Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1900 — ON THE WRONG TRACK [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON THE WRONG TRACK

THE TRUST AND DINNER-PAIL QUESTION. Mistaken Democratic Contention that Tariff-Protected Tru»ta Have Arbitrarily Increased the Price of Necessaries—Kansas Is Regenerated. The Boston Post, in its issue for last Sunday, discourses at some length and with eonsiderablefervor on “The Man with the Dinner Pail.” Our Boston contemporary submits that those citizens who were induced by the “full dinner pail” argument to lend their aid to keep the Republican party in power in Washington are learning something from the course of events since the election. Although the pail may be full up to the present time, our contemporary asserts that the man who carries it has to pay more to keep it in that plethoric condition. “The sudden activity of trusts in putting up prices immediately after election” is noted as “significant and ominous.” The first of these offenders to come in for scarlfica--tion at the hands of the Boston Post is “the great Pennsylvania coal trust,” which, It says, did not wait for the election, but advanced prices “regardless of the political situation.” “The others,” it says, “held off until the party crisis was past; now they are putting on the screws.” ~Tt(e attention of the inab with the pail is called to the alleged fact “that the first in the field to levy tribute upon him are those trusts which control necessaries of life. He will also observe that those trusts are favorites of the Republican tariff, sustained by the protection which the Dingley bill provides against competition.” Let us inspect the latter of these two allegations and see how it tallies, or fails to tally, with the truth. The Boston Post assuredly must know that there is no duty on anthracite coaL That commodity certainly is not a “favorite of the Republican tariff.” The Boston Post also knows that Congress has not, and, under the Constitution of the United States, could not have, anything to do with the coaL combine. It knows also that there is not a Democrat in Congress who is not bound by fidelity to his party’s creed to oppose any and every movement looking to national control of State corporations.

The Chicago beef trust comes next on our contemporary’s list of tariff-pro-tected sinners. “This,” we are told, “is the trust for whose benefit bides were taken off the free list, where they had been for a quarter of a century, and a tariff tax was laid upon the material of a great New England industry, and upon the footwear of the man with the dinner pail, his wife and his children.” That duty is 50 cents a hide, and it was ostensibly laid for the benefit of the cattle raisers. It may be that the members of the lieef combine profit by it more than do the men from whom they buy~cattle, but it is so insignificant a levy that it is no serious factor in the price of meat, nor does it greatly enhance the cost of footwear. Still, if it is really promotive of injustice, it might well be repealed. The Boston Post waxes eloquent in its denunciation of the salt trust It says, among other things, that “under the Democratic regime salt was on the free list, and for this reason a great variety of food products were available to fill the dinner pail at reasonable prices. The Dingley tariff placed a duty on salt, and as soon as the salt trust finds this tariff made permanent by the election of a Republican government, it puts up the price of this necessary of life to the top notch that the ‘protection’ will stand.” If the protection accorded to the salt industry is abused, the wrong should be abolished. The Washington Post is inimical to any and all abuses of protection. But it is absurd bo speak of the price of salt as having any great effect upon the cost of a dinner, or even upon the expense of subsisting the average family for a year. But the most ridiculous of our Boston contemporary’s complaints relates to Standard Oil. It is true that the price of oil has been Increased, and it is also true that the combine which controls that business has made and is making immense profits. But the Boston Post knows very well that there is no duty on coal oil, and It is not ignorant of the fact that Congress has no right to Interfere with the State charters under which that business is conducted. Tiiere are combinations of a more or less monopolistic character that ar,® sheltered by the tariff, but the Boston Post skillfully dodges them and delivers its hardest blows upon tlie anthraciate coal and Standard Oil trusts. It would be an Insult to our Boston contemporary’s Intelligence to assume or eyen to suspect that it is ignorant of the fact that neither of these combines gets any help from the tariff. What, then, is the object of such an appeal to “the man with the dinner pail?” Is It possible that our contemporary presumes on his ignorance of the subject? —Washington Post. The Favored Land. Word comes that the total number of immigrants who will come into this country during the present fiscal year will reach 450,000, the largest number on record since 1892. There is no Intention here to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of Increased immigration. The fact merely as a fact Is worthy of attention, though. The purpose of every Immigrant In coming to this country is to better his condition. When times are dull and work scarce In the United States, therefore, the foreigner is not inclined to leave familiar

