Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1898 — POINT WITH PRIDE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POINT WITH PRIDE.

fHE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS OCCASION TO FEEL PROUD. 4 Has a Party Had Better Reason to Parade Its Achievements— The Truth as to Army Mortality— McKinley Has Saved 9500,000,000. In the good old days when the assembling of a Republican convention £ras a sure prelude to the election of ifcvery one of the candidates nominated fcy It, the burden of the party platform Invariably was, “We point with pride.” The Democratic platform, which then invariably was a discordant overture to #n opera of discomfiture, was as heavily burdened with “We view with Alarm.” Never has the Republican party had better occasion of pride in Its achievements than now. As we have cause Tor pride, let us "point with pride,” as Are used to do. We point with pride to our fulfillment of the promise of tariff reform. With A return to protection there has come A change in the balance of trade. Under Cleveland we were shipping millions of gold to Europe In exchange for .goods bought from foreigners. Under McKinley Europe is shipping millions of gold to us in exchange for our prodocts and manufactures. We point with |>rlde to the revival of trade, the increased demand for labor, the advance of wages, the Improved condition of the Agricultural class that we predicted as a result of return to Republican poll<des. The coming winter will make no •call for free souphouses for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed. W T e point with pride to the fulfillment of our promise on behalf of long-suffering Cuba. The despotism of Spain withered In the flame of our cannon. Cuba Is free, and is sure to be prosperous. "We point with pride to the redemption of our pledge concerning Hawaii. The desire of the nation has been accomplished In its peaceful annexation. By Hawaii on the one side and Cuba and Porto Rico on the other the safety of the Nicaraguan canal is assured, and Its construction made a manifest duty. We point with pride to Dewey’s victory In the Philippines and to the vast and Almost limitless vista of commercial empire that it has opened to us. We point with pride to the thorough unification of North and South. Dee and <3rant have commanded under the same old flag. Wheeler and Miles have be•eome comrades in arms. Alabama and New Hampshire have given heroes to the last great war. ( We point with pride to the glorious 'termination of a war that has brought greater honor and more valuable possessions to the United States than ever were won by any nation in so •short a time, or by so small an expenditure of blood and treasure. We point with pride to the quickened spirit of ■nationalism. We point with pride and with Joy unspeakable to the brilliant 'prospects of trade, commerce, arts, and of improved conditions of life that lie ’ before all men under and because of the wise and strong administration of affairs by William McKinley and his ■-Cabinet. | iLet the near-sighted mugwump, the sad-voiced Populist, and the obfuscated Democrat “view with alarm.” This is the time fur the Republican party to shout with Joy, “We point with pride!” —Chicago Inter-Ocean. Army Mortality. What the people desire in regard to the condition of troops is exact information. They are weli aware that sensational stories are contrived to inflame public sentiment. The basis of these exaggerations is partisan. It is Impossible to dispute the results of the war, since they amount to a brilliant success. President McKinley stands ■too well to be selected as a target. The Democratic policy is to attack the administration somewhere. After the jpolnt is chosen the game is to concen•trate the venom and make a great noise in directing it at the mark. It Is charged by the Democratic press •that the sick in the army have been systematically neglected anti the soldiers on duty deprived of a proper supply of food. These statements, be it iremembered, follow a war of complete .•and extraordinary victory. Since this Js beyond denial, the Democratic scheme Is to besmirch the means by which It was won. Two months hence a now Congress is to be elected, and ■•the Democrats must discredit the administration, no matter how, or they Are lost. They have always voted Against doing anything to improve the regular troops, but insist that nothing short of perfection must happen in an army of 220,000 suddenly called to the field.

