Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1902 — ISSUE IS JOINED [ARTICLE]

ISSUE IS JOINED

Leaders of Indiana Reorganized De* mocracy Demand Revenue Tariff. PROPOSE TO DESTROY PROTECTION And Return to the Industrial Conditions Prevailing Under the Last Low Tariff Administrations—Cogent Reasons Why Indiana Voters Will Prefer to Let Well Enough Alone. "We • • ♦ demand that tariff duties shall be levied for the purposes of revenue Only." The pronouncement of the Indiana Democratic state platform above quoted again brings to the front in Indiana the Issue of protection. It will be noted that It is not a mere modification of schedules that is proposed, but an absolute abolition of protection as a legislative policy, something not even attempted by the framers of the Wilson-Gorman tariff law. Instead of admitting free or at a low rate of duty, such articles as sugar, tea and coffee, not produced in this country or produced in sufficient quantity to supply the demand, a “tariff for revenue only," Indiscriminately laid on -all-arti-cles entering into American consumption is .seriously proposed. It will be remembered that the only step toward a tariff-for-revenue law of which this generation knows anything, produced ruin but not revenue. It occasioned an annual deficit, and President Cleveland was compelled, in time of peace, to sell bonds to the ’ amount of $262,000,000, which, with Interest to the time of maturity, will cost the country a half billion dollars. It was predicted that the Dingley law would fail as a revenue producer. Its efficiency has been amply demonstrated. It has yielded an annual average of more than $215,000,000, as against an annual average of something over $162,000,000 under the law it displaced on the statute books. For the fiscal year 1902 the surplus was more than

180,000,000, after war taxes amounting to 1100,000,000 had been repealed. Such a treasury surplus has been accumulated that It has been possible to wipe out all the wgr taxes without anyone fearing the operations of the "endless chain” which worried President Cleveland and the country six years ago. Employment and Wages. | Three million men were out of employment in this country according to ■ Sampel Gompera, president of the American Federation of Labor, during the low-tariff period it is proposed to bring back. In Indiana the unemployed numbered fully 150,000. The loss to the workingmen in wages throughout the United States aggregated nearly two billion dollars a year, fully nine billion dollars in five years—which is more than all the gold and silver in the world. The statistics of the Massachusetts bureau of labor, a typical manufacturing state, show that during the past four years employment has Increased twice as fast as population. and wages twice as fast as emi ployment; if the comparison was with 11894, 1895 or 1896, the figures would bt I far more eloquent.. These are the conI ditions which inspire the leadership ’ of reorganized Democracy in this state to call for a return to the state of ' affairs existing under the last Clevei land administration. Prosperity of the Farmer. The Orange Judd Farmer truthfully declared in October, 1901, that "the most pros?erous yeas rhTheliTstory Gt the American farmer is drawing to a close.” Yet it , was a year of short crops. The statistics of the department of agriculture show that in 1896 ’ our last low-tariff year, a year of good ; crops, the Total value of the products of tb« American farm was 000; in 1901, our last protection year, a year of short crops, the total value of American farm products wa5182.885,5 ,, 0,0‘X'. That va|ue of llvp stock increased from M,426/’OO/'OO in 1896 to J2,681.b0 ‘in 19-L The aggregate increase arnoimfs to two billion dollars. not including the increase in value of lands, which would add, billions 'radre. It may be added that 1901 was not an exceptional year. It was j the fifth year of steadily improving ’ agricultural conditions. The statistics for 13 2 will show that the upward trend has continued, with increased momcnttftn. up to thia time. . The Orange Judd Farmer, a conservative farm journal without politics, was led to remark, in commenting on the figures for 19>?i: "All history affords 'no precedent for so remarkable a transformation.” Yet the reorganized Indiana Democracy calmly proposes, as an ample "remedy” for existing conditions the utter overthrow of protec- ! tlon. That it would change conditions ■is certain; that it would change them ( otherwise than infinitely for the worse. no one with a memory long enough to ’stretch back to 1896 believes. Other Contrasted Conditions. Since 1894 savings bank deposits in ; this country have increased more than j a billion dollars, and they are growing at the rate of 82o0.0G0.(M<0 a year. Th* premiums fald to insurance companies I show an Increase of* f400.«*4,0* 0 > i year a# compared with the only low- ' Tariff period of" which this gene is Hen I knows anything. Our exports are nearly double what they were in 1895. and during the five years of the XX nr ley law the balance of trade in o* r bustneos dealings with the world

