Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1889 — Consistency of a Protective Tariff. [ARTICLE]

Consistency of a Protective Tariff.

Rathbone, Sard A Co., of Albany, N. Y., the leadiug stove manufacturers of the country, are looking for a western location for their works, or for a large portion of it, at least Their representatives have visited several of the leading manufacturing towns in this state, such as Indianapolis and Kokomo, but from present indications this great industry is not likely to locate in Indiana. The towns of Waakegan and Joliet in Illinois, aud Toledo and some others in Ohio, appear to have the lead, in this contest It not only takes big money to get the works, but unlimited shipping facilities, of the most advantageous kind.

If the books of the so-called Ind • iana Educational Series are now forced at once into the public schools of the state we firmly believe that the actual loss to the patrons of the schools through having to throw away their books now on hand or to trade them for less than ten per cent, of their real value, will more than equal, in the aggregate, all that can be saved in making the change, daring the entire five years the contract with the Indiana Publishing Company has to run. To say nothing of the great cost to the people of the state generally, of having to pay township trustees for handling the books. And also to say nothing of the great damage the educational interests of the state will suffer in being compelled to use antiquated and inferior text books.

Before the war England clothed her women in fine silks of her own man of act are, while we bought them from Europe. She managed to do this because while she was professing to practice Free Trade i with all the world she had a protective duty in her tariff to keep out French silks. The Cobden j Treaty of 1861 sacrificed that duty 'in the interest of English cotton /goods, which France agreed to admit under a much reduced duty, if'j'ingland would take the duty off French silks apd lower that on wines. As a consequence the making of silks in Ifrj|land came to an end, and the grow literally grew in the streets of Coventry and Macclesfield, which were engaged in this business. Manchester was too strong for thorn. It is not possible now to buy a yard of English broad silk, which once commanded the highest price and were universally desired The much inferior French silks took, their place—a fact which hadi much to do with the “aesthetic” reaction against ■Ok and favor of woolen fabrics for ladies dresses. Bat while Coventry and Macclesfield have been going down under Free Trade, Paterson, Hartlord, Hoboken and Tobyhanna have been going up under Protection. There waa an exodus of English workmen and their families from those two ruined towns to America. They brought us the inherited skill of generations, and!

found home afid welcome in the land which cares for its producers as well as its consumers. In <mnsequenoe the making of dress-suks in America has moved forward with such rapidity that our importations of French silks has declined every year, and is now only a fraction of our whole consumption—between a third and a fourth, if I remember rightly. At the same time the use and consumption of silk has advanced with rapid strides, while the quality is steadily improved. And all this has been effected in the face of the inveterate prejudice of the American women against wearing anything that is not imported. , A friend of mine who deals largely in silks tells me that he advises every woman to take a certain American make if she wants a silk at a moderate price. They nearly all answer that they do not want an American silk. He tellsthem this is the only silk, except the very finest, that he will warrant; |and then they buy. And when they make one trial of it they nearly always come back for mure. It will save us hundreds of millions every year when Americans really learn that as fine goods can be made in America as anywhere in the world. Snobbishness is the last ally of Free Trade. —Robert Ellis Thompson.

In another place we publish a communication from John W. Powell, now in Washington City, in answer to an article which recently appeared in the Indianapolis Sentinel, over the signature of David W. Shields. This article is reproduce?! in connection with the communication from Mr. PowelL Why Mr. Shields, who usually passes for a man of good reputation and of a fair sense of honor, should have taken upon himself to write and publish so false and slanderous a communication, is hard to say. That he knowingly wrote what was slanderous and false seems beyond question, for he is a man of intelligence and well acquainted with those whom he assails. Take, for instance, the assertion that Edward Rhoades, the prospective postmaster at Rensselaer, is a “professional heeler.” There is not a man of ordinary intelligence in Rensselaer and Marion township, who is at all posted in matters of local politics, who does not know this assertion to be wholly and entirely false. Mr. Rhoades has taken but little part in active politics and what little he has done has not been of a nature to justify, in any degree, the application of the term heeler.” As to the specific assertion that Mr. Rhoades voted a block of nine floaters at the last election, what are the facts? Mr. Rhoades went to the polls and voted in company with seven other voters. Of these eight voters four are and always were reliable and unapproachable Republicans. The other four always vote the Republican ticket unless they are led away by improper influences. They, or at least some of them, we are sorry to say, will sometimes drink whiskey when it is offered to them, and the Democrats had been trying to take advantage of this weakness by giving them unlimited free whiskey for several weeks before the election. A few days before the election an elderly lady who is closely related to the yonng men whom the Democrats were trying to buy with whiskey, and who is $ member of Mr. Rhoades’ family, succeeded in persaading them to stay away from the free whiskey men and to go with their own father and grandfather to the polls and vote as they believed was right. This they did, and Mr. Rhoades went with them, but neither he nor any other person used any improper means to secure their votes. The democratic schemers confidently expected to be able to corrupt them and secure their votes, but they

ware defeated in the attempt, and bitterly vexed and disappointed at* their failure. \ . As to what Mr. Shields charges against Mr. Powell, the latter has

answered that pretty thoroughly. We will add, however, that we do sot believe, for an instant, that Mr. Powell ever boasted that he could whip any Democrat in the county, for he is not that kind of a man. As to the statement that he knocked down and terribly beat an old gray-haired man, that statement we know to be false. At the occasion to which Shields refers, an elderly but large and vigorous looking man began a fight with Mr. Powell by kicking at him. Powell then caught hold of the man and struck one or two blows, but did not knock him down nor “beat him terribly”—in fact hurt him but very slightly. He was the aggressor in the matter and much more to blame for the occurrence than was Mr. Powell. As to the assertion that jMr; Powell is not fitted for the duties of the position to which he has been appointed, we can say that we do not know the nature of those duties, nor does Mr. Shields either, but we do know that Mr. Powell is a man of good education and plenty of natural good sense and ability and we have no do.ubt but that he will prove abundantly able to satisfactorily discharge the duties of the position to which he has been appointed.

Whether or not a tariff shall be laid on foreign products sent into this country for sale in competition with similar domestic products, will be found largely a question of doing justice by our own people, when once freed from the labyrinth of maxims and theories with which “tariff reformers” seek to surround the issue between the policies of Protection and Free Trade. The men who preach for free trade with Europe will not, and dare not, contend that their neighbors should send money to distant cities for goods, even if in bo doing a few cents may be saved on each purchase. Nor are they likely to cosent that peddlers may come into home communities, and without a license (a tariff) sell their wares, when similar articles are on the shelves of home merchants who pay taxes for the support of local and state governments.

The same policy requires for-' eigners with machinery and capital beyond our reach, and whose power may be used for our detriment, to pay something—and pay well —by way of tariff, when coming here with their products to compete against American enterprise «and American capital, which are steadily taxed without possibility of escape or desire for evasion. Protection for domestic industries is but the hardening of tha humane and natural policy observed in keeping for the members of oar family such money as they can conveniently earn, rather than paying it oat to strangers; the same we advocate in local communities —trading with home merchants, employing home mechanics, patronizing home papers; in short, protection requires the sending away of no money that may be prudently retained for the oomfort of our households and advancement of the community in which we make onr home.