Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1884-10-22
Mr.. 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 it well. / was
born on the banks OF 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 Monongahela 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,
an independent commonwealth, began her
existence during the civil war, and at that day
the most liberal estimate of total property, ac-,
exceed S100,000,000. In 1870 the census gave yoL
an aggregate Of $190,00O,000, and in 1880 il
showed that you possessed capitalized wealth
to the amount OF $3.50, 100000 From the close
of the war to the year 1880 West Virginia
had, therefore, gained ed in wealth the enor,
pretty well, therefore under Republican ad-
ministration. Probably some political oppo-
nent does me the honor to listen to me,
and would ask him, a candid
man, what agency was it that nerved the
arm of industry to smite the mountains and
create this wealth in Virginia? 1t was the pro-
tective tariff and financial system that gave YOU
good money. Before the war you never had
circulating in your midst a bank bill that would
pass current 500 miles from home; you do not
to-day have single piece of paper money Cir
culating in West Virginia that is not good III
around the globe; not bill that will not pass
as certainly in the money markets Of Europe aa
in New York or Baltimore so that the man who
works for a day s 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 OUT and it is for you,
voters of West Virginia, to say whether you want
this to continue whether you want to try free
trade I make bold to say with ali respect that
there is not a Democratic statesman on the
stump in West Virginia conspicuous enough to
be known to the nation Il speak only of those
one. I go further. I 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 tariff bill would
have struck at the interests of West Virginia
in many vital respects, and it is 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 il
West Virginia is not willing to sustain a pros
tective tariff by her vote and her influence she
must not expect it to be sustained for her BY
others. If she wants the benefit of protective
tariff she must give to a protective tariff the
benefit of her support. 1 am glad that am
addressing a Southern people, community
that were slave holders, community made up
of those who were masters and those who wer1
slaves. But l am addressing slave State no
longer. l am appealing to the new South, and
am appealing to West Virginia not 20 vote upon
tradition or a prejudice, not to keep her eyes
to the rear. but to look to the front and to the
future. And if l could be heard I would make
the same appeal to other Southern States to
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? Wess
Virginia can lead the way. She can break this
seemingly imDregnable barrier of the soliI
South. Solid on what? lid on prejudice
solid on tradition; solid upon doctrines that
separate the different portions of the Union,
Whereas 1 invite you to join in union not
merely in form, but union in fact, and take
your part in the solution of the industrial and
financial problems of the time. If West Vir1
ginia takes that course on Oct. IA she will dQ
much to settle. the controversies that now agii
tate us. The repeal of the protective tariff, ac-
cording to the terms of the Morrison bill, would
cost West Virginia vast of money Bel
tween. 1870 and 1880 you gained in this State
$780, 900, 000 between 1880 and 1890 you will gain
much more with tariff for protection but
ask any business man if he believes you can do
it with free trade. Here / close my words OF
counsel, leaving the action to you. [ leave yon
not as a community influenced by sectiOna.
feeling. but as community broadly national.
leave you State allied on the one side to
Pennsylvania, and on the other to Ohio, as much
as you are to Virginia and Kentucky. L leava
you as a State that stands in the van of the llyw
South, inviting the whole South to jo n in a
great national movement which shall in fact
and in feeling, as well in form, make us
people with one Union, one Constitution AMI one
destiny.