Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1897 — BIG BOOM IN TRADE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BIG BOOM IN TRADE.

’WESTERN MERCHANTS BUY HEAVILY OF GOODS. "This Is Made Necessary to Meet Increased Demands of Farmers and Workingmen—Plenty of Money Is Now Being Fat in Silver Question Dead. (Special Washington correspondence: Washington business itself is perhaps a little slow In feeling the effect ■of increasing volume, but reports of business improvement continue to come 4n from every direction and business •men from all parts of the country are in the East buying their fall stock. Some •of them stop over in Washington en route with good news of activity, good mortgages being paid and a unarked change in the views of the [people. “You could not realize what a change has come over the people,” said one .gentleman who had just come from the Pacific coast. “I came through that jgreat Northwestern' country where the free silver epidemic was raging at this time last year and was absolutely astonished at the change. The demand for the free coinage of silver has disappeared and thousands of men who advocated it a year ago now admit that they were wrong. Tens of thousands •are indicating their gratification that it failed and I did not hear of any who regretted his vote for McKinley, sound money and protection.” “What has brought this change in so short a time?” “Improved business conditions, improved confidence, improved wages and improved prices. They have all come steadily since the election of McKinley and especially since it became known that a protective tariff law would be promptly passed, and they have come in the face of a steady fall in the value of silver. This fact shows to even the most unthinking that they were being imposed upon last year by the statement that prosperity could only come through the free and unlimited coinage of silver and has thoroughly disgusted them. I never saw so sudden a change in so short a time.” “But the silverites say that the high price of wheat is due to the shortage abroad and that the silver question has nothing to do with it.” “On the same theory it might be argued that the low r price was due to the surplusage abroad and that the silver question had nothing to do with that, and that is just about the truth of it, 100. But it is not the advance of wheat alone that convinces them that the ‘hand-in-hand-with-silver’ theory was a humbug. They find undoubted proof of this in wool, which is a great staple with them, as it is in Ohio. Wool has advanced 50 per cent in the past year, and yet silver bias fallen meantime. And there is no excuse for the statement that this advance is due to big foreign demand. The wool of this country is consumed at home. This country has been within the past few months jammed full of wool and yet tae price of our product has advanced 50 per cent in the face of this large supply and also in lae face of the fall in silver. How do you account for this? Simply because silver has nothing to do with it, but protection, prosperity and home manufacture have everything. And the people are seeing it and are seeing how nearly.they came-to being made monkeys of In last fall's election.” Bustling Business from the West. Tarties arriving here from New York say that city is full of bustling, eager merchants from the West, who have come there under a special excursion arrangement made for the purpose of taking them to New York and bringing them into closer business relationship where practicable. The crowds of buyers who visited the headquarters of the Merchants’ Association were even larger than had been expected. It was found necessary to make use of a second register for the names of the visitors and two lines were formed by those who wished to record their arrival. The number registered was twice as large as that which registered on the first day of the first excursion from the same territory. Many of the merchants brought their wives and children under the reduced rate privilege granted by the Joint Traffic railways. They came mainly from the section bounded in the west by the Mississippi, in the south by the Ohio river and in the east by Buffalo and Pittsburg. The indications are that another $50,000,000, at least, will go intb the pockets of New York merchants before the excursion is over. They generally brought good reports of the business condition, and their presence and cheerful confidence proved very encouraging to the mercantile community and added to the weight of evidence of return of prosperity. ALBERT B. CARSON.

Outgrowth of Democracy. That trusts are the outgrowth of Democratic policies and maladministration Is clearly proven when we see Mr. Roswell P. Flower, Democratic exGovernor of the State of New York, coming to their defense. Mr. Flower has been, with the Democratic ex-Pres-ident Grover Cleveland, notoriously Interested In the Chicago Gas Trust. This monopoly, together with the Standard Oil Trust, the Ice Trust, the Bread Trust, the Cigarette Trust, and the Sugar Trust, aggregates a combination of capital that has been fostered under free trade, or by other Democratic alliances, for the stifling of competition, the enhancement of prices and the oppression of the poor. No Mystery In It. It is very amusing to observe the struggles of the free trade press to ascertain how the discriminating duty clause was “slipped Into” the new tariffs There is nothing strange about it

The section as read, and aa passed, was submitted to every member of the Ways and Means and Finance Committees by the friends of American shipping. The clause was revised by United States Senator Elkins of West Virginia, and general information on this subject r was furnished to the members of the committees together with a draft of the section by the American Protective Tariff League. Theje was nothing of a mysterious nature about the proposition; nothing accidental. It was purely intentional, for the sole purpose of extending "the policy of protection to American transportation interests both by land and sea. The Free Trade Papera.

