Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1892 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

There is No delation Between Protection and Strikes, . Democratic rio»nc«»rlnf-Som» ProtocUn Potato and Mamy Other la. tereetlag and Timely Thrueto. PROTECTION AND BTRIKEB. John B. Glorer la Indianapolis Journal; The tallowing statement is taken from the Courier-Journal of recent date: , ‘‘We have in these Homestead pictures the natural and inevitable results of protection.”. / The writer of the above extract is k. man of distinguished ability and wide reputation. He is oue of the leaders of the great free trade party fn this country; and although he does not always name its candidates for the Presidency, be most generally dictates its platforms. Next to Henry George he is probably the*ablest and best known free trader in the United States, of this character has no business to make such a statement. There is not a syllable of truth in it from the beginning to the end. Protection is no morw responsible for the violence growing out of Übor troubles than it is for a Kansas cvclone or the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Was protection responsible for the street car strike in this city a few months ago. and the violence that grew out of it? Was the

war in Tennessee against the miners, in whieh Mr. Brice, chairman of the 'Democratic' National committee, is said to hare had an interest, caused by protection? Was the great strike ia the Northwest, on the G.. B. & Q. r&ihwad, or the still greater one^on New York Central, “the inevitable results of protection”? Are the froqneatly occurring strikes and labor troubles in Euglaud to be ascribed to the direful effects of protection? The truth is that protection never was, and, in the very nature of thiugs, never can be the cause of a strikoan this country, or of the violence and bloodshed that usually-accompany them. What is the free-trade contention? Why, they assert that the profits of our manufactories are not shared with their employes, and therefore 'protection is responsible for strikes. They assert that profits are much too large, and that protection makes tVern so. But this i 3 only an assertion. The truth is that, on an average, manufacturers are securing •ess proSts at this time than ever before. Competition has done its perfect work. Protection may preserve a market, but it cannot of itself maintain prices. T*. there a wage worker in all the land who is silly enough to believe that his wages are likely to bo increased by decreasing the income or profits of the man who pays him his wages? If so, he should join the free-trade procession at once. What are the probabilities. If a manufacturer is making 20 per cent, on hia investment are not the. men ia his employ more likely to secure Hi advance in their wages than if he •ve-e making only 5 per eeut? Our free-trade papers, such as the Sentinel, say ‘‘n>\ -and they affirm with great pertinacity that profits have no .relations whatever to wages: that small profits are likely to result in fg-'o d wages is large ones. This is the free*-trade theory. Let our workingmen c-bn&)dor it. Would a hrmei b* as certain to pay fair wages to t:V 'harvest hands when he gets 65 C 6.1 -s a bushel for his wheat as if he were to receive $2 a bushel for it? Your festive free-trader answers “yes ” What do you wageworkers sav?' Democratic demagogues are trying to make party capital out of th« deplorable affair at Homestead, be ouse Mr. Carnegie is a Republics-, out what are these same blatant demagogues doing when Mr. Bryce and other Democrats were engaged in the cheerful business of turning out the miners of -Tennessee that <n nvicts might take their places? Such demagogy should be snurned by every sensible man, aud it will be. OSMQCRATIC FINANCIERING. IjOiunardlis Journal. The Journal has received several inquiries lately in regard to the origin and growth of the State debt, to nay woich the present onerous tax law was enacted. The following facts, compiled from official sources, wih answer these inquiries: At the close of Governor Joseph t. Wrgbt’a administration, in 1857, tne -State debt, as reported by the Auditor of State, was $7,782,311. Three years later, in October, 1860, just before -the close of Governor Vtilard's administration, Ms. John

W. Dodd, Democratic Auditor of State, reported the debt as $10,179,267.09. The report of Doddy in 1860, as compared with that of Talbott, in 185<, both Democratic Officials, showed an increase of the debt during three years of Democratic administration of $2,396,956.00 In 1860 the Republicans carried the State and the Lane-Morton administration began Jan. 14, 1861. There had been no reduction of the debt since Auditor Dodd’s last report. The Republicans, therefore, inherited from the last Democratic administration a debt of $10,179,267,09, as reported by Auditor in 1860. The war of the rebellion, which began about this time, added $2,904,875.33 to the deb^,caused by warloan bonds, issued for war purposes, 'Rhd by the State's quota of the direct tax levied by Congress in 1861. /The war loan was authorized by the Legislature in 1861 to place the State in a condition to resist invasion and enable her to do her part in the suppression of the rebellion. Owing to this increase of the State debt during the war, it reached, in 1862, the high-water mark of $13,084,142. But remember that $lO,179,267.09 of this bad been inherited from the Democrats..

