The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1894-09-28
MANKATo FREE PRESS.
MR.. FINK'S ADDRESS
The distinguished Milwaukee Orator
Addresses the German Ameri=
cans of MankatO.

y
addressed a fair sized audience last
evening at Union hall. His address
was delivered in the German language.
and the audience was composed in the
most part of German-Amerlcan citi-
zens. He was suffering from severe
cold and spoke with much effort. He
spoke to a large audience at New Ulm
the night befor , and goes to Young
America tonight. In the city he wa
the guest Of his old friend, Oscar Bier
bauer
Mr.. Fink was introduced to his
audience by II. L. Schmitt, who pre-
sided over the meeting. He opened
by speaking of former visit to Man
kato in 1865, when the place was vii
lage of about 400. 1t has now grown
to great and healthy city of $4,000
inhabitants. He was surprised to see
its appearance now. MankatO is sur
rounded by a wheat yielding country,
and eastern people, realizing this,
have moved from the east to the
west, and are still coming. The speak
er referred to the era of prosperity
following the advent of the Republic
can party to power in 1861, nOtWith-
standing the war and all it cost the
country, the enormous debt it created
and the economic loss in the men who
fell on the field of battle. These pros
porous times continued up to eighteen
months ago when President Cleveland
called an extra session of congress to
repeal the Sherman silver law, to
which he laid the hard times, but in
this he was mistaken.
From it's very traditions, the Demo
cratic party is naturally for free trade
1t is also naturally the opponent of
the foreigner, because the foreigner
believes in the dignity Of labor. The
hostility of the Democratic party to
the foreigner has been shown cOnclu-
sively in its attitude to the land laws.
The Republicans have made laws
which present to every foreign born
100 acres of land, which soon makes
him wealthy. From the very eStab-
liShment of the land system Demo-
cratic statesmen, have attacked the
system. The presumption and home
stead acts were enacted through Re-
publican influence and pushed through
these laws hundreds of foreigners
German, Scandinavian, French and
1riSh-feeing from poverty in the old
world, had sought and established
homes on the public domain and at
not to wealth.
The Republican party gave the for
eigner right to vote as soon as he
iC inf To n
citizen, and these foreigners then owe
that party and their adopted country
a duty. Mr.. Fink referred to the in
consistency OF the Democratic party
in its Efforts to secure votes. In a
Democratic parade, as illustrating
this incOnsistence, which took place
in an Ohio town the other day, within
ten feet of each other appeared
transparencieS with these mot
toes: Grover Cleveland and
S1.25 wheat" s'Grover Cleve-
land, high wages and low provisions. :"
The speaker showed how the Demo-
cratic party fails to recognize the
mutual interests of the laboring me n
and the farmers. The farmer cannot
receive high prices for his provisions
unless the labOring man receives high
enough wages to allow him to pay
high prices. The laboring man can
not prosper unless the farmer can
purchase the product of his labor at
good prices. You cannot promise the
farmer higher prices for his wheat and
the laborer lower prices Tor the -four
he buys.
The speaker referred to the
tariff legislation of the Democrats,
and asked why, if the tariff bill was
so bad, Cleveland did not veto It, Or if
it was so good, why he did not sign it.
Cleveland and the Democrats say
that the tariff agitation is to be con-
tinued, and protection to the Ameri-
can laborer hauled down piece by
piece, while business continues to be
unsettled. A comparison of the happy
times under thirty years of Republi-
can rule was made with the misery
and disaster of the past eighteen
months under Democratic rule. The
country was never so prosperous as it
was two years ago, nor was any other
COUNTY ever GO co prosperous: 1t want
ed to be even more prosperous and
mace change, and see what that
change has brought. 1t is like the
case OF the epitaph found over q
mans grave in cemetery, which
read: II was perfectly healthy, but
desired to be still healthier, and took
medicine, and here / lie." This is De-
mocratic policy. How do our iron re-
sources in Northern Minnesota help
us if we permit Cuba to supply us
with iron? Pay the laborer big
wages and you make big consumer,
take away his wages and you have
already seen how it is,
The speaker referred to the immi-
grafton under Republican rule, and
showed how every one of these for
eigners, if prudent, had prospered.
He said that as showing that the
Democrats are no friends of the Ger
mans they have not sent one German
to the q. S. senate or congress in the
last ten years. He told his hearers
that if any of them had made mis-
take in 1892 by voting the Democratic
ticket they should change to the Re-
publican party this fall and if voter
does not know how to vote hereafter
and has watched the Democratic
policy since that party got into
power he pitied him.
Mr.. Fink was unable to conclude
his remarks, an account of his severe
cold. He was rewarded with ample