Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1895 — AID TO THE FARMER. [ARTICLE]

AID TO THE FARMER.

THE WILSON TARIFF LAW PROMOTES HIS WELFARE. Tends to Increase the Demand lor American Produce—The Ohio Campaign to Be a National Spectacle of High Interest. Agriculturists Benefited. A Washington correspondent recently stated that 75 per cent of the country’s exports consisted of farm products. The percentage has kept up remarkably well, considering the increase in exports of manufactures. Some of the latter are probably included as farm products. The line is one not easy to draw in all cases. Cheese and butter should certainly be classed with cattle, under the head of farm products. Lard, too, and lard oil, and oleomargarine with hogs. Then, why not canned beef with cattle, canned corn and cornmeal with corn, flour with wheat, and oatmeal with oats? Flour mills and canning factories are generally classed as manufacturing establishments. Canned fruit and vegetables would have to be included and farm products of all kinds, no matter how treated. A step further and we find that woolen and cotton goods are as much the products of the American farm as the raw wool and cotton were, or the sheep and cotton plants that produced them. Cotton seed oil, olive oil, peanut oil and other vegetable oils would come under the same general head. Including all goods manufactured from articles and animals raised by farmers, considerably more than 75 per cent, of our exports consist of farm products. The farmer is more interested than any other person in promoting our foreign trade. It is particularly to his Interest that our tariff laws favor this trade. We sell every year about $800,000,000 worth of goods to foreign countries. If but 75 per cent of the whole represents farm products, the farmer’s share is $600,000,000. Reduce this still further one-third for cost of transportation, commissions other expenses outside of the farm, and he has S4OO, * 000,000 for his family, his farm hands and the neighbors he deals with. The farmer’s surplus product must be disposed of.. The best and only way yet discovered to dispose of it is the one advocated by the friends of foreign trade. Laws that tend to increase the demand for American produce and goods manufactured from that produce benefit the manufacturer and producer as well as the consumer, and, most of all, the American farmer. The Wilson tariff bill is law of this kind. The McKinley bill w'as not. The one is promoting while the other injured our foreign trade.—St. Louis Republic. The Democrats of Ohio. Governor James E. Campbell is one of the ablest and brightest public men in the United States. His administration as Governor of Ohio was honest, clean and efficient It was a contrast in everything of moment to the present administration of McKinley. Governor Campbell has accepted the nomination for election to his former office, which the Democratic State convention at Springfield made unanimously and by acclamation with uncommon enthusiasm. He did not want to be a candidate. He refused repeatedly to be considered in connection with the nomination. But at last he acceded to the demands of the convention and accepted the order of which he was conscripted to be the campaign leader. This nomination for Governor rounds out and places fairly before the people of Ohio the issueSTfiht are to be met at the election. On ope hand is the Mc-Klnley-Foraker-Bushnell combination —a compact of factions—a medley of fire-alarm and tariff politics—each party ‘ to the agreement trying to cheat and defeat the plans of his party associates and rivals. It is a scandalous and indecent display before the people. On the other hand, the Ohio Democrats are united. They have presented a candidate of the highest and purest personal character to lead in the contest for supremacy. The campaign will be a national spectacle of the highest interest, and the result will have a great influence on the nominations and the result at the polls in 1896.—Chicago Chronicle.

A Doctrine for Devils. Col. Alexander Gordon, of Gov. McKinley’s staff, Is probably In private life an honorable Christian gentleman. But as a Republican politician he finds it necessary to avow sentiments of which a Hottentot should be ashamed, and which are a disgrace to enlightened America. In an intervvlew on the political situation in Ohio, Col. Gordon expressed himself in favor of Gov. McKinley as the next Republican Presidential candidate. Proceeding to give his views on the traiff, he said: “American industries should be patronized by Americans. If Americans were to deal with Americans all Europe would stagnate.” Leaving out of consideration the fact that Euroe is our best customer, that we sell her about $700,000,000 worth of our surplus products each year, the wish to see that country stagnate is evidence of the heartless selfishness of protectionists' in general. What is 'it that Col. Gordon, himself an Englishman, wants? He wishes to see European factories closed and the men and women who now get a living by making things to exchange for our wheat, corn, meat and cotton turned out to starve. That is what industrial stagnation means, and it is the logical end of all high-tariff schemes. Could there be a more inhuman doctrine as a substitute for the Christian gospel of “Peace on earth; good will toward men?” I Wool Growers Happily Disappointed. Mr. L. M. Whildin, who has been for many years identified with the wool trade of Philadelphia, has just returned from a business trip to Montana, and is enthusiastic in his expressions of hopefulness concerning the business outlook in the West. In most sections he found good crops and good crop prospects, excellent pasturage, and farmers and business men generally in high spirits. “Wool-growers alone,” said Mr. Whildin,“have received $6,000,000 more for their wool than they expected to get, and will have just that much more to spend to the advantage of oth-