During the next ten years the Re-> publican reduced the debt $9,147-/ 321.42. In proof of thU we cite Democratic authority. The last annual report of Hon. John C. Shoemaker, a Democratic Auditor of State, dated Oct. 31, the debt to be $3,884,430?88 ' It had been reduced to this som from $13,074,142! 42 oy successive Republican administrations, from 1863 to 1871. From this time on the control of the Legislature and of the State finances has been in the hands of the Democratic party, and the debt has increased to its present dimensions, nearly $9,000,000. The tax levev- which had beefi 25 cents on the SIOO, was reduced in 1871 to 15 cents, in 1*873 to 5 cents, raised in 1875,tP 15 cents and reduced again in 1877 to 12 cents where it remained lintil the present law was passed. The low tax levies, made by the Democrats to win popular applause, were the primary cause of ihe debt increase which has taken place during the last fifteen years. A tax of 15 cents was not sufficient for State purposes. The reduction to 5 cents, at which it stood for two years, was a bare faced fraud.. It was finally placed at .12 cents, which was still too low. Along with this inadequate tax levy the Democrats inaugurated the policy of borrowing money to expenses,! Revenue had to be raised some way, and as they refused to raise it by taxation there was no other recourse but borrowing. ' The credit of the State was good, and capitalists were pnlv too ready to lend. The bonds* they got were a blanket mortgage on every acre of laud in the State. This borrowing process was easy aud tempting, and the longer it was continued the more fascinating it became. Once embarked in that course the Democrats had not the moral courage or political honesty to break Everyone knows how interest piles up when an indi-

vidual or a State is borrowing money to pay current expenses. There is nothing so ruinous as living on borrowed money. This is what the Democrats did for years. The record shows that during the last thirty years the Democratic party has invariably increased the debt when it had pbwer, while the Republicu party have invariably reduced it. At last driven by the loree qf public opinion to change its policy and make some provision for reducing the debt it had created, the Democratic party passed the present law requiring all property to be assessed at its full cash value and increased the levy for state purposes 50 per cent. It remains to be seen whether even this will result in any reduction of the debt.

OUR TARIFF PICTURES. 1. The leading mowing machine,manufacturers of thqHJpited States announced a‘year ortwo ago that they did not make discounts for export on the mowing machines for Canadian markets, and yet Canada bought * * 11,013

mowing machines from this country in one year, and only 50 from Great Britain.although she lays ! the same tariff on the, products of { both*countries. Protected America makes cheaper and better machines for the farmer than free trade England. 2. # i Many people in the South are opposed to the duty on cotton bagging : because Southern planters grow cot- ! ton, and think they are oppressed, j Yet under the policy of protection, two pounds bagging fell from 13-5 cents abound in 1872 to a pound in 1891. Will some Southern editor explain to us why a duty that works in that way isn’t a good thing for the Southern cotton planter to keep on the statute books? He doesn’t pay* the duty; the duty pays him. 3. ‘“ > "v We had no tin-plate industry when the McKinley bill became a law on Oct. 1, 1890. In the preceding twenty years we had sent $307,000,000 cross the ocean to The tin-plate mills already built or protected under the new tariff hare

a capicity of 243,000,008 pounds a year, which at the present average import value, means about $7,000,000 annually, or in twenty years _ < ___$140 ; 000,000 which will stay in tlnscountry" and pay American miners and turn the wheels of American mills.

