Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1896 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

MC KINLEY THE CANDIDATE. The probability that Maj. McKinley Will be the Republican nominee for President gives sincere pleasure to all , Democrats. No other candidate stands so clearly for the odious policy of protection, uor would any other Republican leader incur the same deep-rooted hostility which the American people Showed toward the author of the tariff law of 1890. Viewed in the light of past history there is every reason why the Democrats should welcome the choice of the Ohio Major as the standardbearer of the party of trusts and monopolies. Six years ago the tariff bill, to which the accident of his selection as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means fastened Mr. McKinley’s name, was passed through Congress. The new measure was extolled as the embodiment of all protection wisdom and Wonderful results of prosperity and political success were predicted by its friends. Both prophecies were doomed to signal failure. ■ Instead of becoming more prosperous the country began to show signs of business depression. Prices of goods advanced, and with dearer goods consumers could not afford to buy as much as formerly, so manufacturers found the demands for their products decreasing. ,The people grumbled because they had to pay higher prices, and wherever it .was possible they bought less. Thus Instead of a business boom the McKinley law brought decreased consumption, the first step toward industrial stagnation. The political results of the new tariff were no less discouraging to the protectionists. In the fall elections, held the same year in which it was passed, a House of Representatives was elected In which there were only eighty-seven. Republicans. The Republicans lost the States of Connecticut, Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and even the high-tariff stronghold of Pennsylvania. Kansas was carried by the Populists, and the States of Minnesota, lowa and Mr. McKinley’s own Ohio were carried by very narrow Republican majorities. In New York State only eleven Republican Representatives were elected as against eighteen in the preceding Congress, and in Ohio only seven Representatives instead of sixteen as before. Maj. McKinley was among the defeated candidates. This showed what the people thought of MeKinleyism. In 1891 there was a repetition of the Democratic victories in the various State elections. The Republicans who Shad been claiming that their defeat in 1890 was due to a failure on the part of the voters to understand the new tariff law began to invent other excuses. In 1892 the whole country was again called to vote on the square issue of the McKinley law versus tariff reform. The Republicans insisted that each vote for the Democratic candidates was a vote against protection. The Democrats accepted the issue and everywhere denounced the tariff of 1890 as a fraud and robbery. Once more the American people expressed their opinions in emphatic form by triumphantly electing a Democratic President, House and Senate. As the result of their swindling tariff scheme the Republicans lost control of the entire administration of the Federal Government. These are the plain facts of recent history. What reason is there for supposing that the policy of MeKinleyism, so obnoxious in 1890, 1891 and 1892, will be regarded with more favor in 1896? Has Earned His Hire. Republican anti-McKinley organs are indignant at the lavish use of money in behalf of protection’s candidate. The country, they think, is menaced with a new danger and they are warning the Republican party to beware. There is nothing new in the situation, unless it is that new hands are distributing the funds. McKinley has earned all and more than the barons of protection will expend in his behalf. They are supplying him with money from the motive which has always led them to equip the Republican party. As long as this fund was utilized for the defeat of Democrats the organs of Allison, Reed and Morton saw nothing censurable in it. Only a short while ago these same organs now berating the manufacturers were advancing arguments to prove that Republicans who grow rich off the tariff were not only justified in making large campaign contributions, but should be applauded for their patriotism. McKinley is now getting the boodle because he will give the barons more for their money than the other candidates. He will be nominated in June because he is the logical candidate of a party which has been supported by the men whom it has enriched at the expense of the people. Clarkson, Platt and Quay are, after all, only sub-bosses. The real bosses are the protection barons, who will use any one or all the little bosses if it becomes necessary to do so in order to nominate McKinley. Surely the laborer is worthy of his hire.—St. Louis Republic. Did McKinley’s Tariff Make Yon Ri;h? Major McKinley’s high taxation scheme for making everybody wealthy by taxing everything they used, was In full operation for four years. It certainly had a fair trial, and there is no doubt but that it enriched a few protected trusts and monopolies. But did It make the millions of farmers rich? Did the workingmen in the mills, factories and mines become capitalists through a policy which increased the cost of the goods they used? It would be only fair that at the coming elections the votes of eleven million citizens should be cast in proportion to benefits received. Those who were made rich by MeKinleyism should vote the Republican ticket. All the I rest should support the Democratic candidates. Did protection make you rleh? New Southern Cotton Mills. President Dwight, of the Nashua Manufacturing Company, Nashua, N. p.. recently visited Cordova, Ala., and

selected a site on which his company will at once erect a $600,000 cotton mill. The new factory will be the largest of Its kind in Alabama, and will be equipped with all the latest and best improvements in machinery. Calamity-croaking McKinleyites will please take notice that their efforts to scare business men from undertaking new enterprises are not meeting with much success. Lying stories of industrial ruin caused by low tariff taxes are of little weight when compared with one fact such as the above.

