Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1894 — VOICE OF THE VOTERS [ARTICLE]

VOICE OF THE VOTERS

NEW-YORKERS DENOUNCE SENATE TRAITORS. Bi« H*m Meeting Demand! that the Declarations of the Chicago Platform Shall Be Carried Oat—Let There Be Mo Star Chamber Proceedings. > The People Are Aronsed. A monster mass meeting, called by the Manhattan Single Tax Club, was recently held in New York City, to express indignation at the “treachery of the Democratic Senators who are thwarting the demand for a radical reduction in the tariff.” The speakers were Alfred Bishop Mason, Henry George, Franklin Pierce, James P. Archibald and Thomas G. Shearman. All handled the Senate and its “conservatives” without gloves. Mr. Mason began by saying “Judai lives again in Washington. Benedict Arnold sits _in the Senate.” Mr. George spoke with great force and fire. He said: If ihe Democratic party cannot give us a better bill than the McKinley bill let the McKinley bill stand, be exclaimed, and tboae who heard agreed. Let the party go back again to the people. I make no personal complaint in this •natter. I believe that these traitors In the Democratic party, these men who are selling It out, are doing more for the cause of free trade than the best bill that could be offered. 1 speak of the Democratic party. There are in that party honest men, who believe In the platform upon which they went before the people, who want to carry out Its precepts. But so long as traitors are not cast forth; so long as honest Democrats must trade and dicker, not with Republican protectionists, but with men in their own party who made demands upon them, then

the Democratic party must take the responsibility of the acts of these men Let It drive the traitors out. Let it declare that no man who does not stand upon Its platform has auy business in that party, and will not he recognized there. When the acclaim that greeted this had died away Mr. George said that the very success of the Democratic party at the last election came from the condition of the country, for even then the clear, plain symptoms of the hard times were to be seen, and the necessity for haste appreciated. Then he went on: Sloth and Weakness. No Situation Is so bad for the Industrial and mercantile Interests as wnen a high tariff Is threatened with a quick reduction, and the wise and safe thing Is to act quickly. But months passed away and nothing was dona Before the extra session months elapsed, while Mr. Cleveland was parceling out offices. Then came the extra session, and nothing was dona Finally the House began work, not to do away with the evil, but upon a bill with the McKinley bill us a inodeL At every turn monopolies and trusts asserted their power. Finally that weak thing, the Wilson bill, did pass the House. It was chock full of concessions to trusts and monopolies, chock full of protection. Then It passed Into what has become the American House of Lords You know the rest. Never has bargaining been so clear. Never has corruption been so open. The Democratic party has been In power in the Senate, and it has been paralyzed by efforts to placate protectionists or agents of protected rings in Its own members. Even such a man as Senator Mills Mr, George pronounced the name so indistinctly that many of his hearers tnought he said Senator Hill, and hisses mingled with the cheers. When it was understood whom Mr. George meant there were only cheers. He went on: Jfiven Mills Has to Trade. Even such a man as Senator Mills, an honest and able free-trader In every &en«e except that in which we single-taxers use the word, who showed one of those spectacles which are said to be dear 10 the gods, and which should be dear to men, one stalwart man, faithful among the faithless, standing up to say no, yet we find him voting for a tariff on iron Why? There is only one explanation. He bad to pay to get some other Democrat’s vote for a re- ' form which be considered more important We are here to-night to say, as far as our voices shall reach, that it Is time to call a halt It Is more Important that the Democratic party Bhould stand clear upon the record than that it should succeed. Bring the fight Into the open. Let the people know who It Is who stands to the pledges and who It ls.wbo deny and repudiate them. Senators Speculate, People Starve. Consider what to-day Is going on! Dickering, bartering, this making of fortunes out of legislation, while the great mass of the people are suffering In their misery, waiting for the Senate to do something to help them. Each day little Items appear la the newspapers, are read and forgotten, which recite the most horrible tragedies Our cities and our roads are filled with men asking the first of human rights, the privilege of earning their living. And what Is Congress doing? Nothing. It Is trading. trading on the very life-blood of men and women and little children, while rings and trusts and monopolies are cared for. Our so-called representatives are selling labor to trusts and rings. I say that the party and men who promised to do something for labor by remitting taxes have done nothing. Remission would, so: a time at least, increase the production and set to work thousands who are now idle and trying with all their might to find work. Tnese Coxey armies are not vagrants, or if they are they are not vagrants from choice. No matter how ridiculous are their demands, they are not so ridiculous as the demands of the protectionists’ lobbies

