The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1871-09-19
Take OF Your Kiat--PM OR Your
Shoes.

Our Radical task masters at Wash
ington boast of "the wonderful ,resour-
ces of the country" and how much mon
.ey has been drained therefrom in the
aggregate-the point where the boasting
eliminates being "immense reduction oil
the public debt" But the melancholy
fact remains, that in spite of all boast
ing, their process of treating "our won
derful resources" referred to results in
taking hats from the heads, keeping
shoes from the feet and stripping shirts
from the persons of widening numbers
Of the people. Lest this may seem q
statement made for political purposes,
we furnish from the New York Evening
Post Republican, the following:
''Our population has increased by
nearly eight millions since 1S6O,we have
twenty.-fi thousand miles more of rail-
roads than we had then; our climate has
not become worse, our soil is not less
fertile, our crops have not decreased.
We ought not, therefore, to be poor
er, or less prosperous, or less able to
compete in the worlds markets with
other nations, than we were in 1861
The increase in our population, the i'm
provements made in manufacturing pro.
cesses, the spread of railroads, cheap
ening transportation,all combined, would
make up to US all that we have to bear
Of additional burdens, by reason of the
late war.
But the fact is, that
First-We use less sugar and coffee
per head than we did in 1859; and also
fewer boots, shoes, hats and other arti
cles of necessity and universal consump
ton; and, says Mr.. David A. Wells, If
an admirable article in the North Amer
ican Review, from which we have CON
densed the above statements, sit is pos
itively known that the consumption ol
cotton cloth, measured in pounds. was
less in 1870, with thirty nine millions O
people, than in 1870, with thirty mill
ions" And if we buy less at home, a
the same time.
Second-We send less of these an(
other of our manufactures abroad thar
formerly; and what we do sell abroad
we send in foreign ships.
But not only has our foreign-bount
tonnage fallen off thus, the coasting anc
fishing tonnage has decreased. The ton
mage employed in the cod fishery il
1S6l-61 was 1880, and in 1S69-7(
only S2,612.
In 1860 fifteen thousand tneh wer,
employed in building and repairing ma
rine engines in New York alone. Il
1870 less than seven hundred found EN-
ployment in this, which is one of th,
highest and best paid branches of ou
industry, and one in which we formerl,
excelled; and this woeful destruction Q
a business of which the American peo
pie were justly proud, las taken place
Mr.. Wells reports, in the face of ris
in wages in the same calling in Eng
land"
While there is great abundance o
Republican trumpeting about their man
agement there is less abundance o
shirts,shoes and hats among the people
To repeat the startling statistics, that
while eight millions increase in our pop
ulation in ten years there is decreas
in the use Of articles of prime persona
necessity, is equivalent to saying tina
the cost of Radical political triumph
find their best representation in dimin
ished comfort for the laboring. Statis
tics based on figures which do not Ii
give results by which the prosperity o
a people may be judged, and it seem
that while wealth increases with the ia
vored few, comfort decreases among th
laboring' many. The principles of gov
. ernment which furnished most of tn
latter are the only true ones for the pee
pie to sustain.