St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-06-30
THE MIX INLEY BILL.
Robert Doubleday Takes Occasion
to PunCture 1t.

Robert Doubleday Takes Occasion
to Puncture 1t.
To the Editor of the Globe.
When Richard Vaux succeeded to the
seat of the late Samuel J. Randall in
the A merican congress, Democracy lost
a bright mind, an able statesman, an
eloquent orator. and a s0rrily mis-
guided leader. and gained a unique
well qualified to serve his country and
his party at this particular time. The
late Mr.. Randall was not i'll reality
Democrat. His continued av0wals OF
allegiance to the Democratic party were,
in the last years of his life, inconsistent,
and despite the multitudinous merits of
the man, and his wonderful abilities,
he was detriment to the Democratic
party in its triumphal march against an
onerous tariff, and stumbling block in
the way of its progress. The elective
succession of Mr.. VauX is but a bit OF
evidence to point the real tendency and
inclination of the Democratic party of
to-day. for Richard VauX is frank and
Outspoken free trader. He was elected
from somewhat metropolitan district,
and we expect more from such districts;
for notwithstanding that the people of
the metropolis and centers of popula-
ton suffer less from the injuSticeS and
expressions of the tariff than do the ag
riculturists, yet the former seem quicker
to see and appreciate the wrongs, and
seek the means to alleviate them. This
is. of course. due to the difficulties en-
countered in any movement to reach
the farmers. and to their long-nurrured
prejudice against anything Sav0ring of
Democracy. But the labOrS of the DEM
Ocratic poIitico-ecOnOmic teachers with
the farmers have not been in vain, and
the time is rapidly passing when the
farmer-who is the vertebr8 and sinew
of the nation, if he did but know it
can be humbugged by any of the old
methods into believing that 80 per
cent tariff is a benefit to him: that, in
other words, it will make him rich to
tax him to death. He knows that, in
spite of the long and thorough trial that
protection has had, the most prolific
and greatest proft-yielding crop on
American farms to-day is the mortgage
crop. He knows that while wheat and
potatoes and butter bring him but small
prices, farm implements, clothing
and every necessary of life Che has
long since discarded any thought of lux
uries) that he purchases is dearer, and
he insists upon knowing why this is so.
worn and riddled until their very OBJ
vious hollowness makes it an insult and
mocI;ery to offer them. He sees the
righteousness of the ''home market
excuse after it has been pointed out to
him that 81 900, 600 bushels of his wheat
were sold last year in foreign markets
at ''fOreign pauper'' prices; the import
of wheat into this country being less
less than 1000 Bushels, merely little
seed wheat of fancy varieties. and for
which he paid OH the average nearly So
per bushel.
That arch-prote William Nc
Kinley, in his frantic efforts to justify
the position assumed by himself and his
colleagues, states that the Importation
of farm products into this country in
1889 amounted to S356, 100000. Let
us see what Mr.. Mckinley pre-
Sumes to place under MS misleading
category of farm products. Among the
first items is coffee, for which we paid
SIS, 000, 900; then sugar, for which we
paid 800, 000.0 900; then tea, for which we
paid $50, 100000, etc. In what particular
section of the country was an infant
tea-growing industry fostered and de-
veloped by the payment OF this S5O,O0O,-
900? All the available sugar cane-grow-
ing country of the South which can be
proftably used as such is being cultl-
waited. Now, how much longer must
we paw $4,000, 600 year for sugar
which need cost us but half that
amount before a great cane-growing in
dustry shall have been developed in the
stumpage of the Maine pineries or in
the Rocky mountains, or somewhere
else, to meet our ever-increasing need?
Who has not heard of the vast coffee
raising interests of the United States?
believe one gentleman in Southern Cali
fDrnia experimental with few bushes
some two or three years ago, but the
''blooming" things would not grow, in
spite of the fact that we give up
50,e00,OOO large American dollars
That all the tariffs which could
be imposed would not make one
coffee plant, or one tea plant, or one
stalk of sugar cane grow where none
had grown before, is so obvious that 1t
does not need stating; yet if the forced
cultivation of these things could be ac-
complished by the imposition of pro-
hibtory tariff, how would we be bene-
flied by obliging ourselves to raise
those things which nature did not
intend should grow here, and the prod
ucts of forced growth of which would
consequently cost us very mucn more
than we would be obliged to pay for
them in their natural field of pro-
duction? There are many of the raw
fruits of nature which come more pro-
Iificly, of better quality and with less
labor, from the fields of the North
American continent than from any
other spot ON the globe. That is in ac-
cordance with the dispensation of
nature itself, and nature does not make
mistakes. The errors are ours, in the
distorIing of natural laws to our
own detriment. Now, why should
we not enjoy the perfectly nat
ural privilege of exchanging these
products for those of easiest growth i'll
other countries? There is but one rea-
son. A small plutocratic class has
grown up among US which fattenS its
already plethoric purse by this unnat-
ural interference with trade; and, rich,
it would have this interference contin-
ued and grow still richer. 1t gouges
from the farmer at either end OF the
transaction by increasing the cost OF the
necessaries to him and slapping the
mortgages onto his farm at the same
time. 1t harvests where the farmer
has sown, or worse still, compels him
to both SOW and harvest, and then
calmly appropriates a goodly share of
the results.
There is announcer phase Ol JillS part VI
the tariff discussion which is of especial
interest to the farmers of the North
west 1t is this: If it were true that
the imposition of a heavy tariff upon
these alleged farm products would have
the effect of raising the prices OF them
to such point as would force their cult
walton here, providing, again, that their
cultivation in this country were posi-
Bile, why should the farmers of the
Southern states, where all those things
would be grown if they could be grown
at all, enjoy the boon of a tremendous
tariff, enhancing the prices of those
products raised for the ''home market"
while the farmer of the Northwest is
obliged to sell his wheat in foreign
markets at foreign market prices? The
farmer of the Northwest raises priucl-
pally that essential of life-wheat.
There is a need and demand for his
wheat which should make it possible
for him to secure fair prices for 1t: but
tine elevators and the railroad syndieates,
and the spectators of the Hutchinson
stamn. must first be bOnuSed in various