Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — DEVIL AND THE SEA. [ARTICLE]

DEVIL AND THE SEA.

MENACE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON EITHER SIDE. G. O. P. Disciple* Endeavor to Disguise Internicine Strife—Why tbe Pnblic Ha* to Pay High Freight Rates—Tacks in Tariff's Coffin. Embarrassed Candidates. Republicans who are suffering from internecine strife thinly disguised profess to find Democracy rent and torn by the currency question. Let the gentlemen who are candidates for the Republican nomination next year look to their own fences. Where Is Benjamin Harrison upon the silver question? He will talk loosely, of course, about both metals and all that, but he signed the rejected sop to silverites offered by the Sherman bill and was doubtless as eager as Mr. Sherman himself to repeal that same bill. Where does he stand on the currency question? Thomas B. Reed, a promising candidate, twisted and turned, wabbled and worried on the subject matter in the House. Will Mr. Reed define his position on the currency question? Mr. McKinley is so enchanted with McKinleyism and so pleased with himself that he seems to desire that there shall be no agitation of the currency question at all. In his opinion he and his ism will be sufficient for the safety and triumph of the Republican party. Mr. Depew is now. as ever, merely the granger’s friend. If being and as how the granger wants silver or wants gold, why the granger’s friend is with the granger, but if being as how, as Bunsby puts it, he isn’t, why, then, of course! Levi P. Morton never did say anything, and is consistently preserving profound silence as to the use of the metals. True to a policy of trimming which has placed him on both sides of the tariff, and in his own State on both sides of prohibitory legislation regarding the liquor trafti£, Allison is blowing hot and blowing cold on the silver question, assuring everybody that his position is perfectly well understood, the fact being that his position is not at all understood, save as It Is meant to be one that will interpose no conviction of his own against being everybody’s friend. Meantime there looms in Pennsylvania the unique figure of Cameron, and across the Mississippi, all and singular, the extraordinary body of Republican silver Senators from California, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Washington, who bluntly inform the great body of Republicans, as the chairman of their national committee, Mr. Carter, has informed them, that refusal upon the part of the national Republican convention to declare unmistakably for free and unlimited coinage of silver will cost the Republican party its hope for victory in 189 G. The Republican party has the devil on one side and the deep sea on the other. High Tariff and Freights. The farmer who complains of the freight rates he has to pay on his food products and the goods he gets back in exchange for them, is beginning to find out that one of the chief causes of high freights is tie great addition to the cost of building and maintaining railroads, resulting from the protective tariff. The steel rail trust, created and sustained by the high duty on all foreign rails; has cost the railroads hundreds of millions of dollars during the past thirty-five years. To earn dividends on all this additional capital, the railroads were forced to charge higher freight and passenger rates. Then the cost of rolling stock was greatly increased by the high duties on the iron, steel, lumber, glass and nearly everything else which went into locomotives and cars. And in the long run all this artificially increased cost was paid out of the charges of the roads. Had prices been allowed to reach their natural level the cost of constructing and equipping our railroads would have been very much less than it was; more roads would have been built, and the result would have been greater competition and lower charges.

Protectionists try to meet these facts by saying that we export locomotives and cars, and that therefore we can make them as cheaply as in any other part of the world. It is true that we export some of these things, but as a rule the prices for the surplus exported are much lower than Is charged to the home purchaser. Besides, it is only recently that we have been exporting rolling stock, and we ship practically no rails. As to the question of the tariff keeping up prices, it is only necessary to notice the vigor with which the steel and iron workers fought a reduction in the tariff, to prove that protection makes their products dearer. If the duty on steel rails was abolished, as proposed in the last Congress by Tom L. Johnson, one of the largest steel rail manufacturers in the country, the rail trust would collapse and the price of rails would drop fully 30 per cent. Hundreds of railroads would improve their carrying capacity by equipments of new and heavier rails, and freight rates would steadily decline. The New Tariff on Woolens. The attempt on the part of some “protectionist” journals to discredit the new tariff by alleging that under it the imports of woolen manufactured goods are heavier than they wei-e under the McKinley tariff is likely to prove a boomerang. In the first place, the Treasury statistics haye not yet fully shown what the imports of woolens under the new tar. iff will be. There was naturally a marked increase of such imports on January 1, when for the first time the new tariff on woolens went fully into effect. The restoration of confidence in the winter also tended to encourage freer importations. And, furthermore, the allegations of the “protectionist" journals is by no means confirmed by the latest returns of the Bureau of Statistics. But what if the imports of woolens under the new tariff did exceed those under the McKinley law? For thirty years and more the manufacturers of woolen goods in America have had excessive “protection” Mven them by Republican legislation, And the excessive duties levied on all foreign woolens gave the domestic manufacturers a virtual monopoly on almost every kind of woolen goods which the masses of the people use or can afford to wear.

