iron beums for our houses or our bridges can be had only at the prices agreed upon by a combination of those who produce them. Fire-brick, gas-pipe, terracotta pipe for drainage, every keg of powder we buy to blast with, are bought under the same combination of prices. Every pane of glass is bought the same way. White lead, galvanized sheet-iron, hose, and belting, and files are bought and sold at rates fixed by the protected combinations." The stove we warm ourselves by in the long winter evenings is a combination stove; the cool we burn in it is a combination coal; the oil in the lamp is a combination oil; and even the very match we light the lamp with, but for the abolition of the tax on matches, would be a combination match — all sold to us at priees fixed in secret meeting. The very school-book we buy for our children is sold to us at a price agreed upon by a combination of the nineteen leading book firms of the country. This spirit of monopoly has penetrated every industry of daily life. The milk brought every morning to our door, the ice in the refrigerator, the fish on the table, the meat on the platter, are all sold to us at prices fixed by an agreement among the dealers. We eat, we live by the favor of monopoly, and when we die we are clothed in a “protected” shroud, bought at a fixed price, sewed by thread taxed 78 per cent, for the benefit of a combination, and then we are borne to our last resting-place by a combination-priced hearse, in a combination-priced coffin, lowered into the grave with a combination-priced rope, and finally have erected over us to perpetuate our memory a combination-priced stone. Combine .to die! This is the spirit of the times. “The little coke-burner of Connellsville worksjor stops work, the coal-dealer raises his prices or lowers them as the master of the pool directs. The lords of monopoly have the power of decreeing scarcity to-day and famine to-morrow. They can not stop the brook that runs the mill, but they can chain the wheel; they cun not hide the mine, but they cun close the shaft three days in every week. To keep up fat dividends they declare war against plenty. On all that keeps him alive the workman must pay them their prices, while they lock him out of the mill in which his labor can be made to feteh the price of life.” Mr. Lincoln once heard a noise in the next room. He looked in and found Tad and Bob scuffling. “What’s the matter, boys?” “It’s Tad,” replied Bob; “he’s trying to get my knife.” “Oh, let him have it, Bob,” said Mr. Lincoln, “just to keep him quiet.” “No," said Bob; “it’s my knife, and I need it to keep me quiet,” The people whose earnings have been taken away these many years by protection are beginning to feel like Bob. They want all they earn to keep them quiet, and they will have it, sooner or later. We have free speech, free thought, and the world has proposed under both. Our fathers fought for free soil and we are now fighting for free trade. Give us that and the whole fabric of robbery, corruption, and plunder will tumble to pieces. Repeal the legislation by which war prices are kept up and our labor enslaved. Replace it by legislation which shall call for no more nor no less revenue than the actual necessities of the Government demand. Let taxation bear equally on all classes ; let it be levied on what men own, not on what they consume ; on luxuries, not oh necessaries; and let those who own much pay much, and let those who own little pay little. Then shall wealth represent the fruit of honest industry, and not the gains stolen from the just earnings of hardy toil. H. C. M. Erie, Pa.

The Australian Aborigines.

The character of the aboriginal, when studied, shows traits that his white oppressor might be proud to possess. Hin faithfulness is remarkable, and has been known to stay with his sick master on the desert plains of interior Australia till death had taken them both, though his own safety might have been secured with ease. Their power of endurance is such that they have been known to travel over one hundred and twenty-five miles in twenty-four hours, and be ready to move on if required. Their keen power of scent and observation is now appreciated by the police, and woe be to the criminal whose track they are upon! Not a disturbed leaf nor an overturned stone will escape their keen eyes. Last November three desparate bush-rangers escaped from the jail at Perth, Western Australia. They were familiar with the bush, and had hours’ start, yet with the assistance of the “black trackers” the escapes were in the hands of the police within twentyfour hours. But the “black fellow’’will not work; if any duty is required of him, and the idea is impressed upon him that it is play, he is ready and willing to do it, no matter how arduous the task may be. He will ride horse-back all day after cattle and stay awake all night to watch them, if he thinks it is fun; but let him find it is work he is doing, and he will take to the bush at short notice, nor will he return to the same master. He asks no pay, clothes he does not need; a bite to eat and his satisfaction is complete. It is the fashion of the Queensland ladies to have a little black boy for a pet. Tricked out in gaudy clothes, the little fellows take the place of the pet poodle of European society. These boys are usually taken from the “ Gins” by force, but as it is nobody’s business, the crime is never noticed.— San Francisco Alta.

