Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1892 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

Switzerland hasa hotel 900 years old, and it's «bout the youngest thing that Switzerland has. A specialist in bacteriology says that wnly the poor are in danger from cholera. So far as the casual observer can learn it is only the poor who are in danger of anything on this great footstool. John Howard . and wife, who walked from Seattle to Chicago on a wager, arrived in tho latter city ahead of time. Their feet were swol-’ len to twice their natural size, but that was, ht course, not noticed in Chicago. * A correspondent of an exchange asks: “What is good for cholera?’’ It is believed that sliced cucumbers, immature or over mature fruits, mixed with a good deal of ice water and whisky, are about the best and most accessible things for cholera, but we would not like to recommend them for the patients. SotxxcK is inexorable. The ‘‘’bloodstained hatchet" which was to convict Lizzie Borden of having murdered her father and stepmother has. been examined by a microscopist, who finds that the red spots are not blood at all, and that the hair found is not human: He also finds no blood upon Lizzie Borden's clothing, and no trace of poison in the stomachs of the dead people, and so disposes of another police “theory" which many people in Fall River were strongly inclined to accept as the equivalent of a proved fact. What evidence there may be against Lizzie Borden it is impossible as yet to say, but the evidence on which her neighbors and the police were so ready to believe her guilty seems to have been no evidence at all. For the first time in political history electricity will play quite a prominent part in the Presidential campaign this fait Orders aggregating several thousand dollars have already been given for electrical torchcrs, lanters and helmets, and electrical supply houses throughout the country are receiving inquiries as to the cost of these naw aifls to dazzling display and parades every day. The oklfoul smelling and decidedly dangerous torch will be in a great measure supplanted’ by an electrical torch which will givie out ten-fold as much light without a particle of either danger or smel), and enthusiasts will parade in large numbers with helmets brilliantly illuminated by aid of storage batteries and concealed wires. In this onq respect at least the campaign will be an improvement on its predecessors. Ip Frjday be an unlucky day this country has very little to hope for Columbus sailed from Palos on Friday, firjt saw this country on Fri-' day, and reached Palos again on Friday. This country was named for Americus Vespucius on Friday. Congress passed the bill providing for the World’s Fair on Friday, the President signed it on Friday, it was on Friday that Chicago was decided upon as the place for holding the greht exposition, on Friday the committee agreed to report the five million dollar loan bill to the House, on Friday the bill was amended making the appropriation $2,500,000, the bill passed both Houses on Friday and was signed by the President on Friday. The 400th anniversary fills on Friday and yet nobody has urged closing the institution on Fridajf, despite this record which must startle the superstitious. Arnqsa men of letters George William Curtis must be counted one of the most fortunate in all thut went to shape his career. He was never a rich man, even in a ver)’ moderate sense of the term, but he was always a man to whom life opened hcrchoicest opportunities, its she does to few who have the problem of earning as that of doing §et them to solve. There came to him at almost every j atep of his career the circumstances most favorable to the development of his mind and character and to the doing of his bjest work hi the best way. In his youth he was permitted an intimate intereousc with Emerson Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller and others of the wisest,, teachers a receptive tr.lnd could know. Then came extended and leisurely travel, in the be4tof good company, to correct any narrowness of view that auch associations might havo produced, and to enrich a mind peculiarly well prepared to receive impressions and to make them the bases of sound thinking.

