Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1892-10-12
wilson aud WcndIing.


ence of town and county people Friday
afternoon. AT the beginning he referred
briefly to recent speeches here of Republi-
can campaiguers, and especially to the
charge Of the opposition candidate for
Congress that he had nothing to show as
the result of his ten-years' services in Con-
gress. While he believed the first duty Of
a member of Congress was to become ia
miliar with great public questions and to
address himself to the correction OF great
evils. he asserted that the local interests OF
his constituents had not been neglected;
and cited the appropriation, for the Mon
oneahela and Cheat rivers, the passage
though the House of the bill for holding
the L. ). court at Martinsburg, the settle
ment of many meritOriOus private claims,
and other similar measures in proof. He
was not there, he said however to defend
his own record but to discuss the great ques-
tons in which the people were so directly
interested. A lucid aud statesmanlike dis
cussion of the tariff followed Of which we
are unable to give anything like asynopsis
He told forcibly how the farmer must sell
his products in unprotected markets, COM
peting with the only pauPer labor OF the
world-not that of European factories but
that employed in growing wheat and cotton
in Europe and Asia. Seventy cents for wheat
would not be so low q price if it could be
spent in the market where the wheat was
sold-if seventy cents worth Of goods could
be bought with it, Having to pay one
third of the price received for products in
tariff taxes was equivalent to giving one
third of the product II might not to have
occurred TO the farmer, busy, and troubled
about the low price Of wheat, that where he
plowed three burrows one of them was for
the tariff; that when he raised three head
of fat cattle, he raised one of them for the
tariff. Examples were given Of the sale in
other countries, at prices greatly below
those asked in the home market, Of articles
manufactured in this country The far
mer had 10 sell in the cheap (foreign) mar
ket and buy in the dear ,bomel market.
Coming to reciprocity, Mr. Wilson recall
ed the story Of the old lady who said it did
her heart good just to hear the preacher say
"Mesopotamia." There was no saving grace,
he said, in MesopOtamia aud no hope in
Reciprocity for the oppressed farmer. He
had examined statistics of trade with coun-
tries with which we have reciprocity under
the Mckinley act and found an increase of
exports TO only two, Brazil and Cu5a-both
agricultural and that two-thirds of this
increase consisted OF locomotives. This, he
thought was very comforting to the farmers,
since they spent their rainy days in their
workshops making locomotives
Mr. Wilson stated on authority of Mr..
Bland that the increase of currency to re-
suit from free coinage of silver would only
be 30 cents head and suggested the dan
ger that the volume might be actually de-
creased by the withdrawal of gold from cir
culation. He denied that the existing hard
times were due to want OF currency and
recalled the prosperous years of 1860 and
1870 when the per capita of currency was
far smaller than at present, and read an ex-
tract from an interview with the late Col
L. L. Polk, president at the time Of his
death Of the National Farmers Alliance,
declaring that free coinage would not be
worth the snap of the finger for the relief
Of the farmers sufIerings Mr.. Wilson JUS
tilted the Democracy in its attitude upon
the silver question, saying that there would
not have been the slightest chance of Dem
ecratic victory if the silver bill had passed
the House, and asking if the Democratic
party, about to achieve its great purpose of
relieving the people from oppressive taxa
ton, should be halted in its triumphant
march and turned aside TO chase such phau-
toms. Stonewall Jackson was pious man,
but the speaker doubted if his piety would
have stood the test had any one proposed
that he should halt in the pursuit at Ma
nassas to hold prsyer-meeting
OF the proposed repeal of the prohibitory
tax on State bank issues, he said that the
Democratic convention had realized that
with the extinction of the national debt the
national banks would 60 out of existence,
and recognized the need of a currency hav-
local source and that would not drift to
the financial centres. He ridiculed the
predictions Of wildcat money; :" said that
no State would permit wildcat banking,
aud that laws existed in many Of the States
aud, in part, in our owu State for the regu-
lation of State banks
The Force bin was denounced a. a meas
ure designed to deprive the people Of their
right TO choose their representatives in the
lower branch of Congress-the only part Of
the federal government with which they are
in immediate contact-and necessary to per.
petuate the present infamous system of tax
alton
The speech was concluded with the pre-
diction-not merely made to encourage his
hearers but based upon his observation and
honest iudgment-of Democratic success
in November
Hon. George r. Vending, of Illinois,
the famous lecturer, was in the audience