Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1895 — HISTORY OF A PARTY. [ARTICLE]

HISTORY OF A PARTY.

THE G. O. P. RECORD IS ONE OF POLITICAL CRIME. Period Cannot Be Far Distant When It Will Be Driven Out of Power and Out of Existence—No More Tariff Tinkering. Story of It* Shame. Neither in this country nor in any .•ountry where the semblance of free government exists has any other political party retained power as long as the Republican party has done with such an utter uafitness for the possession of power and with such a record of abominable abuses iu its exercise. It is a marvel in the history of politics. To go bnt little more than twenty years backward brings us to the Credit Mobilier corruptions, with which the names of a score of the most distinguished Republican leaders were connected. Two Republican vice-presi-dents, Wilson and Colfax, were exposed as partners iu the fraud. Garfield was one of its beneficiaries and the Republicans afterward made him President. Blaine escaped the Credit Mobilier scandal, but was involved much deeper in a similar scandal, of which the Mulligan letters preserved the facts. The “trusted leaders’’ implicated in this rascality committed as great crimes in falsehood and perjury to avert condemnation as they committed iu accepting the bribes. The back pay corruption of about the same period was a flagrant and inexcusable use of legislative power. The Republican members of Congress increased their pay and made the increase retroactive, by which each man voted into bis own pocket thousands of dollars more than the salary at the time of his election. This was an unexampled fraud. Acts of Congress had been repeatedly passed before that time increasing congressional pay. But no previous act of the kind authorized back pay—a rascally grab of money after the term of service for smaller pay had expired. The defalcations of Republican officeholders for thirty years form an appalling record. In 1875 lists of shortages, embezzlements and thefts In the internal revenue service alone were ■published aggregating $8,000,000. The bank frauds of a few years ago in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, caused by losses through derelict United States officers, are recent events in the chapters of crime. Frauds In the public land department, corrupt railroad grants and subsidy legislation of various kinds have depleted the treasury and have given to corporations more ‘than an empire of the public domain which should have been reserved for the homes of the people. The rascalities of the Republican car-pet-bag governments at the South were without measure. • The devastation which they caused was greater in extent than that of the war. The desolation of the cities and fields, of commerce and industry by the war was a less calamity than that of carpet-bag and scalawag rule for ten years.

Republican tariff legislation was a mere system of robbery. It was larceny from the many to enrich the few. It aggrandized individuals while Impoverishing communities. It was brigandage in all but name and the protection of law. The disfranchisement of vast numbers of voters through gerrymauder acts in the various States Is a Republican crime of great magnitude. No fraud at the ballot box is as great as a law which enables a small number of Republican voters in one congressional or legislative district to elect a representative while a far greater number of Democrats in another district are deprived of just representation. This catalogue of political crimes—of crimes of maladministration and crimes in office—might be indefinitely extended. But it would be incomplete without a reference to the instances of scandal and corruption in the local Republican administration. From the murder of inmates In the county Insane asylum to the fraud on the civil service involved in the disfranchisement of veteran soldiers for employment and from the prostitution of the police force in political uses to the investment of county and city money for private gain there is no species of misgovernment and public immorality of whiph the Republican machine administration in the city and county is not guilty. It is a monumental wonder that a party with this record—and much more that is as bad or worse—is able to command, year after year, a majority of the votes in many of the great States and often in the nation. It is certain that a reckoning will come at some time. Two national defeats within ten years and defeat in many States have already resulted from popular effort. The period cannot be far away when the Republican party will be driven permanently out of power and out of existence.—Chicago Chronicle.

McKinley as a Disturber. The dissatisfaction shown by Ohio Republicans witli the opening speeches made by McKinley in the State campaign is not surprising. They are anxious to succeed, and it is patent enough that for McKinleythe campaign means ap opportunity to help his presidential prospects regardless of the effect on the Republican party. The McKinley faction is composed of a comparatively small part of the Republican party in Ohio. Ohio sheepgrowers with capital enough to own ranches in Texas sympathize with his objections to the prosperity of the woolen industry on a basis of free raw material, and no doubt there are others who share his extreme views, but there are not enough of them to count for much in the politics of the State. The element which McKinley cannot control is that powerful conservative wing of the party represented by Senator Sherman in the guarded but unmistakable protest he made against McKinleyism in the Senate at a time when a few favored campaign contributors were forcing the bill on the country. The conservative element which in Ohio and elsewhere gives the Republican party its vitality is opposed to

McKlnleylstn at any time, and more especially at the present time when the business interests of the country de mand the suppression of agitators, fanatics and demagogues whose recklessness threatens to prevent the return of prosperity and to keep tlx -mutry in the condition It was prior to the repeal of the McKinley law. It is safe to say that by attempting to make himself an Issue in Ohio politics McKinley is not promoting his presidential prospects. Republicans with the business interests of the country at heart are earnestly In favor of keeping him in the background as much as possible.—New York World. Trying to Fool the Farmers. The high-tariff press is engaged in an attempt to coax the farmers back to the doctrines of high taxation and monopoly prices for manufactured goods, aud poluts to the reduction in duties in farm produce as a reason for the restoration of McKinleyism. To make a ease for protection the Republicans are elaiming-that under the Wilson tariff a flood of foreign farm products is taking away the markets of our farmers, and that these Importations are much greater than under the tariff of 1890.