Is It any wonder that when this monojH oly was weakened by tbe Wilson law the people should take advantage ot it? It would be much to the credit of the new tariff if imports of woolens should have been very much larger than they have been. The new tariff is itself excessively high In Its “protectionism,” and lays inordinately heavy duties, especially on woolens, which the people wIU never tolerate when once they begin to realize what burdens they Impose.—New York Herald. No Free Trade in Fish. The high tariffltes do weU to fight against free trade in fish. An eminent American scientist, Prof. Mark Twain, of Hartford, Conn., has shown that a fish diet is highly beneficial to the brain, and he strongly advises that each protectionist should eat a whale, a good large-sized whale, or two medium-sized whales. But while this might help the protectionists, it would be a very bad thing for the rest of the country. Suppost that the pauper fish of Nova Scotia or British Columbia were allowed to compete with the herring of Ohio, the codfish of Colorado, or the mackerel of Missouri. What would be the result? The American farmers and workingmen would be able to gratify their appetite for the pernicious codfish hall, the deadly lobster salad, or the loud perfumed mackerel, at far less expense than at present. Then their brains would begin to work, and what would become of our great protective system, the envy of all other nations (especially the Chinese), if once the fanners and workingmen commence to think? Imagination recoils affrighted from the horrible prospect. By all means let us keep the tariff destroying fish out of the country. What Protectionist* Arc Thinking. “Trade among the nations should be as free as the winds of heaven.”— Patrick Henry. “Pa, what Is a robber?” “A robber, my son, Is one who takes property that belongs to others.” “Well, pa, suppose he gets a law passed to tax others to pay him a bounty on the sugar he raises, then is bo a robber?” “Pa, what is a Democrat?” “A Democrat, my son, is one who believes in equal rights and no favors.” “Pa, were those Senntors Democrats who stuffed the Wilson bill full of protection?” “No, my son, they were wolves In sheep's clothing.” Bhould Unload. McKinley’s Presidential boom Is so weighted with McKinleyism that it has no fair chance with the others. He shofild unload. Tack* In Tariff’s Coffin. “Protection is not a theory; It is a swindle.” True democracy Is based on equal rights for all, special privileges for none. It is the weak, the helpless and the monopolists that need “protection;" labor, the producer of all wealth, needi no protection, all it wants Is justlce.Hon. Tom L. Johnson. Who filled Pennsylvania with the cheapest Imported European laborers? The highly protected coal and iron monopolists. And yet they say they want a tax on iron and coal in order to “keep up American wages.” California protectionists are pushing a movement having for its object the use in that State of only Pacific Slope goods. This is logical, for if protection is good for forty-four States, it ought to be good for one.

When was free trade ever un-Demo-cratic? When did a Democratic convention ever declare It anathema? What Democratic statesman but suid it was the ultimate end of the party’s tariff policy? What is there so awfully wicked in letting a man buy where he can buy the cheapest, and sell where he can get the best price? No free-traders? Why, bless your soul, the woods are full of them. The women are all the stiffest kind of freetraders. Just go down to any store whose advertisement in the morning papers announces a cut in the prices of some textile, and see the crowd of Women actually struggling to get to that bargain counter.—Minnesota Democrat. The New York Sun is the bitterest' opponent of the proposition for a commercial union with Canada, and professes to believe that we would be injured by allowing Canadian goods to come in free of duty. Yet the Sun is the most prominent advocate of the annexation of Canada to the United Stafes. How is that free trade with Canada would bo a good thing if that country was a part of ours, but bad when it is under a separate government? Facts About Putty. Pure putty is made of whiting and linseed oil. Whiting is made of chalk which is Imported from England and ground In this country. Barytes, mixed with the whiting is used as an adulterant of putty, and cottonseed oil is mixed with the linseed oil. Cottonseed oil is cheaper, and a slower dryer than linseed; its use is advantageous to small customers, for putty mixed with part cottonseed oil keeps in order longer. Linseed oil putty is used more by decorators and painters and other large consumers who use up putty quickly. Putty made in the Eastern cities of the United States is sold on the Atlantic seaboard and in the South, but not much Eastern putty is sold in the West, for there are putty manufactories in the Northern and Western cities. We export putty to Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, South America, and the Sandwich Islands. Manufacturers make colored putties to order, and white, brown And black putties are kept in stock. Putty has a variety of uses; a familiar one is-setting glass. Brown putty is used to point brownstone buildings and putty is sometimes used in pointing up brick buildings. Black putty is used in stove foundries. Plumbers use putty. Sometimes scene painters reduce it and put it on canvas to paint over. There are three or four putty manufacturers if New York and more In Brooklyn. A. single firm of manufacturers In this city has sold more than seventeen thousand tons in a year. These seem like large figures, but they are less surprising from the fact that there are few articles of more common use.