Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1896 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

CAMPAIGN OF INTIMIDATION. In a political straggle, so unmistakably between “the masses and the classes,” as the present one, It is not surprising that every influence that can be exerted by means of wage-paying, appealing to ignorance, offering rewards and threatening resentment, Is used by those upon whom fortune has conferred large means, which they hope to make larger. Especially by corporations, where individual responsibility is so conveniently hidden, are such exertions put forth. Everywhere we have the rich endeavoring to deceive the poor, and the well-worn fraud of the “silver dollar, worth fifty cents,” though exposed ten thousand times, does perpetual duty shamelessly, and figures in every newspaper as an argument Compulsion Is on every hand, and in every- shape. One day the railroads refuse to make reduced rates for Democratic gatherings. The next life insurance companies issue to their policyholders campaign literature, urging on the latter the falsehood that the value of policies will be diminished one-half by Democratic success, and thereby proclaiming themselves insolvent to accomplish a partisan object. The day after comes a meeting of the clerks and employes of some banking house, who unanimously (upon penalty of discharge if dissenting) indorse McKinley and Hobart. Then follows the eviction of a workingman for non-conformity with his employer on the silver question. Next the shutting up of an iron mine, and the throwing of thousands out of employ, under false pretense of apprehension of diminishing profits. Clergymen are compelled to preach partisan sermons under threat of reduction of salary, and cooks’ and housemaids’ wages are retrenched because “we are all coming to a silver basis.” A railroad men’s sound money club is to be organized among those who receive wages from every transportation company, and the prediction is made that the compulsory votes of these clubbites will, in some States, carry counties. This is a tremendous power for the Democracy to encounter. It controls the timid and those incapable of reasoning, and it should correspondingly arouse the patriotic and energetic. It is clear that a campaign of lies is to be anticipated ,and that every perversion of truth will be welcomed by our adversaries and inflicted by them upon their dupes. A bold front must be taken as to this Intimidation policy of the McKinley managers without further delay.—New York News.

The Joss Get* Loose. In the absence of Li Hung Hanna, grand vizier and high priest, the Joss of Canton has escaped from his shrine and is wandering up and down the State of Ohio, uttering strange and unfamiliar phrases and carrying alarm and consternation among the faithful, l'ro sane and vulgar persons are permitted to gaze upon the unveiled countenance of the oracle. No priest is at hand to turn aside the gaping multitude. The sacred hat is set awry upon the anointed head and from it issue blasphemous and heretical deliverances, calculated to disturb and unsettle even the very elect Away from the complicated and curiously contrived mechanism of the joss-house—the miniature windmills, the delicate clockwork, the tanks of natural gas—the Joss moves feebly and uncertainly. His eyes, no longer glowing witn the fire of inspiration, are fixed in a stony and fishlike stare. His breastplate lacks luster; the very dragons and butterflies on his mantle of yellow silk seem to doze. Worst of all, the phonographic apparatus in the Hat is hopelessly deranged, and there is no one at hand to set it right. It runs on, emitting the most heterodox and revolutionary sentiments and causing dismay and doubt among the worshipers. At Alliance, for instance, whither the Joss had been hauled in triumph by a shouting multitude of his disciples, the Hat was expected to set forth in the usual terms the saving grace of a high protective tariff. Deep silence reigned during the preliminary croakings and wheezlngs of the hallowed headpiece, and the devotees settled down to listen to the familiar words. Judge of their dismay when, instead of the traditional tariff creed, uttered in ponderous and solemn tones, and accompanied by the familiar sweep of the right arm, the Joss hesitated, wavered for a moment, and then, in a dull monotone, gave forth this sentiment:

“After all, my fellow citizens, the hope of the republic, its safety and security, the hope of strength and perpetuity of popular government, must rest upon the great public school system now happily and firmly established throughout the United States.” Here was sacrilege from the Joss himself—the oracle desecrating his own shrine. Contrary to all his teachings that the safety of the republic lay solely in the highest tariff that could be devised, the tutelary deity declared that salvation was to be found to another direction. The idol was smashing itself. Protection and prosperity were blasphemed. The result was panic, confusion, utter rout. The devotees stared wildly and then fled to the neighboring forests, uttering cries of alarm. They have not since emerged. As for the Joss, he stood for a while deserted in his temporary shrine, a vacant smile upon his fa'ee and his lips feebly moving. Then he gathered up the skirts of his garments and started across country for Canton. Li Hung Hanna has been telegraphed for. —Chicago Chronicle. Democracy Will Live. Democracy stood at the cradle of the Republic. It has been potential at every progressive step that freedom has since taken. It has gone hand in hand with liberty along all the paths of peace. It has been borne aloft on the flashing bayonets oi millions of men in the fiery track of war. If it is to die its demise will not precede that of the Republic, nor will it outlive tile Republic. The two, inseparable in life,

will be united in death. Wrapped In the same cerements mey will be carried by the same hostile hands to the same tomb. Such a party cannot die. It shall not die.—Chicago Chronicle. Drivel in Politics. -x contemporary in noting the fact that William J. Bryan, the Democratic candidate for President, travels in good style, puts up at first-class hotels, and has a score of assistants back of his candidacy, asks where he is getting the money to meet these expenses? Then it proceeds to answer its own question by intimating that Senator Thurston is right in averring that Candidate Bryan is in the pay of a wealthy syndicate of silver mine owners. It is time to eliminate drivel of this sort from politics. Any sensible person knows that as the candidate of his party, Mr. Bryan has back of him the resources of the national Democratic committee. Naturally, that organization will have a fair sum of money at its command, and it is both common sense and custom for It to pay the expenses of the head of the ticket, especially while traveling.

