St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-09-30
BENTON'S BLAST
Continued From First Page.

l. n
when ship would come along they
would point cannon at that ship. and
send out pilot to them with the intel
iigence If you will come down. diyyy
mp: give us half of the value of the
care to do that, we will shoot you
down. The next ship they treated in
the same way. From Cape Teneriffe
that became known as the tariff way of
getting money. Of course it was rob-
berry. We in the United States are
the men who stood behind those
guns, not in front of them. / would not
complain if the people of England, of
Germany and France should say our
system is robbery: you are robbing us
by making us pay this tribute to the
tariff. They are in the same position of
the merchant vessels trying to pass
through the straits" cat
the beginning of the war we had six
teen billions worth of property. +. /.
We lost two billions by freeing the
slaves; we had to burn up about eight
billions in that war. Let us figure up
what we had at the close of the twenty
year robbery and see how badly we
were robbed" ''My father
was one of the pioneers of that race
Scandinavian to come to America. He
had nothing on the other side of the
water. He borrowed $25-he agreed to
pay s11O-if he could earn it. He had a
kind of valise, little tin one with an
iron handle, and one suit of clothes.''
HE had gone into the woods
and chopped down trees and built
house. and he has taken up government
land to work. He is glad to live in such
land as this. He loved this country
before he left the old country: he
had read the life of Washington
and he longed to live in such coun-
try" ''1n 1860 my father
was poor man, but he was about as
in America. But the war came on, the
high tariff was levied. prices came up.
During that time they had to pay high
enough for what they had to buy, but
they got more for what they sold. They
got 81 for wheat and Is cents for pork,
and everything else in comparison.
Well, there was enough to pay debts
and build houses, if that was in war
times. ii we had collected that money
from our own people instead of collect
ing it from the merchants of India,
China and England and France and the
South American states, by per capita
tax, we should have been oppressed and
ground down and the people robbed of
their property. But instead of that, bv
fostering our own industries, building
up our own manufactures, we filled our
own pockets right here at home" And
SO he ran on for an hour with such silly
tWaddle, making, of course, point Oc-
caSi onally.
In Introducing his speech Mr.. John
son said: II think that the circum-
stances chosen by Mr.. Benton are in
many respects fortunate and in every
rQSnpat fair (1ur Anti fo
respective parties require that we
should stand before the voters, who
will constitute the jury who will pass
upon these questions in November. and
argue this question as the colonel has
chosen to do, in joint debate. While
the contest that we shall probably wage
in the fourteen large cities of this state
is not as significant, and will not be so
conclusive, OF the great national issues
for veal or woe, as the memorable de-
bate conducted by Stephen A. Douglass
and Abraham Lincoln in the state of
Illinois in 1858. yet venture to state
it is more significant to the happiness,
prosperity, Intelligence and moral wei
fare of the community in which
we reside for this year and for
one hundred years to come than was
the contest which Achilles fought under
the walls of ancient Troy. His egotism
is brought out so clearly in these re
marks that it needs no words of com
ment. for in his own mind he is greater
than either Lincoln or Douglas, but in
the eyes of the Republican committee
he is either no match for the Democratic
candidate, or else that the question
chosen for discussion is one that the
farmers haye no interest in, or else that
it will work decided harm to their ticket.
to discuss it fairly before the people.
That Col. John D. Benton will be the
next congressman from North Dakota
is as sure to be the result of the con-
test as can possibly be asserted before
an election.