Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1899 — PROSPERITY IN THE WEST. [ARTICLE]

PROSPERITY IN THE WEST.

One of the facts that have a discouraging effect on the leaders of the Democratic party Is the great Increase in Industrial activity in the West. Everybody, Democrat as well as Republican, who tells anything nowadays about the social conditions In the Western States mentions the prosperity which Is diffused through all of them. Business is more active in all of them than was ever known before. The reports of the bank clearances from all quarters of the West show an Immense increase In transactions since last year at this time. The earnings of the Western railroads are at the highest figures ever touched. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Vanderlip, who has just returned from a tour through several States In the Mississippi Valley, Is ‘eloquent about the evidences of Industrial activity and prosperity which be saw on every hand. He remarks that this is killing the silver Issue as a Democratic dogma. Democratic leadens In the West are saying the same thing. There is a strong disposition among the shrewder democratic magnates of the Western States to take up some other issue, and let silver drop out altogether, or put it so far In the background that it will not figure with any prominence in the canvass. The Stones, Bryans, Joneses and Altgelds are apparently still anxious to stick to it, and they are likely to carry the convention with them, but the wiser men of their party, both politicians and editors, are urging their side tp give up that Issue and talk of something else.

The defection of the West Is a serious thing for the Democracy. It was on the West that the Democratic bosses looked for a great part of their electoral votes next year. They knew that the number of States which they can carry in the South will not furnish them with more than half the number of votes which their party will need to give it the victory. The South has long since ceased to be solid for the Democracy. Many votes will have to come from the West to that party if it is to have any chance to win. The Democratic leaders know that they can get very few votes from the West under present conditions. It was the business depression resulting from the Democratic panic of 1893 which created the conditions In the West which gave the Democracy several States in the Mississippi Valley and on the Pacific slope ip 1896. Republican prosperity has ensued since then, and the entire situation is changed. This is why the reports of business activity and general prosperity throughout the West, which come from Democrats and Republicans alike, have a disheartening effect on the Democratic leaders. It means a sweeping victory for the Republican party In 1900. —St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat.

A Matter of W agree. , The efforts which importers of chocolate are uow making to get a lower appraisement on imported chocolate recalls the report which was made to the Ways and Means Committee In 1897, when the provisions of the Dingley law were being considered. It was stated in that report that “in the United States in our (the chocolate) industry men are paid for ten hours’ work from $lO to S2O per week; women are paid for ten hours’ work from $6 to sl2 per week. In Europe, In the largest factories, their rates for men for twelve tours’ work are from $4 to $5 per week and for women for twelve hours’ work from $2.50 to $3 per week.’’ It will be seen from these figures that wages in this country are from 250 to 400 per cent, higher than wages In Europe. The slightest investigation will show, furthermore, that what is true in respect to the wages of the employes in chocolate manufactories is true, in a greater or lesser degree, of workers in all branches of industry. In the face of such facts arguments in favor of a protective tariff would seem to be superfluous, and conscientious efforts to collect the rightful customs duties should be appreciated by every American workman as well as by every American manufacturer. Mr. Bryan most l aggressive, if not

that the name of Jefferson will be a name to conjure with and to draw to him the support of many not now numbered among ms followers. If would pay better If Mr. Bryan would adopt Jefferson’s principles. At present he lacks one very serious quality for being a follower of Jefferson. Jefferson believed in all things American. He believed In encouraging American industries, and in using American made goods. Mr. Bryan has put himself on record times without number as being opposed to any system of a protective tariff, declaring on one occasion that a tariff of 10 per cent was as unjustifiable as a tariff of 1,000 per cent Jefferson said; “My idea is that we should encourage home manufacturers to the extent of our own consumption of everything of which we raise the raw material. I do not think It fair in ship owners to say we ought not to make our axes, nails, etc., here, that they may have the benefit of carrying the iron to Europe and bringing back the axes, nails, etc.” The followers and believers In Jefferson do not belong with Mr. Bryan and his friends, but with the supporters of the American policy of a protective tariff. An Abiding Choice. A million dollars a day represents the size of tbe demand which the European nations are making upon the American workshop at the present time.—Chicago Times-Herald. This is a view of the situation which ought to appeal and which undoubtedly has appealed most powerfully to American workingmen. There can be no doubt that they find a most satisfactory stateof things, a state of things much more to be ddslred than the days of idleness and of free‘soup, which the triumph of free trade and the enactment of the Wilson law ushered in. The policy of protection means that American laboring men are called upon to do the work for our own seventy millions and more of good Americans, whose demands are more extensive than are the demands of double that number of people in any other country in the world. It means also that American laboring men are called upon to do the work for millions of ’ people in other .countries. Without oar protective tariff the foreigners would be doing both their own work and the larger part of ours. A choice between these two situations is not a difficult one. That choice was taken definitely and decidedly when American workingmen voted In November, 1896, to put William McKinley in the presidential chair, pledged, as they knew him to be, to the restoration of the American system. It is a choice which will be an abiding one.

1 he Vcepter of Commerce. England to-day has the greatest fleet on the ocean, but her position as a carrier is entirely due to the fact that she at one time possessed enormous resources of coal and iron. With the disappearance of these her leadership must depart. Cheap coal and cheap steel will transfer the scepter of commerce to the United States and will deprive Great Britain of the ability to successfully compete in manufacturing. It is vain for the British to delude themselves with the belief that they possess superior qualities which will enable them to maintain their position in the race. There was a time when such a claim might have been made, but recent experience has demonstrated that Englishmen are not better fitted to be the manufacturers of the world than some other peoples. Among these must be numbered the Americans, who, with an equally developed mechanical ingenuity, plus the possession of enormous stores of cheap fuel and iron, must win in the straggle for commercial primacy.—San Francisco (Cal.) Chronicle. Where Capital Combines. The evolution of the trust is possible anywhere that capital can combine and control the market.—Buffalo Courier (free trade).