Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — THE TIN PLATE CIRCUS. [ARTICLE]

THE TIN PLATE CIRCUS.

SOME ORIGINAL. TRICKS OF CLOWN M’KINLEY. Statistician Peeie on the Question of Wages —Senator Dawes Is Battled—Rebates i Favor Foreigners—Our “Happy Farmers” —Crockery Duties and Prices. Performed at Philadelphia. We doubt if there ever has been in any previous campaign anything comparable to the silliness of £he “American tin” performances which Mr. McKinley and his associates have been guilty of. When McKinley spoke in Philadelpdia Sept. 23, the following solemn buffoonery was gone through with in the Academy of Music, according to the Philadelphia Press: “While he was telling of the new industries that had been built up in this country, a banner made of tin and bearing the inscription, ‘ American tin, 1892, made at Norristown,’ was carried down the platform. The applause which greeted the appearance of the banner interrupted the Governor, and he turned and looked at the banner. ‘ Another trophy to a protective tariff ’ was his comment, and then cheers were given for American tin." Col. McClure exposed the humbug of this performance completely a few nights later, but the manager of the “American Tin Works at Norristown” has since added the final touch. He says the works have been shut; down, and their sixty workmen thrown out of employment because of the delay in the arrival of material from Wales. There are, he says, 250 tons of plates on the way, all of which have been rolled in Wales, and that when the plates arrive, they will be dipped at the works in tin. As for the sources of his tin supply, he says: “I purchase it from the importers in New York. It comes from various parts of the world, and I am frank in saying that although I have looked high and low for the American article, I have never seen it.” . He goes on to “give ' away” the entire business by adding: “I am willing to tell the truth about this matter, and nothing but the truth, and therefore I mean exactly what I say—that the sheets, pig tin, and palm oil are imported. Therefore, if at any time there should be a delay in the ar-' rival of these materials, we would be compelled to shut down, as wo have done this week. We have ten tin-men at work this week, and they are all men jvho were employed in the factory at Wales.”

That is the plain truth about the tin banner which McKinley pointed to with pride as the symbol of a new American industry. It was made entirely of foreign piaterial, by foreign workmen imported for the purpose, and there was nothing American about it save the glamour of humbug which McKinley threw over it. His antics with it were only a little more intense than were those of the Republican candidate for the_ Yice-fresidency and Warner Miller at the Ccoper Institute meeting here last week when they passed around among the audience “samples” of American tin made in a similar manner. The distribution of small plate 3 among the school children of this city is another variation of the entertainment. What is to be said of the intellectual and moral caliber of a great party whose leading minds conceive that the people can be induced by su.-h exhibitions as these to bear patiently a tax of $25,000,030? The manager of the Norristown works says he lias not been able to discover any Amer.can tin, and his testimony is confirmed by that of every other man-who has tried to buy any. The entire product is absorbed in samples for mass meetings and Republican newspaper office windows, and much of this, like the Philadelphia banner, is made of foreign material. The Temeseal tin mines, whose product was in so much dispute for a considerable period, have been shut down because of failure of the ore, and tho Tribune of to-day has extracted from Congressman Bowers the valuable opinion that they are full of tin, but that they have been shut down by their English owners in order to “ireeze out” some of tho stockholders. Mr. Bowers is convinced of this because he visited the mines and was not allowed to look into them!—New York Evening Post.