Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-08-08
Speech of Ex.Gov. Boies of Iowa.

Speech of Ex-Gov. Boies of Iowa.
At the State Democratic Convention
of Iowa held at Des Moines on last
Wednesday, Elk Gov. Boies of that
State made an able speech from which
we extract the following
81 have, however, too much faith in
the intelligence of the electors of this
republic, in the sober second thought
of the plain people of this nation, to
believe they can long be misled in
placing the responsibility for the disas-
tiers we are suffering where it belongs.
PROTECTION COVER FOR GREED.
No, gentlemen, this mark of protec-
ton of American labor under which
the eager recipients of tariff favors
have organized their trusts and COM
bines to suck the life blood from the
very veins and arteries of labor every
where, has been torn by recent events
until the man who refuses to look
through it and see that it covers moth
ing but the hony fingers of greed, that
have used it SO long and so well, will
deserve no-sympathy if he becomes or
remains the serf it has so largely help
ed TO make Vi 50 uduy
And turning from the men who labor
in the protected industries to that
vastly greater body who cultivate our
farms, operate our railways and con
duct the innumerable classes of bust
ness that none are so brazen as to
claim derive direct benefit from pro-
tective laws, democracy must ask them
to stop long enough to read the lessons
few short months have crowded into
the history of a country whose des-
TIMES they hold in their own hands
and control by their own votes.
They, too, must remember we are
standing at the end of more than three
decades of most intense protective
policy on the part of the government;
that no change ia this policy has yet
been effected; that it is still in practi
cal force.
And what is the result?
Trusts and mbines on every hand;
the fruits of labor taken from the many
and given to a few; millionalres count
ed by the thousands; homeless men by
millions; rumblings of discomfort from
every quarter, but loudest and longest
in the very centres Of the most highly
protected industries of the land; strikes
and lockouts everywhere; armies of
marching over the country, Wanting
their restitution in the face of the
| world, with here and there the howl of
the anarchist, the knife of the assassin
and brand of the incendiary emphasiZ-
| ing with fire and blood discomfort
that has become almost epidemic and
threatens the stability of the govern
ment itself until the last resort of ma
| ton, an appeal to the military arm for
protection, has become a public neces-
sity.
THE CAUSE.
Surely there must be a cause for all
this.
Where is it to be found?
Certainly not in any governmental
policy for which the democratic party
is responsible, for in the whole period
of generation it has been unable to
subject any one of its theories to a
practical test.
And equally certain it is that if these
conditions are due i'll any degree or to
any extent to the acts of political
party the responsibility for them must
rest upon the shoulders of that party
whose theories have been nodded into
laws that for thirty-odd years have
controlled the policy of the govern
ment.
May we not. therefore, we'll inquire
| whether we have not carried the the
DRY of paternal government that is to
single out one or many branches of
| business and give them the aid of gov
ernmental protection, which simply
means that through force of law it will
take from one class to give to another,
up to the danger line of experiment,
and are we not already sufficiently
warned that some change in the politi-
cal policy of the government is neces
sary if we would preserve it for genera
tions to come?
And what theory, let me ask, is it
| possible to evolve that would be more
likely to bring peace to torn and dis
tracted country than that to which the
democratic party is pledged "a policy
that formulated into law would simply
mean equal and exact justice to all with
special privileges to none coupled with
faithful, honest and economical ad
'ministration of public affairs.