Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-01-07
MKINLEY'S CLAIMS.
THE AMERICAN WOOL AND COTTON
REPORTER coRRecTS HIM.

overw he Ginning Testimony That the Era
Of ls47-6I Was One of General Pros
perity, Brol en- by but One Brief Panic.
His Errors as to Revenue Tariffs.
Last week Major Mckinley was the
guest and the principal speaker at the
banquet given by the Home Market club,
of Boston. In his speech after the din
ner was over ne made new departure,
OF rather added a little new matter to
his old stereOtyped speech on the tariff.
OF course he said that the foreigner pays
the tariff rates and that his bill was
passed to raise the wages Of American
workmen, utterly ignoring the fact that
in all the important industries, on the
products of which duties were increased
by his bill, the wages of the workmen
have been cut down. The new feature
of his speech was that portion of it in
which he told the people of Massachusetts,
how much they suffered under the rev.
enue tariffs from 1916 to 1861, and how
prosperous the Mckinley bill had made
them.
Concerning his statements, The Amer
lean Wool and Cotton Reporter has this
to say:
Major Mckinley was of course the
hero of the hour, and made an eloquent
and interesting address; but while he
was deploring the condition of the coun-
try in the fourteen years of tariff for
revenue only from 1S46 80 1861, the Dem
ocratic treasurer of the great Amoskeag
mills, who sat upon the platform and ap-
proved the proceedings, could have told
the Ohio statesman that the period from
1916 to 1861 was not characterized by
such unalloyed poverty and distress as
some would have US believe. In 1916
the Amoskeag declared dividends of 25
per cent. in stock and 10 per cent. in
cash; in 1S47 it declared % per cent. in
stock and ) per cent. in cash, and in 1S49
it declared 20 per cent. in stock and 3
per cent in cash, and there were but few
half years from that time to 1860 in
which it did not pay semiannual divi-
dends. A panic occurred in 1857. and
the Bay State mills at Lawrence failed;
but 50 did panic occur in 1878, and
in 1880 some very important mills failed.
''The following great textile corpora
tions were started between 1916 and
1861: Atlantic mills, in lS49; Lyman
mills, at Holyoke, 1854; Naumkeag
steam cotton mills, at Salem, in 1S41;
Peppereu mills, at Biddeford, in 1852;
Bates mills, at Lewiston, in 1852; Hill
Manufacturing company, at Lewiston,
in 1855; Franklin company, at Lewiston,
in 1857.
Furthermore the cotton manufactur-
ing industry of the United States has
not CHANGED to be as prosperous since
the passage of the Mckinley bill as it
was for year or two before that meas
uTe became law. The great Merri-
mack Manufacturing company at Low
ell has recently reduced its semiannual
dividend to 2 per cent. 1t paid per
cent. semi anlual in 1890 and per cent.
semiannual il 1899, and in 1891 the
shares of the company sold for just half
what they brought in 1881, viz, s., 600
in 1881 and 81 00C in 1891"
The very day after Mckinley made
his famous speech in Boston the great
iron works of Gilmore & Eustis were
closed, the reason given by the firm for
their action being, We are compelled
to close our works on account of the
fearfully high taxes levied by the Re-
publican party on raw material and the
high price we are compelled to pay for
old iron rails" And yet Mckinley will
no doubt continue to assert that the
years during which we had revenue tar
ifs were disastrous. just as he continues
to declare that the foreigner pays the
tariff tax"