Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1888 — FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE.

The Victory In Oregon. Globe-Democrat- \ Republicans will be justified in feeling jubilant over the great victory gained by the party in Oregon on Monday. This was the first election held in a debatable State thisyear. A Republican triumph in Rhode island and a Democratic triumph'in Louisiana, the States which had already voted in 1888, were expected, and their occurrence surprised iwbodv, although the Democrats carried Rhode Island in 188?. '• In the east* of Oregon, however, the Republicans have particular reason to feel elated over the victory. The Administration had exerted itself openly and shamelessly in the effort to carry the State. Emissaries of the President, conspicuous among whom was the notorious Smith M. Weed, w r ere at work throughout the State for weeks before the election in aid of the Democratic candidates. Threats and blandishments alike were employed in the effort to carry the State. Money was spent lavishly, and every device was resorted to which promised success. But still the Administration failed. The great prize contended for in the election was a United States Senatorship. The Democrats endeavored to choose a majority of the members of the Legislature, so as to secure the successor of Joseph N. Dolph, Republican, whose term in the Senate expires on March 4 next. If the Democrats won that position the next Senate would be a tie, provided they hold their own in New Jersey, in which State a Democratic Senator’s term also ends with the present Congress. As the case stands now the Republicans may retain their present supremacy in the Senate. In New Jersey, which has still to elect a part of its Legislature, the Republicans nave'much more than a fighting chance to win. If they do win the party will have thirty-nine members in the Senate and the Democrats thirty-seven, as now. The most that the Democrats can do now with the Senate of the Fifty-first Congress will be to tie it. In that event the Vice President would cast the deciding vote. This gives an additional element Of interest to the national canvass. The great victory in Oregon, however, the State giving 7,000 Republican plurality on Monday last, as compared with 290 plurality in 1886 for one State officer of that party atid 234 plurality for a Democratic candidate for another State office, indicates that the Republican party throughout the country is resolute and enthusiastic thifi year. ’

Some of the Democratic brethren in convention assembled may not have seen or heard of Mr. Cleveland’s letter accepting the nomination, of 1884. For their benefit we print the following extract from that document: When we consider the patronage of this great office [the Presidency] the allurements of power, the temptation to retain nublic place once gained, and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent whom a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefits received, and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, stand ready to aid with money and trained political service, we recognize in the eligibility of the President for re-election a most serious danger to that calm, deliberate and intelligent political action which must characterize a government by the people.

A Bou b nos Bourbons. The Hon. Allen G. Thurman, the candidate for Vice President on the Democratic ticket, is one of the ablest and one of the best known of the old style Democrats of the United States. He has, deservingly, a fine reputation as a lawyer, and among his neighbors in Ohio and among the public men of the Nation is universally respected, but he has been for over thirty years a Bourbon of Bourbons. There wa£ a time when he was immensely popular with all factions of the Democratic party in Ohio, but that was before the war. During the war his attitude was such as to compromise him in the eyes of Democrats who were unswerving union men, and many of those who had in previous years given him hearty support fell away from him He was charged, many times during the war, with giving aid and comfort to the rebellion, or, at least, with giving aid and comfort to the rebels. Whether he did this or not it is certain that he did nothing in private or public speech to strengthen the arms of the Government.

Thurman represented substantially the same principles that did Mr. Vallandingham in the campaign of 1863. In that campaign Vallandingham was opposed by Brough, a war Democrat, who had become a member of the Union Republican party, and as earnest and thorough a Republican as ever lived. Brough’s majority was over 100,000. The first campaign after the war was made in 1865 with General J. D. Cox as the Republican candidate for Governor and with General G. W. Morgan as the Democratic candidate. General Cox’s majority was 29,546. In 1867 many of the war Democrats who had voted against Vallandingham were whipped into a vote for Thurman. Many others who had acted with the Republican party voted for him or remained away from the polls because the Republicans came out squarely in favor of the constitutional amendments and negro suffrage. The bounty jumpers and draft evaders who had been sojourning in Canada had by this time returned, and they voted for him. On one side was a Democratic leader appealing to Bourbon and conservative prejudices at a critical point in the experience of the Republican party. On the other was a man of irreproachable character, who had been a good soldier, making the advance fight for negro suffrage. Thurman ami his party counted on certain victory, but they were defeated by a majority of 3,000, and the man who defeated them gained such prestige in that campaign that a few years later he became president of the United States. This marked the maximum influence of Thurman in Ohio. Since that time he has lost his hold on the Democratic party, andlie lias been time and time again snubbed and humiliated by the men who defeated him in the Democratic convention of 1884. He is now put <>n the ticket with the hope of calling to the support of Bourborn Democrats of the old school. It is an open question whether he will do this or not, but that his nomination will drive away from Mr. Cleveland many old soldiers who hate the name copper-head is certain. As the Republicans are pretty sure to nominate a candidate who will’be strong in Ohio, and as

