Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1892 — A Tin-Plate Triumph. [ARTICLE]

A Tin-Plate Triumph.

And now for the circus part of McKinley’s illustration of the magnificent success of the tin-plate-triplet industry that is so richly bolstered by tariff taxes paid by the people. A tin banner wq,s paraded upon the stage at a propitious moment to enthuse the multitude, bearing the noble inscription, “American Tin, Norristown, Pa.,” with the name of the Ardmore Republican Club on the other side. It was a magnificent spectacular display, and Governor McKinley bowed time and again in response to the thunders of applause ’ which drowned iris voice. I am sorry to spoil this beautiful pageant, but it was such a sublime, such a heroic fraud that I must expose it. That identical tin banner was manufactured by Mr. William H. Edwards, of the Ely Tin Plate Company, near Cardiff, Wales, who came over here with hie Welsh superintendent, Mr. Richard Lewis, and later bought and repaired a pill at Norristown, imported his own plates from his foreign mill, imported his own tin from Wales, imported his own skilled workmen, and dipped the English plates in English tin by English workmen, and McKinley pointe to it as a grand

aeMevemvat «T his tariff in producing American tin. There is one of the earn J tiu plates (pointing tn a tin plate on ths platform). and I have the certificate M the man who made it. Here is the letter Ln the original: “Richard Lewu. Manager, Norrlsto plate Works Norristown, Pa. “NobbutOW*. Pa, Sept 24. 1892 “Messrs. W. F, Fotta Sou A O*. Philade?ph la; “Drab Fibs—Replying to your Inqult.x we bog to say our place here Is not what is known as a tin-plate works la Wales, bet it is rather the tinning-house at a tinplate mill, and In this respect is exactly like the majority of the tin-plate works la America, except that we are working ou a larger scale than the majority of plants at present running over here In America. “Mr. Win. H. Edwards, the owner, continues to operate bis tin-plate works In Wales, but when the Anal operation of tinning the steel, sheets is. reached, the sheets •are shipped to us here and finished by us by being run through patent tlanlngpots. Besides importing these steel sheets ■cut to size and ready for tinning, we also Import the plg-tln and palm oil need for tinning the sheets, as none of American product can bo obtained. We pay 1.65 ■cents per pound duty on the steel sheets and 46 per cent, on the machlnea Our ten men are experienced hands formerly euBatted Tn the industry In Wales Respect-fully-yours. Richard Lbwis, Manager.” It would have been a shame to play each a circus trick on Gov. McKinley but for the fact that he has tolerated just such frauds In glorifying every tinplate establishment that he has stood ■sponsor for. He should have seen to Lt limit an American plate was borrowed somewhere and dipped in American tin by .am American boy to save his own (reputation. Indeed, rather than have one of hie national repute caught in such a clownish circus trick, I would have dipped a plate for him myself. Truly, as McKinley says, “We can make American tin; we can make anything." But we are not making American tin, and we have taxed the American ipeople already nearly $25,01X1,000 in the unsuccessful experiment. But milltons <or scores of millions of taxes taken Irona the people seem to be of no moment whatever to the political leaders who rob the masses under color of law to etnrich classes. This so-called tin industry te the most Impressive of all the many appalling object-lessons of the Me Kin lb y tariff, as it Is all fraud that is not robbery.—Col. McClure's recent fipeecli.