A South Carolina Woman.

A woman of Hampton County, South Carolina, 43 years of age, has followed the plow and engaged in the usual round of farm labor for thirty years. She dug one well, built five chimneys, and frequently split 100 rails a day. She has a good home, enjoys excellent health, and is sending her children to school regularly. The policemen of the country say they will make no reduction in their clubbing rates to anarchists.—Springfield Republican. If “practice makes perfect,” wha paragons of perfection some old quack must be.

SENSIBLE WORDS.

A Plain, Common-Sense Speech by an Illinois Colored Man. In the Democratic State Convention of Illinois, the following trim-built speech was delivered by Charles Nelson, a colored man: The greatest honor ever conferred upon me is the honor you have conferred upon me to-day in calling upon me to address the assembled wisdom and patriotism of the great Democratic party of Illinois. The only regret that I have is that I have not the ability or the time to deliver such an address as your intelligence, your patriotism, your party fealty demands. But I have never yet, since 1876, refused to raise my voice for those principles which I love and hold in common with you and the whole Democratic party of the United States. I belong to a party that is gray-haired with old age, with a record more grand than kings and princes have made in the past; a party that has done more for civilization and humanity than all the Generals that fought in former years under the old feudal system; a party bom and brought forth of the most noble and grand principles which the human mind is capable of grasping, the right of every man to live and pursue the course of happiness for himself and placing all on an eqality. There is some difference between Democratic equality and Republican equality. The Republican party claims that it is the party of equal rights for all men. I deny it upon their own assertions. First and foremost they are not for equality between white men. The man that toils, the farmer, the men that build the railroads and houses, the men that do the great' work of building up society and making all the commodities of life, this class of men the Republican party throughout its entire history has ignored entirely. That party is the party of the strong, the powerful, the rich. The legislation of the Republican party, to a great extent, has been entirely in the interest of the rich and the powerful, anil against the poor and the many; therefore I say, my Republican friends, from your own acts I am prepared to show, without fear of contradiction, you are not the party of equality between white men. But they say we are for equality between white and black. I deny that upon your own acts. You say the white man ought to vote as he pleases, but a black man ought to vote as you tell him. The Republican party says: “We freed you, Mr. Black Man, we

made you citizens and gave you the right to vote. Therefore, unless you vote for us you ought not to have the right to vote nt all.” Ask any Republican, living or dead, just please tell me how much rights you give the negro. If you only give him the Republican white num’s ballot to take to the box and vote it, I say to you now that I never carry any man’s ballot but my own, and I deposit it where I please. They say it is a strange thing that a black man should vote the Democratic ticket. Why cannot a black man have common sense as well us anybody? The Republican party has not been the true friend of the negro. The true friend of the negro is the man who, when he found him clothed with American citizenship, with the great responsibilities that position imposed upon him, said to him : “Read, study, think, and then vote as you please.” This is what the Democratic party did. The Republican party, on the contrary, says to the negro: “Read, but be careful how you read. Think, but do not think for yourself. Think for the Republicanparty ; when you vote don’t pay any attention to the principles held by the party, or how those principles, if put in operation, might affect the great mass of the people. Do not think of these things, simply inquire and look carefully, and see if this is a Republican ballot. If it is, sink all your manhood down into your boots, let all your brains go down into your feet, and take that ticket and deposit it for the Republican party, because wo are the best friends you have got.” Yes, my Republican friends, you are pretty good friends to the negro, in talk, as long as he acts like a mule. When he undertakes to act like a man, or vote like on American citizen ought to do, having due regard for the position he holds, and also with a due regard for the responsibilities, deposits his ballot for those principles and men whom he thinks will subserve the interests of all concerned, you say he is only a negro and he has got no sense, and he ought to be put back into slavery. This talk about slavery does not intimidate the negro now. The negroes have had their years of Democratic slavery. I had a little list the other day which showed that in General Black's department alone there were seventy-two colored men holding posi-' tions with salaries of from S9OO to $1,500 a year. There is Mr. Trotter, holding a position as Recorder of Deeds —a position that is worth $12,000, a place that many a white Republican would be glad to have. When Daniel Manning—bless his memory, a true Democrat now dead—was Secretary of the Treasury there was a colored man holding a clerkship whose turn comes to be promoted to the position of foreman. He was promoted and some of the Republican clerks that had been left in bondage there began to kicking about it. Mr. Manning said: “If there are any of you gentlemen that are not satisfied, bring in your resignations.” Now, that is the way the Democrats dealt with the negro. ’ They do not run around and tell him that they are his friends. They leave the negro with his good common sense to judge by their acts. If that is the way the Democratic party is going to put the negroes into bondage, Ido not care how many of them they put into bondage. And I notice another thing, that our Republican friends keep up a terrible squealing because the Democratic party keens more of them in slavery.

