Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1888 — Page 2

MILLS DEFENDS HIS BILL

THE TEXAS TARIFF-REFORMER BEFORE AN INDIANA AUDIENCE. A Vigorous Speech on the Leading Que« • tion —How Free Raw .Materials Will Benefit the Workingman—Figures that Show the Fending Measure to Be a Very Moderate One. Hon. Roger Q. Mills recently addressed an immense audience at Richmond, Ind. We print below a summary of his very able speech. Mr. Mills, on rising, was greeted with a ringing round of cheers, and at once began his speech. He pitched his voice in a high key. and •was easily heard by those even at the outskirts of the assemblage. He quoted at the beginning from Mr. Blaine’s New York sjteecb, that capital was able to take care of itself; that the question in this campaign was one of laborlabor from the skin to the core, and from the core back to the skin again. Mr. Mills said he would accept that definition, and he proposed ito show that the Democratic party was now. as it had always been, the true friend of labor and of the laboring man—a proposition which evoked the first outbreak oi general applause. By way of proof, he cited the enormous taxation imposed by the Republican party during and after the war, until the income began to be beyond the needs of the Government. Ho then called attention to the fact that when the Republicans began to reduce the burden they did ■not begin to take the taxes off the poor, but directly off the rich. The income-tax, Nor instance, .which was one affecting but a few of .he peoplo of the country, and they all weil-to-do, was among the first removed by the Republican party In its haste to favor the rich, while professing to be the friend of the toiling masses. In the same line was their treatment of the tax on railroads and other wealthy corporations. They were a., relieved of taxation, as lie sarcastically said, because the Republican party was so deeply concerned for the welfare of the laboring people. On the otter hand, the Democrats proposed toremove the tax from the clothing of the ioor, from the implements of labor wherewith the laborers earn their subsistence, and from other articles which go to make up the enormous taxation of labor to gather an unnecessary surplus. This effort met uniform opposition from the Republicans, and yet Mr. Blaine wou’d have the People believe that this is a campaign in which the question is one of labor, and that the Republicans are the only friends of laborers. It was indeed a question of labor, but the true friends of labor were found in the Democratic party. Mr. Mills was emphatic in his declaration that the Democrats did not propose t > give the nation free whisky, that it was understood that if an attempt was made to remove the tax on whisky the Democrats were ready to fight it out on that line, if it took all summer and all this fall. Continuing his proof of the proposition with which he began, Mr. Mills denied that the Democrats favored free trade, and quoted the very small reduction of the tariff as proposed in the Mills bilL “Why,” said he, “wo propose to reduce the tariff from for;y-sevon per cent, to forty-two nnd one-half. That is no more free trade than was tho reform made by a hard drinker when he reduced his drams from fortyseven a day to forty-two and one-half. ” Mr. Mills went on with differmt articles enumerated in his bill, in which .here was a reduction of the tariff, to show how in oach case the protection which the Republicans insist oir did not protect the workman, but did protect the thing made by the workman, and that in everv case the benefit of the protection wont to the manufacturer—the master—and not to the man. “Lotus see what sort of a Uil we have presented. It is very moderate. Wo have reduced the average taxation from $47.1) on the SIOO to $42.50 on the $100; a little less than $5 on a hundred on imported goods. They are going about the coun ry aud saying this is free trade, that it will ruin the whole epuntry. A ftve-dol-■lar reduction in taxation on the necessaries of life, still leaving th ) people to pay over S4O on the hundred of taxation—is that free trade? If it is, I would like to know what they mean by protection. ” He then took up the iron schedule, stating that the Mills bill made a reduction of $2.30 on the SIOO worth of iron and steel. He compared the labor cost of iron in England and United States, saying: “Our high-priced labor onl\- amounts to $1.50 a ton ; supposo theirs is 75 ccntH a ton ; then if we made a duty of 7 > cents on pig iron that would cover the difference between England and the United States ; then the cost of transportation from Liverpool would bo $2 a ton, which would be an ample margin for profit. We reduce the duty on pig iron oniv 52 cents, leaving ic at $5. That is for labor. We left these pig-iron manufacturers $5 a ton, which they tell us they want for th dr laborers, and yet they pav their laborers only $1.25 of it. Why the devil don't they pay .the balance of it? Tnere is no statute that prevents them from paying this money that is ■placed in their hands by Congress in trust to pay their laborers. Y r et from the very beginning of their manufactory down to the present moment they haye hired their laborers at the .lowest cost in the open markets of the world. The reason the laborer doesn't get that is because the tariff is not for the benefit of the laborer. They can fool them—maybe. They used to fool them, but they don’t very much now. They are getting their eyes opened. They want the laborers to take an interest in the tariff because they have votes and money has not votes. “The tariff is on the thing that labor makes. That thing belongs to the manufacturer. The laborer has only the strokeofhis arm, and ho has .that in open competition with all the markets in •the world. He is a free trader. Nothing protocts fi. Congress protects Dig iron, but it does not jP-utect the poor lellow that burns himself away at the forge. I will repeat a question that 1 have asked from Boston across to Chicago. A rflyty of $6.72 is on that ton of pig iron, and I say that $6.72 went right down into the pocket of the itoh owner and is there yet. Now, let any laboring man, any friend of Harrison and Morton, any iKepublicau tell me how I can assist the laborer togst that $6.72 out oi” the pocket of the Hianufocturer and put it into his, aud I will vote for Harrison and Morton—and free whisky. To say that the Democratic party is unfriendly to workingmen is to say that it is unfriendly to its own right arm. It is to say that a man does not love his home best. It is a question of labor from the skin to the core, nnd the Democratic party is probing that question to the core. Take a pair of five-pound blankets costing 55 cents for labor. The tariff on them is SI.OO, which is given for the i rotectiou of American labor against pauper labor. The manufacturer gets it and puts it all in his pocket. The laborer, when he goes home at night, feels in vain for that $1.93. It is not there. “Let us see what we have put on tho feee list —wool, lumber, tin plates, juts, and we have put the raw materials ou thefies list. On. reason f r this is that when you put a raw material on the free list you can reduce the duty on the finished product. Take wool to illustrate. The duty is 40 cents a pound, then 35 cents ad valorem In addition, making 67 cents on every pound. We are asked the question, ‘Why don't you put the tax on wool for the benefit of our farmers ?’ We come back to the old slogan, to the old motto, ‘Equal rights for all and exclusive privileges for none.’ We don’t puo taxes on an article simply to take money out of one person’s pocket and put it into somebody else s. We put a tax on an article to make a revenue to support the Government. We believe revenues ought to be as little burdensome as possible. So raise your revenues as to make y..ur tax as low as possible on the man that has the tax to pay. We had still another object in putting raw materials on the free list. We import each year about $44,000,003 of manufactured woolen goods. It takes somewhere about 200,003,030 pounds or raw wool to make these ..goods. It takes something like a hundred thousand men working in factories to make these goods. Where are they made? They are made in Europe. Foreign laborers mako them. Who ought to make them ? Our own laborers ought to make them. We say that the manufacturing capacity of this country has reached that point in its development, when worked at its fullest force eight months in the year, that they can make the entire product that the population ■will consume in a year. What are you going to do the other four months? The manufacturer ■can take care of hims If. He shuts up his establishment when he finds prices going down, and all the manufacturers come together and .make one big establishment and take stock and call it a trust and fix the price. They stifle, they strangle, they kill competition. They form a monopoly like that infernal high-handed cotton begging trust. Now, then, our people My we put this wool and these other raw materials on the free list and we will import them and give that work to loo.ojjo American workingmen to make this raw material up. With the immense increase in our own population, having attained the highest point of coneumption, if we don’t find some kind of employment for our people there is going to be great ■distress. We propose to reach all the markets

