Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1890 — Not Chea Goods, but Money Paid the People Demand. [ARTICLE]

Not Chea Goods, but Money Paid the People Demand.

“I cannot find myseif in full sympathy with this demand for cheaper coats which seems to me necessarily to involve a cheaper man and woman under the coats."— Benjamin Harrison in an address at Chicago in 1888. “Cheap! I never liked the word.— “Cheap” and “nasty" go together. This whole system of cheap things is a badge of poverty, for cheap merchandise means cheap men, and cheap men mean a cheap country, and that is not the kind our fathers builded. Furthermore, it is not the kind their sons mean to maintain. ” William McKinley, jr., at Kalamazoo, October 14, 1890. “The cry for cheapness is un-American.” —Henry Cabot Lodge, at Lowell, Oct. 13, 1890. “Thecurse of cheapness! The vulture loves his carrion not more than the free trader longs for cheapness.”—Bulletin of the Protective-Tariff League, Oct. 17, 1890. “The attainment of commodities is not the best purpose of the protective system.”—The Manufacturer, organ of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Club, Oct. 16, 1890. “Cheapness is the fetich of the Englishman. Let us then have done with this cheapness and with its advocacy.”—Henry Carey Baird, in Philadelphia, Oot. 16, 1890. The above named advocates of the robber tariff misapprehended the intelligence of the people, and the honest motives which prompted their opposition to the payment of tribute to the men who furnished the “fat” in the interest of the success and perpetuity in power of the republican party. It was not so much “cheep” goods, as value received for their expenditures that they demanded. They have distinctly announced that they are emphatically apposed to payingtwo prices for the necessaries of life They have promptly and properly rebuked the sneering and false implication of being governed by impecuniosity, as thrust at them by Harrison, McKinley & Co. In his remarks at the Thurman Banquet Grover Cleveland thus happily hits off the false insinuations of these politics] mountebanks: “I have spoken of frugality and economy as important factors in American lifeI find no fault with the accumulation of wealth, and am glad to see energy and enterprise receive their iair reward. But I believe that our government in its natural integrity, is exactly suited to a frugal and economical people, and I believe it is safest in the hands of those who have been made strong and self-reliant in their citizenship by self-denial and by the surroundings of an enforced economy.— Thrift and careful watchfulness of expenditure among the people tend to secure a thrifty government, and cheap and careful living on the part of individuals ought to enforce economy in the public expenditures. When, therefore, m«n in high places of trust, charged with the responsibility of making and executing our laws, not only condemn, but flippantly deride cheapness and economy within the homes of our people, and when the expenditures of the government are reckless and wasteful we may be sure that something is wrong with us, and that a condition exists which calls for a vigorous and resentful defense ot Americanism by every man worthy to be called an American citizen. Upon this question of cheapness and economy, whether it relates to individuals or to the operations of the government, the democratic party, true to its creed and traditions, will unalterably remain attached to our plain hnd frugal people. They are especially entitled to the watchful care and protection of their government; and when they are borne down with burdens greater than they can bear, and are made objects of scorn by hard task-masters we will not leave their side. As the great German reformer, insisting upon his religious convictions, in the presence of his accusers exclaimed, “I can do naught else. Here I stand. God help me.” so, however much others may mock and deride cheapness and the poor and frugal men and women of our land, we will stand forth in defense of their simple Americanism, defiantly proclaiming, “We can do naught else. Here we stand.”— Thus, when the question is raised whether our people shall have the necessaries of life at a cheaper rate, we are not ashamed to confess ourselves “in full sympathy with the demand for cheaper coats, and we are not disturbed hy the hint that this seems “necessarily to involve a cheaper man or woman under the coats. ” When the promoter of a party measure which invades every home in the land with higher prices, declares that “cheap and nasty go together and this whole system of cheap things is a badge of poverty; for cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean a cheap country,” we indignantly repudiate such an interpretation of American sentiment. And when another one, high in party councils, who has become notorious as the advocate of a contrivance to perpetuate partisan supremacy by outrageous interference with the suffrage, announces that “the cry for cheapness is un-American,” we scornfully reply that his speech does not indicate the slightei;t|conception of true Americauism. I will not refer toother utterances of like import from similar sources. I content myself with recalling the most prominent and significant. The wonder is that these things were address, ed by Americans to Americans. What was the occasion of these condemnations of cheapness and what had honest American men and women done, or what were they likely to do that they should be threatened with the epithets “cheap,” “nasty" and “un-American?” It is hard to speak patiently as we answer these questions. Step by step a vast number of our people had been led on, following blindly in the patfi of parry.— They had been filled with hate and sectional prejudice; they had been cajoled with misrepreseutat ons and f .lse promises; they had been corrupted with mow y and by appeals to their selfishness. Ail these things led up to their final betrayal to satisfy the demands of those who had supplied the fund for their corruption.— This betrayal was palpable and it was impossible to deny or conceal the fact that the pretended relief tendered to the peo-

pie in fulfillment of a promise to lighten the burdens of their life, made by the party intrusted with the government, was but a scheme to pay the debts incurred by the purchase of party success, while it further increased the impoverishment of the masses.”