'TWO KINDS OF TARIFF. 3 £ GOVERNOR MCKINLEY. Put the tariff upon tie thing you don’t produce, and who fixes the price to you 9 Who pays the tariff on sugar? We produce eight per cent, of the sugar we consume. ' We collected $56,690,000 annually in taxes upon sugar; who paid that tax? Why, it deoends upon who fixed the price. Did the American producer ‘of sugar fix the price? He produced 8 per cent, of all we consumed; he contrqlled About 8 per cent, of this market. Did he fix the price, or did the producers who controlled 92 per cent, fix the price to the consumer upon sugar? He did, because there was no competition at home to regulate. Now, let me illustrate the difference: A tariff upon that pitcher isss pcr cent,Every dollar’s worth of that kind of goods that comes from Europe puts into the public treasury 55 cents; every SIOO puts in t 55 every thousand dollars $550 That is a Republican protective tariff. The tariff was put there not, alone for revenue, but for the building up of the pottery industry in the United States. [Applause.] The Democratic party, haying no other consideration in view than revenue, would make the tariff 15 per cent, on that kind of ware instead of 55 per cent. Then every ship that came in would bring a‘cargo of this kind of ware from abroad. Fifteen per cent would encourage this foreign importation and you would J>ut mole money into the Federal Treasury with 15 per cent, than with 55 per cent., but while you are doing that every ship load woqld take the place of that much produced in the United States and would drive thousands and thousands of workingmen from employment that, are now employed by this industry in the United States. You are putting out the fires in your own factories and workshops and taking away from the workingmen of this country the employment which lie enjoys to-day. Which do you like best? [Applause.] - REPUBLICANS ARMED From the Arsenal of the Democratic Flatform. Whitelaw Reid. Our enemies have made our campaign for us. Hold them to their own deliberately avowed principles. We go to the people claiming that the Republicans have given the country a clean, honorable, business like and highly successful administration, tha t a change without cause is a business injury to every citizen, and that there is no occasion for a change. The Democrats want the country to have an immediate and absolute change. They want to repeal the ■McKinley.tariff at once. They denounce a protective tariff of any sort or description; refuse to let tariff legislation have the slightest reference to the defense of the American workingmen’s wages; declare that Washington and Madison, and even Andrew Jackson, didn’t understand the ConstitufTTon, and that nobody but themselves and Jefferson Davis ever did; denounce everything but a pure tariff for revenue only as unconstitutional, want to get rid of our reciprocity, and demand a return to wildcat banking. Hold them to their doctrine. Never have they rushed so plainly and palpably upon their fate since the memorable week in 1864, when their declaration that the war for the Union was a failure was instantly answered by the victorious thunders Of Sherman’s guns from Atlanta, and the triumphant cheers of Sheridan’s troops from the valley. Let us rise up and go forward. They have been blinded again to their own destruction. and are delivered into our hands. GOOD OLD DEMOCRATIC TIMES. Indianapolis Journal. The South Bend Tribune mentions the case of an old carpenter in that city who, on the Bth of May, 1858, did a day’s work for one of the local merchants and also bought some goods of him. The bill for thegodos was as follows: fl yards calico. 12J$c 11.13 fl yards lawn. IflVvc 1 13 8 Ins. cottee sugar. 12J<c LUO 12 lbs. 8d nails, 7c. M Tot al fl.lo The carpenter got $1.50 for his day’s work, deducting which from the bill left him in debt to the merchant §2,60. This was in good old Democratic times' under a tariff for revenue only. If the transaction had taken place on May 8, 1892. under Republican protection, the carpenter would have received, instead of $1.50, $3 for his labor, and his purchases' would have cost him $1.52 instead of $4.10. Instead of coming out $2 in flebt he would have had his goods and $1.48 in cash. THE WILDCAT WAULING. The Southern Democratic press is enthusiastic in advocating the plank of their platform which advocates the repeal of the 10 per cent, tax on State banks. The Atlanta Constitution thinks that if we “repeal this tax and any community in our State thas has men of honor and integrity can. under proper regulation, issue bills thas will serve as currency just as well as national bank bills or gold or silver. If a man wants to use his money iu New York or Chicago be takes this local currency to the bank and buys exchange on those places. Their bills are not a legal tender. You need not take them unless you know they are gobfl.” This is a bolder advocacy of the cld wild-cat banking system than bosytt been seen during the cam-

