Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-09-13

in this country-to more than $4,000
000,000 in the aggregate, while the
overthrow of that measure has al
ready taken from labor wages amount
ing to 100000, or $2,500.000,00G
yearly. The act brought the largest
volume of business and the greatest
prosperity ever known, for when peo-
pie earn much they buy much. The
fight for its repeal has brought the
worst prostra ton of business for fifty
years. And it is all for nothing. be-
cause the bill Of sale and of shame can
not last. With dishonesty matched
only by the stupidity Of business men
who swallowed the falsehood, par
tisans urged repeal as the only way of
getting a settlement, but now it is
confessed that nothing is settled.
President Cleveland says the new bill
is only "a underground from which
must be Waged further aggressive
operations" Chairman Wilson, in his
closing speech August 10, said the bill
made some breach in the protective
system through which the hosts of
American freemen would continue to
march," and that no work that is
not thorough ever remains undis-
turbed.' The New York Herald de-
cIared August %, the morning the bill
went into operation, that it cannot
be finality. 1t is mere makeshift.
The Times declared July % that the
bill would be betrayal of faith and
a defiance Of the public sentiment Of
the ma ton, which would Immediately
again be appealed to. Agitation would
instantly be renewed
All that business has gained, all that
labor has gained. by enormous losses
and sacrifices thus far, is beginning
of further aggressive operations"
further agitation, loss and sacrifice.
Labor has been compelled to sacrifice
from its earnings in one year sum
about as great as the entire national
debt created by a four-years rebellion.
The loss Of capital may be judged
from the liabilities of firms falling
$J57, 100000 commercial and banking
last year, and 81 ,2000.000,000 Of rail
road bonds. And all this for nothing,
I except that democrats may tell ig-
nOrant men that they have passed
some bill instead of no bill. and the
trusts may get their millions each. If
this is tariff reform, every man who
has sense enough to manage any bust
ness or farm, or to earn wages at any
thing, will say the less of it the bet
ter No more destroying agitation, if
such are the fruits If instead of set
tlement for all our losses we get only
! the beginning of controversy, with in
| fanny and plumber, it is time tC end the
thing. If the Mckinley BILL cleared of
some mistakes, does not come back
richly freighted with prosperity for
all workers, and come to stay, every
observer of free institutions will con-
clude that they are frightfully costly.
CLEVELAND AND PELF.
From the New York Sun: The
I phrases trusts and combinations
and the communism of pelf'' in Mr..
| Cleveland's Catchings letter are worth
notice, not primarily as a sign of the
writer's return to his old inf1amma-
tory style. but for reasons more per-
sonal to himself We have not the
records of Mr.. Cleveland's highly sue
! cessfu' Wall street operations which
would justify us in saying outright
that he has some of the pelf in his own
j pocket; but he has enjoyed it indi-
reeuy very conspicuously- His first
friend is known to be Mr.. E. G. Bene-
dict of New York and Connecticut, the
owner Of the yacht Oneida. Mr.. Bene-
dict in the sight of virtue standing on
: it's hind legs to denOunce trusts as the
communism of pelf," is one of the
He has made millions or Whereabouts
in the Chicago gas trust. and heaven
knows in what other robber schemes.
and heaven also knows what other
moneys he has made in flyers for his
friends His mighty thefts have
tric6led into Mr.. Clevelands corporeal
economy in the form of first-class
champagne and other forms beyond
! any mans power to estimate. as no
books are kept on such transactions.
It will seem wonderful to some peO-
pie that a man with a mind so Occu-
pied with protestations of all the
virtues as Mr.. CIeveland's. should
shake hands with such a bandit as
Benedict. much less sleep on board
his yacht, that pirates craft; but there
is no solid ground for wonder. The
fact is that the communism of pelf"
in a letter from Grover Cleveland is
merely another case of humbug
When pondered on in soberneSs it may
go a good way toward explaining the
fraud CT the democratic tariff DILL
Humbug is the idiot mother of fraud
An honest tariff revision on the demo-
cratic principle by Grover Cleveland,
was beyond the bounds of possibility.