Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1890 — A Prayer for Mercy. [ARTICLE]

A Prayer for Mercy.

Senator John Sherman hopes that the manufacturers who are favored under this new law will not go to forming trusts, or to taking an undue advantage of the great opportunities which he and his friends have given them. Mr. Sherman should hire himself out as end man in a minstrel show, or adopt the profession of after-dinner speaking, i Hitherto he has not shone a* a humorist. Ho has been a rather serious and sober sort of a statesman. But now, at a single bound, he becomes the foremost wit of tho country. “Be careful,” he says to the manufacturers; “go slow. You have got a good thing, hut please don’t get rich too fast. We have given you a protective duty of 100 per cent, or so. You can use it all, but please don’t; you can easily form a trust and force prices up out of sight ; but we hope you will not do so. Such action would hurt us, and really you ought to be considerate of our feelings.” After Mr. Sherman has voted to givec tho gentlemen everything they want, his threat to move for the repeal of the McKinley law or any portion of it, if the manufacturers “abuse” it, is not likely .to have much weight. And why shouldn’t men take advantage of their opportunities? If the Binding Twine Trust wants to “skin” the farmers and if Congress, at its dictation, fixes things so that it can do it, what right have we to think that it will be very careful of the epidermis of the agriculturist? The truth, of course, is that the Ohio Senator was playing the demagogue. Ho helped to create the conditions under which robbery is easy of accomplishment, and then he begs tho strikers to stay their hand. The ordinary, straightthinking man will want to know why people cannot be allowed to keep their own property in the first instance, instead of being compelled to be satisfied with what the thieves are good enough to leave them. Congressman Springer of Illinois, used a phrase in one of the New York county fair tariff debates which is likely to become historic. He told one of his audiences that the time had come when the farmers would have to choose between “the Grand Old Party and the Dear Old Homestead.” That is a graphic statement of the situation, and the crowd “caught on” at once. McKini.ey’s idea is to increase taxation and to diminish revenue. When the peoplo see that there is going to be a deficit in spite of the outragous load of taxes they are carrying, Mr. McKinley is likely to hear something drop. Men are born to be serviceable to one another, therefore either reform tlia world or bear with it. i