Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1894 — A PROTECTION MOB. [ARTICLE]

A PROTECTION MOB.

DISGRACEFUL PROCEEDINGS AT GLOVERSVILLE. N. Y. Haodlnm* Attempt to Howl Dowa • Tariff Before Speaker—The Free Uat ■boats Bo Let Alone-Mosata* of the Majority for the WUeoo 818. Instigated by BepnMleaaa We freed the bodies of our black ■laves thirty years ago. We have not, however, freed either their labor or the labor of our more numerous white •laves. We will not have done so much until we have changed the conditions which make them, both as producers and consumers, subjects and creatures of monopoly. One of the chains that bind them is the “protective* tariff. This chain was forged and is held in place by protected manufacturers. The elections of 1890 and 1892 loosened their hold, but they are now becoming desperate and refuse to slacken their monopoly grip. The Reform Club, of New York, has been holding meetings in various Eastern cities where so-called Democratic representatives have refused to do the bidding of their constituents and have sold out to the manufacturers of their districts. In Paterson, N. J., in Providence, R. 1., and in Amsterdam, Troy and Cohoes, N. Y., these meetings have been most successful in winning back to tariff reform those workingmen who have wavered when their wages have been reduced because of the shadow of the Wilson bill, as they were told.

In only one case did the workingmen fail to respond to true Democratic principles. This was at Gioversville, N. Y., and here are the circumstances: An audience of over 2,000 had crowded into the opera house at Gioversville to hear Mr. Thomas G. Shearman. As in other meetings three-fourths attended to listen to tariff reform arguments. They might be skeptical, but they were open to conviction. In the gallery, however, there were about 500 men and boys, including a well-organized gang of 200 men who had been primed with liquor. The Republicans who primed them gave them to understand that they were to make it unpleasant for the speaker and, if possible, to break up the meeting. It has since been asserted in the local papers that a liberal supply of stale, eggs was on hand for expected use. No police were there, as the Mayor was opposed to the meeting. Republican papers had for several days been slyly preparing the way for what foUpwea. ' Gioversville has 15,000 inhabitants and is the center of the glove industry in this country. Nine-tenths of the ? 'loves made need no protection, and in act the manufacturers would thrive better without any; but that does not now concern us. As often happens in protected industries, nearly all of the best paid workers are imported foreigners. Glove cutters are practically all foreigners. Many of the recent importations are Huns and Italians. It was these who were relied upon to disturb the meeting. “Before I had talked for fifteen minute*,” •aid Mr. Shearman, “the opposition to me developed. I announced that at the close of my talk I would answer any questions that any one present might want to ask. A man who was sitting In the body of the bouse arose and asked me a question. When I started to answer It he continued to talk. This was a signal for his friends in the gallery. They hooted, hissed and ■tamped. They shouted all sorts of questions that were wide of the subject This aaan on the floor led them. The Chairman of the meeting told me that he was a low kind of fellow, and he really was a low fellow and very vulgar. Some of the remarks were obscene ” Mr. Shearman tried to quiet the audience and go on with his speech, but the mob in the gallery didn’t a ant a free trade speech. They jeered every remark he made. They commented on his