of the world* V*V proposo to bring all the material that can be n-uc l *» into manufitctur d products and give constant employment through the whole year to all our people We have put hemp and jute and tin plate cn the freelist. Taking the tax off Uu plate makes it cheaper and more of it is imported, and it will give more work to more men to mako more tin buckets and tih cans aud roofs of booses, and it will help drive the wolf from the door. "The tariff cannot help the wirkingmeu; it increases the profit of the manufacturer, but it doesn’t change his heart. He is Use the rest of ns—won t run down the street to give it away. I will tell you what lie does vt ;h it. He will come oot here and lend it to you. and take a mortgage on your farms. The thing that will benefit workingmen is to have more work. If you have a half-dozen bosses ruuuing after every workingman, then the workingman can take care of himself, but if you have a half a dozen workingmen running after one employer, and his office is closed and hj is gme to Scotland, you can see the tariff does you no gool. How are we to get this additional employment for our peoule? You must make more markets for the consumption of things that these workingmen are making. In eight months of the year we can supply the whole of the home market. Suppose we add the markets of all Europe aud Asia and South America. Suppose we let down this Chinese wall—we don’t want any Chinese walls. We don’t want any Chinese people or Chinese pig-tails. Wo want to buy all the wool in South America an! Australia and Russia and bring it here and work it up and supply all the markets of the world. We have got the cheapest labor in the world. We have the highest-priced labor by the day. week, month or year, and that is conclusive proof that the labor cost is the lowest. A high rate of wages and a lower labor cost are like twoopposite beams of a balance, when one goes down, the other goes up. They cannot both go down together. When the labor cost goes up. the rate of wages goes down, and instead of cheap labor driving high-priced labor out of the