paign. Under the old system rfien of honor and integrity could, and many did issue bills that would serve as ! currency. A great many men of honor and without integrity did the same thing. A few of the latter .kind would serve to discredit the whole issue of their State or city in neighboring money centers. Even that was good only for a few miles from the place of its issue. By taking it into the next State one would have to discount it and pocket a lose. ‘ Detectors” containing elaborate lists of the different banks of issue and the rates of discount on their bills at different places had to be carefully studied by every man doing business. Note-shavers made the ; money that business men- lost by i these discounts. A man who i had good money would often not be able ! to get the face value of it, and often ; the failure of a bank, organized especially to issue currency, would leave no one responsible to pay the Tuct valtto. The ■Constitutiott is frank in advocating this bad and ■ dangerous old system and knows it I would be. the natural result of the : repeal of the State bank tax. Here Lis the hope it extends: L—What do they lend money oh when they take our 6 per cent, bonds at ' sixty and seventy cents on the dollar? , Don’t thej r lend it on the faith and gbod Ci*edit of the -borrower? Then why can’t we bank on our own faith and credit, and get rid of this • outrageous toil. There is but one i thing in the way and it is this i tax of 10 per cent, on currency. The fact that your six per cent, bonds brings only “sixty and seventy Cents ou-the dollar” is pretty good evidence of the condition a curreticy issued on your own “faith and credit" would soon get into. United States G ••• ■'rnment bonds bearing 2 per cent, ii.-erest, sell in the market at par—dollar for dollar, Under the present banking system those bond's stand pledged and held for the circulation of the national banks. No one ever lost a dollar or had to discount a dollar of national bank notes. THE DEMOCRATIC POSITION ON SILVER. _J3ML_lexos Democratic, .platform contains the following plank: “While we yield to the wisdom of a majority of the National Democ - racy in making the reduction of revenue taxation to the necessities of the Government economically administered, the paramount, leading issue of this campaign, upon the policy thut it is safest to make the struggle to secure one reform at a time, we nevertheless proclaim our adherence to the principle, justice and necessity of a free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio heretofore provided by law, and shall continue to contend for it. We therefore commend our Senators and Representatives for tlieir faithful efforts to promote the success of this measure and pledge that they shall so continue.” The St. Louis Republic remonstrates with those Texas Democrats who claim that this plank is in antagonism with the plank of the National Democratic platform. The Republic maintains that “to dissent Jrom the silver plank adopted at Houston is to dissent from the Democratic policy declared in the platform adopted at Chicago." The felicitous method by which Colonel Jones, editor of the Republic has brought into agreement the contrarieties of the national platform and the sentiments of the musses of the party as shown in their State platforms, is shown in’ the following style of the quotation he makes from the natiohar platform: “ We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value to be adjusted by international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the mar ket and in the payment of debts. " This is the kind of arrangement Colonel Jones sought to work into the Democratic platform for u tariff plank. Seeing how beautifully it operates under his skillful guidance ! on the silver question, he may well | say to the'enemies who defeated his i tariff plank. “ I told you so.” The' Neal substitute can only be inter- j preted in one way, and that for free I trade. His could be used in one way ] and in other sections in a different , way, just as this silver plank can. ■ A New York Democratic newspaper. for instance, (if there is such a thing left) could print in plain type the part of the silverplank thatGolonel Jones has italicised and, begin- I ning with the BUT, could italicize the last section, which is put in to make the minds of the Eastern Democrats easy. Thus the platform can be differently interpreted to suit fche different sections, but must always be interpreted the same, as it indicates the dishonesty of the Democratic party. A DEADLY BLOW AT LABOR. The loaders of Democrac y are now as truly engaged in an c;X>rt to overthriiw the American system of government, so far as it relates to the encouragement and protection of' labor, as was the Southern Dcinocra- I cy while It was attempting to destroy ' American institutions. The protective system has been so [ long in operation in this country that it may properly be regarded as the American system. Under it the nation has grown great, wealthy and

