Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1895 — THE IRON FURNACES. [ARTICLE]

THE IRON FURNACES.

- An Important Industry Democratic Defeat. v. that 1 la-re has been an almost steady increase in the_ production of iron during the last six months. The weekly oiitpot of the furnaces rose from 156,554 gross tons at the beginning'of May, 3805, tc»217,3Q6 tons at the beginning of this month. The latter total is 12 per rent.) greater t lian.the.jf*.T,t>»2 tons week‘ly output at the beginning of March, 1892, during republican good times, which was the largest product of apy week in the live next preceding the present one. The total output of .p.lg-iran-for-Jast-Bion-t nt‘.HA.Tifi tons, being at the rate of nearly 1 ’.000.01:0 tons per annum, while the largest output of any previous j-ear was : tlie 9,202,703 tons reported for 1890. The price of the product seems to have reached the highc.st point a few lyeeks ago. It has declined some since then, but it is said there is a large profit in it "to tiie furnace men at present, figures. At this date there are yet no serious signs of overproduction, though the nnpreeedented activity may be accepted as an indication that prices will not advance from the level.now ruling, buton the contrary will decline. The New York Times (ultra free trade) comments on ttiis with the remark that “the attention of republican demagogues who have recently Been complaining that the new tariff has quenched the furnace fires should be directed to these facts.” Why the attention of republicans more thah that of democrats? The policy of the democrats, as shown iq. the Cleveland-Wil-son bill which •pressed the house, did ..teiienchi helurjiace fires.? toa.Jainen.tacble extent. The highest weekly production reported for 1894 was 13 per cent, less than that of 1592. the year before tlie free-trade wreckers assumed the control of national affairs. But the country would not stax-rulnedr —After a fearful curtaihnent of production, lasting about two years, the . voters into “a cocked hat.” at the November elections of 1894. And quipkly thereafter tiie t imes began to improve. Tlie railroad companies and other purchasers of iron find steel and their products wore encouraged to buy more freely to replace metal that had worn out in the hard times and prepare for the better business which they believed would come in spite of democratic free trade scliejries with the tariff—not in icon sequence of their foolish fiction, but be- ; cruise the smashing defeat it received had the effect of restoring lost confidence in (lie minds of all business men. —Chicago Trilnine.