Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-07-02


can not be shown up in discussions; it is
rushed through in haste as If the
country were in eager waiting for it. In
opposition to McKinley's policy of ex-
clusion it was asserted that honest trade
must be promoted; for honest trade
means the brotherhood of man.
The afternoon meeting was q great
success; but the evening meeting of
workingmen was a still greater one
There were, in fact, four meetings in
the evening-the great gathering at the
Kensington Textile Hall, an overflow
meeting in an adjacent hall and two
street meetings outside the Textile
Hall. In all these meetings there were
some 10000 workingmen. There was
also large torchlight procession, in
which transparencies denouncing the
Mckinley bill were carried.
The large meeting in Textile Hall was
addressed by Congressman Breckenridge,
Bynum and McAdoo, and stirring let
ter was read from ex-President Cleve-
land.
The principal address was made by
Congressman Breckenridge, of Ken
lucky. He showed how the tariff de-
stroys the equality between man and
man by helping the rich at the expense
of the poor. He denied that the Gov
ernment had the right to exact any tax
beyond the requirements of its actual
needs under an economical policy of ad-
ministration.
The Mckinley bill gives to working
men no chance to better their condition.
The wool question was dwelt on at con-
siderable length and the advantages of
free wool clearly pointed out. We put
10 cents pound on wool, and it takes
four pounds of this sort to make one
pound Of yarn. In this way 40 cents
in the cost of this pound of yarn is sim
ply thrown away. It is 40 cents
more than the foreign competitor has
paid, and the increased ~cost of wool
makes it necessary to have a larger
capital, and the increase is shifted
finally back upon the consumer.
This wool tax is levied, of course, in
the interest of the grower of sheep; but
it has not worked in that way, for the
wool which cost go cents a pound in
1850 can now be had for "a cents. Seven
bushels of. wheat brought $40 in 1860,
but now it requires fourteen bushels to
get $40, and that $40 will not buy as
good suit of clothes now as it did in
1850, for all cheap clothing is now made
largely of shoddy.
Mr.. Breckinridge continued for an
hour to knock holes in the Mckinley
bill, and then Mr.. Bynum was intro
duced.
He attacked the ''home market"
theory and showed that if a ''home
market" were good thing for nation,
then it must be also for State; and if
for State, then for county, and for a
township, and finally for an individual
In this way the protective system would
become wheel within a wheel Our
commerce must be so regulated as to
stimulate production and consumption at
home; but this can be done, not by ex-
cluding the world, but by taking the
raw materials the woRld can send us
cheaper than we can produce them our
selves
In his letter to the meeting ex-Presi-
dent Cleveland said:
"Iknow that with the feeling now abroad
in our land, and with the intense existence
and activity of such clubs as yours the
claim presumptuously made that the people
at the last election finally passed upon the
subject OF tariff adjustment will be emphat-
ically denied and that our workingmen and
farmers will continue to agitate this and all
other questions involving their welfare with
increased zeal and in the light of increased
knowledge and experience until they are
determined finally and in accordance with
the American sentiment of fair play"
Meetings like these are of the very
deepest Significance in a city like Phila-
delphia. They show that manufacture
ers and workingmen alike are turning
from protection to wise system. In
an editorial article on this meeting, the
New York Commercial Bulletin, nom
political paper, has these forcible words:
"Such demonstrations as these, held in
any part Of the country, would surely effect
public opinion, even though they made no
impression on the dominant party In Con-
gress. Held in Philadelphia they have an
exceptional significance. They mean moth
Ing less than that the prot ct We principle is
becoming discre iited among the very class
for whom 1t was specially designed, and
even among section of that class which has
hitherto been above all others persistent in
its support; and they equally demonstrate
that the workmen are opening their eyes to
the deception Of artificial wages"