Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — REPLIES TO A REPUB. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

REPLIES TO A REPUB.

CLEARLY SHOWN WHY PRICES GO DOWN. - They Become Lower in Spite of end Not Because of Protection—The Oemocratlc Party Is Pslsely Accused—Not a T.aok of Currency. Answer to a Protectionist. The Courier-Journal has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from a Democrat in Illinois, who admits that he has been talked to a standstill by an intelligent Republican of his acquaintance, and he appeals to this paper for help. Here is the substance of the argument submitted by the Republican: Granted that a protective tariff Increases cost of (roods to consumers at first, it always results in cheaper goods ultimately. For instance, wlre*nailH cost, when first invented, 10 cents per pound: s tariff of Bix cents was proposed, bnt Mr. Mills exclaimed, “Oh, that will never do. 'Twill make them cost 1C cents," bnt the tariff was put on and is on to-day, vet the wire nails sell at three cents per pound. Again, steel rails were costing $35 or S4O per ton; a tariff of $26 was put on, whioh stimulated home production so that now they sell at $25 per ton, although the high tariff of S2O is still on for foreign rails. So Is It ever the case that a protective tariff, by Increasing production, tends to lower price of goods. Again, while he prices of manufactured goods are still at a high figure, the farmer'ean well afford It, because It makes a larger margin of profit. A thrifty farmer can sell, say, $1,200 worth of produce and spend SSOO in clothing, tools and other manufactured articles. Now let protective tariff be removed and the scale of all prices comes down exactly one-half. The farmer sells the same produce for S6OO and pays $l5O for his purchases, thus pocketing $460, where he formerly pocketed S9OO. If the purchasing power of $460 is equivalent to the former S3OO, the fanner might still be no worse off: but then low wages at. the mills have m an time driven many operators to the farms to become competitors of the fanner, and also his market at the mills is smaller, and he Is not su'e of selling all his produce, as In former years. We make room for this long extract in order to present the argument entire, and also because the last part of it is an answer to the first part. The first argument is that protection is right beoause it makes prices lower. The second argument is based on the assumption that the removal of protection would lower prices one-half. These two theories cannot stand together. The pretense that protection lowers prices Is based on the impudence of protectionists claiming credit for what happens in spite of them. Owing to the many discoveries of this century, the use of steam, the introduction of improved machinery, and many laborsaving inventions, labor has been growing more and more productive. It happens, therefore, that the labor of a man will produce, with the aid of machinery, ten, twenty, or even fifty times as much of some objects of desire as it would one hundred or two hundred years ago. This has had. two results. It has cheapened commodities and it has raised the wages of labor. Commodities are cheaper because they cost less labor, while wages are higher because they produce so much larger quantities of commodities. This change has occurred under high and low tariffs and under free trade.

The Protectionists, however, assuming that no one knows what is going on abroad, have tried to account for this universal tendency by ascribing it to laws passed in the United States, although it has gone on here under a revenue as well as under a protective tariff. Apart from these improvements in machinery, it is competition that cheapens commodities, and this competition stimulates invention. It is the manufacturer most pressed by competition who is most likely to discover devices for saving labor, according to the old adage that “necessity is the mother of invention.” This competition is inconvenient to manufacturers, and they try to diminish it by shutting the foreign producer out of the market. By this means tltey are able to keep prices higher than would otherwise be possible. In process of time domestic competition may spring up and help to reduce prices' but, of course, the domestic competition alone cannot, ordinarily, make prices as low as both foreign and domestic competition would. Steel rails afford a very good illustration of these principles when the whole truth about them is told. The use of steel for rails was made possible by the cheapening of steel,and that was due to anew process. If protection had made them cheap in America, free trade would have made them high in England. The fact that they were $lO a ton higher under protection shows what the tariff is for. The general decline in the price is due to invention; the difference between the English and American prices is due to protection. The Republicans cannot adhere to the theory that protection cheapens. It is a wholly artificial theory, and they are always forgetting all about it aud talking about the ruinous prices at which goods will have to be sold under free trade. They are continually telling the wool-growers, for example, that the bare prospect of free wool has put down the price. This shows plainly enough that there is no sincerity in the plea that protection cheapens. If protection really cheapened the product no producer would ask for it, for every one wishes to sell at the best possible price.— Louisville Courier-Journal (Dem.). A False Accusation. The Republican party is trying to make it appear that the present unsatisfactory condition of things in this country arises from an uncertainty as to what the Democrats are going to do, says the Burlington Gazette. We do not believe a word of this. This crisis has been threatening the country for 6ome time. Even President Harrison, in one ol his later messages to Congress tc4d the people that to avoid such a condition of things the Government Had oome to the relief cdthe situation.

