Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — DUTY OF CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

DUTY OF CONGRESS.

DEMOCRACY MUST REDEEM ITS PLEDGES. -Any I'mirlimHTath- Act Is Dangerous Tariff and Finance Are the Qiuatioar Before the People Digging Political Braves Deeper—Give Us Belief. Democratic Responsibility. Whatever is not Democratic is dangerous. Every Democratic voter has a share in the direction of the party; he bears his portion of the responsibility for what it does or leaves undone. Thus his personal interest and his pride of citizenship are enlisted. He has a regard for the consistent execution of laws he has helped to enact and for the redemption of platform pledges he has helped to make. Democracy is a body of highly trained political units. Mo professedly Democratic leader has been able to deceive his people. Other parties may obey leaders and applaud the act which belies the once applauded word. A real Democrat trusts the principles he has adopted and judges lor himself whether they are followed or deserted. The Republican party can promise to reduee the tariff, and then raise it. Such a shameless violation of repeated pledges as that party committed in 1883 could not be imitated by a Democratic congress without an atonement which would consign to obscurity every guilty member. Each individual Democrat has in his memory and heart the historic struggle of his party against protective tariffs. Therefore the McKinley law must be replaced with a tariff based upon the general welfare principle of revenue; lor the party is in power and pledges must be redeemed.

No act of the party which lately controlled the Government is more unDemocratic than the Sherman law. The party is unreservedly under pledge to repeal it, and to substitute a measure for the coinage of gold and silver without discriminating against either metal. Such are the words ol the national platform of 1892, passed after the Democrats in every State convention had made the demand in language plain and well considered. For the Democratic party, in or out of power, nothing is safe which is not Democratic. To temporize with the McKinley tariff or to hesitate in suspending the operation of the Sherman act would be unsafe for a Democratic Congress. In principle, in detail, and in effect these two laws are against the thoroughly ingrained opinions of the Democratic masses. They were bought by special interests, and'their design did not embrace consideration for the people. Both have disturbed trade and offended the natural laws of wealth. Both have brought losses upon the producers and consumers. Together they have contributed to create the uncertainty which has contracted the movement of capital and crushed hundreds of enterprises. The tariff and money questions are not the accidents of the summer. The future of the whole American people enters into their settlement. The Democratic masses know the pledges of the party, because they voted upon pledges. How can the Democratic Congressmen face their people next year and endure the comparison of pledge with performance if they are capable of no better finance than a blind stand against suspending the purchase of bullion, and of no better taxation than a miserable, ineffectual, intimidated rehash of McKinleyism? These are considerations of import. The Democratic party has a history and a destiny. Its history is the story of its constitutional doctrine. Its destiny is the restoration of the spirit of the Constitution. If a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President can do no better than to put their bended backs under the Sherman and McKinley laws there will be one chapter which the Democrats of the next century will pass over in silence if they can. Whatever is not democratic is dangerous.—St. Louis Republic.

The Curse of Cheapness. In 1890 the Republicans were telling ns that “cheap coats make cheap men,” that “cheap and nasty go together” and that “the cry for cheapness is un- American.” From such statements it would naturally be inferred that goods would be cheaper under some other system than protection. The Republicans did not like effect of this cry against cheapness upon the election in 1890, and in 1892 they were prepared to tell us that protection lowers prices. The “tariff pictures” of the New York Press and of the American Economist were devoted to this idea for many months. The Senate Report on Prices was fixed up so that it was claimed that it showed this result —but it didn't. Well, the result of the election in 1892 was no more satisfactory than in 1890, and the Republicans have concluded that they might as well throw off their mask and tell the truth again. Hence they are everywhere asserting that the country is about to be ruined by the low prices which free trade will inaugurate. They say that jt is because the country is afraid of itself on this point that we are now in the midst of a panic. Of course, by country they mean manufacturers. Hear what the New York Press of Aug. 2, now says:

To obtain cheapness for Commodities Is the first and last purpose of the British policy of -free trade which has been forced upon this country. To reach this end British agriculture has been deliberately sacrificed by the rulers of England. That commodities might be cheapened in the United States, many Americans went to the polls in November last and voted to overthrow that system of protection to home industry under which the workman earned vastly higher wages with which to purchase the slightly dearer coat. The result longed for by the Democratic voters and promised by Democratic journals and politicians lias been speedily secured. Before Mr. Cleveland had 'been a month in office the era of cheapness had begun. A nation which was at the top notch of prosperity one year ago has been plunged Into a condition of severe depression. Cheapness has come, bnt with it have come the compulsory idleness of thousands of men, the cessation of wage payments to great masses and consumers, the stagnation of trade and the substitution of apprehension, consternation and dismay for the buoyancy, cheerfulness and energetic movement of one year ago. The natlcn is having an object lesson from which it may leam by bitter experience the nature of the benefits that are offered by the cheapening of prices. Those benefits come solely to a few persons who are not producers of wealth. This statement should convince the most skeptical that cheapness is a curse and that our only salvatipn lies in a return to protection and high prices. To make certain that we will miss none of the possible benefits of protection and that we will not be cursed by cheap oranges, lemons, bananas and other tropical fruits, let us put duties on these articles so high that all such products will be grown on our own soil. If hot houses are necessary to do this so much the better. Think of the business booms, the valuable home markets and the extra wages for American workingmen, to come from the building of several thousand acres of hot-houses —brickyards, lumber-yards, glass factories, sash and door factories, carpenters, masons, glaziers and painters, would be more prosperous by such a law. This prosperity would spread and diffuse itself until it had extended tb the hunjblest farmer in the sod-house on the prairie—for such are the blessings of protection and high prices. If then wo could induce our inventors to re-

