Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1904 — POLITICAL COMMENT [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT

Party Has Done Very Well. An admirable beginning of the campaign which is to terminate tn the election of Roosevelt and Fairbanks was made at the great ratification meeting held under the auspices of the Republican Club of the City of New York in the largo hall of the Cooper Union. Among the speakers was Hon. John M. Thurston, former United States Senator from Nebraska. The Republican Club did well to bring from bls retirement this famous orator and stalwart champion of sound Republicanism. Mr. Thurston never fails to say. something worth hearing and worth remembering, but he has seldom struck a finer vein of useful thought than when he took for his principal theme the proposition that “The Republican Party Has Done Tolerably Well.” With master strokes he rapidly sketched the splendid achievements in recent years of the party of progress and prosperity. Especially impressive was his statement of what the Republican party has done toward enhancing the moral and material welfare of the people of the United States. Said Mr. Thurston: As we look over the history of the last several years, the fruitful history of Republican administration, it seems to me that the American people must say that the Republican party has done tolerably well. We find that our farmers and our planters have raised crops such as they never had before. They have fed our own people—they have fed the

millions of the outside world. Home consumption and the ability to buy and foreign demand have given them the best prices they ever received. We look abroad throughout the land and we find that in these seven years our manufactures have increased to a wonderful degree. Wp find that our people are busy —that they are at work; that there is'no idleness," and general prosperity abides in the land. The Republican party has done tolerably well. It has put armies of labor seekers that traveled hopelessly the highways of the land in the roaring factories, where the wheels are turning, the anvils ringing, the forge fire blazing and the spindles singing. It has taken our beggars from the streets aud placed them in entirely comfortable homes by quiet firesides, where they sit and look into tl>e faces of their happy wives and listen to the laughter and the song of their contented children. The Republican patty, fans done tolerably well. It has furnished a place of, labor for every willing American man. It has put the factory next to the American farm, and made the operative in the factory the best purchaser from the farmer.

The Republican party has done tolerably well. It has turned the great army of Cleveland beggars into the great army of McKinley kings. We have been doing tolerably well in continuing and carrying out the great protective principles of Hamilton aud Clny and Lincoln and Blaine and McKinley. We have seen to it that the yellow labor of the Orient and the pauper labor of Europe shall not come into ! competition with American men on equal 1 terms, either on this side of the sea or on the other. The Democratic party agrees with us that we should shut out from entry into our ’land the eheap Chinaman and the contract laborer from Europe, for they say—and In that we agree with them—that every day’s job taken by the cheaper man robs some good American of a chance to do that day’s work. And yet that same party which agrees with us on that proposition insists that the product of the labor of that same cheap man in his own country shall come in leere free to take the place of the manufacture of the American man and rob him of the same day's work every time a day’s work is sold here! We still stand for the protective tariff, which has made this land resound with the happy music of the turning wheels. Every time I go out into the great valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and think of ,the condition that existed ■ in | these valleys and on these hillsides only eight years ago, as I went through the same country, it seems to me that I can hear in the music of every wheel as it turns, in the music of every spindle as it sings, one great, grand refrain for the I modern Lander at th* protective theory,

as it cries out to the u’-de, wide world, William McKinley—for he was the man. We have been doing tolerably well with the finances of the United States. We have developed our industries so fast, we have produced so rapidly, . that we have changed the great fade balances that seemed about to pauperize us under the Democratic administratitri, and year by year the increasing wealtfc of all the world rushed into the treasury. Year by year Europe pours her tribute, the tribute to the policy and the A"-min-istration of the Republican party. iWe are accumulating wealth so fast give us but one more decade of the s<ne kind, and we will not only be the creditor nation of die world, but we will have so much of the money of all the earth that uo nation will dare go to war with another another nation without asking America’s consent. We are doing tolerably well. Upon the truth or falsity of these statements tho election of 1904 will largely turn. Is it true or not true that the Republican party has done tolerably well? - , The answer must be, cannot fall to be, in the affirmative. Has the Democratic party ever done as well? Never in all its history. Can the Democratic party do as well? There is no reason to believe It. Ex-Senator Thurston has sounded the real keynote of the campaign.— American Economist. "Returnins Sanity.” Such is the headline placed by a Democratic reorganizer paper over its report of the national convention in

St Louis. The purase accuses 'even more than it congratulates. Should a party that confesses to having been demented for eight years be placed In control of the country? Who can certify that the cure Is permanent? Why ask the people of the United States to forget the lon» period of mania and put the reins of power in the hands of the party subject to dangerous lapses? The Democratic party may have been out of its head when it twice cast more than 6,000,000 votes to drag the country down to a debased money standard. But It was the Republican party that saved the nation from that mistake and bljght A Mississippi Democratic speaker says it was ‘an act of God” that bestowed upon the country the prosperity that has existed since 1897. The Republican party is content to be identified with the right that prevails. The Democratic party is shuffling off its platform and leaders of the past eight years. And this is vaunted as “returning sanity” and a reason why the Democratic party should be permitted to bring upon the people another era of calamity. By its own confession of prolonged dementia the party at best is a suspect, and will, be treated as such by right-minded voters.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

.Foreign Commerce of 1904. The slight falling off in imports and the Increase in exports during the fiscal year just closed give us a most satisfactory favorable balance of trade amounting to over $460,000,000, $70,000,000 more than 1003. The exact figures are not yet at hand, but it is known that our exports of manufactures will be the largest in our history, as will probably be our total sales of merchandise. These sales will be in excess of $1,450,000,000, making us the largest exporting nation and about equaling. If not exceeding, our own rec-qrd-brteaking figures of 1901. Otlr gain and maintenance of foreign market* are most satisfactory, and tills, too. without the sacrifice of any of our splendid homo market, a sacrifice we would surely have to make if duties were lowered through tariff revision or reciprocity. It is a condition of affairs that can very safely be let slope, and this is Just what it is proposed to d*. Xte Only Friend*. The Dingley tariff seems to have m friends at »ij these days, except the Republican party and the American people.— Kmumui City Journal.