Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1894-10-10

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have been selling to England TWO VI
three hundred million dollars worth oil
products more than we bought, ana
large part of our people have thoughtt
a patriotic duty to abuse her Tor taxing
all these things from us. | say, LOT
wears past she has bought from us TWO or
three hundred millions more than we
have bought from her. Has she paid US
in money? The most surprising thing
about England, as | walked down py
the Bank of England and those other
banking institutions which nave
branches in South America, lndla, Aus
tralia. Africa and Canada, the most sur
prising thing to me, ] say, was that the
entire money of England Is but little
more than seven hundred millions oil
dollars in our currency. If England
undertook to pay us for what she buys
we would have the whole of her money
in three years on this side of the Allan
tic. She exchanges, as far as possible,
her products for our products, her TIM
plate and manufactured goods for cur
wheat, corn and other food products,
and as we buy coffee from Brazil, we
pay her by orders on England; as we
buy from other countries, tea, spices
and silks from China and India, we set
tie for them by drafts on the surplus
which England owes us. If, therefore, I.
we wish larger markets, we must ac-
cept and seek larger importations to
paw for what we send out. Why, fell
low-citizens, suppose that Instead Of IN
the year 1884 wool had been put upon
the free list ten or twenty years ago, the
people of the Argentine Confederation
would not be to-day pressing you so
strong in the wheat market Of England;
would they not be sendirg us the wool
which we excluded from America, and
receiving from us in exchange for that
wool such products as VIC make aud
they needy Because we taxed their
wool at least 80 and more than so per
cent, because we shut her out of these
markets, because we prefer to mako our
people pay double price for their neces-
sary wooden cloth, so that they must
dress in shoddy, we have driven her
from being a good customer of ours to
be dangerous competitor.
But. fcllow-citzens shall not pursue this
argument any further, shall not go at any
sp ecial length into tho other issues OF this
campaign. II would be idle for me TO say TO
an intelligent audience like this, that read the
newspapers and follow with vigorous interest
the course of public events, that believe the
tariff bill we passed measures up to the full
duty Of the Democratic party and the Ameri-
can people. say it would be idle for nc to
waste time in saying that this was not so, in
my judgment, and yet, when sit down and
compare the Till, famed and manged as it was
in its passage, with the law in existence be-
fore it, see that it launches the people OF this
country upon new career with their faces
toward industrial prosperity. In place of the
eyer-deepening gloom, with the ftful and reced-
ing waves of prosperity that comes to us in
spite of bad laws in the past, | am delighted
20 find, as ! fully expected TO iind, after
months absence from this country, the signs
of reViving industry and reminding prosper
ity. l am equally delighted to find that pros
perity is not coming back to us in flood,
which would be but temporary and leave US
again stranded in gloom, but is raising with
the slow rcsistless rise of tide that is to stay
with US for many years in the future.
would not imply by what have said that
the long stress of hard times through which
the American people have passed has been en-
trely due TO bad fiscal laws. Such laws ag-
gravate these commercial crises when they
come, but something more than laws enacted
in this country is chargeable with the fnan-
cial crisis through which all the leading ma
lions OF the world, one after another, have
passed during tho last few years.
But see on every side in this country
brighter outlook, a brlsker gait In the daily
walk of the business men. The doors OF the
factories are opening again, the smoke OF the
factories is beginning to rise, the busy hum of
machinery sounding its cheerful music to our
listening ears, and for all this so feel that
with more liberal enlightened commercial
system we shall not only offer no impediments
to its growth, but we shall help it forward in
all the land.
have attempted in another way aud in an
other place to present something of the record
of the Democratic party in the last Congress.
When sat down deliberately to make up that
record l was gratifed to find how much We
had done in the way of relief to the American
people was gratifed TO find that we could
point to so long catalogue of reform mea-
sures achieved by q single Congress, and
achieved, as many of them were, in the face of
difficulties that seemed at times overwhelm-
ing. Great political parties are but instru-
ments to be used by the people for securing
good government TO themselves. The people
still have confidence in the Democratic party.
The record of the Congress that has Just closed
is such that it can confidently apply to the
American people to continue the same party
in power. Twice only in the last twenty years
have the people of this country yentured to
turn over the House of Representatives to the
Republican party, and each time they have
turned them out at the following election.
We had Keifer Congress in 1881, and we
had the Democratic tidal wave in 1882 and
Democratic President in 1884. We had the
Reed Congress in 1899, and we had Demo-
cratic tidal wave in 1890 and Democratic
President in 1892. The Republican party was
called into existence by the people to achieve
one great, and as We are a., now ready to ad
nit, one grand reform. and that was the de-
structon Of the institution of slavery. That
was the purpose, the great single purpose,
for which the people called that party into
existence, and when it had achieved that re-
suit it was party without any definite prin-
ciples. So far as those prineiples arc con