Only Contempt for Poverty. The agents of the steel ring, the sugar trust and the whole horde of them go to Washington In private cars, and are received by Democrats with the most distinguished consideration But the men who go there on foot, feeling want, the pressure of awful suffering and misery, are received by the standing army of Congress—for that la what It Is—with clubs and punished for treading on the grass. It is time that the people were aroused. It Is time that the Democratic principle was asserted, the principle of "equal rights to all, and special privileges to none.” For the Democratic party I care little; for Democratic principles I care everything. I don’t care what Mr. Cleveland does; to him belongs the credit of starting this principle In the Demoe- ntic party. •,Ie never wrote it in the world," shouted s me one far back in the hall. “I don’t know,” said Mr. George In reply. “What care I who wrote It? He fathered It.” And then there was shouting and clapping of hands. The resolutions were adopted with a great shout, just four votes being cast in the negative. It is probable that these four votes were not cast against the income tax cla.ise in the resolutions. Certain it is that the income tax is as popular with the masse s in the East as it is in the West. A part of the resolutions read as follows: lliat we call on the honest Democrats of the House to accept no Senate amendments that adds an iota to the protective features of the Wilson bill, even at tho risk of leaving the McKinley act In force and remitting tjie whole question to the people. 'J hat a Republican, trust-made McKinley bill is bettor than a Democratic Gorman surrender bill, which to Injury a Ids Insult, and is smeared with still more shameless bargain and sale. That after the open manipulation of the stock market by the secret work of Democratic Senators and the charges that Sugar Trust money was contributed to the Democrat c campaign fund, both party policy aud political decency forbid the imposition by Democratic votes of any duty whatever on sugar. That a 9 citizens of New York we repudiate the Idea that wy prefer tariff taxes to an income tax, and declare that any tax on what men have is better and more democratic than any tax oh what men need, and, while not commending the income tax In Itself, we believe that Its substitution for all tariff taxes would greatly lessen the burden upon the masse l , remove a perennial source of national corruption

and ' make vastly easier the problem ox justly and wisely obtaining a Federal revenue. Tbe Same Old Disease. Censure is justly imposed by the entire country on the group of pretended Democratic Senators who are obstructing the way of tariff reform. , The Republican masses are justified in denouncing these men for their attitude, because it is not assumed on the principle of protection, which they repudiate, but mere’y for the gratification of indiv.dual pecuniary interest The Democratic masses, north and south, east and west, hold these men in open contempt, and if they ever have an opportunity to give effectual expression to their abhorrence of treachery which disgraces the party that expression will be unqualified and explicit But let us speak the truth about the attitude of this group of traitorous obstructives. Who are they but Repub.icans in conduct and in purpose, although denying themselves to be Republicans in principle? What is their dominating motive but the motive that has dominated the entire Republican party since its formation? Each of these men proposes to protect his individual interests at the cost of fidelity to his party and of dishonor to himself as a Democrat. But this selfishness, restricted to a few Senators professionally Democrats, is the creed i of ajl the Senators who are not Democrats. Subordination of the Deraccratic ; frith to the pockets of a few individuals is inconsequential when compared with the deliberate and organized robbery which the Republican party and | its code of political economy has inflicted on the entire country, with varying degrees of oppression and inI justice, during every period in which it baa been in power at Washington. I Democratic obstruction in the Senate is simply the Republican science of I pretended government carried outside i its own party lines into a little patch ;of the Democratic party. As soon as I opportunity comes the Democracy will ; purge itself of the sin of these few culi prits. But the Republican party proi poses to persist in the same sin and to I inflict its consequences indefinitely upon a nation.—Chicago Herald.

