The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-10-16
MIR. Blaino's Speech at Grafton, w. Va.


AS your distinguished Chairman has intimat-
ed, am not a stranger to your State. / have
known 1t personally for more than forty years,
and have known this section of IL well. was
born on the banks or yonder river. a few miles
below the point where IT. enters Pennsylvania.
and you do not need to be told by me that there
was always unity of feeling among the inhab-
itants of the Monopgahela Valley. But do not
see before me the West Virginia which knew
in my boyhood. The West Virginia of forty
years ago was comparatively a wilderness: the
West Virginia of to-day is prosperous indus
trial center in the United States. West Virginia,
as an independent commonwealth, began her
existence during the civil war, and at that day
the most liberal estimate of total property, ac-
cording to the United States census, did not
exceed 500. 100000. In 1870 the census gave you
an aggregate OF s19O,OOo,OOo, and In 1880 it
showed that you possessed capitalized wealth
to the amount of $3.50. 900. From the close
of the war to the year 1880 West Virginia
had, therefore, gained in wealth the enor.
nous sum of $3.50, 100000. You have Jared
pretty well, therefore, under Republican adj
ministration. Probably some political oppo-
nent does me the honor to listen to me,
man, what agency was it that nerved the
arm of industry TO smite the mountains and
create this wealth in virginia. IL was the pro-
tective tariff and financial system that gave YOU
good money. Before the war you never had
circulating in your midst bank bill that would
pass current 500 miles from home; you do not
to- day have a single piece of paper money cir
cuating in West Virginia that is not good all
around the globe; not a bin that will not pass
rs certainly In the money markets or Europe as
in New York or Baltimore, so that the man who
works for a day wages knows, when Saturday
night comes, that he Is to be paid in good money.
Under the protective tariff your coal industries
and your iron industries and the wealth OF your
forests have been brought ont, and 1t Is for you,
voters of West Virginia, to say whether you want
tbs to continue or whether you want to try free
trade. make bold to say, with all respect, that
there Is not Democratic statesman on the
stump in West Virginia conspicuous enough TO
be known to the nation Il speak only OF those
lrranxx lRn fnNfi rfH
one. / go further. do not know a Demo-
cratic statesman who will not acknowledge
that tariff for protection is constitutional,
and, therefore, as honest men, they are bound
to approve It. The Morrison tarin bill would
have struck at the interests OF West Virginia
In many vital respects, and 1t is an amazing fact
that Representatives In Congress from West
Virginia voted for that bill. There Is good old
adage which beg to recall to your minds, that
God helps those who help themselves and If
West Virginia is not willing to sustain pro-
tective tariff by her vote and her influence she
must not expect IL to be sustained for her by
others. II she wants the benefit OF a protective
tariff she must give to protective tariff the
benefit of her support. 1 am glad that am
addressing Southern people, a community
that were slave holders, a G immunity made up
of those who were masters and those who were
slaves. But i am addressing a slave State no
lonser. am appealing to the new South, and
am appealing TO West Virginia not to vote upon
a tradition or a prejudice, not to keep her eyes
to the rear. but TO look to the front and to the
future. And II / could be heard 1 would make
the same appear 10 QJner OOuJnern StatfS- 10
old Virginia, to North Carolina, to Georgia, TO
Alabama. to Tennessee, and to Louisiana. They
are all Interested in protective tariff, and the
question is, which do they prefer, TO crafty
prejudice or to promote general prosperity? West
Virginia can lead the way. She can break this
seemingly impregnable barrier of the so i'd
South. Solid on what? Soid on prejudice;
solid on tradition; solid upon doctrines that
separate the different portions of the Union.
Whereas invite you to join in q union not
merely in form, but a union in fact, and take
your part in the solution of the industrial and
financial problems of the time. IL West Vir-
ginia takes that course on Oct IA she will do
much 10 settle the controversies that now agi-
tate as. The repeal of the protective tariff, ac-
cortiing to the terms Of the Morrison bill, would
cost West Virginia a vast sum of money Be-
tween 1870 and 1880 you gained in this State
s16O, 900; between 1880 and 1890 You will gain
much more with tariff for projections; but
ask any business man IL he believes You can do
it with free trade. Here i close my words OF
counsel, leaving the action to you. i leave you,
not as a community influenced by sectional
feeling, but n community broadly national.
leave you q State allied on the one side to
Pennsylvania and on the other to Ohio, as much
as you are TO Virginia and Kentucky. / leave
you as a State that stands in the van of the new
south, inviting the whole South TO join in a
great national movement which shall in fact
and in feeling. as well as in form, make us a
people with one Union, one Constitution, and one
destiny.