market, high-priced labor always drives cheap labor out of tho market. With the old spinning wheel our mothers made three pound-* of yam a week, which was worth $1.50. They made twentyfive cents a day. Now a pair of spinning mules can turn out 3,003 pounds of yarn in a week. The spinner who tends the spinning mules gets $6 a week. Isn’t there danger that the old spinning wheel will crawl out of the closet some nay and knock these mules higher than a kite ? “It is not the rate of wages that comes into the market. It is the thing that labor makes. Now, how can a pound of thread, the labor of which is fifty cents, come into the market and drive out a pound the labor cost'of which is ouefiftnofaceut? It cannot bs done. The fact is, the whole of our civilization, the whole of our progress to industrial improvement, the whole march of our people lias been an invasion of cheap labor by high-priced labor. Tha Republican party has built a Chinese wall that keeps us from the markets of the world. The Democratic party is going to blow those old horns and those walls will fall like the walls or Jericho, and we will go and take possession.”

HARRISON’S BIG FEE.

Twenty-one Thousand Dollars Said to Have Been Faid Him for Pro ecuting Strikers. [New York telegram.] A campaign document of force was received from Indiana to-day. It shows that Gen. Harrison as general solicitor for the receivars of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad received $21,000 for his services as prosecutor of the strikers in 1877, although he declared on oath that his services, lasting one week, were worth SI,OOO. What the other $23,033 was paid for is the question which the workingmen of Indiana are discussing. Besides this sum he received S2O for his services as a Captain in the militia organized to force the strikers to go back to work. The workingmen think it rather queer that he should be paid by the State for military work in suppressing the strike and at the same time be the counselor of the company engaged in it and receive such enormous fees from that company. The document is accompanied with affidavits proving its authenticity. Do tho defenders of oppressive war taxes assume thai the people can be deceived by the cry of danger to protection? Do they assume that the people will not be told and fully understand that the Mills bill ma ntain3 higher protectiou to our Industrie j than that fixed by Clay, the father of protection, in the tariff of 1842, or by Morrill qnd Kelley, the present fathers of protection, in the tariff of 1861? The tariffs of 1842 and of 1861 were distinctively protective tariffs; they were made by protects nist-i for protection; there was no hindrance to the ample measure of protection, and yet the official records show that the tariff of 1842 taxed the people 33 per cent.; that the tariff of 1861 taxed them 34 per cent. ; that the present tariff taxos them over 47 per cent.; and that the Mills bll reduces tariff taxes only about! seven per cent., leaving higher taxes and hi-her protection than were fixed by any distinctively protective tariff in the whole century of our Government.— Philadelphia Times.

APPEAL TO DEMOCRATS.

