Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1893 — “We Are the People.” [ARTICLE]

“We Are the People.”

About 25,000 protected manufacturers have formed the habit, during the past thirty years, of calling themselves “the people,” and of drawing no lines of distinction between their and our prosperity and country. It must be admitted that they have been encouraged in this delusion until it has become in part true. These few manufacturers have made this country their own, and have substituted themselves for the people to the extent that they have for years owned Congress and virtually dictated the policy of the country on matters affecting themselves differently from what it does the rest of the people. Thus they have made tariff laws that take dimes and dollars out of the pockets of millions and put millions into the pockets of thousands. This they call making the country prosperous; and, so far a 9 they are concerned, it is so. But, as may be imagined, and as the people have decided by about 7,000,000 to 5,000,000, there is another side to this question. Well, it could scarcely he expected that these habits could be broken at once. Hence it is*not strange that we should find language like the following from the Manufacturer, of Philadelphia: “An extra session of Congress is much to he deprecated, and for many reasons. American industry now has high prosperity which cannot endure without the existence of the protective system. Under ordinary circumstances that system can hardly be overthrown for eighteen months to come. It is in every way desirable that the country should-have all the advantage that is possible from its continuance, so that full preparation for the impending revolution shall be made. The Post and other radical journals are consistent in asking for prompt action, but, nevertheless, they will not obtain it.” This sounds as if the manufacturers consider that they still have a “cinch” on our law-making body, and intend to continue to pull the political and legislative strings. There will be an awakening and a realization for some of our pampered manufacturers soon after the 4th of March, when an extra session orders them to take their hands out of the people’s pockets—not in eighteen months, but at once.