Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1895 — GOOD TIMES ARE HERE [ARTICLE]

GOOD TIMES ARE HERE

PROSPERITY UNDER DEMOCRACY HAS COME TO STAY. The Country Recovering from the Unfortunate Administration of Benjamin Harrison with Its Shermanism and McKinleyism Accompaniment. Calamity-Howlers Dumfounded. In the canvass of last fall, the country over, the Republicans sent Mr. Dismal on the stump. Republican committees fairly revelqd in what they called the calamities of their country. The instructed stumper of the dismal tribe was adjured to advise electors who had voted for Democracy and tariff reform in 1892 to eat the roosters they wore in their caps after the triumphant election of the opponents of special privileges. Wearing hat bands of crape and screwing his features into an expression of profound commiseration, McKinley went out crying, “I told you so.” The calamity howler was heard all over the land. The administration was responsible for all the woes that had come upon America. Democrats had interfered to some extent with the God-given right of protects to enjoy benefits not granted to the rest of their fellow citizens, but paid for by them. The Republican administration had nothing to do with the hard times, so the stumpers averred. Republican demagogy on the silver question, the high taxation which they had enacted in the McKinley law, none of these had aught to do with the distress which was obvious. The blame must be laid at the door of a party which proposed to relieve Americans in soipe measure of the burden of taxation. Times are changed 1 and changing. The country is recovering from the unfortunate administration of Benjamin Harrison, with its Shermanism and its McKinleyism. Under the Wilson bill, which it was said would ruin industries, industries revive. Under the Democratic policy which these dismals declared would rob the wage earner Increase of wages comes to operatives in rehabilitated industries. The commerce that calamity howlers declared was devoted deliberately to destruction in the Wilson bill is moving steadily and cheerfully. For nearly a year the Wilson law has been in operation, with the result, which Republican Jeremiahs declared could never be attained thereunder, that times have vastly improved. We now hear even McKinley sniveling that the Wilson bill is, after all, but a vindication of his high protective policy. In 1888, says the Chicago Chronicle, the hired campaign orators of the Republican party organized themselves after what they called glorious victory into an association of “spell-binders.” They were so eloquent that, according to the report to their employers, they hade held their audiences everywhere and were mighty proud of their achievements. In 1892 these mercenary “spellbinders” became dismal calamity howlers. Where they had-an audience cheering when engaged in the great spellbinding act they had the satisfaction later of finding their eloquence of disaster calling for continual groans. Tariff taxation had been reduced and the country had gone howling to the devil, where Democratic headquarters are in continual session. If the Republican party proposes to go into the campaign with these orators next year, still crying that disaster attends Democratic policy, that industrial chimneys smoke no longer, that wage earners are starved, that the land is ruined, they will talk to empty benches. They can no longer revel in their dire prophecies. Prosperity has come to stay.

Not Caused by Republican Victories. With one accord the high tariff organs are shouting: “We told you so; the Republican victory last fall has brought good times and business prosperity. We did it all.” This confession on the part of the protection organs that trade and industry are reviving, and that wages are going up, is very welcome to Democrats, who want, first of all, to see an end of the long era of depression caused by McKinleyism. As the repetition of the statement that it is Republican successes which have brought about the present industrial boom, may delude some of the unwary, it may be worth while to briefly examine their pretensions.

According to the protection theory everything good comes from high tariffs, and everything bad from free trade. But it is only of late that protectionists have been so bold as to claim that their nostrum works both ways; that it makes times bad when Democrats are in power, and the threat to restore it makes them good just as soon as a liepublican Congress is elected. It is a notorious fact that the great panic of 1893 was brought on under conditions created by Republican, legislation. It is equally well known that the country began to revive from the exhausting effects of high taxation and restricted trade as soon as ever a measure of tariff reform went into effect. It is to break the force of these damaging facts that the Republican papers are taking credit to their party for tiie happy change in the industrial situation. But it will not work. Their humbug is too transpar. ent. Business is improving because thpre is a demand for more goods of all kinds. Factories have got rid of their overstock, caused by high tariff stagnation, and are trying to catch up with their orders. Men are making things because other men want them, and have something to give in exchange for them. People do not buy things merely because a Congress which has not yet met happens to have a few more Republicans than Democrats. They buy because they need things and can sell their products to the men who produce what they want. Party politic? has nothing to do with it, except in so far as every additional restriction removed from trade helps make business of all kinds better. It is not the threat of re-establishing McKinleyism, but the natural working of less hampered industrial forces, which has brought about the great improvement in business. And the high tariff, “no trade” organs only make themselves ridiculous by their antics. He Who Runs May Read. In August, 1894, the Wilson"; tariff bill, reducing the tariff duties, became a law. Immediately factories opened. Idle men were,set at work, wages, inareased. mills were crowded to the ut-

