Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1895 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

HARRISON IS INCONSISTENT. THE Hon. Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, presided at a great masd meeting in the interest of the Presbyterian foreign missions held in New York c-ity a- few days ago. The ex-president made a brief address, in which he praised the aggressive work of the Presbyterian Church, and urged his hearers to consider their duty as church ntembers and contribute liberalSy to the support of the Foreign Mission Board. In thus aiding to extend the blessings of religion and civilisation among the heathen the ex-president deserves the approval of all good citizens. No exception can possibly be taken to his approval of the agencies which have done so much to replace ignorance and barbavism With knowledge and enlightenment. But as a believer in the gospel of MeKinleyism, ex-President Harrison is very inconsistent in his advocacy of foreign missions. Suppose that in response to his appeal larger funds are procured and more missionaries sent to the pagan lands, and that those preachers succeed in converting a considerable number of the heathen. With Christian civilization will come a demand for clothes, agricultural implements. tools, etc. Trade will spring up and the newly .civilized foreigners will want to buy goods from America. Of course they will have to pay for them with other goods which they will export. But imagine the surprise of the recent converts Who have heard with gladness the message that all mankind are brothers, and that peace and good will come with Christianity, when their products reach our shores! They will find that ex-President Harrison and his Republican friends believe that the foreigner who sells us goods is our enemy, and is described as such by the Republican press. They will learn that instead of welcoming the men who came to exchange their products for ours, the protectionists want to shut out foreign g<fxls with a high tariff wall. They will see trade prohibition extolled as a policy for civilized nations, and will be told that if they wish to prosper they must restrict the Importation of goods into their country.

Under these conditions what would the late heathen be likely to think of the wide difference between the preaching and the practice of the ex-president and his party? Would they not he apt to say that American protection was very much like savage exclusiveness? Could they be blamed if they pointed out the absurdity of trying to spread the glorious doctrine of the brotherhood of man, so long as foreigners are looked upon as enemies to be fought with tariff wars? If the barbarians must prohibit trade in order to be prosperous, why, they would ask, have we not prospered in the thousands of years wo have lived without intercourse with outside countries? An attempt to answer these pertlnenr questions would expose the thoroughly anti-Christian and anti-social theories on whidh McKinleyism rests, and would show clearly that commerce and civilization go hand in hand in enlightening the dark places of the world. Preaching noble doctrines is good. Putting the same doctrines in practice in. our institutions is far better. No More McKinleyism. Ex-Senator Edmunds does not favor an increase of the tariff by his party. He says “the industrial and commercial interests of the country are very sensitive on this subject,” and consequently he thinks it would be better to seek needed increase of revenue in Increased internal taxes. This is a practical admission that the ’94 tariff is better for the country than a re-en-actment of the McKinley law. The exSenator would not favor the retention of the present tariff if he did not believe a return of general prosperity was probable under it. It is far from being perfect, but it is far superior to the “robber tariff” which preceded it. Edmunds has always been a stubborn Republican partisan, but he knows The country is moving steadily upward toward a new era of prosperity under the Democratic tariff, and he does not think it good Republican policy to meddle with it.

The predictions of the high taxers have failed lamentably. The country was plunged into the abyss of hard times while the McKinley law was in force, and it is climbing upwards into good times under the greatly reduced tariff enacted by the Democratic parry. The precedent of the low tariff period from 184 ti to 1860 is in course of repetition. In 1846 the Democratic party, under the lead of Secretary Walker of President Polk's cabinet, adopted what Mr. Blaine called a “free trade tariff.” When passed it was denounced by the opposition as fatal to the country’s prosperity. The bad predictions were not realized. The country prospered tinder it, manufactures increased and commerce expanded. So satisfactory was the “free trade” tariff of 1846 that at the end of ten years all opposition to it ceased. Not one of the political parties in national conventions in 1856 mentioned the tariff, and in 1857, after the low tariff had been in force eleven years, it was made still lower, practically without opposition, Republican representatives of Eastern manufacturing States voting for the reduction. Power duties than the present tariff have been tried in this country and it flourished .under them. When the present Democratic tariff is revised it will be downward.—Quincy (Ill.) Herald. Export of Manufactured Goods. Details of the exports of manufacture from the United States in the nine months ended Sept. 30, which have just been published by the Treasury Department, show material gains in the ex|w>rts of manufactured iron, mineral oils, chemicals, leather and cotton as compared with tjhe same period in the tWo preceding years. Machinery exported shows a gain of $1,200,000; locomotives, $650,000; agricultural implements, $500,000, and miscellaneous iron