A report like that from Gen. Boynton on the condition of the camps at vChicknmauga Is especially welcome to the people. It deals with exact details and figures. Since the flrat occupation of the Chkskomauga «dte by the vohiuteers al>out 75,000 men lvave been stationed there. The total death Hat Jji camp of this immense force up to August 22 was 108. These figures are 'Official. The death rate per annum at 'Camp Thomas has been 7.02 per 1,000. "The death rate at St. Louis In 1886, the date of the last official report, was 17.95 per 1,000. According to Phisterer’s statistical record of the civil war the aggregate number of men enlisted, reduced to'a three years’ standard, was 2,320,272. During the war, by the same authority, there were 183,287 deaths In {he union army from disease, an average of 79 per 1,000 for the three .years, or of 20.3 per 1,000 per annum. At Camp Thomas the soldiers have ; bceh more than twice as safe from dls- • ease as 1« the population es a large -city. The average loss for each regiment is lower than la usual In such a host of men. Gen. Boynton makes a

favorable showing as to the condition of the hospitals. Every hospital there is better equipped than any known in the civil war. There were a few filthy regimental camps, whose Colonels ought to be called to account. These officers seem to have been too incompetent to know how a camp should be kept or too lazy to see that they were property cleaned up daily. Every soldier’s history in the service is carefully preserved, and there Is no difficulty in ascertaining the mortality in each camp. From vague stories the public has been led to believe that thousands at Cblcakamauga had died or were In a dying condition. But the official figures do not differ from those of the best kept camps, where 75,000 men assembled and where the most of them remained for months. The mortality lists of the various corps are published daily. There the truth will be found. Something quite different is spread abroad in the pages of Democratic papers. They deal in ghastly rhetoric for political effect. They minimize or omit favorable news from the army and catch at every exaggeration that drifts about. Their purpose is not to benefit the soldiers, but to tear down a cabinet and blacken an administration.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Protection and Kxpansion, Soane mugwump Journals have insisted that the policy of expansion would be an abandonment of the protection principle. This assumption is based on ignorance of the protection principle and a misunderstanding of the McKinley and* Dingley laws. Colonel Albert Clarke, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means in the Massachusetts Legislature, and Secretary of the Home Market Club of Boston, in a recent interview explained why there can be no conflict between the historic American policy of protection and whatever annexation policy recent events or future events may lead to. Protection discriminates between the trade which Is profitable to our people as a whole and that which is profitable chiefly to importers, while 1 free trade admits all things alike. This weuld not be changed if we became a world power; It would not be changed if we should annex the Philippines, Cuba, Porto Rico and San Domingo. France, Germany and Russia are world powers, and yet they all maintain a protective policy. Great Britain is the only world power which has a free trade policy, and yet all of her self-govern-ing colonies except one are strongly protection ist. Colonel Clarke holds that our interests in China may run parallel with those of ether commercial nations. But this will not mean free trade or dictation from any foreign power as to the fiscal policy of this country. The United States has, like Great Britain, an increasing trade in China; but out trade has increased faster than that of Great Britain. The fact that England is a free trade country and the United States a protection country does not militate against us in foreign markets. As for reciprocity, Colonel Clarke says there is no danger that reciprocal arrangements will alter our relations with other countries. Reciprocity is not so much a question of friendliness between nations as a question of their respective Interests. Under the Dingley law half of our Imports are admitted free of duty. Protection admits tea and coffee free because we do not and cannot produce them. Great BTltulu taxes them because they yield a large revenue. The fact that we annex or come Into possession of coffee-growing countries will not change the status of our laws governing the importation at all. We tax Imported wheat, wool and tin plate because we produce all of these articles, and we do not intend that other nations shall share .our market without; paying for it. A free trade policy would admit competing goods free. This would cripple the home market; would sacrifice farmers and home manufacturers in the interest of foreign manufacturers and ship owners. There will he no call for a change In this particular. We have always cherished nil the trade that will profit onr people as a whole, foreign as well as domestic. The fact that‘Cuba win become a self-governing colony or a republic under our protection will not change the principle. The expansion policy will be a protection policy. Ilia Staff and *import.

