Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 118, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1904 — POLITICAL COMMENT [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT

Afraid of the Isaac. The Republican party has made the United States of America so prosperous "by means of a protective tariff that the Democrats have been unable to make an anti-tariff fight in the present campaign. The tariff has furnished the necessary revenue for all the expenses of the government and has so protected the American market that all American industries have prospered as never before in the history of the Republic. Starting on home prosperity the American manufacturer has been able to conquer markets in other worlds regardless of tariffs, which they may have imposed. Such a conquering has aroused the whole world to the dangers of what it calls the “American peril.” The American peril referred to Is the much feared American competition. The Democratic party knows these things and appreciates them. And the Democratic party has been unable to make any headway in attacking the great principles of the protective tariff. A few Republicans In Massachusetts and lowa are the only people who are dissatisfied with present conditions. Other people believe in standing pat. Other people do not believe that the American protective system can be maintained with free raw materials and manufactured products. So soon as the producer of

raw materials ls deserted and protection ls taken away from him he will •ee that protection is also withdrawn from the manufactured product There are people who believe that all the advantage of protection in one direction can be used and enjoyed and all of its penalties .in another avoided. The workingman has at different times been made to believe that he could enjoy his protection and withdraw it froth the owner of the factory. Such was his opinion in 1892, but he soon discovered his mistake. The "new” lowa and Massachusetts doctrines are the oldest ideas of the free trader and the oldest ideas of the Democratic party now partially abandoned by Demoocrats and now partially taken up by Republicans. This talk about “kicking customers off of your front steps” on account of the protective tariff, now occasionally Indulged in by Republicans, is old Democratic doctrine born again, has been so successful ns to practically make Democracy impossible, therefore present • conditions do not warrant Republicans in deserting their faith unless triumph suggests de-' sertlon. —Des Moines Capital. The House and the President. The New York Tribune’s Washington correspondent lias looked up the precedents, and arrives at the conclusion that the political complexion of the House of Representatives elected In a Presidential year is almost always certain to be the same as that of the President elected at the same time. The statistics of this subject for the last quarter of n century are as follows: - In 1880 Garfield had 214 electoral votes and Hancock 155. The House stood 146 Republicans, 138 Democrats. > In 1884 Cleveland had 219 electoral votes and Blaine 182. The House stood 204 Democrats, 120 Republicans. In 1888 Harrison had 233 electoral rotes and Cleveland 108. The House flood 106 Republicans, 159 Democrats. In 1892 Cleveland had 277 electoral rotes and Harrison 145. The Hbuso stood democrats, 126 Republicans. In 1800 McKinley had 271 electoral rotes and Bryan 170. The House stood 200 Republicans, 134 Democrat*. In 1900 McKinley had >292 electoral rotes and Bryan 155. The House stood 108 Republicans, 153 Democrats. But on a close examination of theso figures It will be observed that there •re wide fluctuations In the proportion of rotes cast for I*restdent in the electoral colleges to the majority of the successful party in the House of Representatives. IA 1880 the majority of Republican electors was 50, and the majority of Republican Oongrese-

men only 8. In 18S4, on the other hand, the electoral college majority was only 37, while the Congressional ~ majority was 84. In 1888 the electoral college majority was G 5, while the House majority was only 7. In 1892 the-electoral college majority was 132 and the Congressional majority 94. McKinley hud a much larger majority In 19C0 than 1896, but the reverse was true of the Republican majority in the House, which was 72 as a result of the election of 1896, and only 45 as a result of the election of 1900. Instead of inspiring easy confidence, therefore, the statistics which the Tribune's correspondent presents should stimulate Republicans everywhere to put in their best endeavors in behalf of the election of Republican Congressmen this fall. /Without a strong push in their favor Republican Congressional candidates in many districts which have hertofore been Republican will be In danger of defeat. Local and personal issues have been raised in not a few instances. Congressional elections should not turn on such issues, but sometimes they do. Republicans who are Republicans “clear through” would regard the battle at the polls in November as partly lost if it should result in the selection of a Republican President without a Republican Congress to support him.