While it is true that the free silver candidate is not so well fixed financially as is the head of the single gold standard ticket, the recollection as to where Major McKinley’s wealth came from Is not greatly to his credit. After McKinley’s disastrous failure, when it was found that he had upon a fortune of less than $30,000, endorsed paper to the extent of SIIO,OOO it will be remembered that representatives of the industries protected by the McKinley bill came forward and saved the Ohio statesman from ruin. It Is foolish for any person or newspaper to attempt to make campaign material of the fact that Mr. Bryan Is a poor man. Had not the protected industries come to McKinley’s relief, not only would he be still poorer than is Mr. Bryan, but he would also be weighed down with debts, whichwould have kept him from ever again being in a position to pose in either business or politics.—Philadelphia Item.

Democratic Tariff Principle la Right. The McKinleyites defend their threat to unsettle business with another period of congressional dickering with protected interests by saying: “Vote this year for higher duties and settle the tariff question for once and all. Restore the McKinley law and then we shall have no more of this agitation for free trade.” The idea that going back to protection will take the tariff question out of politics is a grave mistake. There cannot, and will not, be a truce on the issue between high taxes and low taxes; between cheap goods and dear goods; between restricted trade and free commerce with all the world. So long as the system of raising public revenues operates to benefit a small number of persons at the expense of the whole people; so long as customs taxes foster monopolies by shutting out foreign competition; so long as heavy duties increase the cost of the people’s necessities, there will be a tariff question on which parties will be divided. There can be no compromise between the men who believe that protection Is favoritism, paternalism and robbery under the form of law, and the men who claim that it is a sound public policy. One view or the other is right. The Democrats are convinced that taxes should be so levied as to yield the largest revenue with the least injury to trade and industry. The Republicans profess to believe that foreign commerce is an evil which should be restricted, if not altogether prohibited. Even if the latter theory should be endorsed by the people this year, it would by no means prove that it was right. The best interests of ninety-nine one-hundredths of the American people are on the side of low tariff taxes and enlarged commerce. Sooner or later they will find this out, and demand that every vestige of protection be destroyed. The Democratic tariff principle-is entirely right and just, and is therefore bound to prevail throughout all the world at no distant timd. A Republican victory gained by a campaign of falsehood, appeals to ignorance and pre-

jwEce, and corruption funds contributed by the protected trusts, may delay the good work of breaking down high-tariff walk which divide nations, but the movement for a sound economic system of taxation will not stop. In spite of all discouragements it will continue until the people everywhere recognize and accept the great truth that liberty is the law of commerce as well as of political institutions. Looking Forward. O, Billy McKinley will have a black eye After election. The people will know that the Bryan boom’s high. The St. Louis convention they chained up a bear; lint the Republicans surely will swear By the great guns they never were there. After election. There’ll be no more talking of 16 to 1 After election. For then the good deed will really be done After election. The free silver law will really be so, For this is a fact, as you very well know, The Republicans all will be under the snow After election. The free silver man fills the President’s chair After election. For McKinley, you know, will never be there After election. And gold bugs will hide their heads in disgust. Their glittering flag will be trailed in the dust, And their golden balloon it will certainly

bust After election. The people will get what they really need After election. Down will go corporate power and greed After election. Financial distress will have gone by. The good of the people will be all the cry. For :wenty years coming, but now it is nigh, Just after election.

Have Yon a Good Memory? Unless you are a very young voter, you must remember the campaign of 1888. In that year all the promises of prosperity now being made by the McKinleyites were scattered broadcast throughout the country. The people believed what they were told and the Republicans were restored to power. After two years the McKinley law was enacted. You no doubt remember the predictions of higher wages, more work for labor, better times for the farmer, and Increased bnsisess for the transportation interests, which were made by the defenders of that robber tariff measure. Do you remember how those prophecies of good times were fulfilled? Have you forgotten tha* Immediately after the McKinley law took effect there began a period of labor troubles involving hundreds of thousands of workers who struck against wage reductions or were locked out because they refused to accept less pay? In 1892 the condition of affairs among the strikers as so serious that in five States the militia had to be called out. This was a sample of the promised high-tariff prosperity. You know that the McKinley law was in operation all through 1893 and for eight months of 1894. That was not so long ago that you cannot remember the condition of industry and business i» that period. You probably heard something about a panic. You may have seen idle men looking in vain for work. You at least saw in the papers daily accounts of banks failing, mills shutting down, wage reductions and bankrupt business men. Were those the signs of prosperity? These things happened under the McKinley law. What reason Is there for supposing that they will not happen again if that law is restored? Judging by their imprudent pro tenses that more taxes are a panacea for all business and industrial ills, the Republicans seem to have forgotten that they went through the same performance eight years ago and that their scheme was tried for four years with disastrous results. Have you forgotten it? Said by a Republican One thing is certain, silver converts are being made very fast, and free coinage is more popular now than six months ago. The common people all want it; bankers merchants, manufacturers and professional men are beginning to think that its “horrors” may have been exaggerated, while all unite in declaring that things could be little worse from a business standpoint than the last few years. And the truth is, the people may vote in November to try it.—Alleghenian.

Ventriloquist Hanna —You will observe, ladies and gentlemen, that the little figures speak exactly as I direct.