Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1858-11-05
THE TARIFF.
To the People of Pennsylvania.

FELLOW CITIZENS A great victory having
been achieved, We desire, on the part Of the
Committee of 76, appointed ata meeting Of
the friends of the national industry in all its
branches, held in this city on the 18th of June,
to offer you our congratulations, not only on
the triumph itself, but on the proof it furnishes
of the following facts
That, in the necessity for protecting the far
mer in his efforts for bringing to bis door the
market for his products, and thereby eeono-
missing the tax of transportation, Americans,
Wings, Democrats, and Republicans, have found
the solid platform on which they may securely
stand:
That men of all pursuits in life--farmers
aud mechanics miners aud furnace men--la-
borers and capitalists traders and transporters
have arrived at the knowledge, that they
have common interest in endeavoring SO to
diversity the demands for labor as to bring
together the producers and consumers of the
country
That they are awake to the destructive ten
denotes of system, which burthens the nation
with foreign debt that already counts by hun
dreds of millions--requiring the remittance .of
probably thirty millions of dollars, annually.
That they are unwilling further to sustain
policy which condemns their own coal and ore
to remain useless in the ground, while draining
the country of the precious metals to pay for
foreign iron
| That they do not desire longer to be COM
PEELED to pay for foreign labor, while American
iaborers are badly fed and badly clothed, be-
cause unemployed
That the belief in necessity for total change
IN our domestic and foreign policy is rapidly
becoming general throughout the State
That it needs but union among ourselves to
secure the permanent adoption of system that
shall restore prosperity to the people, harmony
to the relations of the States, and dignity and
character to the administration of the federal
government
The power to accomplish such a change, fell
low citizens, is in the hands of Pennsylyania,
and it is needed only that she exercise it,
Placed as she is, between the north and the
south-great as she is in her natural resorces
powerful as she is, by reason of her wealth and
population-shc may, if she will, guide and
direct the policy of the Union Blind, how
ever, to her true interests, she has, but too
often, permitted herself to be harnessed to the
car of some ambitious and unprincipled de-
magogue, who, in consideration of favors to
himself, has helped to sacrifice her interests
lending bis aid to the closing of her mills and
furnaces, and to the expulsion of her workmen,
and thereby depriving her farmers of the ad-
vantages resulting from having market near
at hand. The consequences exhibit themselves
In the fact that she has had no real influence
IN the Union--her votes having been obtained
BY means Of frauds, like, that of sPolk, Dallas,
aud the tariff Of 49," while she herself, WREN
asking attention her interests, has been treat
ed as mere pauper, seeking to be fed at the
public cost Such, fellow citizens, have been
the effects of permitting herself to be, led when
she should have placed herself in the ead-of
endorsing :be opinions of others, when she
should boldly have proclaimed her own.
The true Pennsylvania policy knows no North
no South, no East, no West-it being that
which tends to promote the good of all, wheth-
er farmers or planters, miners or manufacturers,
makers of railroads or owners of ships. 1t is
that policy which seeks to obtain perfect free
dom of commerce among ourselves, and with the
world at large. by means of such measures of
protection as shall enable all to unite in the
effort to increase the productveness of the labor
of each and all--there beinga perfect harmony
in the real and permanent interests of every
section of the country aud every portion of our
population That the existence of such harmony
may have the chance of being fully demonslra>
ted, but little is now required, except another
long pull, another strong pull, and another pull
all together, by the men of the Keystone State
To that end we invite your further cooperation
--pledging ourselves, that iu the effort for its