The Latest Protection Scarecrow. Senator Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota, has joined the McKinleyites, who are trying to scare the American people into voting for protection by holding up the alleged danger of the competition of cheap Japanese goods. In a telegram sent to the Republican convention of his State Senator Davis urged the adoption of a high-tariff platform for the special purpose of shutting out the low-priced products of, Japan. The Minnesota Republicans have never been in favor of high protection, Senator Knute Nelson having voted for the Mills bill when he was a member of the House, but in response to Senator Davis’ appeal they put themselves on record as favoring the policy which has done so much to impoverish the farmers of their State. That the men who four years ago howled for protection against the pauper labor of Europe are now using Japan and China as an excuse for heavier taxation on imports is an encouraging sign. It shows that they realize that the European cheap-goods scare is played out, and that a new dodge must be worked. But their antl-Japanese campaign cry has no better foundation than that of 1892. Its sham is exposed in a recent statement issued by Joseph Nimmo, Jr., a Republican, who was formerly chief of the United States Treasury Bureau of Statistics, who says: “The value of our trade with China and Japan, as compared with certain other countries for the year ended June 30, 1894, was: China and Japan, $51,513,149; Great Britain, France and Germany $803,042,815. “In connection with this it is also Of interest to advert to the total value of our foreign commerce, and to the total value of our internal commerce. The total value of the foreign commerce of the United States during the year ended June 30, 1894, was $1,547,135,194. It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the value of the internal commerce of the United States, but from all we know it appears safe to say that it amounts to fully $25,000,000,000 annually. How absurd, then, to attempt to delude the people of this country with the idea that our trade relations with China and Japan constitute a governing condition of a total commerce fully 500 times as great. ‘To assume that American farmers, miners, manufacturers and industrial workers can be reduced to the level of Chinese coolies by a trade of such comparatively insignificant proportions, and consisting, in so far as relates to imports, almost exclusively of tea, silk and other commodities not produced in this country, and which, therefore, does not compete with American farmers, miners, manufacturers and Industrial workers, is a vagary too absurd for serious consideration, even in the conflicts of partisan warfare.” This testimony of an eminent Republican should be conclusive reply to the absurd stories of the threatened flood of cheap goods from China and Japan which are being spread through the country by the McKinleyite orators and press. The so-called “Japanese danger” is merely a fake devised for political purposes. It should not mislead a single voter into supporting the party of high taxation.

Higher Wages for Miners. The companies operating the coal mines in the Clearfield, Beech Creek, Cambria and Gallitzen coal regions, Pennsylvania, have posted notices that on and after April 1 the employes of all the mines will be paid 45 cents per ton for mining. Day labor will receive the same rates as when this price for mining was formerly paid. The new rates mean an advance to miners of 12% per cent, over the wages paid in 1893, and to the day laborers of at least 10 per cent. Several thousand men will be affected. American wage-workers are familiar with the history of wage reductions in the coal regions during the last two years that the McKinley law was in op■eration. Yet in spite of the fact that the companies were everywhere cutting down the wages of their miners, the agents of the coal trust in Congress declared that the McKinley tariff of 75 cents per ton on coal was ffecessary in order to keep wages up. Since the Wilson law lowered the coal duty about 50 per cent, there has been a general advance of wages in all the important collieries, that above recorded bringing the number of miners whp have received increased pay up to nearly 50,000. And this is only a saim pie of the way in which wages have been Increased through the revival in industry which followed the repeal of the McKinley bill.

What Was Done with the Wool? A tariff-mongering organ in Boston asserts that “the worst injury” which the Wilson tariff has inflicted upon the woolen manufacturers of this country is in “compelling” them “to turn thel■' attention to the manufacture of low stock and the production of cheap and inferior fabrics to compete with the shoddy goods sent in such huge quantities from abroad.” There is not an honest and Intelligent manufacturer who will indorse this assertion. The best answer to it is in the enormous importations of the finest fleeces which formerly found their way in extremely small quantities to this country. What use do American manufacturers make of all this fine wool, if they do not convert it into fine fabrics to clothe the American people? Do they eat it, or do they let it lie idle for the consumption of moths in the warehouses of import ers?—Philadelphia Record.