It has been seen by the wise men of the nation, and they have predicted it, let whichever party assume the reins of power. It is a natural consequence of a false system of legislation, which has instituted a false system of general business methods and a wrong basis for our financial conditions, and all together have brought about a condition of national affairs whioh is giving alarm to all our people. This condition of things can only be permanently remedied by a salutary system of legislation which shall partially at least undo what has been wrongly done in the way of legislation. That is what the Democratic party has been put into power to do, and if it does not do its work with a master hand and in the spirit of alacrity, a reckoning day will soon come upon it, and the people will ask why their pleadings have not been heeded. Road the writing on the wall, and act accordingly. Not a Lack of Currency. The Hon. John De Witt Warner presented a memorial from the New York Chamber of Commerce to the House, during the silver debate, praying for the repeal of the silver-purchasing clause of the Sherman act. Mr. Warner explained, for the benefit of Western and Southern Congressmen, that the Chamber of Commerce “is not composed either exclusively or mainly of bankers,” but of business men who are borrowers and not loanei-H of money. They are big merchants and traders who are interested in the prosperity of the whole country. In reply to questions from various Representatives, Mr. Warner said that he was willing to advocate each and every plank in the Democratic platform. He expressed himself as follows regarding the question of whether or not it is a lack of currency or a lack of confidence that is now afflicting this country: “If this country has learned anything from the present crisis so that it has been burned into its memory as with a red-hot iron, it has learned this, that while the currency has been increasing as fast as gold can be brought from Europe, and as fast as Government notes can be printed, money has been getting scarcer than before. Men are beginning to learn that the real money of commerce, the real currency for the transaction of business, does not consist in silver or gold, but in the confidence of business men. “That, sir, is the matter in which the chamber of commerce is primarily interested. We want the Government, not to help us to do business, but to let us alone, so that we can have facilities to do business. This law is a destroyer of confidence, an interference with the development of this country: and we ask to have it repealed. “We want that repeal, not as an end, but as a means; as a means to the reinstatement of the public confidence, so that, as in former flourishing times, every bale of cotton as it reaches the press, every bushel of wheat as it reaches the elevator, every ton of ore as it lies on the dock, shall be a basis of credit and be current money throughout Christendom.

“If that law, which puts it out of our and your power to restore that confidence, is once repealed we can cooperate with you in helping on what will be the greatest reaction of prosperity that this country has ever seen —in which, from Texas to Maine, from Florida to Washington, all will be blessed, and we with you will share in the benediction.” A Pecultar Parallel. Under the heading, “The Deadly Parallel,” a great many of our partisan Republican contemporaries are publishing the following extract from the Utica Herald: Opening of President! Opening of President Harrisons mennage to Cleveland's message to Congress, December, Congress eight months 1899: ; later, August, 1893: In submitting myi The exlstenoe of an annual message to'alarming and extraCongress, I have great business altsatisfaction in being nation. Involving the able to say that the; welfare and prosperity general conditions as- of all onr people, has fectlng the commercial constrained me to call and Industrial inter- together an extra sesests of the Unlted aion of the people's States are ib the high- representatives in Goriest degree favorable, gress, to the end that A comparison of the through a wise and existing conditions patriotic exercise of with those of the most the legislative duty favorable period In with which they are the history of 'the solely obarged present oountry will, I believe, evils may be mitigated show that so high a de- and dangers threatengree of prosperity, and lng the future may be so general a diffusion averted, of the comforts of life, were never before enjoyed by our people. Can’t they see that the thing is loaded? Have they not learned to keep their hands off campaign literature from New York? Did not Harrison assume the office after Cleveland, and did not Cleveland again take up the work where Harrison left off? Is not the whole argument in favor of Cleveland, and, according to the Herald, may ’we not expect a condition at the end of his present term similar to that which obtained at the inauguration of Harrison? If all this is true, is it not a good thing for the country that Grover was successful? The Herald is quoted by the directories "as a Republican paper, but its editor must bo devoid of tact and foresight. —Cedar Rapids Gazette. They Squirm. Republican journals and politicians are following the cue to protest against any disturbance of the tariff. Business, they say, demands rest and certainty. l'o proceed to obey the people’s mandate for a reduction of taxes, after the monetary danger is removed, will, they insist, “unsettle” our industries. There has been no talk of precipitate action. The intention of - the Democratic party is to reform the tariff with due caie and deliberation, and to give business ample time to adjust itself to any changes—six months at least. The Republican prole it is inconsistent and impudent. Ten times since the war tariff was passed have the Republicans revised cr amended it In gen-

