The Portland daily press., 1886-10-21
BLAINE AT PlTTsBURc.

BLAINE AT PlTTSRURc.
A Crowd of $4,000 Strangers Greet
Him in the Smoky City.
After Reviewing the Procession He
Makes Mastery Speech
In Which He Replies to the London
| Times Article.
| PITTsBURG, Oct. 20.-This is Blaine day in
Pittsburg and the interest in the Maine
| statesman, the parade and the mass meeting
at Exposition Park overlaps everything. 1t
| is estimated that 10000 strangers arrived in
| the city last night and this morning OF
| these not less than $4,000 came by rail and
tour of the railroad office develops the fact
| that 100 trains averaging ten coaches each
were required to transport this immense
throng. About II o'clock Mr.. Blaine was
escorted from the Hotel Anderson to the
Monongahela House at the intersection of
Water and Smithfeld streets, from which
point the procession started and marched
through the principal streets of the business
portion of the city, thence across the Sixth
street bridge to Allegheny.
Mr.. Blaine was escorted by the Young
Mems Republican Tariff Club, which pre-
ceded, fianked and followed his carriage.
Immediately surrounding the carriage were
seven police lieutenants With Mr.. Blaine
sat Chairman B. F. Jones Of the Republican
National Committee, Gen. Beaver and Hon.
| t. uYhn irfr IN
the vast assemblage at Exposition Park.
The carriage, which was drawn by four white
horses, was elaborately decorated with the
national colors, bunting, evergreen and ma
tural flowers The 1900 employees of the
American Iron Works in which Chairman
Jones is senior partner. formed part of the
South side division. The Carnegie Guard of
Braddock had its colors draped in memory
of the late employer, Thomas M. Carnegie,
who died yesterday, and who was to have
been amember of the reception committee to
meet Mr.. Blaine at the Mayors office.
Mr.. Blaine's carriage was stopped, and
with the three other occupants he alighted
and took seat upon stand which had been
specially erected for him, and from which he
viewed the parade. When it had passed the
party re-entered the carriage and were
driven hastily to Exposition Park.
When Mr.. Blaine was introduced, the
nearly five minutes before he could make
himself heard. After order had been re-
stored, Mr.. Blaine said:
MIR. Blaine's Speech.
The crisis in the tariff system of the
United States is rapidly approaching. For
long series of years, ever since the close of
the war, we have had a vast debt to be paid
However large the national revenue, its sur
plus could always be proftably applied to
the liquidation Of our national obligations
We have discharged that debt so rapidly
that there remains now but little more than
$200,0O0,000 of it that can be paid within this
century, and all of that falls due within four
years from this date Its maturity thus
rapidly approaching, may be said to be even
now impending so that the matter is one
that must be taken into consideration at
once, because the remaining $700,000,000 or
$500, 1000, 900 go over to the twentieth century
When Secretary Sherman, the most accom-
plished and able Secretary of the Treasury
since Alexander Hamilton, Cheers per-
formed the marvellous feat of funding large
proportion of the public debt in United
States four per cents, his success was ac-
knowledged on both sides of the Atlantic
as unparalleled in financial administration.
But under the wise administration of the
Federal government by the Republican party
the credit of the nation has increased so
were at par butseven years ago now COM
mand nearly $130, and the holders will not
relirquish them to the Treasury at less than
that rate, 1t may, therefore, be assumed as
until the next century, and they fall ontside
of present exigencieS as they fell outside of
the present power OF this nation. (Applause.l
When, therefore, you shall have diminished
the total volume of obligations OF the eoun--
try to the amount of $200,000,000 now almost
due, what are you going to do with the sur
plus which flows annually into your Treas
ury? What disposition are you going to
make of the large amount which each year
you have been accustomed to apply to the
OaVmPnt of the national debt?
Free trade replies, "Get rid of your sur
plus by striking down this protective tariff,
lower the duty on many articles, put large
number of other articles on the free list and
reduce your revenues in that way"
PrOtectionist answers, Let us so reduce
our revenue that with wise discrimination
the American laborer in his daily earnings
may be protected by national Law. and keep
that in view as the primal object" (Cheers.)
This is the question that impends for your
decision, and after patient consideration of
the probable consequences to result from
that decision, l venture the assertion that
of 1860 financial crisis SO urgent and
pressing as the one which will be upon the
American people within the next two
years. The main question is whether you
will exclude from the tariff the protective
idea, or whether you will reduce the rates
upon the articles from the duties on which
you gain no protection and thus so wisely
discriminate that with a new tariff adapted
to $100,000,000 less revenue, you will still
gain all the protection needed. say to you,
gentlemen, that at only two periods in our
history, namely, the beginning of the federal
government and the outbreak of the civil
war, has the financial ability of American
statesmen been confronted by a problem of
the magnitude of the one to which | have
invited your attention. Never, therefore,
was there time when men who believe in
protection to American industry were more
imperatively called upon to grid about their
loins for a great battle on that question: 1t
is impending within two years and viii! be
settled favorably or adversely in that time.
l cannot now go into details on the tariff as
to the manner in which it should be regu-
lated, but l can say this, that unless it is so
adjusted as to continue the doctrine of pro-
in this country, and that is what | came
here to say. For advancing these same
views since leaving home and in the city of
Philadelphia, have been complimented by
the notice of the London Times, which tells
me frsm across the water that the, views
which l held have been negatived by the
people of the United States and that we are
travelling towards free trade and away from
protection, from the dark days OF our own
policy toward the enlightened policy of
England Derisiye merriment) In the
same paper in which | read the cablegram
just quoted, in the same column, and imme-
diately following among this mornings
dispatches comes another from London
POSA
against the lord mayor having a splendid
dinner while the workmen of London are
starving in their novels. (''Hear, hear" and
approbation) l give you these two tele-
grams together as forming better argument
than any could make on the question, ana
| send back greeting to the London Times
that stand this moment before countless
thousands of free American workingmen
who have good wages and happy, homes,
with prosperity behind them and before
them, tremendous cheering)
We are constantly encounteringin in this dis
cussion the argument of the free trader that
we should increase our foreign: trade; that
the United States is deteriorating because
we do not enlarge the area and increase the
volume of foreign trade. To begin with, my
friends, there is great deal of delusion
about our foreign trade. l live down on the
extreme border of the United States, in the
State of Maine, although am now near the
very spot on which | was born Cheers. If a
merchant living on the border of Maine sends
cargo Of goods across the New Brunswick
| line fNe miles, and sells it, that is foreign
ha oh cbi