Ohio never went Democratic in a Presidential year, the nomination, of Mr. Thurman strengthens rather than weakens the Republican cause. . How Protect on Affect* Th Farmer. Forty years ago, when it was sought to change the policy of Great Britain from Protection, which had been in force for more than four hundred years, the farmers of tliat Kingdom were told that great advantages would inure to them; first' in cheaper clothing, implements, etc.; and secondly, that with the worldifor a market, manufactures would prosper, and those people depending upon them for a livelihood would become liberal buyers of farm products at better prices. >- As the same arguments are daily urged upon the farmers of this country as an inducement for following the British policy, it will be interesting, and mav prove prbfitable, to note the effects of that policy upon English agriculture. Facts of history are much safer guides than fine-spun theories of economic writers, ar specious arguments of free trade politicians. England adopted her free trade policy in 1846, when, according to official reports, her farmers were growing 14,100,000‘acres of wheat, oats and barley, valued at $250,000,000. Forty-one years later, in 1887, acreage in the same crops was 9,876,270, with a value of $200,000,000. This in face of the fact that the population had increased from 28,000,000 to 37,000,000. Commenting upon these official figures, a prominent London Journal remarks: “Thus we have, with a 30 per cent increase of population, a reduced tillage of land for wheat, barley and oate of 4,223,730 acres; and beides that, the serious and lamentable loss of the purchasing power of the agricultural products” to the extent of £50,000,000.”

That is to say, English farmers have $250,000,000 less income in 1887 than in 1846, as the result of 41 years trial of free trade. The values of agricultural lands have meantime fallen 40 to 75 per cent., and the tendency is still downward. ’ \ In view of these facts, there is little room for wonder at existing agitation for return to the policy of Protection. More than 500 Tariff Clubs have been organized in England, not, alone by those engaged in farming, who were the first sufferers under the policy which it is urged this country should adopt, but by workmen in the mechanical industries as well. One hundred and forty public meetings favoring “Tariff Reform,” in the direction of Protection, were held in England during the first three months of the present year. - It will thus be seen that the promises of prosperity for farmers under free trade have not beep fulfilled in England. With cheaper clothing and cheaper food has come diminished ability to buy. The farmers of .this country will do well to be content with the experience of their cousins across the' water, and continue their refusal to lend themselves to a change of that economic policy which has brought to the United States a prosperity unparalleled in the world’s history.’

The Democratic Platform.Intar Ocean. “The Democratic party, in National convention assembled,renews the pledge of its fidelity to the Democratic faith, and reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the convention of 1884, and indorses the views expressed by President Cleveland in his last earnest message as the correct interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction;” such are the opening w’ords of the platform yesterday adopted at St. Louis. They suggest three questions: What is “the Democratic faith” to which the pledge of fidelity is renewed? What was the platform of 1884, so far as revenue reduction is concerned? ’' r " How’ can President Cleveland’s “last earnest message” be considered as interpreting it? ’• ' A The Democratic faith is affirmation of State sovereignty as an absolute endowment of each member of the Union of States,- Whenever in power the Democratic party has so affirmed unequivocally; when, out of power it has so affirmed with vague'and shadowy limitations. In 1884, being out of power, it affirmed: The preservation of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, the reserved rights of States, and the supremacy of the Federal Government, within the limits of the Constitution, will ever form the true basis of our liberties.

