The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-12-25
A PRETTY GAME.
BUT 1T WON'T DO.
HOWLING "TARIFF'' AROUND
THE CORNER, WHILE THE
PICK-POCKETS GET IN
THEIR WORK.


nice. agreeable gentleman, for tea
party, and shrewder than for and
sharper than cambria needle. He
gave his check, we are told, at one
time, during the last campaign, for
$4,000, to the Repu blican state central
committee. to prevent that IAN
archist," as they called him. S. M.
Owen, from being elected governor
and urning up the Commonwealth;
and when some friend Of his expressed
surprise at SO large donation, Mr..
Walker said, ut scds his interest to keep
the Republican party in po,cer. No
doubt it was
Now, Mr.. Walker is sharp enough to
see that political party,-that has
risen in enc presidential term from
nothing to two million votes, is bound
eventually to sweep the country, -un-
less headed off by turning public at
tention to some other issue than the
financial ques tion. And so Mr.. Walk
er, for want of a better subject, goes
down into the bone-yard of dead and
buried disputatons, and digs up the
ill-smelling corpse Of the old Tariff
question: and he is now wiring the
joints and subduing the stencil with
rose-water, and trotting it out to at
tract the attention of the bowling
multitude
He has written an elaborate speech,
and the Republican press is diligently
republishing it, and the purport of it
all is, that times Of high-tariff are al
ways periods of great prosperity in
this country: and times of low tariff
and bankruptcy.
This would all be very pretty and
very interesting if it was only true
but it is not.
Ben Franklin once propounded, to
an assemblage Of philosophers, in
Paris, this question:
why is it that if you fill vessel
full to the brim with water and then
very gently introduce large frog into
it, the water will not overflow"
great may ingenious and learned
replies were given to the question; the
most Of them turning upon the hypo-
thesis that the frog absorbed the wa
ter. At length one Of the gentlemen
said to Franklin, well, Doctor,
what is your explanations"
"My explanation" replied old Ben,
lis, that I, isn't true"
A little boy once remarked to a ge.
tleman:
"Do you see that little girl, yonder?
That little girls mother is my moth
er, and that little girls father is my
father: and yet that little girl is no
relation of NINE"
What was the answer to the prob
lem? 1t was this:-s'H,e little bog lied"
And that answers great many of
the perplexing puzzles of this world
the facts are not so. AS the colored
gentleman remarked in the trial Of a
case in court:-''That ere allegation
am false and that ere alligator knows
it,"
Now we have too much respect for
Mr.. Walker, or any other millionaire,
to say he ''lied.'' That which is a lie
in poor devil is simply mis-state-
ment in man with large bank &C.
count.
Here is a complete answer to Mr..
Walkers philosophising.
The censns of 1890 was taken under
Republican administration; Mr..
Harrison was in the White House:
and during the previous decade, and
up to 1893, this country was under the
highest kind of tariff statute, part
of the time the vaunted Mckinley
bill: and yet that. census of 1890, col
lected by Republican officials, long be-
fore any reduction was made in the
Tariff, by the Democrats or any one
else, showed from actual inquiry and
compu tation. the following facts:
Number of families in the U. s.
IN 1870. II. 600 l52
Mum Der of families in U. S.
owning homes, free of in
CumberanceS. .............. 1869 527
her Of families renting
their homes. ............... 6,623, 735
Numb Der of families occupy
ing incumbered homes. -. 1896, 800
So that there were 395l,O 9S more
families in the United States living
as tenants, or in mortgaged homes,
then there were free holders, living
on unincumbered estates. In other
words there were more than SO per
cent more tenants than home-owners;
and the tenants and owners of incum-
bered homes were nearly t,cice as nu,ner-
ous as the independent yeomanry liv-
ing on their own land, free of incum-
brance And ne-fourth OF all the
farmers of the U. S. we're in 1890 ten
ants
Does Mr.. Walker cal this prosper
~? And yet we had Republican
high-tariff from 1862 to 1S9O-a period
of % years. And the census is not a
Democratic or Fopulist invention. 1t
was taken by the Republicans them
selves. And yet the tenants exceeded
the free landholders more than fifty
per cent, in this nation, but little
more than 100 years old; where the
government had given away, under
the homes tead law, an empire in ex-
tent, as a free gift for the people, to
make homes upon.
Look at this question from another
point of view.
There were, on the first Of January,
| $780, according to this Republican
| census, ATS 98 mortgages on real
| estate rnnraS TING debt Of SIX RIT-