Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1894 — CLEVELAND ON WOOL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CLEVELAND ON WOOL.

7 LYING TO HEECE FROM Hl3 ATTACK ON FARMERS. Oh! How Different It Would Be If Ibero Was a Wool Trust —His Third Paralleled w.th the Wilson —letter. - . , President Cleveland's record on the question of free wool shows that he advocated ft in his third annual message to congress, Dec. 6, 1887, because “a large proportion of the sheen owned bythe farmers- throughout the country were found in small flocks numbering from twenty-five to-fifty.” The inference to be drawn therefrom is that free wool would never have- been thought of by President Cleveland or his party if the flocks of the United States had been large ones concentrated among a few owners, or, in fact, if there had been a sheen trust, a wool trust, or both. Such a trust could have dictated its own terms, but the unfortunate 830,960 separate farmers who owned sheep were selected as victims to free trade. President -Cleveland has -evidently, seen the necessity for correcting ..these views; and he tried to do so in his ad-

dress to congress, sent from behind the back of Congressman Wilson. We quote, side by side, these remarks that he made last month together with those made in his message of 1887. President Cleveland’s President Cleveland’s Third Annual Mes- letter to Hon. Willsage to Congress, iamL Wilson, July Dec. 6, 1887. 2, 1894. I think it may be It may well excite fairly assumed that a ourwon-ler that demlarge proportion of ocr t< are willing to the sheep owned by depart from this (free the farmers through-(caw material), the put the country arejmost democratic of found in small flocks all tariff principles, numbering f rominnd that the incon-twenty-flve to fifty. s:stent absurdity of . . . When tho such a proposed denumber of farmers parture should be engaged in wool rais-Vmphnsized by the Ing is compared with •suggestion that the all the farmers in the wool of the farmers country and the small be put on the free proportion they bear list, and the urotecto our population is.tion of tariff taxaconsidered ; when it'tion be placed Around is made apparent ; the iron ore and coal that, in the case of a!of corporations and large part of those •capitalists, who own sheep, the benefit of the present tariff on wool is illusory, etc. In the course of the same message of 1887 Mr. Cleveland argued that a tariff upon wool “becomes a burden upon those with-mederate means and the poor, the employed and unemployed, the sick and well, the young and old. ” In his later message qf last month, while trying to hedge ground of his opposition to a tariff upon wool because it protected the interests of a large number of farmers, and while endeavoring to show that he is opposed to a tariff upon the “iron ore and ooal of corporations and capitalists,” ho plunges boldly to the protection of the sugar trust, advocating a tariff upon sugar.of which it may indeed be truly said that it “becomes a burden upon those with moderate means and the poor, the employed and the unemployed, the sick and well, and the young and old," while at the same time he continues to advocate the destruction of the sheep farming industry upon which the farmers depend. May not “the inconsistent absurdity of such a proposed departure” be calculated to “well excite our wonder?” The only conclusion that may be drawn from President Cleveland’s

contrary courses is his desire to strengthen the belief that he has completely sold himself to the interests of the sugar trusts and to the coal barons who propose to develop foreign properties in Canada.

The Tariff Burglars.