In 1888, being in power, it resolved in favor of devotion to a plan of Goverment regulated by a written constitution strictly specifying every granted power and expressly reserving to the States or people the entire ungranted residue of power. Not a word about “personal rights,” or “the equality of all citizens before the law,” or of “the supremacy of the Federal Government,” in the Democracy’s affirmation for 1888. The old South is again in the saddle at home and in the councils at Washington. The delegates from a State whose senior Senator proclaimed the purpose of the last election to be to determine “whether the white man should rule the black man or no,” whose Governor boasted that he and Cleveland were in office by virtue of “violation of the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Louisiana,” who promised to “suspend the laws,” till a Democratic successor was elected, and who kept his promise, would hardly have tolerated any nonsense about “personal rights;” or “equality of all citizens before the law;” or “supremacy of the Federal Government;” that was good enough flapdoodle for a party seeking to gain by stealth the offices which it had been unable to capture by force of arms, but it was not the kind of stuff to which it would pledge itself as an administration. The States rights plank of the convention would have been acceptable to Calhoun, and doubtless is acceptable to J. Davis. This is “tire Democratic faith.” What was the Democratic platform of 1884 as to tariff reduction? Part of it “From the foundation of this government taxes collected at the Custom House have been the chief source of Federal revenue, and must so continue fc Hey’ .. J' - . ' " AVKat last earnest message” concerning taxes so collected? Part of his dressage was in these words: “Our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illegal source of revenue.” How does “the earnest message inter-

pret ’ the platform? The one savs that tariff duties are the oldest and must be the most enduring source of revenue; the other says that they are not only “vicious,” but also* “illegal’' imposts. The one looks to their continuance, the other looks to their ultimate, and perphaps not distant abolition. The platform is for permanent tariffs for revenue, the message is for tariff as a necessary evil, to be abated as quickly as possible. A part of the platform of ’IBB4 was in these words: ; “The system of direct taxation, known as the internal revenue, is a war tax, and ’ so long as the law continues the money derived therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the remaining burdens of the war.” Nothing can be plainer than this; the internal revenue system is deriounced 04 a needlessly surviving war measure; a belief in its speedy abolition is expressed, and it is affirmed that so long as it endures it should not be regarded as a source of general revenue, but as a specific means of performing specific obligations growing out of the war. But “the last earnest message” says this of the internal revenue system: “It must be conceded that none of the things subjected to internal revenue taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries; there appears to be no just complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden of taxation.” This also is plain enough. The internal taxes are held to be permanent and equitable sources of general revenue, not to be repealed, but continued. And yet “the platform of 1884” is to be “interpreted” by the message of 1887! The platform affirming tariff to be a needful and permanent source of revenue, the message declaring it to be a vicious and illegal source; the platform declaring internal taxes to be a temporary source of revenue for special purposes, and the message declaring them to be an enduring source of revenue for general purposes. Surely, the Demorcy at St. Louis lifted up its 'voice to Mr. Cleveland and said: “Am n«Jt I thine ass that hath served thee these three years?” Still, as the weeks and months between June and November progress, we shall hear of Democratic speakers in New Jersey and .Connecticut declaring that the platform says protection, and of Democratic speakers in Mississippi and Arkansas avowing that the President is to interpret the platform, and that he will make it mean free trade. The solemn truth is that the platform means nothing at all as to tariff; it speaks plainly it affirms the ultimate doctrine of States rights. The meaning of the convention was surrender of itself to the inevitable Cleveland, and his message means free trade; not more, nor less. Just that.

Oregon and the Tariff.

Indianapolis Journal. Free-trade papers are already beginning to assert that the tariff question did not cut any figure in the Oregon election. The following is from the Oregon States-, man of June 1, the latest issue of that paper that has reached this office: “The main issue of this campaign is the question of protection to American industries and upholding the dignity of American labor. The main issue of the campaign for the November election will be the same. It is the dividing iine be-, tween the two great parties. The issue is plainly made and must be openly fought. There is no room for political copperheads in the great party of protection.” This is the way the Republican papers in Oregon have been talking all during the campaign. The tariff question occupied a prominent ]>lace in the campaign and exercised a controlling influence on the election. From this time on till the presidential election we expect to see the Democracy trying to hedge on the tariff question. Having, as they think, got the benefit of an open and anient advocacy of free trade, they will now pretend that they are very conservative on the subject and friendly to moderate protection. The position of the Democracy is sufficiently defined by the President’s message, by the Mills bill and the Congressional debate, and the intelligence of the people willnot permit them to take anew one for campaign purposes. The Oregon Republicans sized them up exactly riflit.