Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1898 — Precinct Meetings. [ARTICLE]

Precinct Meetings.

The Republicans of the First precinct of Marion Tp., will hold their primary meeting of Saturday, March 19th, in the oourt room in Odd Fellows’ building. E. A. Aldrich, Chairman, a * * The place of meeting for the 2nd precinct, for the above' primary, will be in the Sheriff's offioe, in the new court house J. W. Cowden, chairman.

“The aggregate bank clearings of 77 cities of the United States during the month just closed amounted to $5,534,432,676, an increase in February, 1897, of nearly T>l per cent, and, compared with 1892, the heaviest February on record, a gain of more than 6 per cent. The percentage of gain in February is the largest on record.” —Bradstreets’ March 5,1898-

It is a curipus fact that while farm products have been advancing, prices of articles which farmers must buy have in most cases decreased. Latest reports from New York markets show a marked reduction in prices of cotton goods, shoes, articles of iron and steel, coffee and many other articles of daily consumption, while in practically everything which the farmer produces there has been a marked increase.

The price of shoe leather does not seem to have advanced by reason of the duty which the Dingley law placed upon hides. It will be remembered that the opponents of that measure dolefully predicted a great advance in the price of shoes as a result of the tariff on hides, but they seem to have been wrong, as they usually are, when they attempt to discuss the tariff. A table published in Dun’s Review, of February 26, giving prices of boots and shoes at various dates from 1895 down to present time shows prices in 1898 on many lines of shoes and boots to be from five to ten per cent, below those of one year earlier under the Wilson law, which, admitted hides free of duty, and also shows that the February sales and shipments were the heaviest ever known in that month.

War is a deplorable thing, at all times, but a wßr now with Spain will have many recompensing features. It will avenge the great wrong done this country in the wrecking of the Maine, and with it, many minor insults and injuries. It will put an end to the barbarous war in Cuba and bring independence to those struggling people, thus putting an end to such wars there in future, for all time. The war will not be by any means the wholly one sided nffnir that it ought to be, considering the preponderance of the United States in wealth and population, nnd the hard fight that small and poverty stricken country will give us will teach this country the necessity of being better prepared for war hereafter. To “lick” a small and weak country now may save us from immeasurable loss and ineducable humiliation at the hands of some great and strong nation, hereafter. Lastly it will revive once more the spirit of patriotism in our people, and make a final end to the bitternoss and jealousy between the north and the south.

It seems that the “crime of ’93” instead of the “crime of ’73” that is responsible for the reduction in the prices of farm lands. That eminent statisician and student of finance, the Commissionerof Labor of New York State, has just, presented a report in which he says that the farmers of that State, while complaining bitterly nt the reduction in the prices of their lauds, stato that the reduction has occurred within the last five or six years, and amounts to from 50 to 75 per cent. The five or six years’ period reached back, it will be observed, to precisely the date at which the free-trade President and Congress were elected and began their work of the destruction of the protective tariff system of the Uuitea States, while if the reduction in the prices of lands were to be charged to the demonetization of silver, it would be necessary to, go much farther back than the date nt which these reductions of values are shown to have occurred.

Secretary Wilson abates none of his work in rendering practical assistance t 6 the farmers. The original appropriation, immediately following the war, made by Congress for the free distribution of seeds

provided for the purchase of new, rare and valuable seeds and plants, and this appropriation has been replenished year by year by each succeeding Congress. But the free distribution of seeds has come to be a distribution of seeds of every sort and value, and mostly through the hands of the Congressmen themselves. Required by Congress to distribute the seeds, Secretary Wilson has attempted to carry out as far as possible the letter and spirit of the original law in procuring rare and valuable seeds for distribution, and these with reference to the localities adapted to their growth. As is well known, his first attempt* proouripg the best European beet seed and distributing if throughout the country for experiment, was productive of excellent results, numerous beetsugar factories now being under construction in consequence. Last summer Hr. Wilson conceived the idea that valuable seeds and plants, unknown to American agriculturists, must exist in the far east, where men have cultivatad the soil for thousands of years and he at once arranged to send a scientist to investigate and purchase such species as would be likely to prove of value to America. The results of this is that three car loads of rare seeds and plants are now at the Department of Agriculture await* ing shipment to the various Government experiment stations and to practical American farmers. The Secretary believes that the Department has secured some yery promising grasses and plants which may prove of great benefit in our semiarid regions and in our system of crop rotation as practiced by our farmers.