Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1884 — A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

A PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

The Republican Leader on the Great Issue of the Campaign. • — ; - Mr. Blaine's Speech at Massillon, Ohio. Men of Ohio: In a procession of out political ■ opponen.s at Youngstown recently there appeared a man and woman! in rags and anparept wretchedness bearing the inscription “This is _what protection has done tor us,2 [Derisive laughter.] This was imended t» typify and denounce the results of pr itection in Ohio. I want to present the other side of the picture. In Ohio to-day there are 21,000 manufacturing establishments. They cost $200,000.000, and they turn out annually a producl worth $350,000,000. Out of the results of that investment and that product I observe a great many’ people in Ohio who are not in rags and not in wretchedness. [Laughter and great cheering.] Thirty-five anil forty years ago the entire Western country was called upon an an agricultural community to oppose the protective tariff, because it unjustly favored manufacturer of the East. Since then the manufacturing industries of the country have traveled westward until Ohio has become one of the largest mamt'acturing States in the Union [cheers], and combining within herself a great agricultural interest and great manufacturing interest. She presents all the elements of comfort and material progress. Steadily as the agricultural Stales become follow. Indiana and flliS and Michigan are coming on rapidly after >. lowa. Kansas, and Minnesota will come g in due time, the result being that The protective policy now upheld by the Republican party operates so as to carry the manufacturer into every State, and ultimately into every county in the Union. It never was designed that one part of the country should be permanently agricultural and the other part manufacturing, butit was designed that agriculture and manufactures should go hand in hand [cheers], and wherever they go hand in hand you have thrift, progress, and happiness. [Renewed cheering.] If this industrial system which combines the highest elements of human prosperity by uniting the agricultural and the manufacturing interests is worth i reserving, you should not forget that our political opponents have never failed in the last fifty-one years—never since since 1833, when they had the power in Congress—either to repeal the protective tariff, if one existed, or to try to repeal it, or to prevent the enactment of such a tariff. In.other words, since - 1833 the Democratic party in “Congress has never sustained by its vote a protective tariff, not one. ( A voice—“ And it never We are met with the accusation that a protective tariff injureszthe commerce of-the country. That is more frequently made in the East trianin the West. The answer to it is, that since the protective tariff was enacted in 1861 the exports from the United States have been vastly greater in amount and value than all the exports from the first settlement, of an English colonist on this continent down to the inauguration of . i’resident Lincoln. IGreat cheering.] I think that is w’orth repeating. [Cries of “Yes! yes!”] If you take every export that was ever made from the territory which now constitutes the United States from the time of settlement at Jamestown and at Plymouth in 1607 and 1620 clear down to 1860. and then add them together, they fail by several thousand million dollars to be as great in amount as our exports from 1861 to this time. [Renewed cheering.] So that the asstrtion that the protective tariff hinders the development of the commerce of the country is not only disproved by the facts, but directly the contrary is true, for agriculture and manufactures and commerce go hand in hand, and were designed to go hand in hand. They are triple cords, which, bound together, make up the strength of nation prosperity. I assume, therefore, that the people of Ohio are interested in maintaining the protective tariff, and if you are it is in vonr po vver to do it. [Cries of “ We’ll do it; well do it,” and great cheering Ohio speaks her voice on Tuesday next. This district will have the opportunity to speak her voice a id say whether one of the most brilliant advocates of protection that ever served in Congress shall be returned [Cheers for McKinley], with the.oportunity.to vindicate by your votes the splendid experience Which Ohio has had in developing her agricultural and manufacturing interests together. It is for you, the men of Ohio, while the nation looks on, to record your opinion and yofir judgment. I thank you for your cordial reception and bid you good-by.