er industries." Wooftrade testimony In proof of business revival la getting to be almost as common as were wool trade predictions of universal disaster a year ago.—Philadelphia Record Wron® All the Time. State Senator Clarence Lexow, New York, whose name is well known through his connection with the Lexow investigating committee, was recently Interviewed by a reporter for the New York Tribune. Speaking on the numerous wage advances of the past year, Mr. Lexow said: “This matter of reported increases in wages is a temporary thing. If it Is otherwise, then we are all wrong, and have been wrong all the time.” As every intelligent citizen knows, the movement for higher wages is not merely a temporary thing, but has been gradually growing ever since the Wilson tariff went into operation. From a few isolated cases It has spread all over the country, until even the New York Tribune was forced to confess two months ago that the number of workers who had their wages raised was really over a million. Since that time at least 400,000 more have secured Increased pay, and there is no indication of a reaction. Truly, as Senator Lexow says, the Republicans have been wrong all the time on this question. They pretended that protection raised wages, and that if the high tariff were reduced factories would be closed and wages cut down. But when put to the test of experience the protection theory failed on every point The mills which were idle have all started up. New factories are being built all over the country, and wages have been increased. Thus have the facts confounded the sily theory that shutting out trade and imposing high taxes add to the prosperity of our people. Revenue and the Tariff. The Republicans of Maryland come very near to placing themselves on the Democratic platform of revenue reform, declaring: “They favor such a system of impost duties as shall protect American industries and provide sufficient revenue for the expenses of government economically administered, so that in time of peace the national debt shall not be increased.” This is the very phraseology of the Democratic platform: “provide sufficient revenue for a government economically administered.” The surplus revenue was so great that the Reed Congress ventured into all kinds of extravagances in order to dissipate it, and prevent a reduction of the tartff to a revenue basis. The fact is all men of all parties are getting tired of commercial restrictions and obstructions, and it is not probable that we will ever again have a war tariff; that is, a tariff warring on our industrlei* and destroying our commerce. Free trade will open to America an era of unexampled prosperity.—Louisville Post.

Prosperous Tin Plate Inndatry. Talk about a higher duty on tin plate is rather tardy now, when the present rate of 1.2 cents per pound has,been in force for a year with no injurious effect upon the industry in this country. Moreover, in spite of the dismal predictions of those who opposed the reduction of the duty from 2.2 cehts to 1.2 cefits per pound, the tin plate industry in the United States under the new tariff as never before. Tin and Terne, a Pittsburg publication, expresses the hope that the rate of duty will be Increased to 1.75 cents “as soon as the party favoring protective duties again comes into full power.’’ The eagerness of manufacturers to engage in the manufacture of tin plate under the present rate of duty shows how extortionate and how excessive, even from the protectionist standpoint, was the duty of 2.2 cents per pound imposed* by the tariff act of 1890. Those who are counting upon an Increase in the duty on tin plate are deluding themselves with false hopes.—Philadelphia Record.

Homestead Then and Now, Things were different three years ago this summer season in Allegheny County. Homestead was quite a center of disturbance, the McKinley style of protection was in full force and reduced wages were the rule. In the same section to-day the greatest advance in wages ever known was made just a week ago, when 3,000 puddlers In the first district of Pittsburg were given a voluntary advance and 10,000 puddlers in all shared in the Increase. Later on the same benefit will accrue to 30,000 finishers. This is by no means an isolated case. The Industries under the new tariff law have taken on a life and vigor perfectly amazing to the calamity howlers and Instances of wages advancing from 10 to 25 per cent are common news stories every day.—Philadelphia Times. Ammunition for future Use. Every Democratic newspaper should preserve files of the later issues of its Republican contemporaries. More wholesome political truth has been told by the Republican organs in Pennsylvania during the factional warfare now going on than in years before. They are mines of valuable information. When Job prayed that his enemy might write a book he showed an abounding wisdom. The enemies of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania are writing two books; and a double measure of confusion to themselves and of profit to the people should be the natural result.—Philadelphia Record. Good Advice from a Republican Paper If there ever was a time when it seemed wise to let well enough alone with regard to the tariff and to avoid agitation when agitation could by no possibility have desirable results, that time is now, when the chief need of business is to be let alone and to be undisturbed by legislative contention certain to lead to nothing advantageous.—Philadelphia Ledger. Tired of Tariff Taxation. Victoria, that most inveterateiy protectionist of all English colonies, is taking the back track and reducing her tariffs. Stiff as they were, they are modest by the side of McKinleyL<m, and even the rates of the Gorman act tower above them.-St Paul Globe. Wool Growers Will Please Note. Wool never was so low as it was under the McKinley tariff law. The Democrats made wool free, and it has regained its normal price with sales unprecedented in the history of the United States.—Springfield Register,