manufactures, $1,000,000. Leather expons increased $2,700,000, and mineral oils $9,000,000. The total exports of manufactured products for the nine months were of the value of $145,793,-; 580, a gain over 1894 of nearly $12,000,- i 000. If the present rate of manufacture' ing exports is continued through the I last quarter of the calendar year It will afford a total of $194,500,000, which Is more than $10,000,000 higher than the record of any previous fiscal year.— Iron Age. An Explanation that Does Not Explain Says the San Francisco Chronicle: “The protectionists have always had to meet the argument that wages are far higher In England under free trade than in the European countries which have a protective tariff. The answer is that in England the trades unions have been able to increase wages by uniting the workingmen.” This is one of those awfully clever explanations which leave the problem as far as ever from solution. For If it is true that trades unions in England can increase wages, why cannot similar labor organizations In protectionist countries do likewise? It is certain that all the European nations have had trades unions for many years. How does it happen that they have not raised the wages of their members as high as those of England? And what is the reason that in England under protection, but with labor organizations, wages were far lower than they now are under free trade? If trades unions could by united action double wages, why not continue the process and quadruple them? The facts are that wages depend mainly on the quantity of wealth produced by the workers, and that trades unions cannot permanently raise wages unless the economic conditions are favorable to the large production of commodities. Labor organizations are in many respects beneficial Institutions, but they are powerless to effect any permanent improvement in the condition of their members so long as a pernicious tariff policy checks commerce, injures industry and decreases the markets for manufactured goods. With the emancipation of her industries through free trade England made -It l>ossible for her workingmen to get higher pay. In protectionist European countries wages are still low. This is the gist of the question which vexes the Chronicle. There is no comfort in it for American protectionists. A Little Off in Its History. The organ of the Philadelphia Manufacturers’ Club joins the small-fry Republican editors who are valiantly threatening President Cleveland with all sorts of disapproval If he should veto a bill imposing higher tariff taxes, and shouts: “The people have now plainly declared that they want protection, and that they repudiate the policy of the President which has filled the land with ruin and wreck for more than two years.” The trouble with this view of the President’s duty toward a Republican tariff measure, is that its basis is a falsehood. The Democratic tariff policy has not filled the country with •wreck and ruin for two years, for the simple reason that since it was adopted a little more than a year ago, a period of steadily increasing prosperity has replaced the “wreck • and ruin” brought on by McKinleyism. In 1893, and the first half of 1894, when business was stagnant and industry idle, the Chinese doctrine of trade restriction was in full force, and doing its perfect work of closing factories and bankrupting merchants. If the people object to “wreck and ruin” they should certainly remember that it was brought on by Republican legislation and disappeared under a Democratic administration.

Besides, there is no evidence that the people want protection. President Cleveland was elected by an immense majority of voters who declared that they wanted protection swept away as quickly as possible. Other issues have since arisen on which a Republican Congress has been elected. But so long as a Democrat fills the presidential chair he represents the people’s wishes on the tariff question. No protectionist bill can become law with his sanction.

What Defeated the Democrats. The Pittsburg Commercial Gazette and other protectionist journals insist that the defeat of the Democratic party is a repudiation of its tariff policy. A closer observation would show these critics that the party has fared worst in those localities where its representatives have been false to its tariff principles. The defeat of leaders who prevented the passage of such revenue laws as were promised by the Democrats in the campaign of 1892 and who sold out their party to the protectionists is the most conspicuous feature of the late elections. ■ The result in 1895 is not dissimilar to that of 1890 and 1892 except in the fact that in one instance the Republican party was the sufferer and in the other the Democratic party. The Republicans obtained power 1888 on a pledge of tariff revision in the interest of the masses. That pledge was violated by the passage of the odious measure of 1890. The tariff of 1894, though a measurable improvement upon the tariff of 1890, Is full of cowardly compromises. It is not the measure the people had a right to expect. In their indignation they have thrust the Democrats out of power in Congress and put the Republicans back. It remains to be seen whether in the interim of popular repudiation the Republicans have learned anything.—Philadelphia Record. Size for size, a thread of spider silk is decidedly tougher than a bar of steel. An ordinary thread will bear a weight of three grains. This is just about 50 per cent, stronger than a steel thread of the same thickness. By the use of the mechanical devices now employed it is said that a workman can make the “bodies” for 400 hats a day. By the hand process he coaid prepare only four or five.