MESSRS. BARNI’M AND BRICE ISSUE AN ADDRESS TO THE COUNTRY. They Ask for Money to Aid in Legitimate Campaign Work— Funds Needed to Print and Circulate Campaign LiteratureSmall Contributions Will Be Thankfully Received. The Democratic National Committee has Issued an address, from which the following are extracts: The National Democratic convention held in St. Louis in June last, whe jit unanimously nominal* d Mr. Cleveland for re-election to the Presidency, simply proclaimed your choice. It expressed your will when, r -membering the rugged integrity of Allen G. Thurman and his able and long-continued public service, it nominated him for the Vice Presid(h:y. The committee appointed by that convention to conduct tho ordinary business of the President al campaign will do Its entire duty. It realizes that it is the responsible agent of the men in every State who, approving the administration of President Cleveland, believe that the welfare of the country will be best promoted by his reolection. It reminds you that your first duty is thorough and complete organization. You should not rest contented with the formation of State, county, and local committees. Organize in every election district aud precinct in each State. Do not rest until every man who thinks that Grover Cleveland and Alien G. Thurman ought to be elected becomes part of an organization formed in his neighborhood for the purpose of giving effect to his convictions. The taxes imposed by existing laws under a system inaugurated in a t me of war, and justified only by its necessities ,an*l which a Repub-

WHOSO DIGGETH A FIT SHALL FALL THEREIN.

lican Senate, in a time of peace, refuses to change), add to the cost of articles which are necessaries of life and form a large part of your daily expenditnra. You have not asked to bs freed from any burden which you ought to bear. You have simply urged to be relieved from a small part of that unnecessary taxation with whjch the Republican party has oppressed the country. You have only entreated that the average tariff of 47.10 par cent, now levied ou dutiable goods should be reduced to 42.43 per cent. Why should you be denied this small abatement? Under the system of duties which the Republican party has fastened upon the country, “trusts” are growing up which have already monopolized certain commodities, and will, as the years go on, unless the present system of excessive taxation be mo'dilied, control the price of all the necessaries of life. The corporations and persons profiting by needless exactions imposed by exisiing tAritf laws will expend large sums in the effort to elect their candidate. The national Democratic party nas no such allies. It will promise no- undue advantage of capital, but with impartial hand will fo3ter the interests of all the peoplo. It has in view the benefit and prosperity of the whole country, and we, speaking In its name, appeal only to the masses for such aid as we shall require in the conduct of a political eamprign in a country as widely extended as ours. A considerable sum is needed to print, publish, and circulate those matters of fact which every citizen ought to have before him when he determines on which side his influence and vote ought to be cast. In 1884, when the Republicans were in possession of the Government, the civil-service law was wholly disregarded, and officers in the public service were practically forced to contribute to the expenses of the Republicam campaign. This committee recognizes “that no person in the public service is, for that reason, under any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service,” and that such person will not be removed or otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so. It recognizes specially “that no person in said service has any right to use official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body.” The Democratic party can make no claim upon corporations or persons because of undue partiality shown to their interests by legislation or otherwise. It desires that all who are living within the borders of our common country shall share in just proportion its increasing prosper! y. It has never tolerated the enriching of the few at the expense of the many. It will appeal to the people only for aid. Its appeal is made to that body of earnest men who have learned in the toil and struggle of dally life to estimate good government at its true worth, and whose love of home and country will prompt them to contribute, each according .to his means, the expenses of a canvass of such moment and extending over so great a territory,. All sums so contributed will be received and held by this committee, to be expended Only in the lawful, proper and necessary outlays required by the canvass which you have directed us to conduct. William H. Babxum, Chairman National Committee. Calvin J. Brice, Chairman Campaign Committee.

CAMPAIGN ECHOES.

NEW YOKE SOLID FOR CLEVELAND AND THURMAN. Indiana Conceded to tlie Democrats —New York Democrats Betting Heavily on Cleveland Cheering News from All Quarters. [New York telegram.] To-day’s money offered on Cleveland at odds of sto 4 amounts to $45,0*0. In addition to this money offered on the national election, Charles Smith, who served four terms in the Assembly as a Republican, announces that he has SIO,OOO to bet on Gov. Hill's re-election at odds of 5 to 4. There is $10,030 additional in a broker's office on Wall street to be put up on Cleveland. The reason there is so much loose Cleveland money is that the Republicans will not bet on Harrison unless they get larger odds, and the bookmakers will not go into the election betting regularly until the races are over. Any Republicans who want to bet on Harrison can be accommodated by sending their' names, addresses, amounts they want to bet, and a deposit to James Mahoney, or care of the Hoffman House, where the proprietor, Ed Stokes, will take any large bets. One of Chairman Quay’s Friends Says Indiana Will Go for Cleveland. [Jamestown (N. Y.) telegram.] r* Republicans were furious and Democrats jubilant to-day over an editorial in the Morning News (Republican) which opened with: “We are satisfied that Indiana can not be carried by the Republicans, find without it New Jersey and Connecticut are powerless to save the Republican party without New York.” This concession

