Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1888 — FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE.

> Potato*! aud i ha Tniifl. Evening Wisconsin. The farmers of the Uhited States receive from $70,000,000 to $90,000,000 per year for fheir potato crop. The prices they are paid are not large in the average, but are remunerative, else potatogrowing would be abandoned.

For the benefit of those fanners who raise potatoes and make something by jt, vet w-no insist that the protective tariff is of no use to Wisconsin wants topresent a few facts. Between the first di last October and the first of the month there were received by steamer from continental Europe 240,249 bushels of potatoes, against only 19,512 bushels received from the same source last year. During the same period there were received in New York from Great Britain 3.411,840 bushels of potatoes; against only 100,047 bushels dujingthe corresponding months one year ago.

Potatoes in Great Britain are very cheap. Put up in sacks the transatlantic passenger steamers find them a very convenient form of ballast; and for the sake of fostering a traffic from which they hope to reap a future freight profit, they now to carry them for almost the bare cost of putting them into the hold and taking them out again. The present duty on potatoes brought into the United States is fifteen cents per bushel, and this figure phis the nominal freight charges, plus the buying cost in Great Britain, enables shippers to put the tubers down in New York for just about the cost to the American farmer of the home product.

Now the pending Mills bill proposes placing potatoes on the free list. The first result will be to drive the American farmer out of the market, and compel him to give up potato growing. The second result, say the free traders, will be to lower the price to the consumers, and thus much more than compensate for the loss inflicted upon the farmer.

That is the theory; but- here is the practical result, as again and again proved in the tariff history of this country: With the fifteen cent duty removed, the prire to thC T&Tfstnner ' vriirije lowered for just as long a time (and it will be short enough) as is required to teach the American farmer that he can’t grow potatoes except at a loss, and to turn his acres to other uses. Then the shippers from Great Britain, in control of the market, will put up the price, charge the consumer more than he now pays, reap triple profits and ask us, “What are you going to do about it?” By and by the answer will come from the American farmers, who will say: “There is profit in potatoes at the present high rates; and we will return to potato raising once more.” They do so, and instantly the foreign shippers make it hot for them by dropping again down to the pride that prevails to day not only, but to a point fifteen cents per bushel lower, as they can afford to do with the duty removed, and still escape a loss. Thus again they speedily freeze out the competition of the home product; snd when American potato-growing is once more abandoned, these Englishmen once more “put the screws” to the Juckless American consumers, being absolute dictators of our market price. And so on indefinitely. They rob the farmer of his present profit in potato-growing, and, taking one year with another, compel the laboring man whose family eats potatoes, to pay moYe than he pays under the present protective tariff bill. And this trade in potatoesTSTepresentative of the trade in all vegetables from which, by the Mills bill, is is proposed the tariff’shall be now removed.

The T< st mo< yot Figures. The Democratic papers are in the habit of asserting that charges of bulldozing in the South cannot be sustained by appealing to- the registration and election records. As an answer to such talk, the New Orleans Standard gives certain official figures concerning the Fifth District of Louisiana which bear dlfectly and instructively upon the point iirquestion. Said district is composed of fifteen parishes, which had in 1880 a population of 169,251, composed of 117,246 blacks and 52,005 whites —the number of “males over 21” being 37,963. In April, 1888, according to the report of the Secretary of State, the number of registered black voters was 28,183, and of white voters 14,102, or a total of 42,285. The vote in the recent election was 30,893 for Nichols (Democrat) and only 2,737 for Warmoth (Republican). Conceding that all the whites. went to the polls and voted for Nichols, it would st 11 have required the votes of, 16,891 blacks to make up the aggregate which he is said to-have received.. In othef words, we are asked to-believe that more blacks than whites supported him, and that barely 2,737 blacks out of 28,183 cared to vote the Republican ticket. Such a proposition is absurd, of course. No intelligent person can be made to believe for a moment that a miracle of that 1 kind really occurred; and yet that is what the official record showsIt is far more reasonable to believe that for the most part the colored votes w hich seem to have been cast for Nichols were either not cast at all, or were 'counted for him when they were really cast for his opponent. Warmouth is known to be specially popular with the blacks, and it is preposterous to suppose that 16,791 of them voted against him and that only 2,737 of them were willing to vote for him. Taking the figures given by Democratic authority, the conclusion is not to be avoided that the alleged majority for Nichols was obtained by deliberate and systematic fraud. The blacks were allowed to register, it is evident, not that they might vote as they pleased, but that cast Democratic ballots, or that their ballots might be counted for the Democratic candidate whether cast for him or not. As it w-as in this particular district so It was in all the other districts of the' State; and so it is throughout the whole South. It is by such means that the Southern States have been made solid for the Democratic and are kept so in contenipt of justice, honesty and decency. But for that scandalous perversion of the principles and methods of free government, Mr. Cleveland would not now be President; ancTThitfor the advantage thus infamously assured to it, his party would have no hope of 'reelecting him. The situation is not only an outrage in a partisan sense, but it is a national reproach and a national danger. It makes a mockery of popular

elections in one-half of the country; and if not corrected, it must ultimately unsettle the very foundation of our institutions.