Let them see to it that so far as their own districts are concerned there shall be x. .eglect at any point—Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. Not a Party, but a Free Fight. Considering that the so-called Democratic party is not a party at all, but an inharmonious mob composed of all the political riff-raff that can find no abiding place elsewhere, it Is not surprising that the rows and wrangles within its ranks should continually be upon the point of violent explosion. These wrangles were to have been expected when elements so acutely at variance as the trans-Missouri Bryanites and the Wall street Belmontites undertook to sleep unJer the Buuie party coverlid. There is absolutely nothing in common between these two forces. They are fundamentally antagonistic to each other on most of the vital political issues of the day. They hate each other far more cordially than they hate the Repubiicaus. Hence it is that there Is not even a perfunctory agreement upon the formal platform of the party. There was such an agreement in 1896 and 1900; „there is none to-day. Whatever there is of a real platform has been promulgated not by the St. Louis convention but by the head of the Democratic ticket Judge Parker supplied, after a fashion, the omission of nuy reference to tho currency, and he interpreted the Philippine proonuncement to mean “scuttle.” These are the only two Issues upon which there ls even a semblance of authoritative ijemocratle deliverance. The rest are awry. - On the tariff there ls no unity. The platform declures protection to be a robbery, but no Democratic orator says so. On the contrary, all • soothsayers and spellbinders unite in vociferating that the Democratic purpose is revision, not destruction of the tariff schedules. Tho platform ls clearly shown to have been a mere «atch-vote device, which ls now repudiated, since it is a failure in that line. There is no greater harmony respecting the trusts, since, while the bewblskered Bryanites of the granger States may cry “Death to the trusts!” It la absurd to pretend that Messrs. Peabody and Belmont and their comanagers of the party machinery would assail enterprises In which their own Interests are bound up. Whatever the western wing of the party may say, the eastern wing is not going to commit'financial hara-karl in the interest of party harmony. The amount of it ls that the eocalled “reorganization” of the Demo-

cratic party has merely introduced diet cord and distrust into its rasks. No longer a eolierest aggregation ol socialistic, populistic advocates of flat money and repudiation, the party has become a free fight, where the head in sight Ls smitten because every man is every other man’s foe. There is no Democratic harmony, because there is no Democratic party. —Chicago Chronicle. 1

Proceeds of the “Robbery.•* The Democratic convention at St. Louis denounced the protective tariff as a “robbery.” - The people are enjoying the proceeds of this “robbery.” The savings banks deposits of the country, which were about $1,748,000,000 in 1894, have risen to more than $3,000,000,000. The deposits of the savings banks of New York State alone were $55,000,000 more on June 30, 1904, than they were on that date in the preceding year. In New York and New England there are more savings banks deposits than there were in the whole country in 1894. The farmers are selling their products at good prices, and the working people are living better thnn-cver before. If this is “robbery” the community is the receiver of the stolen goods. Nothing of the kind occurred under the Wilson tariff, as the New York Press points out, when idleness and poverty so affected business that there was no temptation even for the robbing industry. If protection Is a “robbery” it is the people who are robbing themselves, and they are placing more in one pocket than they are taking out of the other.—Troy Times. How They Flounder. President Roosevelt’s allusion to the Inconsistency of the Democratic position on the tariff question Is troubling the war horses of that party. They find it hard to answer Roosevelt’s charge that “they promise to leave Republican legislation undisturbed, and at the same time they want the Republicans put out of power on account of that legislation.” When they try to answer they flounder and make a mess of it, almost as bad as the one which the platform has made in denouncing the tariff as robbery and promising relief on the installment plan.—San Francisco Chronicle. Aphorisms of Roosevelt. In our country, with its many-sided hurrying, practical life, the place for cloistered virtue is far smaller than is the place for that essential manliness which, without losing Its fine and lofty side, can yet hold its own in the rough struggle with the forces of the world round about us. The man r or woman who, as a breadwinner and home-maker, or as wife and mother, has done all that he or she can do, patiently and uncomplainingly, Is to be honored; and is to be envied by all those who have never had the good fortune to feel the need and duty of doing such work. It seems to me that it is a good thing from every standpoint to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good citizenship—the qualities which in a white man we feel are entitled to reward —then he will not be cut off from all hope of similar reward. The base appeal to the spirit of selfish greed, whether it take the form of plunder of the unfortunate or of oppression of the unfortunate—from these and from all kindred vices this nation must be kept free if it is to -remain in its present position in the foremost of the peoples of mankind. In the employment and dismissal of men in the government service I can no more recognize the fact that a man does or does not belong to a union as being for or against him than I can recognize the fact that he is a Protestant, or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or against him. It is a base and an infamous thing for the man of means to act In a spirit of arrogant and brutal disregard of right toward his fellow who has less means; and it is no less infamous, no less base, to act in a spirit of rancor, envy and hatred against the man of greater means, merely because of his greater means. Political Potpourri. When election day comes around the Democratic party will still be reorganizing. Senator Fairbanks is skipping about the country In a way quite disheartening to Grandpa Davis. The Democratic campaign textbook ls not likely to be in such demand as if it were not an “expurgated edition.” Bourke Cockran insists that the times are out of tune. Maybe that ls the reason why there are so few campaign songs tills -*ear. The Republican national platform may contain a few errors, but it can be said of it with a degree of pride that it was not fdlted by a Western Union telegraph wire.