Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1901 — JUBILANT UNCLE SAM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JUBILANT UNCLE SAM

AWFULLY BUSY, BUT FINDS TIME TO TALK. ' Greatly Pleased at the Year** Export Trade of $1,590,000,000, the Treasury Balance of $175,000,000, and a Trade Balance of Nearly $700,000,000. I found Uncle Sam the other day deeply absorbed in a mass of fiscal reports. The old gentleman fairly beamed as he gave me a hearty hand grasp, but when I told him I had come for another interview his manner seemed to relax a little, I thought. “I’ll tell you how it is, Uncle Sam,” said I. “The people enjoyed your Fourth of July talk so much that there are requests from all over the country for a small weekly chat. Now you won’t refuse the people, will you?” 1 pleaded. “No, I won’t exactly refuse,” he replied; “but, really, I’m awfully busy all the time. I thought I was busy in 1892, (when the McKinley law was in such [perfect order, but it didn’t compare with what this Dingley law is doing. Why, I’m breaking the records all along the line. Just look at this total

of foreign bills of sale—sl,soo,ooo,ooo. There ain’t another country on earth that can show such a total.” “But,” I remarked, “there seems to be a falling off in exports of manufactures.” “Don’t you worry about that a minute,” he replied. “The falling off is ita figures, not in fact. For instance, I sold nearly $20,000,000 of goods, mostly manufactures, to Porto Rico and Hawaii in 1900. Well, I’ve sold them considerable more this year, and yet not a dollar’s worth appears in the reports. Then the war in China has cut off enough to make up the rest of the difference between this year and last. And besides all that, there has been a reduction in prices; so, really, exports of manufactures have increased. “But that ain’t the whole point, either. I’ve sold fully $2,000,000,000 worth of manufacture at home this last year; so don’t worry, my boy, about an apparent loss of a few millions in foreign sales.” “Does the surplus please you?” I asked. “It’s great, isn’t it? Kept right up'to the mark and the estimates. And now I have reduced taxation by $40,000,000 a year, and my friend John Bull is taxing his people right and left and wondering how he Is going to foot the 6111 s. I reckon he looks at my $240,000,000 of custom receipts a little enviously; but he is too stubborn to change his fiscal policy, though I expect to see him putting up the bars before long. “Then look at this treasury balance, $175,000,000, besides the $150,000,000 reserve fund. I’m buying bonds all the time, too. Quite different from what my last manager, Cleveland, did when he ran me into debt to the tune of about $202,000,000, to say nothing of the interest oq the bonds he sold. I tell

you the people did me a mighty good turn when they gave me McKinley for a manager and a Republican protection Congress to back him up.” The old gentleman rubbed his hands gleefully and seemed as. jubilant as a boy In swimming. “You have not said anything about the big balance of trade,” I remarked. “Don’t need to; it speaks for itself,” tersely responded the hippy man. “But,” he added, “I’m prouder of those figures than I can tell you. It isn’t so much the six hundred and thirty odd millions to my credit, but it shows that the people are expanding at home as well as abroad. We are buying more home-made goods and getting more and more independent of the rest of the world every year. We can afford to buy a few hundred millions’ worth of luxuries abroad, but I want my people to buy all they can at home, and I guess they aU see the point.” And the old gentleman gave me a merry wink as he went off with his pockets crammed to overflowing with coupons.—F. C., in American Economist. Ought to Keep Still. A number of Democratic editors are apparently greatly concerned over the present depression in the price of wool. They are not, however. They are sim-

ply indulging in one of their old political tricks in an endeavor to pull the wool over the eyes of the ignorant. They -dodge the fact that the wool Industry has been built up and wool growers greatly benefited since the Republican tariff relieved them of Democratic free wool times, when the carcass, pelt, wool and all w r as worth little more than a fleece of good wool to-day. These Democratic platform hunters ought to be the last people on God’s green earth to mention wool—McArthur (Ohio) Republican. No Longer Hate the Fctopus. If Bryan w'ants to know how much “more power the trusts have in the Democratic party to-day than in 1896,” he may take a run down to Texas and make a thorough inspection of the Standard Oil Company’s late acquisitions there both of statesmen and real estate. Only a year ago the Texas Legislature bucked and gagged the octopus and stored him in a barb wire cage.— Little Rock (Ark.) Republican. Fully Answered. The Republican party doesn’t need to reply to the attacks upon the policy of the McKinley administration; they are fully answered by the condition of every branch of industry and commerce in the country. Our prosperity isn’t in the, next State; It is everywhere, and everybody knows it is due to the carrying out of Republican ideas—Munising (Mich.) Republican. Hogs and the TarjfT. Hogs were quoted as high as $0.05 gross in St. Louis last Friday, but that may be some of Mr. Bryan’s “ephemeral prosperity” wdiich the Republicans have been comparing with the good times under the Wllson-Gorman tariff law—Huntsville (Ark.) Republican.

“WHEN THE WIND IS FROM THE EAST, 'TIS NEITHER GOOD FOR MAN NOR BEAST.”