McKinley 8»ve« *500,000.000. The more fully the facts are developed the larger becomes the measure of praise due President McKinley for resolutely setting his Judgment against the recognition of the Republic of Cuba It cost a groat effort for him to maintain his ground, but see what he accomplished by bo doing. Spain had charged

against Cuba tne great bulk of the cost of the Ten Years’ War, and of the last one up to our intervention, a large amount of guaranteed bonds, and another huge sum of uncollected revenue. Grouping all forms of indebtedness growing out of mismanagement in Cuba daring the past twenty years, the aggregate of bonds, interest past due. and other obligations is found to exceed $500,000,000. President McKinley declared that a recognition of the Republic would probably involve the United States in the payment of the Cuban debt; the annexation of the island certainly would do so. Spain considered the nonassumption of fhls debt by the United States the hardest of the terms of peace. She had otherwise become reconciled to the inevitable loss of Cuba, but she was unwilling to lose the island and pay its debts beside. No wonder Europe said Spain would save money by letting her colonies go!—Saturday Evening Post.

A Healthy Heanlt. British trade returns for the month of July show a decrease in imports of 0.6 per cent and a decrease in exports of 6.05 per cent as compared with the same month of 1897. The decrease In imports amounted to $1,100,000, while the exports fell off $7,000,000. The heaviest decreases in exports were In iron and steel, wool, worsted tissues and cotton yarns. The falling off in wool exports was from 9,091,800 pounds In July, 1897, to 1,089,300 pounds. The greater part of Great Britain’s loss of export trade is due to the fact of diminished demand from the United States and to a corresponding increase in the use of home products by the American people. It is a healthy result of sound and sensible tariff legislation. What Is Causing Good Times. American manufacturers under Protection not only have the home markets, but very largely are getting on ’’the markets of the world.” All of this is causing the good times of the present administration, added to, of course, by the large sums now being expended in the prosecution of the war. The people of the United States, noticing the good results of Protection, will vote the Republican ticket, and Utah people should be among the number. — Provo (Utah) Enquirer.

fits Real Advantage. As a matter of fact, we have two profits where formerly we had but one, and we employ our labor, consume domestic materials, and engage our own capital. Reason apart, common instinct teaches us that we are the gainers with the balance of trade "in our favor,” as the phrase is. There is not a man in the country, engaged in active business, who does not know that the real advantage, under such conditions, is with us.—Wetzel (W. Va.) Republican. Trade with Canada. In the first eleven months of the Wilson law United States exports to Canada amounted to $37,370,825, and for the corresponding period of the Dingley law the exports had increased to $46,251,228. The increase was almost entirely in manufactured goods, as Canada raises her own foodstuffs. Long May It Fail. v The cry that "The Dingley Tariff bill is a failure” bumps up against the fact that we have never exported more or Imported less. Long may it fail in this way.—Louisville Commercial. Political Drift. Republican platforms this year should embrace the Nicaragua canal in the public objects to be speedily promoted. It takes a great deal of despair to qualify a Democratic editor to write anything nbont the war. It is entirely probable that the attempt to make Secretary Alger out a worse mau thau General Weyler will be a failure.

Mr. John Jaeob Astor gave Populism a stitch In Its side when he followed his patriotic army service with a request that his tax assessment be raised. President McKinley's opinion of General Alger Is worth the opinions of several thousand press correspondents acting under Instructions to “make out a strong case.” A Democratic tremor is perceptible throughout Missouri. The Bourbons must meet a united Republican party this year, and the Populists are more disposed to hit than to help them. The Missouri Republican platform declares for the building of the Nicaragua canal. In addition to remembering the Maine, Missouri Republicans rflso romembor the Oregon. The desire of the American volunteer to be mustered out of service arises from the fact that there Is no more lighting to be done. Foreign critics of our military prowess should not overlook this feature of the peace movement

The organization of a political club lu Chicago to promote n presidential boom for Colonel Roosevelt lu 1904 Is an admission that President McKinley will l>e re-elected In 1900, It Is also a positive assurance that there Is no hope for Colonel Bryan either In 1900 or 1904. It Is explained by the Washington Post that Colonel Bryan's present silence Is attributed to the fact tliat he Is now a soldier and knows silence to he a duty. Can’t some arrangement be made for grafting Colonel Bryan on to the regular army? Such fine soldierly qualities should not bo lost to the country. Considering that the disastrous effects of sending an American army into the deadly Cuban cllmnte In midsummer were fully recognized, discussed and deplored In advance, th? great hubbub over the matter now is slightly out of place. The hnppcnlng of the expected should create no surprise.