The Democratic party has important work yet to perform. The reforms that the Democratic party promised the people are only begun. Such reforms have challenged the admiration of the American people irrespective of party or color or previous condition of servitude. The Republican party was building up a landed aristocracy in this country by squandering and giving away the public domain to vast corporations. They were allowing the cattleraisers of the West to fence out the early settlers, the American citizen to whom the land really belonged, but under this Democratic administration, with this liberal man who has got more nerve and backbone than all the Republican Presidents that served from Lincoln down to Hayes—he said: “Take away all unearned lands from the corporations and restore them to the legal and original owners—the people," and they have taken away as much land as would make an area as large as the State of Illinois. Again, he said to the cattle barons: “Those lands belong to the people, and I say to you men, move your fences." They got up a little litigation and it was a powerful one. It represented about 8180,000,000, They sent men to Washington to importune President Cleveland to let them go on fencing the people out of the country that belongs to them. President Cleveland is a good man to listen. He listened to them, and when they got through he said: “Alli have to say to you, gentlemen, is to move your fences,” and, gentlemen, they did move. That is the way the Democratic party deals with great corporations. Now, these reforms have been commenced inside the department of the Government at Washington. I dure say if any corporation would run its affairs as carelessly as the Republicans used .to run the Government it would break it in six months if it was worth billions. Under the Democratic administration every clerk has got to be at the desk at certain hours, and if he wants to go driving he must hire his own buggy, and if he wants to drink he must drink water or buy his own whisky.

Worse than She Thought.

One of the hardest things in the world is to condole with anybody in a misfortune or a bereavement. If it were not that the matter is generally serious, a great many funny stories could be printed about the condolence people offer to the bereaved. But up at Sacramento some time ago a hardworking Irishman fell out of a fourthstory window and broke his neck. His wife was, of course, in great distress. After the funeral a neighbor called to offer her sympathy and condolence. “It was a very sad thing, indeed.” “Indeed it was, To die like that—to fall out of a fourth-story window. ” “An* was it as bad as that?” asked the visitor. “Sure, an’ I heard it was only a thfrd-story window,”— San Francisco Chronicle.

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

—William M. Thompson. ex-County Treasurer, and now of the firm of Thompson 4 Good, the leading grocers of Richmond, had a serious carriage accident.in which he was seriously hurt, and his wife fatally injured. She struck on her head, which is frightfully mutilated.