Republicans Indorse It. Senator Teller'S declaration in the debate that he wa* opposed to factious delay on the tariff bill by his Republican colleagues, because he considered the “bill ample for the protection of American industries,” and a “better bill than I had an idea would come to us from the Democratic party after its declaration at Chicago," shows how thoroughly Gorman and Brice and McPherson and Smith have done their work. Mr. Teller’s indorsement Shows up those 1 ariff-reform enemies in their true light. Nobody has an adequate comprehension yet of the extent to. which they have made the bill a protective measure. Every examination reveals fresh abominations, and unless the House Democrats insist in conference on striking out most of these, the bill will be very little different from the McKinley law. Why Republicans should oppose it in its present form is explainable only on the ground that they do not care so much for protection as they do for the partisan advantage which would flow from the continued unsettled condition of the business interests of the country which a failure to pass a bill of any kind would secure.—New York Post. Spare the Woolen Schedule. The woolen manufacturers, following the example of the sugar trust, are now making demands upon the Senate. They ask that the McKinley tariff remain untouched till Jan. 1, 1895, when a reduction of 10 per cent may he made, followed annually by a similar reduction until absolute free trade conditions are reached. This sounds better than it is. In 1870 the manufacturers of woolens were ready to accept more than double the reduction they now suggest. If their present proposition is accepted it will be followed by demands for concessions to the wool-growers. But free wool is about all that is left of real tariff reform in the pending bill It would be as well to maintain the McKinley act on the statute hooks as to strike out free wool. The woolen schedule, from top to bottom, should stand as it is. There is no reason why the manufacturers’ proposition should be accepted, and every reason why nothing should be done to imperil free wool. —New York World

Even Mills Makes Bargains. Senator Mills’ vote against free iron ore will ba regretted by many of his friends who do not understand his situation. Mr. Mills was on the subcommittee when this particular concession was made to the “Conservatives,” and he agreed to a duty on ore in return for free wool and other benefits to the consumer. He was keeping his pledge in voting as he did, just as he is keeping another pledge in voting against the more recent and more flagrant concessions to the “Conservatives.” Moreover, a good many sincere tariff reformers lost interest in free coal and free Iron ore when many Massachusetts Democrats, under the lead of ex-Gov. William E. Russell, signed a circu’ar urging protection for the sugar trust. Free coal and iron ore were to be boons for New England, but if New England Democrats were to be in favor of trusts, why make a struggle in their behalf?—New York World. The Sole Exception. The only trust not represented in the new tariff bill is that which the people formerly reposed in the Democratic Senators. —Indianapolis Sentinel. Hurry Up Tariff Reform. The fact that it took ten months to pass the McKinley law is not a logical excuse for delaying the new tariff bill. —Washington Post. Now, ip the Senate could adopt a rule to force its members to do something the public would feel a great sense of relief.—lndianapolis Sentinel. The Senate must pass that tariff hill before the Fourth of July. They would thu3 give our annual glorification day, tho present year, unu ual significance—Boston Globe. IT is certainly the part of wisdom for Republican leaders to avoid all filibustering in the consideration of the tariff. The country wants the question settled. —Philadelphia Time 3. Obviously it is the party policy as well as the patriotic policy of the Democrats to throw musty Senatorial tradition and courtesy to the dogs and put an end to business uncertainty, so far as legislation can do it, without more ado.—Chicago Herald. No Star Chamber! * No GOOD purpose can be served by conducting a star-chamber inquiry into these allegations. It should be conducted with open doors. Turn on the light.—Boston Kerald. There is an earnest protest irum all quarters against the decision to cobduct the investigation of the relations of the sugar trust to the tariff bill with closed doors.—Philadelphia Press. The complimentary things which the Senators will have to say of one another during investigation will no doubt be numerous. Modesty compels them to close the doors.—Washington Star.