has all the greater weight because it is common report that the News has its telegraphic service furnished by the Republican National Committee until affier the election on account of Chairman Quay’s friendliness for one of the publishers of the paper. The Outlook in New York. [New York special to Chicago News, Ind.} The|Democrats from other States who are stopping in the interior of New York come into headquarters every few days to report and get fresh inspiration. What they say of their oh. serrations does not tally in many cases with the Republican advices as to Democratic defection in the smaller manufacturing towns on the tariff issue. It would seem fr m a comparison of these reports that such disaffection is sporadic and the return of Irish Blaine men to the Democratic fold is considerable. For example, ex-Cougressman Lamb, of Indiana, a political observer of more tuan average perspicacity, told me to-day that in Ulster County, where he has just been speaking, the most diligent inquiry failed to elicit any evidence of Democratic weakening. He said: “I took aside and privately interrogated a dozen of the loading men of Kingston and Rondout, and not one of them was able to name a single Democrat who proposed to vote for Harrison on account of opposition to the President’s tariff-revision programme. On the contrary, I saw my - elf, and talked with man after man— Irishmen—who said that they voted for Blaine before, but are now for ( leve-laud. I was assured- that Ulster County, which gave Blaine a plurality of sixty-nine iu iBBi, would this year give Cleveland 500.’’ The proprietor of one of the largest New York hotels, who is as strong for Cleveland now as he was hot for Blaine before, recentlv said : “The Republican party made the mistake of its life in not nomina ing Blaine. He would have carried New York by 30,000 at the lowest calculation. I know what I’m talking about when I say that. Blaine’s Irish contingent cannot be transferred to any other Republican. There are about two hundred men employed iii this hotel, and throe-fourths of them are Irish. Every one of these Irishmen who was for Blaine is now for Cleveland. My marketman finds the same thing true in the shops, in the markets and on the wharves where he deals.” At another and still larger hotel the same report was rather unwillingly given. Such straws are certainly worth attention. One M >re for Cleveland. ' [Neenoh (Wis.) telegram.] John Stevens, one of the wealthiest men in the city, the inventor of Stevens' roller-mills, which are in nearly every flouring-mill in the country, will vote for Grover Cleveland. Mr. Stevens has heretofore been a Republican, but he does not take mach stock this year in the cry of protection. To clean bottles, put into them some kernels of corn and a tablespoonful of ashes, half fill them with water, and after a vigorous shaking and rinsing you will find the bottles as good as new.

INDIAN CANNIBALISM.

THE BED MEN OF THE NORTHWEST IN A STATE OF DESTITUTION. The Utah Commission’s Report on Polygamy Mormon Exporters and Theii Young Victims—A Dissertation of Interesting and Valuable News. [Winnipeg (Man.) special.] A terrible tale of starvation and destituI tion among the Indians come from the Peace River country. It comes in the form j of a petition to the Minister of the Interim ' for Canada and is signed by the Anglican i Bishop for that diocese, six clergymen and mission aries, and several Justices of the Peace. It is an official document passed by the synod of Athabasca Diocese. It sets out that owing to the great mortality of beavers and other small game the In<'ianp both last winter and summer have been in a perpetual state of starvation. Both the food supply of the Indians and their power of procuring clothing have been affected. They are now in a complete state of destitution and unable to provide themselves with clothing, ammunition, etc., for the winter. The petition says, among other things: The scarcity has greatly decreased the number of their dogs (so necessary to the Indian for traveling and hunting), thus seriously increasing the difficulty of obtaining a livelihood. In the Mackenzie River district there were several eases of death by starvation, and one or more of cannibalism. During last winter, among the Fort Chippewa Indians, between twenty and thirty starved to death, and the death of others was accelerated by want of food. A party of about twenty Beaver Indians had to be conveyed from Grand Prairie, near Dunvegan, Peace liiver, to Lesser Slave Lake, to prevent their starving to death. Some of them died after arriving there. “Within the personal krihwledge of tho undersigned,’’ says the petition, "many other Indians, Crees, Beavers, and Chippewas, at almost all points were there are missions or trading posts, would certainly have been starved to death but for the help furnished by the traders and missionaries at those places—furnished often at great personal inconvenience. Owing to all these facts, scores of families, having lost their heads by starvation, are now perfectly helpless, and must starve to death or eat one another unless help comes. People are terribly agitated over the anticipated fate of these poor people.” Heartrending stories of sufferings and cannibalism continue to come in.

