Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-08-27

SINCE the Defiance Express has Civ
en- its small quantity. in ready stock, Of
consistency, a vacation, and erred in
endeavoring to place the NORTHWEST
In ludlerous position. for its stand
point in opposing the Jew fakIrs who
swarmed upon Napoleon sometime
since; aud since the Express in question
is paper with which we are not
ashamed to exchange a paragraph or
two, we vouchsafe few words in de-
fence ofthe standpoint so taken. This
paper accuses us of coincldlng with the
views of prolectionists and cites as a
confederation of its statements, squib
wherein we advocate a license of at
least S25 charged all fakirs who at this
time of year infest small towns and in
veigle simple minded folks into pur-
chasing spurious wares. In reply We
have but to say that IL tOouid be sort
of protection but the same kind as the
police force or standing army furnishes
in protecting our citizens from inva-
sion, from pirates, from robbery and
from rapine. The persons in question
and all fakirs of their ilk are legitimate
thieves; they are bold highway rob
bers who are protected in their ntfari
Gus doings 10y defective law; their
goods are base limitations; they have all
ephemeral eXistence-here to-day and
away to-morrow-thus giving those
who are victims, no opportunity to re-
nt1Hio q 4 ha srAD1,y hx, s1t.
in the future. Can they be justly com.
pared with great foreign manufactur-
ers whose goods If allowed to compete
with those of this land would neces-
sarily be judged on merit alone? If
said Jews, or any other class of people,
can install themselves in Napoleon's
business circles and furnish goods to
consumers at cheap rates, we say let it
so be done, if the goods are equal IN
quality to those sold by oar merchants.
But it can never be so under our So
called protective tariff system. Our
merchants here all handle square goods
and sell them at very small margin,
and any one who pretends to undersell
them is fraud. This will admit of no
difference of opinion and consequent
ly no argument can follow.
Then how different would it be were
our gates thrown wide open and other
manufacturers allowed to give the peo-
| pie an opportunity to purchase their
wares! The goods would be handled
by our merchants-they would lose
nothing. The point we wish to make
is, that grasping money kings Of the
Carnegie stripe would be compelled to
chop off their profits and sell cheaper
to the merchants and indirectly cheap
er to the consumer. There is hardly
any one of the great manufacturers of
this land who do not net individually
over million dollars per year. Is this
not prima facie evidence that they are
cruelty robbing the people aided by
an iniquitous protective tariff -? Does
it not prove that they could surrender
portion of this immense profit by di-
minishing margins and still have a
good thing? And wouldn't, say half
of these great margins make gigantic
stridesin protecting" the laborer from
poverty and the chilly blasts of this
coming winter?
The Defiance Express must not COM
pare the robber tariff and its mighty
wrongs heaped upon great people
with a half dozen detestible fakirs who
over.estimated the verdancy of Napo-
Icons citizens and made the mistake
of their lives in endeavoring to make
the said citizens believe they were ver-
dant. The Express can not do this and
still adhere to consistency. But con-
lsistency they say is the vice of small
minds. If this be so, we accede to the
| ErDreSS a colossal intellect,