Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — BEARING ON ELECTION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BEARING ON ELECTION.

Mrs. Lease has nearly expired. ! ~ There are very few people in the people’s party. 1 The Hon. Tom Reed ought to advertise for his voice. Tom Reed has been lecturing on the “Progress of Humanity.” It is evident that Blaine sick is Stronger than Harrison well. Mr. Blaine’s speech was simply an advertisement of his silence. "Weaver is still traveling around With his mind in a parenthesis. Mrs. Lease ought to go home and fcelp Mr. Lease to nurse the baby. Possibly Mr. Lease’s function is to throw unpleasant eggs at his wife. ; Gen. Whitelaw Reid does not appear to have his headquarters in the saddle. The potato rot has appeared in the West, and under the McKinley regime, too. It is a very hard-hearted Republican kicker that can withstand the gold of Ophir. There was a distinct “Fellow-citi-ren, let us pair” flavor to Mr. Blaine's Ophir Farm speech.

Mb. Blaine asks the Irishmen of this country to vote for a tariff scheme that forbids admission to Irish products. The campaign in Illinois goes marching on with “wildcat currency” trying to get ahead of polecat administration in the Republican procession. Gov. McKinley is to be called back from his task of saving Pennsylvania and put to work at once in Ohio. Buckeye Republicans are really getting uneasy. Senator Quay is to assist Tom Carter in the closing weeks of the campaign. The Senator will find the Australian law in a large majority of the States where he played a game of tenpins four years ago. One reason why Whitelaw Reid was put on the ticket with Harrison was that it was believed his candidacy would be a personal appeal to Blaine. The personal appeal has been made, and the country has the result. There is no prospect of Republican success in West Virginia. That party is conducting a quiet campaign there because it cannot conduct any other. It is in no condition, in West Virginia or elsewhere, to arouse enthusiasm. The McKinley law is the best tariff act ever passed. It has calmly but firmly thrust Eliot of Harvard, Edward Atkinson, Wayne MacVeagh, Judge Gresham, Richard H. Dana, Dr. Everett, and a million or so other voters into the Democratic party. The Census Bureau has all the statistics of- protected manufacture ready, but will not give them out till after the election. It does not want agricultural voters in the West to know about the fat dividends of protected manufacturers before the election. The Michigan Democrats may he deprived of their Constitutional right to select Presidential electors by Congressional districts. Constitutional rights are as numerous now as ever they were, but Republican, partisan judges are more numerous than ever they were.

Gen. Dan Sickles has publicly denounced as false the alleged interview with him, in which he was represented as saying he would not support Cleveland. This statement is made in order to set the General aright, and not because we think it is of any burning importance. According to Republican orators and Journals, American protection ruins the industries of foreign countries, while fair trade encourages them, and these same Republicans Sure asking the Irishmen of America

i Ireland, rather than one which would benefit her.

In 1888 Gen. Sickles supported Mr. Cleveland. In 1892 he sulks in his tent, though Mr. Cleveland’s Presidential record has not been changed in four years.

Courier - Journal: Republicans should not count too much on the fact that they succeeded in pushing and pulling Mr. Blaine into the campaign the other day. The last time they succeeded in pushing and pulling Mr. Blaine into a campaign the result was that the candidate for whom he spoke was not only beaten, but was sent to the penitentiary. Ask Delamater, of Pennsylvania.

We are told that the present administration has “remitted over one hundred millions of duties on a single article in admitting sugar free.” Remitted it to whom? The author of the McKinley bill tells us that it is foreigners who pay our tariff duties, and, if this be true, then it is submitted that the administration might be engaged in better business than giving up 8100,000,000 of our revenue to foreigners.

