Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1901 — HYPOCRISY VERSUS TRUTH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HYPOCRISY VERSUS TRUTH.

Seme Homely Facts Abost Home Prosperity. n , Mr. Hanna must be having a doleful time trying to explain to himself why the ruin of a corn crop could come atxAit under Mr. McKinley’s administration. All the big crops of the past four years Mr. Hanna has reckoned as something for which the people should thank the party In power. Is he willing now that the party and administration should be held responsible for a loss to the farmers of upward of a billion dollars because of drought? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.—Springfield Republican. This is the veriest cant, and for a paper with the pretensions of the Springfield Republican to print such rot is beyond comprehension. Still, it gives us a text. The Republican knows that neither Mr. Hanna, President McKinley nor any one else ever attributed big crops to the Republican party and a protective tariff, or poor crops to the Democratic and free trade. But it is the net results that most interest the farmer., and he knows that the best net results come under a protective tariff. Take, for Instance, recent farm values of the corn, wheat and oat crops, regardless of the amount of production:

Average farm values— Protection Free trade Protection period. period. period. 1890, 1891, 1893, 1894, 1897. 1898, Crops. 1892. 1895, 1896. 1896, 1900. Corn 4 . $744,339,769 $545,584,322 $608,381,631 Wheat. Oats. 221,204,788 174,633,278 185,304,328 Let us extend the comparison further and note the difference between free trade and protection prices in several farm products: June 1, June 1, Incr'ss, 1896. 1900. per ct. Coro, No. 2, bu 50.27% $0.37% 37 Wheat, No. 3, bu.. .57 .64% 13 Oats, No. 2, bul7% .21% 2b Rye, No. 2, bu 33 .53 61 Barley, bu2B p .40 48 Potatoes, bu2B -.40 43 Hay, ton 9.25 11.50 24 Butter, 1b14% .18 26 Cheese, 1b06% .08% 20 Cotton, lb;. .07% .00 20 Wool, 1b16% .29 76 Hops, lb. ... .07 .12 72 Here is a table from the Orange Judd Farmer, printed in the Springfield Republican’s own city: Value of stock in 1896 and 1900— 1896. 1900. H0r5e55550,532,000 $678,941,000 Mules 94,222,000 109,016,000 Cows 394,087,000 600,891,000 Cattle 564,304.000 796,457,000 Sheep 52,8*0,000 127,081,000 Hogs ....” 204,402,000 245,425,000 T0ta1551,860,420,000 $2,558,111,000 To show what this means to the individual stock owner here is the change In price per head of each class of animals: Increase, 1896. 1900. per ct. Horsess3l.sl $44.61 42 Mules 41.66 53.56 29 Cows 23.16 31.C0 36 Cattle.■ 16.65 24.97 50 Sheep s ..... 1.82 2.93 61 Hogs; 4.10 4.99 22 This all tells why the Western farm mortgages have been paid, and why the Western banks are full of money, and why the freight trains are carrying more luxuries to the West than ever before. And if the Springfield Republican doesn’t appreciate the cause the farmers themselves do, as was shown last November, when the votes were counted. They know what to credit Mcklnley and Mr. Hanna with, and they know that they have long since turned the picture of the Republican’s Idol, Cleveland, to the wall.—American Economist. Will Not Succeed. The free trade agitators who are anxious to precipitate a tariff contest at the next session of Congress are trying to make it appear that the wool manufacturers will urge a reduction in the tariff on wool, regardless of the effect of such action upon the wool growers of this country. That, however, is denied by an Eastern commercial newspaper, which claims to know the sentiment of the wool manufacturers. It says that the attitude of the manufacturers toward the wool growers is the same to-day that it has been during the past seven/ ty-flve years. While it is true that the tariff on wool has operated against the manufacturers of woolens, because It has shut them out of the world’s market to a certain extent and deprived them of the chance to make greater profits by purchasing cheaper raw materials, yet the manufacturers have always been willing that the sheep raising industry should be protected, because they know that without the competition afforded by American wool they would be at the mercy of the foreign wool growers and would have to pay whatever price might be demanded. It has been proved by frequent trials that sheep raising is not profitable In tfiis country without the help of a protective tariff, and for that reason the manufacturers have refrained from serving their own immediate interests by advocating a reduction In the tariff on the raw material. The free-traders are exerting every effort to array the protected industries against one another, but they will not succeed 18 their attempt to Induce the wool manufacturers to antagonize the sheep raisers.—Cleveland Leader. The Very Worst. Tariff reform is the paramount issue in the platform adopted by the Ohio Democrats. Now evidently the people will fall over themselves in their haste to confer on the Democratic party the authority to reform the tariff. will take the record o fthat unfortunate period from 1890 to 1897 and study it. They will see that the Democrate began in the former year by crying for a reform of the tariff, and they kept at it till the people actually came to think the fellows had some grand patent scheme for giving everybody forty acres and a mule, at least, and so the seneme was entered upon. The result every body knows—the worst piece of bungling ever a'tiy ’egislatlon suffered, and the worst period of tough times the country ever saw. It la too soon to ex-