—While attending the funeral of William Meitler, at the residence of August Meitler, at the White Creek Church, west of Seymour. Mrs. Adolph Smith, aged 65 years, dropped dead. Meitler was killed by lightning in Kansas, and the sudden death at his funeral caused considerable excitement. —Patents have been issued to Indiana inventors, as follows: John J. Bishop, assignor of one-third to H. Wood, Greenwood, combined cooking and canfilling appartus; Micajah C. J. Henley, Richmond, machine for boring, drilling, etc.; M illiam H. Hubbard. Indianapolis, fastening for envelopes; John Laser, Bremen, bee-hive; Jacob W. Rowlett, Richmond, lawn mower; William Sylvester, Asherville, weather strip; M. H. Timberhike, Lafayette, pump; T. F. Vandergrit. N. H. andL. Maple, Shelbyville, fence machine.

—While drilling in a lime kiln, north of Delphi, a premature explosion of dynamite occurred and three persons were injured. Alex. Smith was terribly injured, and it is thought will die. —Mrs. Nancy Mace, an aged lady residing at Nabb Station, fell out of a wagon while riding along the highway and received serious injuries. She has since suffered partial paralysis and is now lying in a critical condition.

—James Blair, a wealthy and prominent farmer of Jackson County, in attempting to secure a swarming colony of bees that had settled on the limb of a tree, twenty feet from the ground, sawed the limb between himself and the body of the tree. His fall to the ground resulted in fatal injuries. —Fort Wayne wants the New York, Mahoning and Western Railroad shops, and there is fair prospects of her getting them.

—Another attempt to secure a natural gas well at Fort Wayne will be made. —A Wabash Jersey cattle breeder has shipped six head of fine registered Jersey cattle to a German Baron, who will place them on his farm at Denver. •—About seventy-five “regulators” called upon Lawrence Steerstetter, a sa-loon-keeper of Ramsey Station, Harrison County, and flogged him quite severely for selling liquor to minors. Steerstetter is well known throughout the county, and was at one time considered wealthy, but has of late been living a very dissipated life.

—Dr. J. H. Martin has been re-elected superintendent of the Madison city schools, Prof. J. A. Carnagey principal of the high school, and Prof. J. G. Hubbard of the lower seminary. —The Indianapolis Car and Manufacturing Company has awarded the contract to make 2,000,000 bolts to the Indianapolis Bolt and Machine Company. The bolts will fill about ten cars of twenty tons each. —Two jiassenger trains on the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad collided eight miles south of Terre Haute. Both locomotives were wrecked and the passengers were badly shaken up. No one was injured. —A child of Frank McKay, of Madison, fell into a tub of boiling water and was fatally scalded. —Mrs. Nancy Mace, an old lady, fell off a wagon and was seriously injured near Lexington. —Robert Maynard, while working on a farm near Indianapolis, dug up a pot of gold coins. —The C., H. & I. freight depot at Rushville, was destroyed by lightning. —I. T. Warden, a traveling man, was found dead in bed at Marion. —Anthony Kelley, a colored man whose age is unknown, but thought to be about ninety years, was found by friends, in his home at Noblesville, dead, sitting up in his chair. The cause of his death is not known. —Edward Chamberlain, the murderer of Ida Wittenberg, of Reynolds, William Catterson and Alfred Benson, highwaymen, in jail at Manticello, overpowered the Sheriff, Joseph Henderson, badly injuring him with an irom bar and made their escape. Chamberlain, after wandering through the woods for two days, went to the home of his uncle, near Reynolds, where he was captured and returned to jail at Monticello. The excitement was so high and fears of lynching so great, that the Deputy Sheriff called on the Governor for troops, who immediately ordered the Delphi Company to guard the jail, and they remained on duty until the prisoner could be taken to Michigan City for safe keeping. No sympathy is expressed for Chamberlain. The letter he left in the jail when he escaped, in which he gloats over the murderer of the Wittenberg girl, shows that he is desperately depraved. —The wheat of Gibson County is in fairly good condition. —The opening of the summer term of the Supreme Court develops the fact that the Court is hopelessly behind with its work, and cases are constantly increasing. The docket now contains 1,084 cases. When the last term opened there were 1,047 and 297 were disposed of, so that mote new cases have been filed than were disposed of. The constant increase of cases, and the inability of the Court to do the work is creating much dissatisfaction in all parts of the State.