verse their processes and Invent ma* I chines to make goods dearer, we would be on the verge of a millennium. It just now occurs to us, however, that we are still living under laws made by the great McKinley himself —laws which were to guarantee high wages and prosperity to all. Before we decide to outdo McKinley will the Press kindly inform us what has upset the workings of this beneficent plan at least one year in advance of its probable abolition? Was its hold on our industries so weak after thirty years i-l continual grip that it could be shaken by a look from the unregenerate freetrade Democrats? If this be so, might it not be well to intrust our prosperity to something less timid or fickle? Possibly also the Sherman Silver Act may have some connection with our present troubles. We might investifate a little in this direction before eelaring that cheapness is an unmitigated curse.—Byron H. Holt.

Digging Political Grave* Deeper. Certain Republicans, not satisfied with the depth of their graves, are actively engaged in digging them deeper. The New York Press was among the first to agitate for deeper graves by renewing the assaults upon the intelligence of the American people which caused the upheavals of 1890 and 1892. It will be recalled that Republicans everywhere then asserted that tariffs are not taxes; that they lower prices; that the foreigner pays tariff taxes; that we can tax ourselves into prosperity with a protective tariff, and all such other nonsense. A few weeks ago the New York Press dug up the Republican corpse and began to kick it, and to shout in its ears that the jig was not yet up if it would only perambulate about the country telling the people that they were fools first and cowards last; that they were now scared at their own tariff declarations; that this fear is the cause of the present panic; that the Sherman silver law really has nothing to do with it: that it would exist without the Sherman law; and that blue ruin will stare us in the face after the law is repealed and until President Cleveland and the leaders of the Democratic party renounce all intention of disturbing the McKinley tariff act. The New York Tribune and other leading Republican papers had some doubts as to the advisability of attempting to “fool all of the ueople all of the time,” but as it was the last straw it reluctantly clutched at it, and the most of the other Republican papers and men—not excepting ex-President Harrison—are now soberly telling us that the-country is afraid of the Democrats and of free trade, and that this is the cause of the present financial stringency. Where will these same journals and men be when Congress has repealed the Sherman law —as it is almost certain to do —and the business of the country has returned to its usual prosperous condition? Will they have sufficient confidence in the credulity and stupidity of the American people to imagine that they can again be deceived by any false •cry? Are not these Republicans burning their bridges behind them when they bet their last dollar that this is a free trade panic? What if the panic .ceases the moment that the Sherman law is abolished, as Depew—the one rational Republican left—says it will? How much deeper will the country then find it necessary to bury the G. O. P. •corpse for hygienic reasons? And what a sorry condition this same corpse will be in when the day of judgment arrives, and it must tell of the misery that was caused on earth by its shameful abuse of trust and confidence!

Give Us Relief First. The preamble and resolutions reported by the Committee of the Silver Conference are precisely what might have been anticipated. In other words they state the views of the promoters of the convention, which have been expressed time and time again in the newspapers, in pamphlets, on the floor of Congress and on the stump. After stating as facts a large number of disputed propositions, especially the charge that the act of 1873 was a “secret demonetization” of silver, the resolutions insist that the Sherman aot, while an objectionable device of the enemies of silver, shall not be repealed except by a measure restoring the free >coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. It Lb ,asserted that the Government can keep silver at par with gold by its simple fiat. The experience of the country in endeavoring to do this by purchasing the equivalent of the entire product of American mines and issuing Treasury notes against it is not satisfactory to the advanced free-coinage men. Doubtless, however, there are many persons who believe in the employment of the two metals for money who are willing to grant the business interests of the country immediate relief and to consider hereafter and at leisure what may be done for a permanent remedy of its financial evils. --New York World.

Two Brands of .Reformers. •One brand of tariff reformers think that protection is bad .and that it should be abolished. They think, though, that as every change in the tariff unsettles business it is best not to shock trade by any great or sudden change of rates. They prefer to reform gently and to seale down protective duties at the rate of 2,3, or 5 per cent, a year, reaching a tariff for revenue basis in 1905 or 1910. Another brand agrees that protection is a curse and that anv change of duties disturbs industry. They think, however, the quicker the tariff can be reformed and protection abolished the quicker will be the recovery from the shock. If a tooth is bad. they prefer to have it extracted at one sitting rather than at a dozen sittings, in which case the agony might be prolonged for two or three weeks. They sav also that if protection is abolished piecemeal not only will business be panicky for many years but the protected manufacturers will fight each step with all their power, money, and influence. Short, sharp action, which shall remove the poisonous fang of protection from industry, is what is needed. Business will then soon recover from the shock and will thrive as never before. Will Benefit U». The American farmer is not to have the advantage of a European war, but there are evidences of a lively competition between Russia and Germany to see which can tax itself the more iri order to spite the other. Germany imports a good deal of grain from Russia, and in order to retaliate on Russia for advancing duties on German manufactured goods, Germany is preparing to exclude Russian breadstuns entirely and depend upon the United States. Already the United States has taken a large part of German trade from Russia. We can enjoy this tariff fight, knowing that, however hard it may be on the German and Russian consumer, it will inure to our benefit. A German method of protecting iron and steel from rust consists of coating electrolytically with peroxide of lead. A suitable coating can be applied in twenty minutes, and the temper of the steel article is not affected. The Fribourg, Switzerland, suspension bridge has a span of 870 feet. We want something we can't get and do »ot even know what it is.