\Jhnrinan’» Be<pr<l. - It is easy to say of Mr. Thurman that he is personally reputable and likeable that- he has never been suspected of corruption, and that his ability is of a solid and creditable kind; but it does not follow- that he is a proper man’ to invest with the honor and authority of the second highest office in the Government. He has a record as a statesman by w hich he must be judged in that respect. His personal merits fire good as far as they go; but they do riot go very far in contrast with his political faults arid blunders. He has been a voting Democrat ever since 1834, and in all that time has steadily and unqualifiedly indorsed the course of his party. It never did a thing so mean that he was constrained to opjtose or denounce it. He was faithful to it during all its shameful career as the instrument of the slave power. When it sought to extend the curse of human bondage over all the Territories, he stood by it and worked for it. He endorsed the Dred .Scott decision. He was against the homestead law. When the war came, he resisted the idea of coercion, and froin its beginning to its close, he neither did nor said anything to promote the Union cause.

These facts have to be remembered against him when he is presented as a candidate for a great national office. It is impossible as w-ell as improper to put them aside in consideration of his recognized ability and integrity.

Presidential Ignoramus. N. Y. Tribune. “It is about time to dispose of one Democratic stock cry —that duties are collected upon 4,000 different articles under the existing tariff. Democratic orators and editors are fond of this, because they want to give the impression that this “iniquitous” tariff’ reaches out its arms in every direction, and lays all forms of industry under tribute. Nowthe fact is, as the inquiring reader may find by a reference to the commerce endnavigation report for 1886, the latest detailed figures yet’availgble, that the articles upon which duties were collected during that year numbered only 983, or less than one-fourth of the number claimed. This is a most significant showing. The number of articles on the tree list was increased by the tariff of 1883, a Republican measure, to more than 300, or almost exactly one-third the number of articles tbat'paid duty in 1885, and this latter number does not vary materially from year to year. Another fact of great importance bearing upon this effort of the Democrats to give the impression that the tariff has endless ramifications and inflicts enormous complications upon commerce, may be also briefly stated. The repo t of the Secretary of the Treasury shows that of $212,032,424 custom duties collect ed during the last fiscal year, $147,747,924, or about seven-tenths of the whole, w-ere collected from seven classes of articles—sugar, iron and steel, wool, silk, tobacco, with the manufactures of them, glass and fruit. All the remaining articles produced but $64,284,500. This show;s that a vast proportion of the effect of the tariff is felt upon a small number of articles. If the 4,000 i articles existed they would not have room to turn round in, after seven-tenths of the revenue had been deducted for only seven articles

Mr. Cleveland’s Ken ominatlon. Mr. Cleveland does not possess the confidence of his party. Any person having doubts on this “point” would have had those doubts immediately and thoroughly removed had he been in the convention hall when the nomination was made. Banners and hats were waved, it is true, and cheers were heard in many parts of the hall. But there was a total lack of vigor and heartiness in the demonstrations which was painfully felt by most of those who were present. There was a total absence of the spon-taniet-y and sincerity with which his nomination was greeted four years ago, while the contrast between the spiritlessness of yesterday’s scenes at the Convention and the hurricanes and cyclones of enthusiasm when - nominations were made at former national assemblages of the party was marked and ■ conspicuous. The President -is decidedly weaker with his party and the country than he was in 1884. ' The record of his three years of his administration is before the people, and is not satisfactory. At no time popular with his party, he possesses less of its regard now than he ever did before. His duplicity and hypocrisy have repelled thousands of the decent and most influential Democrats in every State, while his studied and ostentatious violations of his civil service reform pledges-have arrayed against him a majority of the Independent Republicans whose votes in 1884 placed him in the Presidency. The country fit large dislikes and distrusts him- '.d-JL. —_____ -

It is entirely probable that the Democracy could have made a stronger canvass with a different standard bearer than it can under Cleveland’s leadership. With Randall, Carlisle, McPherson, McDonald, Hoadly or Bayard at the head of the ticket the chances of the party for victory would be better than they can be now in the present canvass. Any of the men named would stand for all that is honest, dignified and distinctive in Democracy. The party, however, lacked the sincerity and the courage to place any of them in nomination. With a duplicity and cowardice which is characteristic it passed these men by and gave the candidacy to ®R individual whom a majority of the thinking members of the party can neither honor as a publicist nor respect as a man. The Cleveland fetich is still bowed down to by the Democracy. If the Republicans at their National Convention advantagei of their opportunities this particular object will, after the close of the polls next November, cease to command either adoration or regard.