VOCRHEEB ANC| THE PINKERTONB Inter Ocean. ’ t In his loose-jointed and demagogical speech in the Senate on the Homestead riots, Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, boasted that in his Stateand in New York laws had been exacted against the Pinkertons, adding: "Where is theire a Republican State which takes its citizens in this way? There is no such, law in the State of Illinois. ■/ I might sar the Republican State of Illinois, although I believe the Senatorfrom Illinois [Mr. Palmer] will resent this, f&t he thinks it is not going to be Republican^.any more, and I am 4ispose<J.to concur with him." It was a Republican Governor who signed the Indiana Statute referred to, and a Republican Legislature which passed the New York Jaw. As for Illinois, his strtemeqt is flatly -ialse. It not only has such a law, but was the pioneer in its passage. At Republican General Assembly passed it in 1887, and Gov. Oglesby, on© of the stanchest of Republicans, signed it. Wisconsin has a similar law, passed by a Republican Legislature and signed by a Republican Governor. -v . Special reference is here made to the tenth section of the Illinois aqt which is entitled, "An act to secure the peace and good will of society, to quell riots or disturbances, to secure the execution of the laws and to provide for special deputy sheriffs, and for calling out and using the military force of the State for the preservation of the: peace and the protection of property.” The statute as a whole enlarges the power of the sheriff and requires the militia to help preserve the peace, if necqssarv, and placing the military power finder the authority of the civil arm of the Governor as represented in the person of the sheriff of the county.. v The act was the result of the troubles at Packingtown the season before, when Pinkerton private detectiveSjWere called in’and one man. an innocent passer by, shot and killed' by a member of the Pinkerton force. No one ever knew who did that shooting, nor is it certain that the shot was fired with murderous purpose, but the feeling against the Pinkertons was so strong that the bill made it for any force or company of private detectives to assume to act as officers of the law without proper authority.” That settled it. The decree which then went forth, “the Pinkertons must go,” has not been violated since then, five years. It is hardly possible that General Palmer, who heard the vaunting of Voorhees, could have been ignorant of the facts, and it was his clear duty, as a representative of the State in the Senate, to have corrected the misstatement.

It may afford hungry Democrats a certain thin satisfaction to know that Adlai Stevenson's reeordof turning out 150 postmasters a day was never equaled by any other assistant Post-\naster-General, but their 4 joy must have the sad flavor of reminiscence. The knowlege offers them no hope for the future. As . Vice-president under Cleveland he would have nothing to give them. Mr. Hendricks only secured a sipgle office for his friends, and that by fairly begging for it. If the great mugwump lAm would insult and humiliate a man of national reputation like Hendricks, it is not probable that he would grant greater leeway to a small potato like Stevenson.

TIT FOR TAT. Fort Wayne Gazette. Snatch of a conversation heard in Fort Wayne yesterday. ■» . Free trader—Hello, S —, are you going down to Homestead to help protect Carnegie’s mills and shoot down those poor laboring men? S—No, I’m goiug down to Tennessee to help Brice shoot the quarrymen and keep the convicts, .at. work who are now taking the bread out of the mouths of honest American citizens and their dependent families. Protection extends further than the wages of the Homestead workmen. In those mills alone are employed many thousand workmen and the farmer who produces their food, the growers that produce and the workmen that manufacture their shoes, the makers aud producers of their clothing aud furniture and carpets, and books, and pianos, aud all that the3 r have are benefited in those men having work Wpd getting good wiges for that worky Protection to workmen means prosperous- times for evter\ r body. Give all men employment and all men are happva If a part of them are idle, all are effected. Protection pays. Mr. McLuckie, one of the men em, ployed m tbp Homestead works, and who testified before the House investigation testified when asked the question, that! a reductron of the tariff would result In lower wages. Mr. McLlickie knows what he is talking about, too. Union labdr will (not) rbsh to the support of Clevelend and Stevenson. Cleveland appointed Benedict, a no torious * rat”, Chief of the Bureau of Printing, over the protest of ali union printers, aud Stevenson employs non-union men in his Illinois mine. A nice pair for organized la: bor to draw to.

POOR OLD DEMOCRACY.

Only one crossing, and the “condition” is as bad as the “theory.” —Chicago Inter Ocean,