A comparison of the imports of farm products during the first year of the McKinley tariff, aud the first year of the Wilson law, shows that there is not the slightest basis for the claim of the Republicans. The official statement for this fiscal year 1891, during which the McKinley tariff was iu force for nine months, gives the total value of animals Imported as $4,945,9(55. For the year 1895, in which the Wilson tariff was in operation for ten months, the value of imported animals was bid $2,738,292. Of breadstuffs the imports in 1891 were worth $4,484,449. In 1895 they were worth only $2,859,449. In 1891 eggs to the value of $1,184,595 were Imported. For 1895 their value was $324,133. Hides worth $27,130,759 were brought in in 1891. The last fiscal year’s Imports were $2(5,122,942. In hops there was a much greater falling off under the Wilson tariff, only $599,744 worth being imported, while in 1891 their value was sl,797,400. Vegetables of the value of $7,070,374 were imported Iu 1891. Poi 1895 their value was only $3,971,445. In 1891 provisions worth $2,108,891 were imported. In 1895 they were valued at $2,028,058. The only farm pnsfuct which shows an increase in 1895 Is wool, of which $25,550,421 worth was imported, against $18,231,372 worth in 1891. But this increase is explained by the very small imports of 1894, when, owing to the McKinley panic, the woolen Industry was practically stagnant, and imports of wool were only valued at $0,107,438. Democratic prosperity brought a Remand for more wool than our farmers could at once supply, and imports were therefore temporarily greater. Including wool, the total value of these farm products imported in 1891 was $07,757,211. Those of 1895 were valued at $59,012,028, a decrease under the Wilson tariff of $8,745,183. Thus do the official figures contradict the high-tariff assertions that free trade Is ruining the farmer. High Tariff Chestnuts, With the advent of autumn comes once more our old familiar friend, the mouldy high tariff chestnut that “protection” caused the great decline iu the price of steel rails. The New York Tribune has just beard about the wonderful results of protection Iu the stee'. rail industry, and hastens to tell its readers all about it. “Twenty years ago,” says the Tribune, “the city of Cincinnati paid SBO a ton for steel rails. Now rails are less that S3O per ton. This Is the result of protection.” Certainly. Protection did it all. If caused Sir Henry Bessemer to Invent the method of making steel which has so vastly cheapened that product. Of course it happened that the new process was discovered by a wicked freetrader in trade country, but Hie Tribune says protection did it, aud that paper ought to know. The ldgli tariff also caused the invention of improved rolling mills and other machinery which have been adopted during the past twenty years. At the same time it put great deposits of coal where it fould bo easily mined, and created the rich Iron mines of the Northwest. At least, It must have done these things If the Tribune is right, for It was due to their existence that Ihe price of steel rails has fallen. Only the Tribune forgot to say that steel rails are now about $5 a ton eheaper In free trade England than In this country. If protection puts down prices here, what caused them to fall in England? Not our competition, for our prices are still higher than abroad. No More Tariff Tinkering. The “Ohio idea” about the tariff, as set forth in the speeches made by the leaders of the party at the opening of the campaign, not only falls to evoke any enthusiasm, but encounters sharp rebuke in other States. The Buffalo Express coolly serves notice upon the McKinleyites that “the Ohio Republicans must not expect that the people are going to rip business all the way down the back for their benefit.” The President of the Massachusetts Senate says that in his opinion “the general revival of business Is occasioned by the confidence that the business men of the country feel that there Is to be no more tariff tinkering for many years.” It Is true that be adds as an element In the case the confidence of business men that, “if the tariff is to be readjusted In any particular, it wilf be done by the friends of protection to American industries,” but this last clause Is evidently thrown In only to “keep in line." The weakness of Ohio’s candidate for the Republican nomination lies In the fact that McKinley stands not merely for “tariff-tinkering,” but for an entire overhauling of the present system.— New York Evening Post.

Pointer for Farmers. It will surprise those farmers who advocate the “building of a wall around the United States and import and export nothing” to know that threefourths of the exports of the United States are farm products, and that England alone buys 59 per cent of this. —Huntsville (Ala.) Mercury. Fearful of a Punctured Tire. Mr. Reed steadfastly refuses to get out his campaign bicycle while there is so much energy displayed in distributing political tacks over the boulevard.