The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-22
NELSON'S GREAT SPEECH.
HE OPENS THE CAMPAIGN AT
ARGYLE.
He Gives His Reasons Why the Re-
publican Party Should Be
Kept in Power.
His Arguments Considered and An
Swered.
CONTIN UED.

UON. NclSOH SpccCll Will NC du deC VI
cruelty. 1T thunders all around the
sky" The fire has been concentrated
on that document. until there is
nothing left of it. Judge Stearns, B.
f. Partridge, DR.. johnson and all the
rest are blazing away. We expect to
hear Gov. Nelson declare, before long,
that he never was in Argyle in his
life; and that he has never made a
speech since he left Congress.
And therefore, instead Of occupying
so much of our valuable space with re-
plying to him, seriatim, we shall
"lump" the thing and pick out the
salient points. If when we get
through the governors frierds think
we have omitted any important mat
ter, and will call our attention to it,
we shall try to reply, thereto.
The governor says:
GA study of our statistics and eX-
animation OF our agricultural and in
duStrial development makes it plain
that the rapid growth Of our nation
in commerce, in transportation Iacili
ties and in manufacturing has not
beenat the expense Ordctriment OF our
agricultural interests, but rather to
their great advancement and benefit.
The great army of men engaged IN
these other pursuits have been the
chief consumers OF our agricultural
products. But for them the demand
would have been limited and the home
market exceedingly Scant. Our chief
reliance would have been in the for
eign demand, which is uncertain and
quite limited, and where we have to
compete with the entire world, both
as to prices and quantities. Today
scarcely 20 per cent of all our agricul-
tural products find a market abroad.
In truth, our agricultural interests
needed, above all things, that which
is now complained of-the employ
ment of extensive capital in other in
dustrial pursuits in order that the
field of labor might be enlarged and
the demand for agricultural products
greatly increased
This is the old argument:-t the
farmers should pay higher prices for
all they buy to create home market
for what they have to sell. In other
words,-the farmer is to take dollar
out of his right hand breeches' pocket
and give it to John Jones, for nothing,
in the hope that, after time, John
will bring him back two dollars for
his left hand breeches' pocket. 1t is
an attractive theory and has, perhaps,
some basis of truth, in so far as it is we'll
for each industry in country that all
other industries should be prosperous.
The tariff question has more sides to
it than diamond: and the man who
knows least about it is usually most
positive in his conclusions. If the
theory could be carried out in its en-
tirety; if the farmers could sacrifice a
part of their wealth to build up a
prosperous population of workmen,
who would consume their productions,
at a price higher than the worlds
price, it might be we'll to gre in the
hope of getting. But, unfortunately, the
price of the farmers grain and meat
is fixed by the ,corld's price. He is not a
penny better off if his wheat is eaten
by Yankees. than he is if it is eaten
by Englishmen or Hottentots. You
will not find on any bulletin board in
the New York market an inscription
like this:
Price of wheat for American bellies... s1.OO
Price of wheat for European bellies 80
If we could be satisfied that there
was any such market as that in the
United States we should all be ex-
treme, Mckinley ProtectiOnsts.
Moreover eXperience,-and it is the
surest, though often the sorest teach
er,-tellS us that the money the farm
ers of the West have paid, for thirty
years, to encourage American indus
try" has not gone to the workingmen
for whom it was intended, but to the
capitalists who employed them. The
proof of this is the vast wealth ac-
cumulated in the manufacturing re-
gOns; while today several millions of
men, who are ready to work, are re-
duced to the condition of tramps. The
$4,000 families who own one-half the
wealth of the United States; or the
nine per cent Of the whole population
who own seventy-one per cent of the
total property, are very inadequate
market for the vast aggregate of the
farmers wheat, corn, oats, wool,
barley, beef, pork and vegetables. You
could not ram but minute fractiCn of
those vast crops down their throatS
On the other hand, the ten millions of
workmen, for whom we have been
plundered, are not in a condition to
buy very much of what we have for
sale;-they are half paid, half fed, or
not paid or fed at all. Covered with
mortgages we are looking to the pau
perism of a ruined country for a mar
kct. But the wealth has gone from us
and concentrated in the manufacture
ing regions,-bu not in the hands of
the tOilers; as we showed last week,
nine north.Atlantic states gained, be-
tween 1880 and 1890, more wealth than
twenty-one middle and western states,
containing sic times as much land, tauice as
naany people and almost as much capital
If the West had plundered the East
to any such extent we should have had
civil war long ago. The East is too in
telligent to stand such atroclous rob-
bery,in the name of patriotism or any
thing else.
Gov. Nelson understands this as well