The wheat crop of the country last year was 012,000,000 bushels, and wheat is down now at a farm price of GO cents, which doesn't pay for the cost of raising it. Republican statisticians and economists say it is overproduction, which means that wheat raisers in the West and cotton raisers in the South must spend less time in working and more time in sucking their thumbs till things come around right*

There are indications that the word has been passed around to the Republican press to take a hopeful and optimistic view of the political prospect. This is to neutralize the gloom and forebodings that arc settling down upon the Harrison campaign. There is reason to believe that Chairman Carter has discovered that New York is hopelessly Democratic, and the President does not need to be informed that Indiana is so.

Ex-Senator Edmunds pronounces Mr. Cleveland “a strong, able man, honest and courageous.” Very few Republicans are willing to speak truthfully of a Democratic candidate in campaign years. Even Mr. Depew won’t proclaim Mr. Cleveland the “typical American” while the campaign is in progress. And, he it noted, Senator Edmunds himself put the Atlantic Ocean between himself and his party before giving expression to the above opinion.

In his letter of acceptance, which not one man in a thousand has read, Whitelaw Reid said that the Democratic clamor against the force bill, “if it means anything, means a purpose to nullify the fourteenth and fifteenth articles of the Constitution of the United .States.” This means also that Mr. Reid approves of that bill and regards it as a very benevolent measure. Thus are both the Republican candidates committed to the Federal control of elections.,

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the Michigan plan of choosing Presidential electors by Congressional districts is constitutional and legal. No well-informed person has ever imagined that the decision of the court would be otherwise, and the only purpose of the Republicans in bringing the suit was to obstruct the election machinery and to arouse prejudice. The decision means that at least six or eight of the electoral votes of Michigan will be cast for Cleveland and Stevenson.

In 1890, just before the Democratic tidal wave struck his bill, Mr. McKinley asserted in a public address that “this whole system of cheap things is a badge of poverty. ” Fearing that the people will this year take the same view of McKinleyism which they entertained two years ago Mr. McKinley is bobbing up in this State and that with the pretense that his bill was intended to make things cheap and has had that result! Has Mr. McKinley deceived himself or is he deliberately attempting to deceive others?

It will be remembered that, in his letter of acceptance, Mr. Harrison went out of his way to paint a glowing eulogy of the wonderful pearl-button industry which the enormously increased McKinley duty on buttons had established in this country. Within a few days after the publication of the letter the Chicago pearl-button factory failed, and since then the irreverent have been popping up and flippantly wanting to know where is that American pearl - button industry, anyhow? They can have their answer whenever they wish it. That industry has been discovered. It is an established fact. It is in America—in the good State of Illinois, right in the walls of the Chester Penitentiary, and gives employment to sixty protected convicts. When the President of these United States settles down to writing state papers on pearl buttons he knows what he is talking about

“ACTS THAT ENCOURAGE LOYAL DEMOCRATS. Sepublleans Wake No Progren* In Their Efforts to Deceive the People Hovv Tariff Affects the Farmer—No Cloud ou the Democratic Horizon. Points to Success. Popular elections in this country frequently surprise the shrewdest calculators and confound even those who have the gratification of victory. This was notably the case in 1890, when the yverwhelroing success of Democracy marked such a complete revolution as to astound even those who had contributed to its accomplishment. Now, with but little more than a week intervening before election, in the midst of a campaign notable for its quietness and the undisturbed condition of general business affairs, there is an eager curiosity to foreshadow the outcome of the struggle. The meu who back their udgment with their money, eliminating all prejudice and sentiment from their calculations, show something of the tameness which characterizes the campaign, tiut are giving odds on the proposition that Cleveland will carry Indiana, carry New York, and be the next