eral bills. They have been persistent tariff tinkers. But always, with one exception, the duties have gone up, up, up! The average duty of 32 per cent, in the original war tariff of 1862 had increased to 384 per cent, in 1874. Under the "reform of the tariff by its friends” in 1883 the average rose to 42. Then, with a surplus of revenue of nearly 8100,000,000 annually, came the McKinlev revision of 1890 covering every schedule, and last year the average duty on dutiable articles imported for consumption was 48.71. This is the record of the Republican tariff tinkers who now ask that their new tariff of abominations lie permitted to stand in order to secure stability to business. This continual tax-raising is the answer of the monopolists to the people’s demand for relief from oppressive burdens! They have never hesitated to “disturb industry" when they wanted their bounties increased. They will not prevent the relief demanded by the people by bringing out again their tattered old campain bugaboo.— New Age. The House for Honest Money. The House of Representatives must bo thanked for doing thoroughly what it has done somewhat tardily. And perhaps the country is to be congratulated upon the tardiness because of the greater thoroughness. As it is, no one can say that the house has aotod hastily or without due deliberation. Ample opportunity has been afforded for exhaustive argument of the various questions involved in all their important aspects. The result is the comploto rout of the allied forces of dishonest and destructive monetary legislation and a more complete assurance of future safety to the business interests of the country than a vote without full discussion would have been likely to afford. At first the silver people predicted,, with the utmost confidence, that thei Sherman purchase clause could not be repealed unless something equally or more satisfactory to them should be coupled with the repeal. As the debate progressed their confidence diminished, until at last they conceded the unconditional repeal bill would pass the House. But they would not concede more than twenty-five or thirty majority, while not many even of the advocates of repeal claimed a majority! of more than forty to sixty, and the very few who ventured to predict a majority of 100 were regarded as visionary enthusiasts down to the very hour when the voting began. The first vote was on the Bland lti to 1 amendment. The number voting was 348, or only six less than the whole number of members of the House, and the majority against the proposition was 102. Tho Blandites were driven from their first ditch by more than a two-thirds vote.: Then the 17 to 1 ratio was beaten by a majority *f 140; then the 18 to 1 by 137; then the 19 to 1 by 132; then the 20 to Iby 103. This last was the widest departure from the present ratio which the silver men would deign to consider at the outset. It was the last ditch of the free-coiners, the ditch in which they were going to exhibit their full strength, and yet the majority against 20 to 1 was one greater than that against 16 to 1, and the number of votes in favor of it four less. And finally, to complete the stampede of the silver forces from their last ditch and their final dispersion through the woods and swamps, the House passed the Wilson bill by a majority of 131 in a total vote of 349, giving 240 affirmative votes, or sixteen more than two-thirds of a full House.—Chicago Herald.

Who Passed the Sherman BUI? It may be of some interest to know how the vote stood- upon the passage of the Sherman bill in the Republican Congress which forced it upon the people of this count™. The vote in the Senate stood as follows: Republicans for-it, 29: Democrats against it, 26; and this included the full vote of the Senate for and against the passage of the law. In the House the vote was as follows: Republicans voting for it, J2l; also one Independent. Against it were 90 Democrats. And this is the full vote upon the adoption of the bill in both houses. One Democrat in the House and fifteen Republicans not paired refused or neglected to vote. Thus it will be seen how the Democrats stood then upon this compromise measure. They did not compromise much one way or the other. They were solidly against the measure, and have none of the responsibilities of its evil effects to carry. of Republicans. The Ohio Democratic platform puts it thus truthfully and forcefully: The financial situation is the unfortunate legacy of a Republican administration. It is the natural result of the McKinley tariff, the Sherman silver law, extravagance < f the revenue of the party lately in power, and the creation and fostering of trusts and corrupt combinations by that party, all combining to shake credit, ,to create distrust in the money of the country and to paralyze its business. On His Own Platform. The Ohio Democrats have made revenue reform the direct issue, with the author of the tariff plank in tho National Democratic platform leading their ticket in opposition to McKinley, the framer of the-protection plank in the National Republican platform. The convention approved “especially" those portions of tne adopted by the national convention at Chicago referring to the tariff and to currency legislation. Will Drop the ♦♦Gov.*’ Gov. Wm. McKinley Jr. has dropped the “Jr." from his name. After election he will drop the “Governor,” and than will be known limply as plain BiU McKinley.

“THE PEOPLE WANTED A CHANGE, AND THEY GOT IT.” Benj. Harrison. BUT THE CHANGE WAS MADE IN 1889, AND WE ARE STILL SUFFERING FROM IT.-Puck.