The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-12-17
KNU1,E NELSON'S MALIGNERS.

KNUI,E NELSON'S MALIGNERS.
A few Republican and Mugwump pa
pers, of the -Anoka Union and Albert
Lea STANDARD type, are still keeping up
their petty and groundless attacks on
Hon. Knute Nelson. Their charges
and innuendoes may be grouped under
three heads: He is q Jim Hill or a rail-
road man; he has shifted his course
and equivocated on the tariff question;
and finally, when all else fails and the
exigency seems to call for downright
meanness, he is charged by implication
with stimulation in falling into the lake
and nearly drowning, in the fall of 1886,
during the McGiH campaign.
The charge of being a railroad man
is old, threadbare and familiar It was
first started and vigorously piled in the
Kindred campaign of 1882 The only
basis for it was this, when the Mani
toba railroad was being built from
Alexandria to GAINESVILLE, in 1879, Mr..
Nelson aided the company in procuring
the right-of-way, and in connection
with that matter tried three right-of-
way cases. Subsequently to this,
in 1880, he tried a personal in
jury case for the company. Since then
he has done no work for the Manitoba
or any other railroad company. In
that campaign he stoutly denied the
charge, and his six years course in
congress demonstrated that he was
anything but a railroad man. In fact,
he spoke and voted for the Interstate
Commerce law, and for the various
land grant forfeiture bills, reported by
the committe on public lands. When
the Interstate law was assaulted by vari-
Gus railroad interests in this State he
defended it in a vigorous speech at
Mankato, in the summer of 1887, and
that speech is before us as we write.
No one had the temerity to charge him
with being a railroad man while in
congress, and since his return, in
March, 1889, he has not only done no
work for the railroad companies, but
on the contrary has had numerous
cases for settlers against both the
Manitoba and Northern Pacific COM
panies, before the Interior department
and in the courts. No longer ago than.
last November, before Judge Baxter,
at Fergus Falls. he brought to a Sue
cessful termination an action against
the Manitoba company.
It is not true that he has shifted
front on the tariff question. Although
in favor of tariff reform and tariff re-
duction he was never free trader, and
never denied the principle of protec-
ton. In 1888, when the Mills bill was
pending in congress, Mckinley, Sher-
man and other Republicans favored the
repeal of the Internal revenue taxes
on whiskey and tobacco, and Mckinley
procured the insertion in the Chicago
platform of that year. of a clause look
ing towards such policy. Mr.. Nelson
was hostile to the repeal of the whiskey
and tobacco tax. He introduced a bill
in congress to place certain articles on
the free list, and in support of this bill
made the first tariff speech in that con-
gress. In this speech among other
things, he said:
While I am in favor of fair and just
protective tariff-a low tariff as I call
it am under all circumstances op-
posed to a tariff that reaches beyond
this point-to what term high tariff.
The primary object of a tariff Justly
protective is, as I have already sug-
gested, increased production. Where
this result can not be fairly reached, or
the tariff is too high, then there is no
warrant for it, and there should be an
abatement, and in any tariff tax or
other tax abatement preference should
always be given to the necessaries of
life. I believe that there are many
items in our tariff list that are either
too highly taxed or are not fair objects
for protection, or that being among the
supreme necessaries of life should for
that reason, under the present condi-
ton OF our Treasury, be freed from
tariff taxes. Under this belief I have
introduced a bill putting sugar, mo-
lases, rice, salt, coal, lumber, manila,
jute, and sisal grass and Irvine from the
same on the free-list. The following
table, based on the fiscal year ending
June 80, 1887, shows the effect of such a
policy: