Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1888-10-27
VREEDV
OF MAINE-TARIFF SPEECH.

q doctor of laws, and once candi-
date of the Democratic party for the
Presidency, monopoly is, perhaps,
the most perverted and misapplied
word in our much abused mother
tongue.n How very tame this Ian
guage is. / suppose that during the
ten years last past have listened
in this Hall to more idiotic raving,
more pestiferous rant on that sub
lect than on all the others put to.
gether. And yet do not regret it.
What a beautiful sight it is to see
the revenue.retorm orator go into
action against monopoly. Nelson,
as he stood blazing with decorations
on the decks OF the Victory on the
fatal day of Trafalgar: Napoleon at
Friedland, as the Guard went cheer
ing and charging by; Thomas Say
ers rs he stripped for the champion
ship of England when Henan had
crossed the lifting waters; the eagle
soaring to his eyrie; the royal man,
eating Bengal tiger in his native
Jungle nay, the very bull himself,
the strong bull of Basham, as he up
lifts his below over the rocky des-
ertS of Palestine, are all but pale re-
minders of these majestic creatures.
Laughter. And yet outside the
Patent Office there are no monopo-
lies IN this country, and there never
can be. All, but what is that | see
on the far horizons edge, with ton
que of lambent flame and eye of
forked fire, serpent.headed and grit.
fin clawed ? Surely it must be the
great new chimera " Trust" Quick,
cries every masked member of the
Ways and Means. Quick, let us
lower the tariff. Let us call in the
British. Let them save our devastat.
ed homes. Courage, dear brethren.
BE not too much disturbed. The
Lord will reign even if the board of
mayor and aldermen should adjourn.
Call in the British! When the day
comes that this Republic cannot save
itself from a dozen fits own citizens
without aid from over tue sea, |
hope to be buried a thousand leagues
under some respectable and perma-
nent mountain range. What unrea-
sOnable talk this is. A dozen men
fix tue prices Of sixty million free
men! They can never do it. There
is no power on earth that can raise
the price of any necessity of life
above a just Price and keep it there.
More than that, if the price is raised
and maintained even for a short
while, it means ruin for the combna.
ton and still lower prices for con.
sumerS. That is one of the laws Of
God working for His children. Com.
pared with one of your laws of Con-
gress, it is a Leviathan to a clam.
Doubtless there are evils in this
world to be corrected by law. But
let us go at it with sense. The kind,
ly bear who flung paving stone to
drive away fly which disturbed his
sleeping friend killed the man and
did not hurt the fly.
But If the revenue-reform orator
on the monopoly is terrible, like an
army with banners, there is theme
on which he can take up the notes
of the dying swan. How we do love
to hear him Oh the impoverisl ed
farmer. Then he is not sublime, but
he is pathetically great. | heard him
first ten years ago. To me, innocent,
untraveled, 1t seemed as if the West
ern farmer was the most woe BECOME,
downtrodden, luckless, unsuccessful,
diSpirited devil on the face of the
earth. The Eastern vampire had
mortgaged his farm and thrown
down his fences, and scattered his
substance wantonly to the winds.
In the fullness of time | travelled
West myself. You may well
imagine my establishment, who had
never seen 10 acres together in corn,
to behold fields of that great staple
stretching way ont to the horizons
edge, to see tracts of land which
seemed to have no boundaries but
the visible sky: land so rich that if
we had an acre Of it in Maine we
would have sold it by the bushel
laughter, while on every side were
the great brick houses, such as only
the squire lived in in our villages.
After some days of this | became
sulky. said gentlemen, of course
we have robbed you; your Congress.
men would not lie about trif1es like
that. But what disgusts me is that
we did not do it more thoroughly.
The cleaning looks bigger than the
harvest. These crumbs are finer
than the food we put on our tables.
Then they confided to me that the
Western Congressman we're great
orators and did this for practice.
Laughter. Since then | have not
been so much moved by it.
Hnrn ic nnnthar nnShntknd rnn