haunts, however evil the conditions, for the uncertainties of this country. Furthermore, he gets little encouragement from the steamship companies to emigrate under those circumstances. But when there is a job in this country for every man who can and will work, the immigiants come in herds. The Increase in immigration, therefore, is a tribute, welcome or otherwise, to the prosperity which the protective tariff, system, restored by the Dingley law, has brought to this country, as the large immigration in 1592 was a tribute to the prosperity which followed the enactment of the McKinley law of 1890. The would-be immigrants apparently put no more confidence in Mr. Bryan's predictions of hard times in case of President McKinley’s re-election than did the people of the United States. REGENERATED KANSAS. Securely Anchored to the Party of Sanity and Prosperity. The return of Kansas to the Republican party has an interest for the entire United States. Kansas was one of the first States to be swept off its moral base by the Populist flood. .The Farmers’ Alliance, which was the nucleus around which the Populist party was built, had Kansas for its radiating center. William A. Peffer, who succeeded John J. Ingalls in the Senate in 1891, was, with James H. Kyle, of South Dakota, the first of the Populists to reach that body, although at 'the tyne of their election they were simply Farmers’ Alliance men. Both are in the Republican party now. Kansas went squarely over to the Poulists in 1892, and gave its ten electoral votes to Gen. James B. Weaver, the Populist candidate in that year, w r hom William J. Bryan supported On the stump and at the polls. The State made a temporary return to political sanity in 1894, when it elected a Republiean Governor, and was carried by the Republicans in 1895 also for Chief Justice. It went back to its follies in 1896, however, when it gave Bryan a 12,000 plurality. An indication of reawakening reason was shown in 1898, when the Republicans again got the State on Governor. Its big plurality for President McKinley in the election just held marks the end of Kansas’ Demo-Pop debauch. Kansas will hereafter stick to the party of public spirit and balance. That State has seen right at home some of the evil effects of its political obliquities. Its gain in population in the decade ending with 1900 was only 42,000, which was Insignificant compared with its expansion in the Republican days. Popocracy assailed the State’s credit, diminished its business, sent thousands of its residents out to other States, and prevented the immigration of other thousands who would have gone there if that Popo-Dem. quarantine has been raised. In the election just held Kansas has redeemed Itself. Its days of adversity are consequently ended. Millions of dollars of capital and thousands of settlers that have been repelled by the Bryanite blight on the State will now flow in, and another era of expansion and prosperity like that of the old and great Republican days will come. Kansas has anchored herself to the party of sanity and prosperity, and the prizes of social fortune are again within her reach.—St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat He Had Learned the Lesson.

Said the Salt Lake Tribune Just prior to the election of Nov. 6: “The men of Utah will keep in mind that the election of Mr. Bryan would smash the protective tariff in Utah. That is the chiefest threat of the Kansas City platform. The lead, wool, sheep, sugar and stock men of the State should keep that in mind.” It is very evident that the men of Utah kept in miml that “chiefest threat,” for they swung into line for McKinley and protection by a majority of over 4,000 r a State which in 1896 gave Bryan a majority of 51,390. Can’t Escape It. ( The prosperity Idea has invaded even the cold and clammy precincts of the grave over Kansas, as will witness this opening verse of an obituary poem published by the Girard Press: And as his age advanced, his home With comforts was surrounded; His farm with cattle, sheep and swine, And other things abounded. —Kansas City, Mo., Journal. Wouldn’t It Jar Yon? “We believe It to be perfectly clear,” says the Examiner, of San Francisco, “that if the country has rejected Mr. Bryan It has done so with reluctance.” Now, In the language used by the Democratic cartoonists daring the > campaign, "Wouldn’t that Jar you T’—Tacoma (Wash.) Ledger..

The Chiefest Threat.