Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1889 — How to Cheapen Tin-plates. [ARTICLE]

How to Cheapen Tin-plates.

Ex-Gov. St. John, who is daily undergoing martyrdom at fifty dollars a martyr, for the prohibition cause, says that the persecutions to which Prohibitionists are subjected far surpass what the old time Abolitionists were compelled to endure, and Mrs. Helen Gougar repeats and emphasizes, (and Helen is strong on emphasis,) the same statement. Of course there is no denying the fact that .St. John has been n dreadfully persecuted man. After having held the office of governor of Kansas, for only three terms, the “ignorant and prejudiced” Republicans of that state cruelly refused to give him another term, unless he would cease to act as an attorney for a big railroad “monopoly,” (and St. John is “dead agin” monopolies) and from that hour he was a Prohibitionist and a martyr. His conversion was almost as sudden as was that of that self-sacri-ficing patriot over in Jordan township, who wanted to run for county auditor on the Republican ticket—and didn’t. Why Helen M., should feel herself the object of unparalled persecution is not wholly clear. It is true the naughty newspapers, several years ago, gave an unpleasant degree of publicity to certain details of a noted case, in Lafayette, and last fall they had the cruelty to publish a letter of hers in which she announced that “We can carry Indiana and New York for the democrats and teach the hypocritical Republicans a lesson” and it is, perhaps, on account of these facts that she now counts herself a present martyr on earth and a prospective saint in heaven. Be these thing as they may, however, we wish to assert that, aside from the sufferings this noble pair of victims have undergone, in the particulars we have enumerated, there is no truth nor shadow like to truth in the assertion that the Prohibitionists are persecuted in a degree surpassing or even remotely approximating what was formerly inflicted upon the Abolitionists. To assert that they are, is a stupenduous insult to the intelligence of the American people. The early Abolitionists were a sort of social Ishmael - ites and every man’s hand was .against them. There was scarcely « jrity, town or village, from one ■end M the country tp the other, •where their meetings were not broken up> and they mobbed and maltreated And ostracized, and their very live? B taken, in cases innumerable; and furthermore, the overwhelming majority of public ■opinion endorsed and commended the persecutions. How different the case with the Prohibitionists! In the comparatively infinitely few instances in which they have suffered outrage, for opinion’s sake, public opinion has, almost unanimously, condemned the outrages and demanded the punishment of the perpetra-

tors. Take, to illustrate, the case of the Rev. Haddock, who was basely and cruelly murdered in lowa, and whom Mr. St John compares with Lovejoy, the martyred Abolitionist of Illinois. Both these men met violent deaths, but there the similarity in the two cases ends. Lovejoy was subjected to a long course of persecutions in which practically the entire population of the vicinity took part. He was driven from place to place, his newspaper office wrecked and destroyed, time and again, and finally himself was killed, and all the people cried, amen! How different was the case with Haddock. The people among whom he worked treated him with tolerance and justice, but one night a man, or a few men, whose property interests they believed Mr. Haddock was destroying, waylaid and murdered him; but the people, with one voice, condemned the crime and demanded the detection and punishment of the murderers, and have never ceased to regret that human justice, in this, case, failed to find its object Similar to this are almost all the cases where Prohibitionists have suffe red outrage. They are protected in their rights by public opinion, and their persecutions are few in number and are the result of individual malice or revenge, and public opinion, is, at all times, entirely against the perpetrators. How different the case with the Abolitionists, with whom the Prohibitionists are so constantly comparing themselves. Their name was the synonym of universal persecution and the voice of the people justified their persecutors.

During the last fiscal year the people of the United States paid to one of the wealthiest syndicates of Great Britain $21,222,653 for tin-plates,{notwithstanding the fact that every single item entering into their manufacture can be found within our own borders, and thousands of competent and willing hands are ready for the necessary work. . In view of these facts, no valid objection can be urged against encouraging capitalists to erect the necessary establishments, with the view of soon relieving the country of its dependence upon a foreign monopoly for one of the indispensable necessities to every household. The prominent items required for making 735,737,990 pounds of tin-plate bought last year, are, in round numbers, 900,000 tons iron ore, 325,000 tons limestone, 1,750,000 tons coal, 317,000 tons pig iron, 5,250,000 pounds lead, 26,250,000 pounds tin, 10,500,000 pounds tallow, 3,250,000 pounds sulphuric acid, and about 11,000,000 feet of lumber. QThe present tariff on tin-platesis 1 cent per pound. With a slight increase to partly offset the difference in cost of labor here and in England, American capital and enterprise will be found to take hold of the business, when, so far as prices are concerned, our experience with the steel rail manufacture is likely to be repeated. But the same class of economists who fought protection to domestic stee rail manufacture, under which prices have been reduced to onefifth the former standard, are fighting protection to tin-platemanufac-ture —and with the same arguments —alleged fear of raising the price. Blind to the teachings of experience, they deny the advantage of domestic competition in supplying the home market with home labor, in utilizing our unlimited natural resources, and insist that we shall continue to send abroad $68,500 per day for laboi and materials no better than are to be found at our doors.