President of the United States. These men who live by tlieir wits cannot be commended as infallible oracles, but their action is always regarded as highly indicative. Every available bit of information goes to fortify them in the position taken. The issues presented this year are tho same as two years ago, and there is no reason to expect the reversion of an opinion so emphatically expressed. Such change of front was not suggested in the election of Governor Flower in New York by 50,000 majority, in the greatly diminished Republican vote of Maine and Vermont in their September eleetions, in the unimpaired strength manifested by the Democracy of Georgia aud Florida, in the open defection of somo of the ablest and most distinguished Republicans of the land, in the re-eleetion of a Democratic Governor in the former Republican stronghold of lowa, in the crushing treatment of Blaine and his friends by the admin* istration, or in the methods by which Harrison is utilizing the beneficiaries of federal patronage in violation of law and to the disgust of all honest citizens. Every election held since 1888 has shown a shrinkage in Mr. Harrison’s strength. Last year New York, lowa and Massachusetts, three States that gave him their vote for President, elected Democratic Governors. In 1890, for the first time since the war, the Democrats of the North secured a majority representation in the National House of Representatives, and, counting the six new Republican States admitted during Harrison’s administration, twenty-four have Democratic Governors and twenty have Republican Governors. The desperate use of money for the purpose of fraud and treachery seems now the sole reliance of Republican managers, and in this scheme they repel the honest voters while angling for the susceptible floaters.—Detroit Free Press.

Mr. Reid's Letter. Mr. Reid has formally accepted the Republican nomination for Vice President. The acceptance comes late, but from a Democratic point of view, considering Mr. Reid’s unavailability as a candidate, it is better late than never. His letter to the Chairman of the Committee of Notification is a stereotyped declaration of plutocratic doctrine, of which the Republican party in this campaign is being made the expression and advocate. There is nothing new in it to consider. It favors the McKinley law as being an advance in tariff rates over the older schedules, and favors a still further advance if any protected manufacturer thinks he needs it. Mr. Reid Is evidently in politics what the oldschool doctor was in medicine. The basis of his doctrine Is that it is impossible for him to be mistaken, and if, after the highest tariff ever known, wheat is low and agricultural products without a market, he prescribes more tariff as a remedy. This is so like the

old-sehool doctor who, after bleeding a patient to unconsciousness, only said 4 bleed him again' 1 when the result of his treatment was reported to him that the Bt. Louis Republic believes Its com* parison to be justified. Let Harrison Have It. Mr, Blaine’s citation of the comparative agricultural and manufacturing production of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio is capable of varied uses by the opponents of the high protective tariff. Looked at from almost any point of view, it affords opportunity either to challenge or disprove its statements or to accept them as arguments against the perpetuation of the protective system. It is inconceivable how a man once so alert in the evil genius of making the worse appear the better cause could have fallen into statements which not only invito attack, but are capable of being turned against the party in whose interest they are apparently uttered. The Republic has already taken occasion to refer to some of them, but there is yet another which must be considered. In asserting that the manufactured products of Illinois (Which as the greatest agricultural State of those named affords the fairest field for discussion) exceed in value the value of its agricultural products Mr. Blaine asserts

■what is important, if true. If this is admitted as a fact ihere must be a reason for it. Mr. Blaine neglects to say what it is, but leaves us to infer that it is the result of Republican tariff legislation. And this it certainly is. If in a State with the unrivaled soil and agricultural resources of Illinois, a State with a greater railroad mileage than any other, with two shores washed their entire length by navigable streams, and lake navigation affording easy access to market, the value of agricultural products is less than that of manufactured goods, there is but one conclusion. The difference in values is an artificial and not a natural one. It is the difference between the increased value of goods protected by Republican tariffs and goods which, although provided with exceptional facilities for reaching the Liverpool market, where prices are fixed, are left to compete in open market with all the world. In other words, although the agricultural products of Illinois greatly exceed in amount the amount of manufactured products in the State, the manufactured products exceed them in value because tariff laws, maintained to give manufacturers a monopoly of the home market, place an artificial value upon the product of the factories, while the product of the farm is depressed in value by the cost of transportation to a foreign market, and is further depressed by the operation of tariff laws which, by prohibiting trade with the foreign market, prevent exchange and increase the farm surplus of this country that has to be kept at home. The more we contemplate it the more we are inclined to allow Mr. Harrison the full benefit of Mr. Blaine's Ophir speec-h.—St. Louis Republic.