moet capacity to supply orders. In tho schedules including iron and woolen goods the reductions were greatest In iron the average reduction was 37 per cent and in woolens 50 per cent. Yet in iron and woolen factories is the greatest increase in activity noted and in these two branches are the advances in wages most general. The lesson IS very plain. It does not require a Solomon or a Newton to discover it It is simply this: High tariff leads to low wages; low tariff is accompanied by high wages. The proof is overwhelming.—Utica Observer. Farmers Not Benefited by Tariffs. Realizing that the old “home market” cry will not again fool the farmer into voting for a restoration of McKinleyism, the protectionist organs are now trying to devise a scheme for a high tariff on farm products. In spite of the fact that our agricultural industries have been established from one hundred to two hundred and fifty years, the professional “friends of the farmer” are working the same old “infant industry” dodge which they used eighty years ago in regard to manufactures. According to these protectionists we have been reading our histories all wrong. Instead of the generally accepted theory that agriculture was the first industry of the country, it appears that the reverse is the case. When the first settlers landed on our shores they found here a number of kind capitalists with factories all ready for operation. Being truly benevolent, as all manufacturers are, these capitalists tosk pity on the settlers and gave them work. After awhile some of the settlers heard that land had been Invented in England, so they sent over for a few shiploads, and spreading it out, proceeded to grow crops on it The crops grew so well that they decided to make some land for themselves, and being naturally ingenious, succeeded in a short time in manufacturing a large quantity. In the meantime the number of factories having increased, there . was a demand for some more land to put tjiem on, and to grow food on to feed the operatives. In this way the farming industry has been gradually built up, so'that it is believed that a protective tariff on wheat, cotton, corn and beef would lead to the importation and production of large areas of land.

As America already exports great quantities of all these staple products, It may at first sight seem doubtful where the benefit to the farmers will come in. Skeptical free-traders, who believe that thirty years of protection nearly ruined our farmers, will very likely sneer and say that to talk of helping agriculture by high tariffs is all humbug. They will claim that in the long run the prosperity, of any country depends on the condition of its farmers, and that to attempt to protect an industry which sells its surplus products in foreign markets, is the silliest kind of nonsense. And they will also assert that it was the great agricultural industry of this country, established without any government pap, which was the formation for all our prosperity. But there is no use in arguing with these theoretical free-traders. The facts are all on their side, and anyway, they never could be brought to see the wisdom of making everybody rich by taxing everybody. Let the good, unselfish protectionists stick to their doctrine that the way to help the farmers is by killing foreign trade, and in the course of time they will be regarded as merely innocent victims of a harmful superstition. To Shut a McKinley Mouth. Considerable anger has been aroused in the celestial minds of some protectionists over the question of imports of woolen goods under the new tariff. We are now importing a disastrous quantity, they say, such as no truly American tariff would ever allow to come in. One answer to this Is to show that even greater amounts came in during a corresponding period under the McKinley tariff. The Wool and Cotton Reporter publishes comparative tables this week showing “a heavy Increase” in the imports over the past year or two, “but as compared with those of the fiscal year 1892-’93, the returns for the ten months of the current year make a far less discouraging showing, especially on dress goods and cloths.” This is the way to shut a McKinley mouth. The way to shut a merely rational mouth is to take the position that if we import woolen goods, it is because we want them, and have something to give in exchange for them, and can spend our time to better advantage than in making them ourselves. The bigger the quantities we import, the greater amount of things we have to give in exchange for them, the better our wag s and profits and general prosperity.— New York Evening Post.

Tin Industry Given a Show. According to a Republican contemporary the number of tin plate plants has increased from thirty-two to fiftyfour, or nearly 100 per cent. It was not to be expected that the tin plate industry would make much progress while the McKinley law was in operation. That economic monstrosity ppt a prohibitive duty on tin plate, but a moderate levy on the tin and the plate. The result was that a number of firms established the business of Importing the tin and the plate and had the dipping done here. That was a profitable but fraudulent business which gave satisfaction to no one except those engaged in it.—Kansas City Times. Women in a Protected Industry. Under the heading “Women Tofilng in Iron,” the New York Press publishes a detailed account of the employment by the Monongahela Tin Plate Company of a number of women to assist in making tin plate. Had this been in Wales,, or England, we should have had from the Press denunciations of the terrible effects of free trade In driving women into such disagreeable occupations. But as it is in Pittsburg, the chief manufacturing city of Pennsylvania, and as the industry is a pet one of the protectionists, we suppose it is all right. How do American workingmen like the idea of their wives or daughters “tolling in iron?”

An Outworn Issue. Senator Quay expresses the opinion that there is about one moire campaign in the tariff question. A greater man than he once thought that there was about one more Presioency in the bloody shirt, and found that he was mistaken. It seeps very difflcult-for some politicians to know when an issue is worn Journal.