Telling the wage-earner how he is oppressed by his “boss.”

Asking the “boss” for an advertisement to support the free trade paper in creating strife between capital and labor.

Bland a id Tillman. The Hon. Richard Parks Bland and the Honorable Benjamin Pitchfork Tillman are both before the country with statements as to wheat and prosperity. Neither sees any signs of actual prosperity anywhere In the land. They admit that the farmers may get a few hundred million out of the rise in wheat, with which prospect they really express themselves as pleased, but the whole business, they say, will not amount to anything, and the prosperity of which they hear murmurings will soon collapse into nothing. Mr. Tillman characterizes the prosperity-wave as a “hot-balloon affair,” and Mr. Bland carefully analyzes the situation in the country and sees nothing hopeful 'in it. Probably not, nothing hopeful in it—for Richard Parks Bland.

Our Cattle Imports, Fiscal year. Number Value. 1891 9,652 $53,652 1892 2,036 20,389 1893 3,119 24,658 1894 . 1,280 13,355 Protection average. 4,022 28,013 1895 134,825 666,749 1896 217,094 1,494,765 1897 328,773 2,565,497 Free trade average.226,B97 1,575,670 This final comparison of the results of protection and free trade will be of interest to those American farmers who are cattle raisers. During each

year of the Democratic tariff there were nearly 227,000 head of foreign cattle shipped here from Mexico and Canada, and the money sent out of this country to pay for the foreign cattle averaged $1,575,670 a year. Hereafter, as before under protection, this money will be kept at home for circulation among American farmers. No Kick Coming. Mr. Bryan and his co-laborers last' year promised the farmers a dollar a bushel for wheat in free-coinage-silver dollars if they would only put him in the White House. The free-coinage dollar is now worth 40 cents. As the farmers are now getting in the neighborhood of 100 cents for their wheat in money good the world over, they have little regret at their failure to accept the Bryan-silver-dollar-a-bushel proposition. Hijuh Prices for Corn. And now there is prospect of higher prices for Corn. The Europeans are taking our corn in great quantities, and here is Statistician B. W. Snow of Chicago, one of the ablest experts on crops in the country, with an estimate that the com crop of the Country will be no more than 1,800,000,000 bushels this year against 2,283,000,000 bushels last year. This means higher prices for corn. And yet silver continues to fall. Means Many Dollars. While our wheat production is very large this year, our home consumption is increasing with returning prosperity and we will have to hold the major part of it for our own people. It Is estimated that we will have in the neighborhood of 200,000,000 bushels for export, which means not far from 200,000,000 golden dollars to be distributed among the farmers. Bacli Has His Own Way. Our American cousins have certainly a way of their own.—-Glasgow Citizen. This is equally true of our British cousins. Theirs is a free trade way.

Brief Comment. A bushel of wheat now calls for two ounces of fine silver. Last year one ounce was more than sufficient. Advices from Mexico show that statesmen there are urging steps looking to the adoption of the gold standard. Mr. Bryan should hurry up with his Spanish lessons. If he doesn’t hasten his trip to Mexico, another “crime” against silver is liable to be committed. Over $2,000,000 in British money coming into San Francisco from Australia to pay for American wheat! How is this for British gold-bug control? The silence in the vicinity of the Yellowstone Park, where Mr. Bryan Is neglecting to speak up about the relative values of wheat and silver, is becoming painful. If anybody croaks about the light receipts in the first month of the Dingley law, remind him of the enormous importations of the months which preceded its enactment. “Comrade McKinley” was cordially greeted by the old soldiers at Buffalo. He is the first president who served in the ranks as a private soldier and will probably be the only one. Advices from abroad show that the foreign rye crop is as badly off as the wheat crop, and as rye is largely used for bread in European countries, this development indicates a still greater demand for American wheat. Will Orator Bryan address his Ohio audience at the proposed free silver camp meeting in Spanish? They ought to have some sort of a novelty to make It worth the $1,500 which it is said McLean and Chapman have been obliged to guarantee to get him there. With several shiploads of gold coming in at the Western ports from Klondike, others from Australia, and many more coming in at the East, in payment for their golden grain, the farmers are not spending much time listening to free silver speeches this faiL “Blesssed is the country whose soldiers fight for it and are willing to give the best they have, the best that any man has, their own lives to preserve it, because they love It. Such an army the United States has always commanded In all her history.”—Presb dent McKinley at Buffalo.