personal appearance—Mr. Shearman Is a small man, physically—and then they began a steady ■tamping of their feet that »as very annoying to the speaker. “1 did not fear personal violence,» said Mr. Shearman, “for the men In a mob are always cowards. I called their attention to the fact that Garrison, Lovejoy and Phillips had teen hooted and jeered in the same way when they advocated abolition of the black slaves, and I was willing to stand It in the cause of advocating abolition of the white slaves. The respectable .part of the audience wanted to listen to what I had to say. I kept on my feet for two hours. I wasn’t able to say much that could be heard. Then I took a chair and sat down, telling these rowdies that they couldn’t tire me out. They swarmed down from the gallery, and as there were no ■eats In the body of the house, they stood in a gang around the front of the stage, threatening to to do me Injury. But when I had them right under my eyes, where I coujd talk to them, they subsided a little One man told me I was a rebel and a traitor. I said to him: ’Two of my brothers went to the front during the fight for the Union, and I wanted to go, but they would not take me. I have spent *26,000 supporting the families of men who were killed in that wan Now, sir, what have you done? Did you go to the front? Did you spend any money for the families of those who did!* That turned the laugh on him. At the end of two hours and a half of effort to talk free trade, Mr. Shearman declared that the present hard times were not due to fear of tariff changes, and that under the Influence of the new tariff bill times would again become prosperous. This so angered the mob that they broke out afresh. They called Mr. Shearman names, they hooted, and when their throats got tired they made all the noise they could with their feet It was very distressing Logic Is -a very good thing In its way. Mr. Shearman thinks that his free trade logic is irresistible, but It doesu’t count against a mob of unemployed wageearners such as attended the Gioversville meeting. By this time the Chief of Police had reached the scene of the agitation with all the available night force of police. The curtain was rung down and the meeting was adjourned. Mr. Shearman and the officers of the meeting started for the hotel. There were enough police to station one on each side of Mr. Shearman, who walked In front, followed by the officers of the meeting, who were protected In the same way. This procession was followed by an angry mob, who would have been even more rude if they had not feared the police, At the hotel Mr. Shearman turned sarcastically and thanked every one for his kindness and courtesy. Then he started back to Brooklyn. Macbeth’s Frank Statements. Mr. Geo. A. Macbeth, of Pittsburg, is the largest individual manufacturer of glass in this country. He is a wideawake man who keeps “up to date" in improvements and who, in spite of “protection” on many of his raw materials, and the fact that he pays higher wages than are paid by either domestic or foreign competitors, can export large quantities of glassware to all parts of the world. He believes in being independent of tariffs and is aching for the time when he can compete with all comers without being handicapped by protection. Here is what he said to a representative of the National Glass Budget, after the passage of the Wilson bill in the House: The bill is all right In its way. but it doesn’t weigh much. In other words, it is good enough as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. I believe in free trade simply and absolutely. Free trade Is inevitable It Is In the air. No amount of tariff dickering can alter the fact Will

