The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-09-02
THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

w heu D0uEhS AhtAE AAtAAAAAAAN-
tured Articles Mt Foreign Prices and
Sold THEIR Products for What They
Could Get.
Pittsburgh Dispateh.
In the good old days when there were
no debts, no machinery, no mortgages,
few products, small tariff, and little
protection, the farmers produce sold
for little more than half what it brings
to-day, and what he purchased cost him
more than double. Our forefathers,
who lived and ilourished in revolution
airy days, stallsed among tho stones on
New Englauds soil in jeans and shirt
ings that cost 30 cents Il yard; they
slept on ticking for which they paid so
cents; their wives, ii they desired to be
counted US members OF the original
-Four Hundred, went to church in mus-
Inns that cost them 70 cents, or in cam
brio at 81 per yard, while at home in
their parlors they dressed in bingham
ut IS cents. On warm day they were
obliged to use handkerclliefs which
were bargains at 20 cepts apiece, with
which they mopped the perspiration
from their brows. Pins cost Is cents u
paper, and small ones at that, and
stockings were knitted at home because
it was too great a drain on the income
to purchase them at the stores.
And what did they get for their prod
ucts? Certainly not production prices.
Far from it, They took in SO, little that
1t was fortunate their wants were few
and far between. For butter they re-
ceiYed in 1890, il there was big de-
mand, II cents pound, and then con-
sidered they were doing well. In 1890
and 1891 butter averaged 80 and 50
cents per pound to the farmer. Pro-
lection did it. The staple meat product,
dressed beef, sold in Massachusetts, in
1890 ut 81 cents per pound. To-day it
brings from - to IS cents.
On the other hand, how have the
prices OF things the farmers purchased
balanced? Have they increased too?
The emphatic answer is Mop They
have gone down in about the same ratio
the others have increased. Take for in
stance the staple dry goods article, cali
co. In 1880 it cost fifty-eight cents
yard, and it was not very good article
either. To-day the price is five cents
yard. And DIN other lines similar COM
parsons could be made. Is this not
evidence that the protective, policy
has operated for the benefit of the farm
er?
Somehow. the free traders and anti
protectionists always manage to miss
such points us these in their arguments,
and ii is strange, for they are easily OBJ
tainable. The truth is that there is n
lack OF candor in their discussion of the
tariff law, and they expect to win by
relying on the credufity Of their hearers.
They expect the people to believe that
the amount OF tariff is ultimately paid
by consumers, but this is such an I'M
tenable theory that it requires no deep
argument to prove its fNlsity. Nearly
every merchant in this country is sell
ing tariff protected goods as cheaply us
similar articles can be bought in any
part OF the world. To ask these men to
believe that the tariff is n tax on the
consumers is to credit them with less
business sense than should be looked
for among the inmates Of m insane
asylum. The time has passed when re-
formers can expect to win upon state
ments that can so easily be torn 10
pieces by any one who takes the trouble
TO make inquiry into the actual facts as
they exist.