prosperous. There is no land under the sun where labor brings as much comfort and where laborers have so many happy homes. Under the most recent rearrangement of the tariff, a Republican measure,jfrom first to last, these conditions of labcr have been still further improved, prices are coming down. wages arc increasing, * and production is multiplying in a most gratifying degree. The Feck report proves- all this for the great State of New York by statistics which cannot be denied. What is true for the first State in the Union , must be true for all the rest. f-- The New York condition may be I called the first returns from the working'.of the McKinley tariff. And this testimony’ in its favor and its praise is Democratic testimony. The' business of the countrv is rapidly I arranging itself under the new; cbffditions. and it is found that the promise c'f full employment for labor at good wages was never before so good; that Industrial enterprises were never before so rapidly developing, i and that under the reciprocity feat- : ure of the new law the trade of the j country is receiving such an impetus as has been unknown soy many years. ?■ These conditions resul t from the development of the American system ! of promoting trade and manufactur-ing-enterprises, and iff ting- labor above the pauper level to the happi est condition whichit has ever known in any land, while there is sure promise of still better things in the near future, This is tlie system which the Democratic leaders are united to destroy. In fact, they are crying out that the destruction of this system is their sole issue in’the present compaign. To replace its pleasant and solid realities they offer laboring men, and the farming interests of the country nothing but a theory of free trade. Worse still, what they offer is an untried theory here. It has never been a matter of practice in this land.. This nation has become mighty and prosperous beyond any other nation under the protective system, being the only first class power in the world that is paying its wav. And the Democracy is attempting to persuade labor to turn away from the system which has produced this condition, and adopt in its place a system winch in all other lands has degraded labor and sunk it to the level of pauperism. Do American workmen desire to risk a change? Will they vote to exchange the certainties of the present system for a i hollow and deceitful theory? NOT S 3 A WEEK, . ‘ This Is the Pittance of tho British Free Trad© Laborer# New York Recorder, -London, Aug. 10.—The “ benefits ” I that free trade has brought to the I English Laboring classes are not | strikingly shown in the proceedings j of the Brnomsgrove Local Board, | which, after a Idng debate, resolved > ‘ that 13 shillings a week in summer i and 12 shillings in winter are not I sufficient wages for ‘strong, able i bodied’ road men and sewage shiftI ers who have to find their own picks I ana shovels, and who work eleven : hours every day. ” This pittance is, i unfortunately, rather the rule than ; the exception in the agricultural districts of England. The “ benefits" of free trade have never been participated in by the lowest class of workers, in fact,since English farmers and cattle breeders ' have been allowed to drift toward bankruptcy by the government's failure to give them even a modicum of protection, the day laborer s condition has sunk from bad to worse. And even if he were to get the benefit of Mr. Gladstone’s extended franchise, his financial position would not be improved. After the “long debate’’ of the Broornsgrpve Board the decision was finally arrived at to raise the wages Of the poor devils a shilling a week —making it tho magnificent sum of $2.75 a week for seventy-seven hours work. In agreeing tb*ra : se, however, a Mr. Stevenson, tlie chairman, “hoped that political capital might not be made out of the advance. ” Such is thc>condition of the day laborer jn free trade England.

WATTERSON'S EMOTIONS. Louisville Courier-Journal (Dem.) Let evary true. Democrat fall in line, aud all along the column let the banners wave and the song be “down with the robber tariff ! ” • Down with the robber tariff in the East. Down with the /obber tariff in the North. Down with the robber tariff in the West. Down with the roUbcr tariff In the South. Down with the thieving duties at the custom houses ; down wi,|h the swindling reciprocity treat’.cs : down with the cant about tho wago earners ; down with the fraud that taxes make wealth . down with all thc'fallaciesof protection, aqd up with the starry flag of the Union, Free Trade and Sailork’ Rights!