Against a Stone Wall. The Republicans make no progress in their effort to deceive the people with the charge that Mr. Cleveland's election would mean tne adoption of a “wildcat" currency system. If there is one public man in the country that is free from the suspicion of the least sympathy with a degraded currency, that man is Grover Cleveland. His opinions on that questioh are so well known and so positive that they have been considered his weak point by those who advocate an expansion of our circulation at the sacrifice of its soundness. That the Republicans have sought to make capital on the money question against the present Democratic candidate for the Presidency attests in a most significant manner the extremity of their desperation. Such charges would have fallen flat even if Mr. Cleveland had treated them with silence, so well are his monetary views understood. However, he did pot choose to leave room for doubt as to his attitude, even In the mind of the most ignorant, and accordingly thus expressed himself in his letter of acceptance:

“The people are entitled to sound and honest money, abundantly sufficient In volume to supply their business needs. But -whatever may be the form of the people’s currency, national and State, whether gold, silver or paper, it sbould be so regulated and guarded by government action or by wise and careful laws that no one can be deluded as to the certainty and stability of its value. Every dollar put into the hands of the people should be of the same intrinsic value or purchasing power. With this condition absolutely guaranteed, both gold and silver can be safely utilized upon equal terms in the adjustment of our currency. “In dealing with this subject no selfish scheme should be allowed to interven* and no doubtful experiment should be attempted. The wants of our people,, arising from the deficiency or imperfect distribution of money circulation, ought, to be fully and honestly recognized and efficiently remedied. It should, how' ever, be constantly remembered thai the Inconvenience or loss that miglrt arise from such a situation can be much easier borne than the universal distress which must follow a discredited currency. ” That could hardly be more explicit, and certainly leaves no ground for any charge of ambiguity or evasion. That party which asks voters to believe that

a man holding these views Avould countenance a doubtful or debased currency, “National or Stato,” discredits most foolishly and most unprofitable* their intelligence.—Courier Journal. The Loss to the Farmer, The exports of farm products continue to fall off, notwithstanding the McKinley law, and it would be gratifying if the statesmen who have been “pointing out" to the farmer the value to him of reciprocity should undertake the explanation of the present condition of things. The following table shows the exports of agri ultural articles for September, 1891, compared with September, 1892: Articles. ISO?. ISOX. Com, bu 1,830,3>3 2,838,916 Oats, bu 104,015 322,692 Oatmeal, lbs 277,644 1,365,737 Rye, bu 172,157 3,161,637 Wheat, bu 10,091,800 10,406,174 This falling off is very serious. It means, so far as the farmers are concerned, that Republican reciprocity is the merest sham. The decline has been so great that the total exports of some articles for three months ending Sept. 30 have been decreased as follows: Articles. 1892. 1891. Com (bush.) 6,305,541 7,097,342 Oats (bush.) .. 431,877 528,915 Oatmeal (pounds) 961,841 2,640,557 Rye (bush.) 482,448 4,269,936 Wheat (bUBh.) 31,760,796 60,414,898 The value of the total exports of all breadstuffs was only half as great in September this year as in the same month last year, while for the three months ending Sept. 30th the values were more than $26,000,000 less in 1892 than in 1891. Besides exporting less, the farmer receives less for what he sends abroad, as is shown by the following table of September prices: Articles. 1892. 1891. Corn (bush.) $0.55 $0.66 Oats (bush.) 0.40 0.43 Oatmeal (pound) 0.02 0.03 Rye (bush.) 0.70 0.94 Wheat (bush.) 0.80 1.05 Thi9 shows partly what the McKinley law is doing for the farmer. It also adds to his cost of living. If he likes it he will vote for Harrison; otherwise he will vote for Cleveland.

Carlyle published “Sartor Resartusat os, and the “French Revolution” 42,

IN DESPERATE STRAITS—THROWING OUT BALLAST. San Francisco Examiner.

THE ADMINISTRATION BIRD-TRAP.