tbe Senate pass the Uli? Who oaa tell what it will do! When the reporter mentioned the fact that Ihmsen's (lass house was M shut down, Mr. Macbeth leaned back in his chair and simply said, “Bats!" ••Maybe.” said he. "the firm is justified in so doing, but I would like to see their fig urea I firmly believe that the window glass workers make too much money. They will have to come down. Who has to pay them their high wages? It isn’t Ihmssn's or any other window glass manufacturers; It is the consumers. And who are the consumers of window glass? It Isn’t the rich men; they ase plate glass; It is tbs poor men. workingmen who labor lor a dollar a day. And these poor men contribute their mite so that the window glass worker can make *l4 a day and loaf four months out of the yean • Why should the United States be asked to perpetuate this one particular body of men In this sinecure? How much are the carpenters making thoes times? I don’t think they are making any more than *(. 26 a day. But these same carpenters have to pay for the window glass If you protect* one body of workmen you will have to •protect* another. When they are all •protected’ where Is the advantage? This business of •fixing’ things at Washington, this fooling with the tariff, it absurd. Free trade is inovitabls; sooner or later it will come; the sooner ths people of the United States adapt themselves to the inevitable the better it will be for all concerned.”

A Decisive Majority. The Wilson bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 204 to 140. a majority of 64. This is the largest majority given for a tariff bill since the war. In 1883 the bill which was known as the tariff commission bill passed the House by a majority of 48, the vote being 128 to 80. In 1884 the vote to strike out the enacting clause of the Morrison bill was 159 to 155. In 1888 the Mills bill was passed by the House by a vote of 162 to 149, a majority of 13. The McKinley bill received a majority of 22 in 1890, the vote standing 164 to 142. The large majority obtained by the Wilson bill is of great significance. The Democratic Representatives were charged by their constituents with the duty of lowering tariff taxes. They have performed this duty. They have voted to reduce duties, and, more than that, they have expressed themselves decidedly in favor of the form and method of reduction embodied in the Wilson bill. A bill obtaining such a majority in the branch of Congress having the sole power to originate revenue bills ought not to be materially changed by the Senate. The House has come recently from the people, and such an expression of opinion as it has given in behalf of the Wilson bill ought to be conclusive on Democratic senators. New York World. Let the Free Liat Alone. With coal, iron and sugar on the dutiable list the tariff bill offered to the Senate will be simply a tree-wool bill. Do Senators imagine that free wool will be accepted by the country as an adequate or satisfactory fulfillment of the oft-repeated Democratic promise of free raw materials? Free wool with reduced duties on woolens will be a great gain, and we have no desire to belittle it; out would it be regarded as a redemption of Democratic pledges? Would it satisfy the people who have thrice voted by overwhelming majorities for a reduction of tariff taxes? The Wilson bill is a carefully matured measure. It passed the House by a majority such as no tariff bill has had for a third of a century. The loss of revenue by reason of its free list and reduced duties on imports is more than made up by its internal revenue schedule. It should not be radically changed by a body which has no constitutional right to originate a revenue bill. Moreover, the Emuse will not consent to a practical abolition of the free list which was framed so laboriously and fought for so desperately. Especially if there is good ground for tne suspicion that the free list is tampered with in order to defeat the income tax. —New York World.

Mills on the Wilson Bill. The bill of Mr. Wilson, like the one of 1888, has only gone a Sabbath’s day journey on the line of march. In botn cases there is a long distance between what they are and what they ought to be, and the intervening space is filled up by insurmountable obstacles. This bill should be amended in some particulars and then passed, and the country will see and feel the benefits of larger and freer trade, and better employment and more earnings for its labor, and then it will advance with a bolder and longer step. The sugar bounty should be stricken out. Ad valorem should be substituted for specific duties wherever they occur, except on articles bearing internal taxes. With these and some minor changes the bill should be passed by the House at the earliest possible day. Before it reaches the Senate the rules of that body should be changed, so that, after fair debate and full opportunity for amendment, it can be passed and sent to the President in the early spring. When that is done, the country will again spring forward and enter upon a career of prosperity; and the measure of its prosperity in the future will be marked by the extent to which its trade shall be liberated and its labor employed.—Senator Mills, in North American Review. Senator Gorman Out of Line. The Annapclis correspondent of the Baltimore Sun (Dem.), writing about the resolution of the Maryland Senate indorsing the Wilson bill, says: “It is stated that Senator Gorman wrote to one or two persons in Annapolis strongly deprecating any instructions that would express favor of the Wilson tariff bill These letters were shown to Senators when the movement began to cause a stampede from the Bennett resolution. From what can be gathered about this correspondence without seeing it, the senior Senator at Washington not only deprecated any mention of the Wilson bill by name, but expressed preference for something like the old Mills bill—a thing of the past. However this may be, every effort to stop expression failed.’ The resolution finally adopted differs from the Bennett resolution only in substituting for instructions to the Maryland Senators a general request to the Senate to vote for the Wilson bill. All Protected Countries Except England. Social unrest, stimulated by industrial and financial depression, amounts to a problem in many countries of Europe. It is notably so in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Norway and even in England. In portions of Russia discontent is organized and determined, but it is restricted to certain classes and can hardly be said to have permeated the masses.—Minneapolis Times. An organ of the tariff-protected trusts solemnly assures the country that “the Democrats will get no help from the Republicans of the Senate in passing their bill.” The Democrats will not be greatly surprised by this announcement. Men who drive bogs out of the trough do not as as a rule get much assistance from the swine. There is no need of it in this case.— Chicago Herald. In the Senate’s consideration of the Wilson bill procrastination is the thief not only of time but of a good many millions of money. Business is wait* ing on the Senate all over the country.'