FAITH IN THE MORMONS.

Minority Report of the Utah Commission— Folygamy Decreasing. [Washington special.] John A. McClern and A. B. Carlton, of the Utah Commission, have filed a minority report with the Secretary of the Interior. The Commissioners say that in their opinion a great majority of the Mormon people have wisely resolved that the practice of polygamy should be abandoned. “We are thoroughly satisfied,” say the Commissioners, “that the work of reformation in Utah is progressing rapidly, and it will soon result in a successful issue without a resort to legislation that is proscriptive of religious opinion. Our view may be epitomized in a few words: ‘Punish criminal action, but religious creeds never.’ ” The commissioners are averse to any further restrictive legislation by Congress, believing that tho present laws are sufficiently stringent and will accomplish all that can be reasonably required by legal coercion. The report recommends the adoption of an amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibiting the institution or practice of polygamy in any form in the States or Territories or other places over which the United States has exclusive Jurisdiction. The commissioners, in conclusion, say; “We have no disposition to defend Mormons against all that has been alleged against them, but we believe they are entitled to be treated with justice and humanity; that they are not incorrigible; that they are subject to be influenced by the same causes that have changed and ameliorated other peoples, churches, and creeds. We also believe they have got common sense, and by tho exercise of this valuable attribute they have found out that polygamy must go, We believe that the great mass of the Mormon people are determined to go on with this reform and that they will accomplish the work in spite of any influence that may be attempted to be exercised by a few fanatical old polygamists.”

MORMON EXHORTERS’ VICTIMS.

Women and Young Girls Who Will Bo Sent Hack to Europe. [New York dispatch.] A sad scene has just been enacted at Castle Garden. Two gross, coarse, sensu-ous-featured men, in greasy broadcloth, coats, paced up and down before the inclosure of the landing bureau, casting anxious glances at a group of twenty persons inside until they were ordered to leave the Garden. They were W. G. Phelps and Henry Walsh, Elders of the Mormon Church, and the people huddling inside the inclosure were a part of a small army of converts whom they brought from England. Most of them will probably be returned to their native land. One Swiss family of seven people were bound for Idaho. The father declared that he had been a Mormon for twenty-three years. The whole family will bo sent back. HermeniaVan Lieben, from Holland, had three small children, and Maria Dextra, 14 years old, had left parents and friends in Holland to come and join the Mormons. She is unusually, alarmingly precocious, and argued in behalf of Mormonism and even polygamy with a display of knowledge startling in one so young. These deluded people, who were almost without money, will probably be returned. But the saddest eases are those of five little girls and three boys who had come to Ameriea allured by these stories of the Mormon exhorters. The children wilt probable be sent on to San Francisco, where they have friends. A man named Howard, who brought the children over, will be sent back to England. A pale-faced little girl with pretty features, but in dirty tatters, sobbed, “I am Sarah Ashley. lam 11 years old, and come from Worksop, England. I begged so hard mamma and papa lot me come with Brother YValsh. lamto go at service with a gentleman fifteen miles from Salt Lake City.” Nellie Tomlinson, from Brompton, was a mature girl of 12, She said she came with a “gentleman and two ladies,” and was going to be a Mormon, though she hardly knew what that meant. There were some more girls between the ages of 13 and 15, who will be returned to their homes.

PURCHASED A PRINCIPALITY.

German and New York Capitalists Buy 700,000 Acres of Dakota Land. [Bismarck (Dak.) special.] During the conference between the officials of the Northern Pacific Itoad and the Territorial officials with regard to the payment of the Northern Pacific tax.it was learned that the company has recently negotiated a sale of 700,000 acres of its land grant. Fifty thousand acres of this land will be selected this fall and the remainder next year. It is the largest land deal ever made in the Territory.