Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1893-11-01
ABAND0NS DEMOCRACY.
The HOlyOke Free Press Comes Out
Squarely for Protection.

The HOlyOke Free Press Comes Out
Squarely for Protection.
The Holyoke Daily Free Press, which
has been one of the ablest and stanch-
est Democratic organs in the whole
State, has repudiated the Democratic
party and has come out flatfooted for
protection and the Republican party.
Its action has carried CONSERVATION
into the ranks of the Democrats and
the Republicans are correspondingiy
elated. 1t is looked upon as a forerun-
ner of wholesale detection from the
Democracy on account of the present
crippled condition of the industries
resred and prospered under Republican
administrations. In its editorial, ex-
planning the reason for its change of
politics, the Free Press says plainly that
it ''has lost faith in the Democratic
party, and that it firmly believes that
the present industrial stagnation, f.
nancial stringency, and general dis
tress, existing throughout the land, is
the result of Democratic supremacy"
In further explanation it says
Zone year ago this country was en-
joying prosperity such as had never
existed before. There was not one idle
mill in Massachusetts,. In this city
there was not water wheel that was
not turning, not spindle idle, not
loom that did not send its pleasing hum
out on tbs breeze, not a paper machine
that stopped from Monday morning till
Saturday night at midnight. All was
life and activity in this, the greatest
producing city of the world. There
was not large mill in the city of Hol-
yoke that did not run overtime, so great
was the output of paper, cotton, wool
ems, silk and machinery, that the rail
roads kept double force of men at
work, with extra locomotives, all night
as well as all day, handling the enor-
nous output of manufactured goods
that were being shipped to all parts of
the known world. And this condition
of affairs existed from sea to sea and
from the Canadian line to Mexico. The
whole world looked ON and wondered
at such prosperity. Such was the con-
dition of affairs one years ago."
After recOunting its expectations of
what would follow the sweeping Demo
cratic victory in the Presidential cleo
ton last fall, the Free Press makes this
deduction of what the result actually
is:
The Democratic party has now had
absolute control of the affairs of the
nation for seven months, and the re-
suit is the most sorrowful time the ma
ton ever saw. Business paralyzed, in
dustries shut down, wages cut down,
financial panic, such stringency in
the money market that bank after bank,
business house after business house,
has had to close their doors, hundreds
of thousands out of work. A year ago
every mill in this city was rushed with
orders. They could not produce fast
enough for the demand. Today there
is scarcely a mill in the city that is run
ming full time, and of the large mills
there is but one that has not gone on
half time, on cut wages 10 per cent or
more. An awful change for a year!
This frightful condition of affairs
appeals thoroughly to the American
citizen, who has po verful weapon in
his hand-the ballot. 1t was the ballot
that brought about this great change
from prosperity to poverty; from indus
trial activity to industrial stagnation;
from financial ascendancy to financial
depression. The present industrial
stagnation is without any doubt the
result of the free trade plank that was
inserted in the Democratic national
platform of 1899 That platform de-
nounced the protective tariff policy un-
der which the nation has grown and
developed from child to giant, and
declared thati the people intrusted the
offices of the nation in its hands it
would wipe out every trace of that