Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1891 — WHY I AM A PROTECTIONIST. [ARTICLE]

WHY I AM A PROTECTIONIST.

The Democrats who think, or, more properly, pretend to think that the Australian voting system is favorable to the Democsatic party, by preventing opportunities for corruption, are not pointing to Ohwbas a case rn point. The method was used there for last week, the first time, and the result is the state is redeemed from Democratic rule, by majority of 19,000 votes. ' "* - The recent re-survey of the boundary line dividing Ohio and Indiana is creating a decided sensation and is leading to no end of speculation. If by any possibility the line should be re-established in accordance with the report of the Federal engineers who have been investigating the subject, it would take from Indiana and add to Ohio a triangular strip twelve miles wide at the north end, and running to a a th 3 south and thus averaging six s . miles in width, extending along our Eastern border. It.is jisserted by others that if that should result, this State would be entitled, in the rearrangement, to alike strip averaging six miles in width off the east side of lllinois where it ~joins onr Western border line. This would take in about all of Chicago. It is safe to say, however, that the present long-established - boundaries will not be disturbed.

A gentleman who is now visiting in Rensselaer, and who has seen a good deal of country in his daj’Jand generation, remarked the other day that he did not know, anywhere, of a town no larger than Rensselaer that could show so many handsome and costly residence buildings. And this is only a sample of what every observing individual who comes to Rensselaer can not fail to see. As an attractive residence town, for people who are in well-to-do circumstances, the place has exceptional advantages. And now that that particular tide is already turned so strongly in our direction, it would be a comparatively . easy matter to not only increase its diniensions, but to give it the quality of permanency. In the two words “Good College” is to be found the “Open Sesame” to ihestimable advantages in this line. The L. N. A. <fc C. Railway has a successful collegiate institution about every thjrty miles of its route, from Lafayette, southwards; but north from Lafayette there is not one; and Rensselaer is the place of all others, where the gap should be filled. Rensselaer is an exceptionally good point for the location of a college. The people are moral peaceable, society is excellent, it is the healthiest town in the state, and easily accessible from every point. We need a college and a college needs us. More school-room facilities are a pressing necessity. Why can not some arrangement be made by which a college and the town high school could be located in the same build-

ing? $ There are manifold great benefits awaiting us, if this is done. And we believe it can and will be done if our citizens will only take hold of the matter with an energy, persistency, and public spirit commensurate with those expected benefits.-

We notice that those two able and much esteemed contempora-, ries the Remington Press and Goodland Herald are both using regularly large quantities of political Farmers’ Alliance matter in their ready prints, and also that they work in large quantities of the same character of literature on their home pages. These papers, be it known, are both professedly strictly neutral in politics, albeit intimes 77 past, we have detected them, especially the Herald, working in an occasional sly cut in favor of the Democratic party. For the editors and proprietors of both are rock-rooted Democrats. Now anyone who innocently thinks that these gentlemen are disseminating Alliance, or more properly, P.eople’s Party, principles through their papers just by accident, has no full and correct knowledge of the guileful nature of the democratic heart. These papers are both published in strongly Republican communites, where the Democrats have “everything to gain and nothing to lose. The Herald has itself declared that three-fourths of its subscribers were Republicans, and Uo “doubt the Press colld truthfully say the same. In view of these facts, the scheme of these editors is obvious. They are actuated by the same motives as are those Democrats who have taken so much interest in establishing an Alliance paper in Rensselaer. They hope to make for the People’s Party converts, among their readers knowing, as they well do, that they will catch at least three Republicans to one Democrat, and probably ten to one would be a more correct estimate of the relative number, and “all things thus work together for good”—for the Democratic party. It is a very smooth scheme, but in view of the moribund condition of the People’s Party, as indubitably shown at the late elections, those who are managing it will have their laborfortheir pains. The Alliance in' politics has had its day, and the People’s Party is in dead in its infancy.

Republicans have-no grounds for discouragement in the results of last week’s elections. Rather, indeed, they have every reason to b,e encouraged thereby. All the truly significant and prophetic results are in their favor. Take the result in Ohio, for instance. The eyes of the whole nation, as well as of other nations across the water, were fixed upon the Ohio campaign, as the most truly important feature of the election. That was a square stand-up fight between the two parties, on strictly national issues. Democrats as well as Republicans felt its significance, and the Democrats would gladly have lost New York and Massachusetts, for 5,000 majority in Ohio. In Massachusetts and lowa the Democrats have succeeded in reelecting their governors, but by such narrow majorities as to clearly show that both states will be safely Republican in 1892. In Michigan the Republicans made great gains, and won a splendid victory, j , Next io the Ohio victory the most significant feature of the elections was the evident universal decline of the People’s party movement It did not cut any impoYtant figure, anywhere. In Ohio, for instance, where special efforts were made for the new party, and where it was confidently expected to “Down John Sherman,” it actually came out behind the l ' prohibition party in voting strength. In Kansas and Nebraska, its supposed impregnable strong-holds, and where it swept every thing before it last year, it is now utterly defeated. In Kansas it only elected two out of thir-

teen district j udges, and would have elected only one, had not there been two Republican candidates in one of the two districts where it elected judges. In the matter of county officers, its success was still less than with the judges. The People’s party, in fact, has had its day, and no one of good political judgment any longer counts upon its being a factor of any importance in the campaign of 1892.

By HON. H. B. METCALF.

PAWTUCKET, R. I. Why am I, an American citizen, an advocate of such a tax upon imports as will actually assure to American industry the highest-at-tainable-Regret- of prosperity, whatever law may be required to that end? or, in other words, why am I a “Protectionist?” Because for forty years I have i been both an active business man | and an actual observer of actual I events. I have read and listened to the theories of the -opponents of Protection and actually seen those theories refuted in living experience. I have studied the policy and promises of the advocates of Protection, and actual evidence, on every hand, confirms those promises. I have seen it to be an actual fact, abundantly sustained by evidence, that, under the system of -Protection, every hour of honest toil purchases more of material comfort for the toiler than is attai n able “under' any other system; the degree of such advantage being contingent upon the completeness and accuracy of the application of the Protective system. This advantage comes, directly or indirectly, to all classes of toilers, be they weavers, spinners, carpenters, pain ters, machinists, farmers, doc-. tors, editors or teachers. T am convinced that the system of Protection fosters a spirit of national self-independence, such as is indispensable to the highest standards of citizenship under a government of the people.