Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1903 — POLITICAL COMMENT. [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT.

'*' i * Low Tariff and Trust BmtinK. It la Interesting, but not important, to speculate upon the Democratic candidate for next year. The policy of the party Is about fixed. It proposes to make Its fight on a low tariff, a “tariff for revenue only,” as the Democratic State convention of lowa put It not long ago, and such an issue cannot possibly be a winning one, no matter where the nomination goes. The low tariff is to be demanded on the ground that by this means alone can the trusts 1 be smashed. Even Cleveland himself has this idea. The trusts, the Democratic argument runs, are made possible by the protective policy, hence they can be unmade by the withdrawal ofAprotection. And so the Democratic cry will be, Smash the tariff and bust the trusts. There is much food for thought for business man and working man alike in that cry. . Smash the tariff! What does that mean? An upheaval of all business, a closing down of mills, the throwing out of work of countless thousands. The country has had its experience, and under Cleveland, too. As for trust busting, the Democrats make no distinction between legitimate combinations of capital and the conspiracies among capitalists that are harmful. Here Is where the difference

comes in between the Roosevelt and the Cleveland propositions. The Republican idea is to regulate trusts —to prevent extortion and monopoly, but not to disturb enterprise in every way legitimate just because they take on large proportions. The Cleveland idea is to cut the tariff to a revenue basis and to hit specially, even viciously, at every so-railed trust. As a matter of fact, the trust problem is regulating itself. It seems quite certain that Congress has ample authority to provide for supervision over all corporations and to apply the remedy when one of them oversteps the limit. This being the case, what else could be asked in reason? And egpe dally as the day of combinations built largely out of water seems to be over. The people are no longer to be gulled. The asphalt trust has given us such a lesson in deception and greed that to organize another company on any similar basis would be out of the question. The Consolidated Lake Superior Company is auother concern thnt held out flittering nllurements, and has made It Impossible for a like condition of affairs to be brought about again. Then there is that shipbuilding trust, In which Schwab is concerned through the Bethlehem Steel Works. Oh, no, there will be no more of such concerns capitalized far beyond the power to earn dividends.. The death knell of the vicious trusts has already been sounded. So we fancy that our Democratic friends will not have a very easy time of it next year iu Inducing the country to elect a Democratic President.—Philadelphia Inquirer. The July Failures. The free trade press is, of course, expected to give prominence to the July failures and the fact that they were the heaviest for ten years. When the situation is fully analyzed, however, a step the five trader does not take—a much different view is shown. If we deduct from the 915 defaults tho 2j! of great size which supplied $10,911,304, or almost two-thirds of the total liabilities, we find that tlic remaining 893 defaults averaged only $0,539 each, or less than any year fpr five years. As regards the manufacturing bankruptcies, twelve of the 253 failures proved liabilities amounting to $4,093 209, leaving only $9,483 on an average for the remaining 241, a better showing than has been made for the past seven years. Our free trade friends will not be able to build any anti protectionist argpments on tbeduiy failures, tA Matter of Habit. The only difference which the Philadelphia l'reas Is able to perceive between fin racial conditions hi 1893 and In 1004 Is expressed in the remark: “If American currency had been sound in 1890 and I£?4 panic would hare been prevented bore then. It cam* because no on* could bo certain

as to the standard of value. 1 * To-day American currency is as sound as any In the world. The result is to-day apparent. No such fall In values on the stock market as is now In progress has ever come before without bringing great failures and creating a panic. None has come now.” Whereat the Baltimore News Is mqved to manifest surprise that the Pi ÜBS should think that the currency had everything and the tariff nothing at all to do with conditions ten years ago, and that a better currency and not a better tariff is what has kept the country safe from harm in the past few days of panic in Wall street. Well, it is rather odd to find a Republican newspaper nowadays Ignoring the part which a Ijree trade tariff played In the ruinous time of 1898, and the part which a protective tariff now plays ih"holding the business of the country on a level, sound, secure basis. Perhaps the Press forgot. Nothing to Fear. We protect our manufactures by preserving the home market to them, and being so stimulated they are able to supply that market and have large surpluses to send abroad. England might attempt to protect her agricultural population (considering those in her colonies), but She would still have

to import food. YVe might doubt the efficacy of our protective system if we still had to import most of our manufactures. As It is, our food question and our manufacturing question are wholly disassociated, save as thriving manufactures make more demand for the products of our soil. But in Europe those questions are inextricably mixed, and the protective tariff cannot be used In the case of cither of them without seriously injuring the other. So we really have nothing to fear in any European proposal for tariffs of the protective kind, whether directed against the interests of the United States or in a vain endeavor to exalt some country above the station which nature lias assigned her.—Kansas City Journal.

Our Industrial Value. Measured by the gross value of products for the year, as scheduled by the census of 1900, our industrial value In that year was $13,039,279,500. That euormyus result was reached by the following stages: 1850 $1,019,106,016 1860 1.885,801,070 1870 4,232,325,442 1880 : 5.309,579,191 1890 9,372,437,283 r.KJO 13,039,279,50*1 Divided Into fifteen groups of main nnd allied products, the showing is: 1. Food and kindred products $2,272,702,010 2. Iron and steel, and their products 1,793,490,908 3. Textiles 1,037,484,484 4. Hand trade* .....1,183,015,478 5. Lumber, and its manufactures 1.030.906.579 0. Miscellaneous industries 1,004,092,294 7. Metals, other than irou and steel 748,795.464 8. Paper nnd printing....' 000.317,708 9. Leather anil its finished prodnets 583.731,010 10. Chemicals and allied products 552,891,877 11. Vehicles for land transportation .....' 508.049,129 12. Liquors nnd beverages . 425,504,167 13. Clay,- glass and stone products 293.504,233 14. Tobacco 283.076.546 15. Shipbuilding 74,578,158 This grand result gave employment to 5,310.802 wage-earners, earning $2.328.091,254; 397.174 officials and clerks, earning $401,230,274. In 512.734 establishments. Conservatively estimating the Increase lu all lines for the three years since. 1900, nnd bearing In mind the Immense Immigration of each year, ws can safety assume our present Industrial position to be: Establishments 000,006 Workers and officials 7,000,004 Yearly wages and salartes.f3.7so.ooo.ooi) Yearly product 15,000.000.006 It Is safe to assume that the man who aald figures can’t Ue didn’t bars In mind figures of speech.