Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-10-04
DEMOCRATIC STATE TICKET.


GEO. M. COCHRAN, JR.,
A. B. LIGHTNER.
Has the Republican policy Of protection i'm
paired or has it stimulated the growth of
agriculture? Let us consult the record,
remembering that 46, 900, 900 of the productions
of our own state in value are of agriculture
Candidate Mahoaae's speech at abingdon.
Well, let us look at it fairly, because to
the farmer of Virginia as Of every other
State of the Union, it is an important
question. If there is anything that ought
to defeat Gen. Malone as a candidate, with
the Virginia farmers, it is ''the Republican
policy of protection which he advocates.
1t is not protection, mark you, nor, at this
late day, is it claimed by anybody that it is
protection. Protection is ahealthy system
of raising revenue by tariff, the ''Repub-
lican policy of protection is very differ
ent thing, and is simply a system of enor-
nous taxation by which the farmer above
all other men is fleeced. 1t is not the tariff
policy of Grant, OIL Garfield, OF Arthur, OIL
of any Republican administration-iti is the
new monopolist policy of tariff, which Gen.
Malone advocates. 1t can hardly be called
a Republican policy at all, for up to 1888
every National platform of that party
promised a revision and reformation of it,
Republican Presidents have recommended
it, and Republican Congresses have appoint
ed Tariff revision Committees. 1t is, pure
and simple, tariff for the monopolists at
the expense of the farmers, and a tariff
which is not only to yield the manufacture
er profit, but enough profit to enable him
to contribute largely to funds for the cleo
ton of men favoring it-President Harri-
son for example. 1t is tariff which, for
instance, enables such men as John Wanna
maker to collect from a small circle of
those who profit by it, in one town, the
enormous sum of $4O0, 900 to be used IN the
election of men friendly to it's continuance,
and even to it's increase. For the Republican
congress which meets next December has a
Senate bill before it actually increasing the
tariff tGc on the people,! Candidate Ma
hone, whose Republicanism is denied by
many prominent Republicans in his own
party, has not been in the party long
enough to have examined the Republican
policy of protection" in the past If he
had, he would have known that the tariff
tax, the increase of which he is advocating.
is a acar tao adopted during and for a war,
and its originators never contemplated its
survival of hOstilities. 1t is alive and
thriving to-day, simply because the monop-
Olists found great wealth in it and combined
to perpetuate it on the people who were
being fieeced to produce that wealth. A
big tax; big gathering of gold in the
Treasury made by the surplus taxes of al
overburdened people; summering in
yachts on the sea; coaching four-in-hand
through Europe; millionaire Senators with
palatial residences in Washington, and big
political assessment revenue funds to keep
it up forever-that is the present 'Repub-
lie IN policy of protection,'' while at the
bottom, carrying all Oh his bent shoulders.
is the weary farmer. That is Candidate
MahOne's policy for the congress of 1889.
And it has stimulated the growth of
agriculture! When wheat is down to IS
cents and the farmer mas to plant two acres
instead OF one, that, WeSuppose, is what the
General calls stimulating the growth of
agriculture. The Republican policy of
protection has stimulated one growth in
agriculture that the General should not
overlook. 1t has stimulated the groacth of
mortgages. Look at the list of mortgages
held on farms January LIST, 1888, in the
Western States-that did not feel the civil
war-Kansas, 1926, OOO, 900; Indiana. $685.
O00,0 900; Iowa, 1867 100000 Ohio, 81 ,277,-
O00,0 600; Minnesota, $40 100000; Michigan,
$75, 900; Wisconsin, 1857 100000. How
does General Malone think these things
come about in the grain garden of the
country, the fertile West, where the cost of
the land to the original owner was dollar
an acre 1t comes by a drain that no other
country on the globe could have Stood this
long, and that no Nation butthe American
would not have revolted against long ago.
One year, that OF 1888, will illustrate it, In
that year the 100000 farmers of this
country raised and sent abroad $500, SAC, 096
worth OF theirproducts. The pay for it came
back to this cOuntryin goods, and that pay
was taxed at the customhouses in our ports
the enormous sum of $156, 2S9, 174-the
farmers thus paying ome-third Of what they
got for their products to the government. If
thepayment of the government tax had been
made per capita in 1888, every farmer would
have paid $78 last year. And that is indepen-
dent of the fleeing that is done to him, in
so many instances, by the highly protected
manufacturers who, ambushed behind a pro-
hibitory tariff, rush out and rob him. Where
is the justice in the Republican policy of
protection under which the farmer has to
sell his products in Europe, at European
low prices, and buy his clothing, salt,
sugar, iron ware, &C., i'll America, at Amer
lean prices.
Let us take an example of the way Gen.
MahOne's Republican policy of protec-
tion," the new-issue policy of treasury
surplus, electioneering fund and mono
polists yachts, works in one of the
New England States where the home
market theory can be well tested
because of The great manufacturing
there. The Vermont Waterman
is Republican paper published at Mont
pelier. Its agricultural editor, DR.. L. Ell.
Hoskins, is writing on a subject of direct
pocket interest to the farmers-the present
low price of butter. He says: eff we ex-
port butter, we shall have to take our pay,