The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-11
A SIGNIFICANT VICTORY.

Mckinley, in November, 1891. the question
of the tariff has not been made test
issue before the people until the Rhode
Island election.
The Democrats appreciated that Rhode
Island was doubtful state; was manu-
featuring state, and that the result of its
election would, like that of Ohio, be ac-
cepted IS significant straw showing
which way the wind was blowing. The
Democratic tariff policy of free wool and
its general drift to free raw material was
devised as bid to tempt the New England
manufacturers to desert the Republican
standard, and with this bait the Democracy
expected to achieve victory in state that
has been very close, since the adoption OF
the prohibition amendment to the consti-
tuition in 1886 produced a violent reaction
against the Republicans, who were beaten
by the Democrats in the election of April,
1887. In 1888 the Republicans rallied
and beat the Democrats in the spring cleo
ton by a plurality of about 5000
in total vote of 80, 500, and in November,
1888, Harrison led Cleveland by about
5000. But, beginning with the spring
election of 1889, the foreign-born citizens
of Rhode Island have suffered no limita-
tions in the matter of voting, and in that
year the prohibition amendment was re-
pealed. The Democrats carried the cleo
tons of 1889, 1890 and 1891 The Demo
cratic plurality in 1890 was $50, while in
1891 their plurality was LISA polling
%. 249 votes, the greatest number ever cast
by any party in the history of the state.
The Democrats had for three years,
under the new conditions affecting the
franchise, carried the state, and con-
fidently expected to carry it on Wednes-
day last. The tariff was made the issue
by both parties. The Democrats called
United States Senator Carlisle, Governor
Boies of Iowa, Ex-Governor Campbell of
Ohio, Governor Pattison of Pennsylvania,
Congressman Bryan of Nebraska and
Grover Cleveland to the stump, while the
Republicans summoned ex-Speaker Reed,
Governor Mckinley of Ohio and ex-
Congressman Horn Of Michigan. The
stake of the contest was the re-elec-
ton Of United States Senator Aldrich, the
author of the reciprocity provision of the
Mckinley law, thorough-going pro-
tectionist, and the peer of Governor
Mckinley as a clear, able and prac-
teal expounder of the tariff ques-
ton. The tariff and nothing but
the tariff was talked from the plat
form and the victory in Rhode Island,
like the victory OF Mckinley in Ohio in
November, 1891, is popular Endorsement
of the Republican policy of protection as
expressed in the Mckinley law.
No wonder the Democrats were beaten.
Grover Cleveland, an out-and-out free
trader of the Mills school, and his band
of Tariff Reform" Ministries, undertook
q hopeless task when they tried to per-
suade prosperous manufacturing state,
to whose manufacturers protection has
secured the markets of the United States,
that it would be the best thing for Rhode
Island to give up its manufactures and
let England have her market. These
Democratic congressman undertook to
catch the Rhode Island manufacturers
vote by giving him free wool. In the
same breath these Cheap John" logicians
told the manufacturer that free wool
would make wool cheaper and told the
farmer that wool would be higher.
This kind of Democratic legislation is as
absurd as John Phoenix's humorous sug-
gestion to the war department, when pre-
sided over by JEFF Davis, that cannon be
constructed open at both ends, with a
vent hole in the middle so that it could
shoot both ways. On the same absurd
principle the Democracy in congress want
lumber on the free list; they want to re-
duce the duty on hops and expect to make
the people of the state of Washington oe-
iieve that it would be for their interest to
thus help British Columbias lumber inter
ests ana help her present experiment of
hop growing.
Grover Cleveland is an out-and-out free
trader and the platform of free trade was
defined by Mills of Texas when he told
Massachusetts, that tree trade" meant the
adjustment of duties all over the United
States and the crushing out of high wages.
E1-Spcsker Tom Reed, in his Rhode
Island addresses, turned this frank con-
fession of Mills with powerful effect
against the Democracy, quoting ample sta
tistics 10 prove the influence that the pro-
tective tariff e1erts in lettering wages.
The laboring man today has higher wages
than he had in 1850 by so per cent Every
thing the workingman buys today he can
get . per cent cheaper, on an average,
than 81 years ago. Mr.. Reed said if he
was competing with a man in Nova Scotia
he would temporarily drop prices and
drive him out of business. Great Britain
has always done this. When you have a
tariff she can not do this
Mr.. Reed proceeded 10 quote figures
showing that under protection our iron
product has been multiplied by twelve.
while the population has been multiplied
only by two. Taper hsnd-saw files in 1850
cost $l.54 dozen, in 1881 the price was IL
cents dozen. In 1866 the files cost Is
cents apiece. in 1891 81 cents apiece. The
protective tariff has robbed the file OF
three-quarters Of its price. The material
O: which these files were made in 1876 cost
us cents pound, while today the cost
IS under AZ cents a pound. In other
words the protected raw material has been
robbed of its price, too. The great princi-
pie that cuts down prices is competition.