Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-11-01
is BLAINE DEMENTED7
Trusty Jim's Confidence i'm the Gullibi1ity
of the American People.

| Trusty JIm's Confidence in. the GulIibility
| OF the American People.
One of two things is perfectly evil
| dent from Mr.. Blaine latest speeches.
Either he is really trying to defeat
Harrison by making the positions of
the high-tariffites ridiculous, or he has
| perfect confidence in the unlimited
| gullibility of the American voter.
Some of the latest assertions with
| which he has larded his harangues sur
pass in absurdity any thing in his
j former speeches, and almost equal in
bumor the questions asked by General
Palmer in respect to the increase in
population due to the high tariff.
| Among his latest jokes is the state
ment that the high protective tariff is
cur only safeguard against the trusts
now forming in foreign countries!
OF course none of his ardent ad-
mirers think of asking MIR. Blaine hoso
duty on salt can preUent the Ameri-
| can syndicate from arranging with the
English syndicate list of prices at
| which each may rob at its own sweet
will the consumers of their respective
Another of his eloquent periods is
devoted to the demonstration that the
fall in the prices of our agricultural
products in the markets of Europe is
due to the cheaper production of like
products in foreign countries which
compete with them, and then rushing
to the bold conclusion that our barrier
tariff has been all that prevented a
still further depletion of our farmers
incomes! But, the enthusiasm of
Blaine meeting would not allow any
inquiring mind to ask him hosO our
barrier wall prevented that fatal
effect.
Does the shepherd of the people
imagine the sheep to be so simple as
to infer that if it were not for the duty
on wheat the crop from India and
Australia would have come to New
York and Chicago and lowered the
price of wheat here? That is the only
possible way in which a tariff could
keep up our market rates.
But this shepherd, in the same
speech. adduces the good effects of the
high duties in loaOcriug the price of
steel rails from $147 per ton to S27.
Why does it lower price of steel rails
and raise price of wheatP Is it be-
cause we import the former and export
the latter? 1t is surely only the ex-
tremely ignorant, and those persons
who lack the logical faculty altogether
and are totally unable to link two
thoughts together, that can be caught
with such brazen impudcnce.
While declaring that the surplus is
only about nineteen millions, he boldly
defends the Senate bill, intended to re-
duce the revenue seventy-five millions.
Will such contradiction go down with
sensible men?
He claims that the Allison cheat is
intended to prevent the accumulation
of a surplus which drains tho country
of its currency, and yet says that the
foreign producer who sends his goods
here pays the duty which goes into the
treasury and creates the surplus! How
can that drain this country of money
or do any harm to us?
He declares that trusts arc private
affairs with which the Government
has nothing to do, and yet makes a
great outcry against the foreign trusts
from which he says we are defended
only by our high tariff!
In all these cases he has only exactly
reversed the logical effects of the
tariff. He has succeeded so well in
fooling the people in the past with the
assertion that high duties made high
wages that he is warranted in relying
on any degree of credulity in his fol-
lowers.
1t is no more absurd to suppose that
you can raise the price of an export by
putting duty on imports than it is to
say that you lower the price of the i'm
port by the same process, or that you
raise a mans real wages by making
him~pay higher prices for every thing
he buys, or that you increase manu-
features by raising the price of the raw
material.
1t is a charitable conclusion to say
that Mr.. Blaine has simply gone crazy.
CHICAGO Globe.