Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1884 — TALK ABOUT THE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

TALK ABOUT THE TARIFF.

How the Great Popular Debate Is Progressing AU Over the Country. New York TritHiiie. “I don’t object to the tariff, if it tndps you silk-workers,” said a man on a Jersey City ferryboat, ''but,! am a carpenter, and my father and brother are farmers, and J don’t see how it helps us.” “Where is your father’s farm? Near Paterson, isn’t it?’ “Yes. They send the stuff from the farm into Paterson. ” ■ “Do you think it does not help them to hove more people in Paterson to buy and eat their stuff? Of course it must, and they must get better prices for farm products than they did twenty years ago.” “Yes they do. But is not that so all over tlio country?” “Wherever manufactories have built up country towns where there were none, or cities where tliere were small towns, the farmers getbetter prises than they used to get. But this is not all. How many men at work in the factories • in Paterson-used to be at work-on farms, do you think? A great many, 1 know. If your brotlier had all those in the way to compete for every odd job he would not get as good wages as be does when he goes out to work by the day. Turn all these men in Paterson out of the mills and shops and they would have to find work at something. What wages could you get, then, as car pen ter?” “I can see that point; but what has the tariff done to cliange the number of people at work in the factories and mills of Paterson?” “Only this: it has made it possible to manufacture a great many things without loss which could not be made in this country without loss , before the duty was put on. When you Democrats went out of power in 1860 we did not make a yard of silk cloth in the country’, and we paid $114,000,000 for silk goods from Europe. Now we produce about $44,000,000 worth of silk goods • and have over 12,000 persons at work in Paterson alone making such goods. They earn over $4,000,000 a year, and spend most of it for things produced right here by our own farmers and mechanics. Paterson had less than 20,000 people when von Democrats went out of power; now it has over 51,000. Do you think that makes no difference to farmers and mechanics?" After this fashion the great debate goes on today, in every part of the Republic. There is not a corner of this great country where the men who work, in whatever, occupation, have not a direct personal interest Jn upholding the system which secures fair returns to those who work. Whenever the discussion springs up, it always goes against the Democrats, because they have been going against the interests of the voters. In Passaic county, which includes Paterson, the majority for Mr. Lincoln twenty years ago was only 163, aud this at the very crisis of the war, when Democracy meant peace at any price. In 1880 the same county gave 1,800 majority for Garfield, and men who know it well say it will not rest with any such figure this year. It is not strange that the men of Northern , States see that their interest lies in voting against the free-trade Democracy. The only wonder is that in any Northern State the result should ever be at all doubtful It would not be if the Democratic party, did not lie so persistently about its intentions. Every year that party pretends to have some great moral “reform” on hand, so that it is obliged to sink its opinions on the tariff question. It was Tilden and reform in 1876, and Hancock and reform in 1880 —the reform meaning cipher dispatches in 1876 and the Morey forgery four years ago. But as soon as that party has control of the House it always begins a desperate effort to tear down the tariff, just as it did last winter. Then, when defeated by the self interest of about a fifth of the Democratic members and the solid resistance of the Republicans, it concocts some new trick of words to cheat the people, puts up a candidate selected because he knows nothing and has done nothing, raises its shout for “Cleveland and Reform;* and sets all its most unscrupulous scoundrels to manage its “reform” campaign. But the pretenses are thinner this year than usual. The British free trade journals, and the free-traoe Phariseeswho have bolted, have helped wonderfully to make the people understand the sitdation.

The Same old Rebel. Pittsburg Commercial. ♦ I "Offensive favoritism is what Jeff Dans cans the pensioning of (Union soldiers. The old traitor can always he relied upon to furnish the Republican party with an excellent campaign document, and in this last one he fairly excels himself. ' A Deplorable Neglect. Tipton Advocate. By acurions and deplorable neglect, Thoma* A. Hendrick*, in his letter of acceptance, fails to dwell at any length upon the intimate rolattoa* which existed between himself and Abraham Lincoln daring the civil war period. How Butler May Fill Out His Ticket. National Republican. Widow Butler should join the Mormons, and have a new political partner sealed to him a* a vice-presidential candidate for each party he, represents. . '