Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1889 — DEMAGOGUE VOORHEES. [ARTICLE]

DEMAGOGUE VOORHEES.

The Incendiary and Vicious Character of Hb Recent Bloomfield Speech. New York Press. The Thdiahapolis Journal has done excellent service to Republican principals by printing a verbatim report of . ;an incendiary speech recently delivered by Senator Voorhees before a gathering of democrats in Green county, Indiana. Voorhees is making a desperate effort for re-election to the Senate. In his speech the senior Senator from Indiana advocates the total abolition of the tariff, the substitution of the obnoxious English system of an income tax. Indeed, the entire speech is a lurid example of the length to which a wild demagogue will go when apparently unrestrained by the mollifying presence of a short-hand reporter.

Senator Voorhees began by telling the farmers of Green county that he was opposed to abolishing the un-American income tax until what he termed the “tax” was taken off the shirts that some “old fellow down in Green county wears." He utterly failed to tell this “old fellow” of Green county that under the policy of protection the cost cf the cotton cloth of his shirt has decreased until it is less per yard than the duty on the imported article. He hurled at the farmers of Green county those antique falsehoods of free-traders rampant relating to the 80 per cent, “taxes” on his horse-shoes, his nails, his wagons, his reapers, mowers, plows, pitchforks, etc., but neglected to add that all these articles were produced to-day in this country better and cheaper than in any other 'country in the world. Nor did Senator Voorhees have the manhood to say that many of these very articles of American make are expofted to the most distant parts of the world and undersell the same articles produced in free-trade England. Nor did he say that this is substantially true of clothing, flannels and dress goods. Nothing of the kind. Be deliberately and intentionally, in order to secure a little cheap .political capital for himself, falsified the industrial history of the country. He talked about tlje farmers of Green county paying SBS “taxes” on every SIOO worth of furniture they purchased, weU knowing that to-day the cheapest! and best furniture in the world is made in this country, and that American furniture is exported and can undersell British furniture in the English market He presented the same falsehood in relation to carpets, a»d yet American carpets are selling to-day, .quality for quality, at the same price, and even less, than the Englishman is obliged to pay for the same grade of goods in the English market Can anything be more wanton, more disgraceful, more unpatriotic than to thus reflect upon the intelligence of American workmen and the enterprise and honesty of American manufacturers? Voorhees knows he falsified the industrial history of his own country in every illustration he gave, and he likewise knows that not so many years ago in the United States Senate he defended the duty on plate glass, on the ground that its manufacture by the DePaus, of New Albany, lnd., had decreased the pnee more than half to the consumer. The same demagogue, who avowed himself in favor of hanging men like Andrew Carnegie, the other day in Green county, refused to follow his own party in the Senate and reduce the duty, or “tax,” as he would call it, on glass, because he was afraid of the influence of the GePauws. He was able to ascertain then that the tariff, owing to healthy home competition, had reduced the cost of everything the farmer buys, and by creating numerous manufacturing centers (such as New Albany, lnd.,) had increased the value of land and given him more profitable markets nearer home.

Mach of this extraordinary speech is of too utterly vicious a character to need answering. It should, however, be widely circulated by Republican newspapers as a specimen of the depths to which a democratic demagogue will descend in order to arouse elaas prejudice. Here are some specimens: “Ah, my fellow-citizens, this money power is sweeping forward and is destroying the Very holy of holies o i your government. It is tainting every branch of your public service like leprosy, and unless it is stopped, unless steps are taken to check it. it will as certainly overthrow this government as the corporations of Route, and of Greece and other countries in the past overthrew them.” ~ Docs not this man know that a nation which could take np and. elect to its highest office an uuassuming soldier-citizen of his own State, a poor man, is in no such danger whatever? Does he not

know that there is not upon the earth to-day a government more honestly administered and freer from corruption than i hie own government? And yet thirds twifl. flfi/j flfnllliflT himself as a cheap demagogue when he thus blackens the institutions of his own country. Here is another gem from his speech: “i Bftid the other day affihe breakfast table at the Terre Haute House, wire some genial Republican friend, that if I had mv way with men like the Carnegles. that preyed upon the hnd and sucked people’s blood like leeches, I would haug them. He seemed shocked about it. 1 was not at all/’ And this from the mouth of a United States Senator asking reelection from an intelligent constituency. It is fortunate for the country that the people before whom the Indiana Senator is going with this sort of unmitigated trash are farmers. They at least will not be swayed by the arts of a cheap demagogue who has deemed it necessary to get down very low in order to secure a re-elec-tion. The Western farmers know that without protection their pro-

gress would have been postponed. Without it the people of the Northwest would have been Kept in a tate of imperfect civilization. There would have been no flourishing manufacturing towns and cities dotting the vast prairies of our Western States; towns and cities employing thousands of jifosperous mechanics whose needs are supplied by the adjoining farms. Under the Vooihees plan the Indiana farmer would, like the Southern cotton planter, be sending most of his grain and corn to Liverpool, and in return for it lie would be receiving the shoddy goods of the Manchester and Liverpool Mills and the products of British work-shops, at any price the English manufacturers put upon them. He would be importing clumsy English wagons, plows that would not scour, and using English window and looking glasses and paying for them double the price of better articles, which he now obtains of Studebaker Bros., of South Bend, and DePauf, of New Albany. No! no, Senator Voorhees; you cannot make votes in Indiana by libeling the system which has been at the foundation of the progress of the State for the last quarter of a eentory. The farmers of the State are too smart to be caught by any of the daptrap and variegated flapdoodle of your Greene county speech. Try something else.