Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1891 — THEORY OVERWHELMED BY FACTS. [ARTICLE]

THEORY OVERWHELMED BY FACTS.

Attorneys for free trade persistently maintain that a tariff on imported products, whether it be high or low, is always added to the price at which all similar-products are sold, whether these be of foreign or domestic origin. This contention has become the fulcrum over which “reform” orators and writers see-saw in fulfillment of their task to depopularize the policy of Protection with American voters. The one and only “reform” President went to the, §£treme of side-tracking the required report to Congress on the condition and affairs of the country togive prominence and emphasis to this chers lied tenet in the creed of free trade orthodoxy, and emblazoning it upon his party’s escutcheon. But among American voters the majority is made up of men who do not make politics a profession, and these are disposed to place more reliance upon historical facts than upon fine-spun theories. They are the men who see more significance in a phenomenal national prosperity than in all the essays ever written by students without experience in practical affairs. And fortunately they are not slow in discovering the fact that there is no concurrence between the free trade contention that all tariffs are paid by the consumer and the antics of those foreigners who are trying to get their wares into our markets. When the last Congress advanced thfe tariff on wheat, .barley, potatoes, and other agricultural products, the squirming among farmers was confined to the north side of the Canadian line, and every man who was hunting for facts could see it.

When the decree went forth that certain lines of manufactures should hereafter pay a higher duty than formerly, it was from Sheffield and Birmingham and Cornwall and other foreign manufacturing centres that the earliest and loudest notes of protest were wafted. Whereupon common-sense voters very properly asked themselves why these outsiders were so solicitous over the question of increase in oar tariff if all difference was to be paid by the purchasers who decreed it. And the inevitable conclusion reached was that the sellers of foreign goods do not believe the theory preached by their attorneys, however sincere they may be in proclaiming it*.

Not only do such facts as these speak louder to the practical man than any mere dictum of theoretic philosophy, however vociferously reiterated;they also more truly betray the inspiration of that zeal with which the policy of free foreign trade is urged upon voters of this country. While the free trade attorney draws near to the ear of American consumers with his promise o? cheapness andincreaesd prosperity under the proposed new economic dispensation, it is evident that his heart is with foreign producers and those who seek gain from the expense involved in transfers and commissions. It will prove no easy task to induce practical men to contemplate these plain facts of the situation in other than their most significant aspect.

Our Brother McEwen is the true-and only prophet of Democracy in Jasper County, the original and undefiled fount of its insperation, and we are therefore t ruly glad that Bro. Butler, of the junior Democratic organ, recognizes this fact and humbly seeks f or “pointers” in the sanctum of the sage. How blessed it is for those who serve the same cause to work together in harmony! Par nobile fratruml

We plead guilty to having devoted an inordinate amount of attention to the new People’s Party paper this week, and promise not to trespass so much upon our readers’ indulgence in the same way again. We consider the new paper to be principally a democratic scheme with a Democrat for its editor, and a coterie of Demo crats as its counselors and backers, and have thought it worth w hile to present the facts of its true character before the people, that they might not be led into deception in that regard.

" Never did a red-hot Bourbon Democrat posing as a People’s party convert, give himself away more oompletoly, ihan dixl the_editorof pur esteemed Domo-Peopo contemporary, the PfZed, when he r epublished the item from the New Castle Courier and his reply thereto. Where was his mentor Jas. W elsh, when that terrible giveaway was perpetrated. Imagine that past-grand master of the political art of carrying water on both shoulders making such a break as that. Welsh must “watch the corners” closer hereafter, for a bred-in-the-bone Bourbon Democrat in the editorial chair of an alleged People’s Party organ, is about as dangerous an element as a bull in a china shop.