Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1895 — The Real Issue. [ARTICLE]

The Real Issue.

John A. Wanamaker, ex-post-master general has returned from an extended European trip. In a recent interview he said: “There is a good business this year all over Europe, because of the large American orders on hand. Manufacturers smile most contentedly, knowing that with a low tariff they will draw our buyers so long as their labor costs less than ours, While financiers shrewdly forecast the future in the light of gathering up our gold to make the settlements required by a heavy balance of trade against us. Many of them think it impossible for our Treasury to keep a steady gold reserve if our foreign purchases continue to exceed our exports. Moreover, they-think-we-are blind to the drift of events and must be forced ultimately to a silver basis. They say frankly that this is why they distrust American securities.’*

There is little doubt but the main issue, of all issues thus far appearing, of the presidental campaign of 1896, will be the tariff. The financial question so far as it relates tg free coinage, ratios and standards will be pretty well settled before another year. It is being settled every day in the minds of the reading public and it is safe to predict that in another year there will be no free silver men other than mine owners and their dependants and that clcrs of r»itizenswho, from advocating a lost cause have placed themselves in a position from which they feel that retreat would be ignominious. ... On ,-the. tariff question Gen. Francis M . Drake, Republican candidate for governor of lowa gave some valuable facts iu opening the campaign at Orange City, Tuesday. He said:

The English people were pleased with the measure (the Wilson Law) because of its tendency to transfer our manufacturing industries over to them, and to the patronage of English instead of American-labor. They could afford to banquet Mr. Wilson for this, and they did. We can not find fault with England for wanting to manufacture for us all the commodities we require iu order to give work to their working classes, but we may seriously object to the action of American statesmen whose shortsightedness would permit them to be thus beguiled into the adoption of English methods at the expense of our American system of protection.

The experience of the last two years should be sufficient to convince most of the doubting Thomases that no more fatal mistake could have bedn made. If conditions have been so unbearable under this so-called Wilson bill, to ■which Senator Gorman and his protection friends added over 600 amendments, what might have not been had the free traders had their own way? /The Republican party has declared itself uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. It has protested Against its destruction proposed by President Cleveland and his party. It stands for American statesmanship that looks to America and American conditions, and for such policies as are for the best good of the American people. The Republican party is for the elevation and development of all the people, and it will foster and and support the interests of America and American people against | all the world, the flesh and., the other fellow. It is in favor of creating a demand for labor by utilizing its own resources, advancing wages and securing the greatest possible prosperity. It believes in providing revenues which shall be ample for the expenses of the government, and it believes that no better methods can be adopted than collecting toll of foreigners for the privilege of selling their surplus in this country in competition with onr home production. k s . - 5 iLu*i4 -; \ZmkSil . V'' ■ ,■<