Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-11-06

as well us our navy. OF all the men in
| our country there was one who had de
! voted his whole life to this policy. He was
Il PLAN, unlettered Irishman of great
energy and power, who. from small be-
ginnings, had established the greatest
ship yard in America, and one of the great
est in the word-John Roach. He was
engaged in building great numbers of
merchant vessels and several ships for the
| Government under contracts let to the
lowest bidder after public advertisement
! Upon lawyers bubbles and preteXts, that
nave since been abandoned, he was driven
into bankruptcy, failed, and assigned, dis
charged 800 men, and then the vessels
were placed in the navy yards to be com
pleted on the same plans at largely in
creased cost. This was the first achieve
ment of the administration.
Again, Congress had appropriated by
the consent of both houses, $500. 600 to pay
FOR carrying the foreign mails of which
100000 was to be paid to American ship
owners upon contracts prescribed by the
| law The Postmaster General disregard
ed this law, and adopted IL policy which
excluded American vessels, and trans
ferred the carrying of our mail almost eX-
clusively to foreign vessels Instead of
pursuing the policy of the Republican par
ty of steadily paying instalments of inter
eSt-bearlng debt from the surplus rev
enues, they abandoned that policy, and
recently have applied the surplus rev.
enue to the extent of $4,000, 900 to paying
of the non-intereSt-be bearing debts of
the government, theEgold and silver GER
tlllcates, thus contracting the currency at
a periol of the year when an increase was
demanded for moving the crops. Through
Mr.. Jordan, the treasurer of the United
States, the administration adopted the ia
vorite policy of Samuel j. T'lden of II
single gold standard of money, and now
are pursuing that policy with steady per
s1fslf al. 81
silver from the count as money, have done
all they could to depreciate silver in the
market, and now openly oppose the coin
age of II silver dollar that will circulate
side by side with the gold dollar.
| know of one measure which receives
the sanction of the administration, in
Guiding Mr.. Cleveland personally, and
that is the proposition of Mr. Hewitt of
New Jersey, to admit raw materials free
of duty and thus destroy the protection
that is now given to the farmer, to the
miner of ores, to the casting of pig iron
and to the growth of wool This favorite
idea of New York city is designed to en-
able that great seaport to command the
cheap raw materials of the world for the
special advantage in that immediate
neighborhOOd i'll the manufactures of wool
and iron to the utter destruction of the in
terests of the wool growers, of the mining
OF coal and iron, and of the furnaces and
workshops of Virginia and the Western
and Middle States.
Contrast this policy with that of the Re
publican party. This party. cuntessedly
composed of the great mass of the iutelli-
gent people OF the Northern States, is still
strong and vigorous IN public confidence,
and proposes III the future to continue the
old policy OF protection and public i'm
prOVementS to encourage manufactures
in the South as we'll AS IN the North: to
develop your resources and enable You to
share in the benefits of diversified in
dustry.
This party now appeals to the people of
Virginia without respect to the divisions
of the past, with honest sincerity, burying
out of sight all the animosties of the war,
to JON with us i'll policy in the future,
which will confer upon you greater bene
fits than are proposed by the Democratic
party.
1t would be Il memorable triumph if
Virginia. the mother of States and states
men, should now break the sectional line
that threatens our country with CON
slant contention, and, governed by the
best interests of her people, join with
those in the north who agree with
her in principle in the adoption of
Il national policy that will, as we
honestly believe, confer greater benefits
upon the whole people than can be done
by the Democratic party. In former times
before slavery divided us on sectional
lima. Tennessee and Kentucky took the
lead under Mr.. Clay in support of the prin-
ciples of John Marshall, for which we
now contend. |, therefore, earnestly in
woke the intelligent and conservative peo-
pie of Virginia to decide the questions
that | have presented without respect to
the events or result of the war, and above
all, to see to it that at the approaching
election every citizen entitled by law
to vote shall have an opportunity
to cast one honest ballot and no
more, and to have that vote counted If
this is done, and your example is followed,
| have the confidence to believe that the
end of sectional aninosity is at hand, and
our country will again be in the highway
to unbounded prosperity.