Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-04-07
M'KINLEY SPEAKS
lin MINNEAPOLIS.
4 Stirring Address Before the Re-
publican League of Minnesota.
REVIEW OF PRESENT CONDITIONS

The Wilson Bill Analysed and Whal
Would Be the Consequence of
Its Passage Clearly
/ Demonstrated.
/ Minneapolis, Mimi, March 49,
The city was alive with Republican
enthusiasm to-day. Il began wher
Governor MeKinley's party arrived al
the West Hotel. The Governor de
livered spirited address on the land.
ing OF the great staircase to throng
that packed the hotel lobby as it has
not been packed since the National
Convention. Later on he delivered a
longer address to the State League oil
Republican Clubs at the Exposition
Building and was received by the
1000 delegates present with the mos.
tumultuous applause. His speech fol
lows:
Much has happened since the
great Republican national convention
of 1892 assembled in this hall. The
platform and candidates OF that great
convention, admirable as they were,
were rejected by the people at the
election following; but the people had
no sooner spoken than they realized
their great mistake-mistake which
they now feel most sensibly and re-
greet most deeply. The principles enun-
ciated at that convention are as dear
to Republicans now as then; they are
better understood and more ardently
supported by the great body of the
people Ill the year 1894 than they
were ID the year 1892. While the Re
publican party failed to carry the
election, the cause for which it con-
tended did not fall 1t survived the
awful disaster and shines more bright
| lv and gloriously than ever before.
1.-The past year has been a long one
the longest since the war. 1t has
been full of changes and experiences
which have been impressive and in
structive, but expensive. All kinds
of business has been seriously disturb
ed. Investments have been sacrificed
capital has been despoiled OF its earn
ings, and labor, more than all and
dearer to us than all, has suceumbed
to the wasting blasts of the great
change by which industry has been
cheated OF its just rewards. Every
thing has been blighted but Republi-
can principles.
Let the briefest statement of the
business condition at the close of the
year 1892 be contrasted with like
statement Of that condition at the end
of 1898.
THE year 1892 says Dun's Re-
view of Trade, the best non partisan
authority, has been the most prosper
GUS ever known in business This is
the business Endorsement of thirty
years of Republican rule. Now mark
the changel Says Dun's Review of
Trade for 1898:
Starting with the largest trade
ever known, Mills crowded with work
and all business stimulated with high
hopes, the year 1898 has proven in
sudden shrinkage of trade, in com
mercial disaster and the depression of
industries, the worst for fifty years
Whether the final results of the panic
of 1887 were relatively more severe,
the scanty records of that time do not
clearly show. The year closes with
the prices of many products the low
est ever known, with millions of work
ers seeking in vain for work, and with
charity laboring to keep back suffer
ing and starvation in all our cities.
All hope that the new year may bring
brighter days, but the dying year
leaves only dismal record. The Re-
view of different departments of trade
given to-day exhibits a collapse of in
dustry and business which is almost
without precedent. The iron indus
tries sustained weekly production
of ISI, 55I tons OF pig May 1, but by
October /, the output had fallen to
1896 tons, and the recovery to about
100, COO tons December I, still leaves
40 per cent of the force unemployed
| Over half the wooden manufactures
are idle and. excepting brief recoy.
cry in November, have been ever since
new wool came in in May, for all sales
in the chief markets in the eight
months have been but los, 7o5, 400
pounds, partly for speculation, the
price having fallen 20 per cent for
fleeces to the lowest point ever known
against 2I2, 5000 pounds in the
same months last year. Sales of cot
ton good. are fully one-fourth below
the usual quantity. The small adj
vance attempted in boots and shoes a
year ago was not sustained. bat with
prices as low as ever the shipments oil
| boots and shoes from Boston are 81 per
cent less than last year in December.
Not only manufactured goods as a
whole, but the most important farm
products are so low that farmers find
little comfort. Officials and other re-
ports deluded traders with the notion
that crops Of last year were SO short
that famine prices could be realized.
ITO add to the perplexities Of the
situation under the menace of free
trade, here described, the Wilson bill
which recently passed the House Of
Representatives at Washington and is
now in the hands Of the Senate, pro-
poses ostensibly to reduce the reve-
nues SO, 900, 600. The real decrease
would eventually. after we became
more and more impoverished, be far