’ T ■ r- —. ..'j. .7, - . J- ■ amounts to three billion dollars. In the four -years 1893, 1894, 1896 and 1896, we exported $200,000,600 more gold than we Imported; in the four yearslß97/3898. 1899 and 1900 we imported $200,000,000 more than we exported. The gold holdings of the United States at this time aggregate $550,000,000 —more gold than was ever held by the treasury before in the history of the country. The liabilities of failing firms in 1893, 1894, 1895 and 1896 averaged $229,000,000 a year; for the four years ending with 1901 they averaged only about one-balf as much, despite the great increase in the number of business undertakings. The amount of money in the United States per capita has increased from $25.62 in 1896 to $31.98 in 1902; the amount tn circulation per capita has Increased during the same period from $21.44 to $28.02; the per capita payment of interest on the public debt per year has been decreased since 1896 from 49 cents to 38 cents; the exports per capita increased from $12.29 to $lB.Bl. As indicating the general prosperity of the people, it may be npted that the postal revenues have increased from $1.17 per capita to $1.44 per capita—and there is no better index of general business conditions. To the statement that the cost of living has increased in proportion with the growth of individual incomes, it may be answered that the savings bank deposits of $200,000,00 a year, the $400,000,000 annual payments in life insurance premiums, and the unprecedented discharge of mortgages on the homes of the workers in city and country indicate very clearly to the contrary. Monuments to Protective Policy. Within the past four years the giant strides of the United States toward supremacy not only in some, but all the markets of the world, has become a subject not only of comment, but of alarm, in every European country. And well may they envy this nation, with our two billions of money iti circulation, our annual business transactions of thirty billions, our annual favorable balance of trade of six hundred millions, its annual agricultural output of .eight billions, our annual bank clearings of one hundred billions. our annual manufactures of fifteen billions, our life insurance of thirteen billions, our national bank deposits of three billions, our savings bank and loan association deposits of three billions, our wealth of one hundred billions, and our net debt of less than a billion, which, alone among the great nations of the world, we are paying off. It has been remarked that with only 5 per cent of the world’s population and 7 per cent of its area, we are about equal industrially to half the remainder of mankind. Here are some interesting figures along this line, presented, by Senator Gallinger in a recent speech: We equal or surpass all the jrest of the world In corn, cotton, eggs, petroleum, leather products, copper and forest products. Of the following we produce twothirds as much as the rest of the world: Coal, pig iron, steel, and threefifths of the total food and agricultural products and manufactures. We produce one-half as much as the rest of the world in silver, iron ore, fish; one-third as much in gold, wheat, oats, hay, butter and cheese; onefourth as much In hops and beer; onefifth to one-tenth as much in barley and wool. We consume, reckoned in value, ( twice as much corn as all the rest of of the world combined, one-fifth as much wheat, one third as much oats, one-third as much cottpn, one-fifth as much wool, one-third as much sugar, one-half as much fish, nearly as much coffee, one-fourth as much tea, about three-fifths as much meat —all food and" agricultural products. We have‘one-third as much wealth as all the rest of the world, one-third as much gold,-one-flfth as much silver, one-tenth as many sheep, one-third as . many cows, as much forest area, two-1 thirds the railroad tfilleage, or. fount- • ing total track, about as much as all J ’he resit of the world combined. We; have twice as much insurance In, force, cne-half as mr.'h savings bank j deposits, we spend two-thirds as much | for education, -w hav« cue-fourth the spindles in operation, nearly onefourth as h shipping, one-fourth as many exports, about one-tenth as much revenue and expenditures, and lees than one-thirtle’h as much debt. Letting Well Enough Alone. It seems that we have a good deal at stake. Is the country sick enough to require the attention of the legislative quacks who brought it to 'b ath's door so short a time ago that every man in Indiana old enough to vote remembers the results with disgust? Indiana is ready for no backward step. The sentiment of her people, farmers and manufacturers, capitalists and wage-earners, is in accord with the intelligent and patriotic dr laration of the Republkan state ’r/fbfm on the tariff question, which h ; , fqp lows: We adhere to the policy of protection. Under it our industries have developed and the opporunities of labor have been inoreased and wages maintained at a higher rate than wpuld have been otherwise possible. We favor the extension of our markets through carefully guarded reciprocity arrangements noth ether countries wherever it can be done without "interrupting our home production." While vie favor such modification of thrift seffedoles as frem-4»mo-to t»ms are required by changing conditions, we insist that ouch changes shall be made in line w th the fundamental I principle of protection.