Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1891 — APPEALING TO PREJUDICE. [ARTICLE]

APPEALING TO PREJUDICE.

SEpTpminent characteristic in the tactics of free trade attorneys is their persistent appeal to pre-judice—-their constant effort to iiiifinence the passions of voters, w’hose unbaised judgement would .otherwise-hold thunito the support wrfeaqwntoefesapi il i < :y. ; „ Prominent, appeals are those to the prejudice of locality. Tire relation of tariff to the varied industries of the country is rarely mentioned without references to the farmer as a Western man, ami the intimation that those engaged in. manufacturing all belong at the East. And this in face of the fact that some, of the countries figuring most prominently in the census of agricultural products-are a long distance -east of the Mississippi Valley, and the further fact that some among the heaviest manufacturing concerns in the United States are owned and operated in the great agricultural State of Illinois. These same attorneys of foreign trade delight in referring to the existing law as the war tariff. Just as if there had been no protective legislation anterior t® 1861 —when the fact is that Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Clay, Jackson, and other representative statesmen of -the then slave-own-ing states, were foremost in advocating and enacting laws for the avowed protection of domestic industries. Then we have the appeal to the prejudice of occupation for the purpose of arraying workers against the men who employ them; those who grow crops against those who transport and market the products of • the farm. And so on through the list Every man who is found to be dissatisfied with his surroundings, disappointed in his efforts to go ahead in the world, is asked to look upon Protection as the stumbling block to his ambition, and is ! promised that with free foreign trade will come those better times for which all men hope. * Appeals to prejudice would not be necessary if free trade attorneys did not realize the risk of leaving voters to follow man’s natural impulse for protection—whether to the home, by making every one’s house his castle, and restricting its privileges to family and friends—or to one’s occupation, through co-operation with fellow-workmen for securing individual rights—or to the nation, through legislation that insures to industry and enterprise in this country privileges beyond the reach of competitors in any outside nation. I I I I 1