People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1896 — ADVANCE IN PRICES. [ARTICLE]

ADVANCE IN PRICES.

"l* Wm All on Account of the Tariff." A recent issue of Bradstreet’s contained a table of quotations of prices o* 1M staple articles per quarter for the past live years. Fifty of the 109 articles advanced in price in the second quartei of 1895, and forty-eight advanced in the third quarter, but only twenty-seven of the latter were articles which advanced in the second quarter, making altogether about seventy-one articles o! the 109 that advanced in price.. A care ful review of the table shows that in a majority of cases the advance was arbitrary and made by the trust or combination that controlled prices. Among the articles which made the greatest advances were print cloths, pig iron, steel billets, steel rails, nails, tobacco, copper, lead, tin, leather, hides, boots and shoes. Among the articles that remained stationary or retrograded were w’heat, rye, flour, pork products, sugai molasses, potatoes, etc. The farmer can receive but little consolation from an inspection of these tables. The things he has to buy, as a rule, have advanced in price, while the products of his labor, the things he has to sell, have either remained stationary or retrograded in price. In the meantime railroad earnings and dividends have increased, and the bank clearings show that the banks have been doing a profitable business During this period we have been living under both the McKinley tariff and the thing which even Grover refused to sign, but which fluent democratic statesmen, in voluble language and carefully prepared statistics informed us would cheapen the necessaries of life, while by opening up the markets of the world for the farmer’s products would secure him a better price for what he raised.

And now we are on the eve of a campaign where orators on both sides of this momentous question will pile ar* gument upon argument to show what magnificent things the two systems of tariff have done for us, wholly ignoring the facts above stated, and the fact that the evidence is all against them and their position. But what does that matter so long as glib tongues can talk down the facts in the case? If the people fail to see that they pay more for nails, iron, plows, prints, harness, boots and shoes, and other necessaries, while they receive less for what they raise, they will also fail to see that it is for the salaries the politicians are talking, and for which they are willing to pervert the truth and twist and contort the real’ facts. The American people are a great people. They are sentimental, or nothing. If one happens to stumble onto the truth and proclaim it from the hill tops he is a crank; not simply because he advocates something without a precedent, but because he is not in line with the procession, and not in harmony with the established order of things.

The senate is wasting time talklqg free silver. If the per capita of silver coin in circulation was on a parity with the per capita silver talk, there would be no silver question to discuss. What the country needs is free silver, and not free silirer talk.

The gold reserve has lost over sll.000,000 since it was announced that another issue of bonds would be made. J his sum will likely be increased by further withdrawals between now and the time gold begins to come in for the new bonds after Feb. 6. Much of gr.'ii is being withdrawn for the purpose -'if nurchasine the new h''-'’';