Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1891 — PROTECTIONIST CONFESSICNS. [ARTICLE]

PROTECTIONIST CONFESSICNS.

National Democrat: Some of our protectionist contemporaries seem to know so little about theltariff that.they do not even apprecia e the facts that tell against them. They publish the facts upon which the demand for tariff reform rests and imagine they are suppoi ting their own cause when really they are knifing it. For example, .the headless Philadelphia Press, whose editor is hobnobbing with the Czar’s officials and telegraphs home that there is no persecution of the Jews in Russia, says: "The free trade papers whioh are enlarging on the influence of the MoKinley tariff in advancing the price of potatoes, carefully and dishonestly conceal the faot that the orop this year is one-third short, or 140,000,000 bushels, against an average of 195,000,000 bußhels for the past two years. In 1887, when the orop was as small, prices were as high as they ire now.” The price of potatoes has gone up, and if this were attributable to the McKinley tariff the tariff reformers would have to admit that although the new law increased the cost of living for all other classes it had at least accomplished something for the farmers. But the faot is, as the Pres a says, that the advance in the prioe of po tatoes is due to a short orop, so that the farmer has no occasion for gratitude to Mr. MoKinley. Instead of suppressing the f.ot of the shortness of the crop of potatoes, the tariff reform papers have every motive in the world for keeping dis. tinctly before the farmers’ eyes the fact that if he gets more for potatoes than he did last year it'is not due to the McKinley bill* We said last spring, and recent events have proved the truth of it, that while the McKinley bill would raise the prioe of things the farmer had to buy it could not raise the price of what he had to sell; if those prioes rose it would be duetto something other than the tariff; as the Press says in the case of potatoes, a short crop. And another stupid protectionist pape r dares tariff reform papers to print this notice:

“We beg to remind our clients that through the McKinley bill the duty on works of art has been redneed to 15 per cent. Consequently we are in a position to offer paintings delivered at 15 per cent less cost than last year. As heretofore, we are ready to send on application free of charge selections of photographs after our newly acquired original paintings." We print this notice from an art dealer with great alaority. It shows, in the first plaoe, that a redaction in the tariff reduces prices, and we are a good deal more anxious to have this interesting and important fact understood than the New York Mail and Express is. L_ In the seoond place, this shows thatjthe same MoKinley bill that increased the cost of all sorts of wearing aoparel, canned food and a thousand other necessaries of life purchased by the poor, reduced the cost of oil paintings bought only by the rich. If file protectionists really want these facts circulated among the people we will do all in oar power to accommodate them*