Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1890 — TARIFF BENEFICIARIES. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF BENEFICIARIES.

the pockets which the profits OF protection penetrate. [New York Times.] For some weeks there has been a strike in the great iron mines of the Marquette Range in Michigan. This was not a protest against a reduction of wages, but a demand for such an arrangement of hours of labor as would permit the miners to attend churoh services on Snnday. The strike was begun in the mines of the Pittsburg and Lake Angeline Company, a corporation whose net earnings are so large that its stock is selling at seven or eight times its par value. The shares are $25 each; the current quotations show that $175 is bid and S2OO is asked. The company is said to have oleared a profit last year equal to its entire capital stock. There may be consider d in connection with the statements just made certain recently published announcements concerning several corporations in the iron and steel industry. It was reported on the 4th of November, 1890, that the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Steel Company had taken all of the new issue of $2,000,000 of stock at $l5O Der share. There was a standing bid in the Philadelphia market for this stock at S2OO, bat the new shares were sold to the holders of the old stock. The Manufacturers’ Recor i of the Ist instant said: “ The stockholders of the Pennsylvania Steel Company held a soebial meeting and voted to increase the capital stock from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000. It was reported to the stockholders that the business of the last six months had been the most profitable of the company’s history. The divid.uds last year were 18 percent, in cash and stock, but the actual profits were over 30. The stockholders expressed themselves unanimously in favor of the old flag and a protective tariff. ” The Pittsburg Commercial Gazette recently published this news about one of the Wheeling companies: “The iEtna Iron Company has increased its capital stook to $500,000. A a meeting held yesterday a resolution was adopted declaring a dividend of $198,000, to be paid out of the surplus. The increase of stock is about 60 per cent,, and there will remain in the surplus fund about $100,000.” The Manufacturers’ Record of the Ist instant also publishes the following: “A special meeting of the Bethlehem Iron Company will be held on November 26 to vote on a proposed increase of the capital stock from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000. It is a close corporation, and is understood to make 25 per cent, a year. ” “The Thomas Iron Company has just declared a stock dividend of 25 percent., thus increasinfi its capital from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000. The company earned $483,000 in the year ending June 30, but only distributed 10 per cent.* in divid, nds.“ The Cleveland Leader, which represents Mr. MoKiniey, explains in an editorial article that the manufacturers of woollen goods cannot be expected to raise the wages of their employes, becanse the ohanges in the tariff affecting their industry were designed “to raise the farmers’ wages." And the Manufacturer, organ of the ultra-protectionists of the Philadelphia Manufacturers’ Club, pub. lishes this for the encouragement of the farmer: “The prices of wool have always declined when the duties have been advanced, and no doubt exists in the mind of any well-informed man that they will again decline, now that the new tariff law has put the duties up. ” The Leader and the Manufacturer sho’d get together and find ground for an agreement before the farmer becomes bewildered.

In introducing Mr. Springer, of Illinois, at the Thurman banquet, Toastmaster Outhwaite presented him as “one of the distinguished leaders of the suppressed minority in the present House of Bepresentatives, but as a man who had never been suppressed himself. [Cheers.]”— Congressman Springer was warmly welcomed and spoke as follows: “Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen of the Thurman Club: “I did not expect to be called upon to respond to any sentiment on this occasion, and, therefore, will be very brief in response to that which has been suggested. To the press of the country we owe much for the result of the recent election. [Applause.] The press has at last taught the American people that a protective tariff is a tax. [Applause.] Mr. McKinley, in his reeent interview, stated that the recent elections had gone against the Bepublican party for the reason that the people did not understand his bill. [Laughter.] The reason that the recent elections went against the Bepublioan party is that the people did understand his bill.— [Laughter and cheers.] And for this understanding of the nation we are indebted to the press of the country. [Applause.] To the press we are indebted for the fact that on Tuesday last 150 majority of representatives were returned to the Fiftysecond Congress opposed to the McKinley bill. We will also do indebted to the press for guiding that majority in the future to wise and patriotic legislation. [Applause. J It will restore to the House of BepresentAtives its deliberative character. [Applause.] It willlre-establish constitutional and cpnservatii e methods of legislation which have prevailed for 100 years .and make the House of Bepresentatives what it ought to be, a deliberative body. It will also point the way to future success, and in the great contest of 1892 we need not go beyond this banquet hall for A leader," It will continue to be the duty of the Demooratic press tp present the great eeonomic and other questions to the people whose intelligence are quick to reach the proper solution, aDd who, in their honest conviction of right, will apply the yemedy to the evils foisted upon the #Q»£t jy through F«nnblican legislation. The Omaha Bee, Republican, says that “those who are not tariff fsad see that such necessities of life as lumber, coal %nd salt—the raw products of the earth—ought to be admitted free,” and that “there is no season why duties should be r.deed on cotton and wopllen goods, Which are alreadv manufactured J»prp extensively and very

profitably.” It holds that “each mistakes as these should be remedied by the present Congress, for their unreasonableness is so palpable that they prejudice the people against the whole protective system,” and it concludes: “The Republican duty of the hour is to face the situation, rectify the party’s recent blunders and firmly uphold the cardinal principles that have inspired its founders and placed it in con- j trol of national aftVirs for more than a ‘ quarter of a century.”