pect that the voters will want to see the experiment repeated. Walt till the voters of 1890 and 1892 are all dead. Then there will be a good chance to hornswoggle the country again.—Champaign (Ill.) Gazette. Tariff and the Steel Trunt. Discussion of Hon. J. W. Babcock’s idea of removing the tariff from all products of the steel trust has brought out some interesting facts about the steel trade. It has been shown that big as the big trust is, it by .no means controls the steel trade in this country, there being many establishments, some of them employing a large number of men, which have no connection with the trust. It seems to be generally admitted that the removal of the tariff on steel products would not injure the big trust to any marked extent, but It is claimed that it would necessitate an immediate reduction of wages in ail steel establishments not in the trust. This claim, which is being made by those who ought to know whereof they speak, is causing many who wers at first inclined to favor Mr. Babcock’a idea to entertain doubts of its wisdom, and if it be substantiated by unprejudiced investigation, which a number of members of the House are quietly making, the bill for the repeal of the tariff on steel products will not be supported by a corporal’s guard of Republicans in either branch of Congress at the coming session. Desirable as many consider it to curb the power of the big trusts, the Republican majority in Congress is not going to be stampeded into the support of anything of that sort ■without carefully considering it from every point of view, and they will certainly not allow any legislation to get through that will reduce the wages of American workingmen.—Baraboo (Wis.) Republic. Wentern Sentiment. ‘ Two Western Congressmen have lately had something to say that is plain and very much to the point on the subject of tariff tinkering, whether openly by concurrent legislation or in secret by a single branch of the legislative department. Representative Mondell speaks for a wide extent of country when he says, as he did in Washington a few days ago, that there is no demand for tariff revision in his own State or in any of the States west of the Mississippi River, and that sentiment out in that section is strongly against the scheme of admitting foreign agricultural and Industrial products by means of special trade treaties. i Congressman Hepburn, of lowa, spoke to the same effect. He is absolutely opposed to reciprocity treaties, all and singular, because he does not believe in establishing tariffs by treaties made by the President and Senate. He holds that all tariffs should originate in the House and be treated as matters, of domestic concern, to be determined by both houses of Congress and the President It-is becoming daily more apparent that the revisionaries and reciprocators have very little to hope for at the hands ' of the Republican majority of the Fif-ty-seventh Congress.—American Economist, Tariff Reform Bosh. “Tariff reform was never more urgently needed than now, when the production of the country so far exceeds its power of consumption that foreign markets are a prime condition of its continued prosperity.” This is the language of the Ohio Democratic platform, and it is calculated to make one smile. We have just closed the books of a fiscal year, and they show that we have sold more of our commodities in foreign markets than in any other year in our whole national existence. Then, where there Is the suggestion based upon wisdom, that we should reform the tariff in order to Increase our foreign trade? It is more satisfactory than it ever has been; therefore, what is wrong?—Knoxville (Tenn.) Tribune. How They Envy Him!

Wealth of Nebraska. Mr. Bryan’s State has just loaned a million and a quarter to Wall street. It is time for the poor money changers of the East to raise a howl about the exactions of the plutocratic peasants of Nebraska.—Buffalo Express. Menace in Sieht. Certainly the argument that the removal of the tariff is the way to suppress the trust is decidedly untenable and a greater menace to the United States than any trust can be.— New Oastie (Pa.) News.