Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-08-20
FREE TRADE AND Low PRICES FOR AdRI-
CULTURAL PRODUCTS.

Everyone knows that the price of
products is exceedingly low, and in
some cases below cost of production,
The cheap money demagogues propose
to take advantage of this by claiming
the cause of it to be the failure of the
govern ment to authorize the coinage of
fifty cents worth of silver in a dollar
when in reality the real cause of the
prevailing low prices for agricultural
products is to be found in the free
trade policy so lately inaugurated.
The Wilson bill has largely increased
exports. We are using great many
foreign goods which have taken the
place of the products of the American
factory. AS a result industry is de-
pressed in the United States and thou
sands of American working man are
either idle or working OIL half time.
Now the American wage Garner was
one of the best customers the Ameri-
can farmer had. He spent his good
wages in buying good things for his
table. The factory operators in New
England, New York, Pennsylvania, and
Ohio were not like their brethren
across the water satisfied with rye
bread and porridge, with butter and
beef as Sunday luxuries. On the tables
of the American wage earners in pros
porous times, beef was most indies
pensable article of food, and he didn't
buy the poorest cuts, either. He bought
good beef, and plenty of it. He bought
American butter. His good wife bought
American eggs rs an accompaniment
for American ham. AS result the
American farmer had an ample mar.
ket for everything he raised, but when
free trade came, and the factories of
Lowell and Fall River shut down the
American operative was forced to
forego most of the good things he had
formerly enjoyed. He no longer pur-
chased eggs and butter as he once did.
The stern necessities of foreign COM
petition forced American factory
hands in the east to live more sparing-
ly than they had lived before. The
shipments of beef to the points of New
England alone decreased many millions
Of dollars since 1892. The same thing
is true Of dairy products and of eggs.
The American farmer lost his home
market. The free trade demagogues
had promised two things. First, that
there should be no decrease in the de-
mand by this home market, and
second, that if there was, it should be
more than made up by an increased de-
mand for American breadstuffs abroad.
Neither promise was fulfilled. The
American market was lost, and the
foreign market actually took less than
they ever did before. Less than year
ago, one of the principal trade journals
of London made the double boast that
England was selling the United States
more than she ever did before, and
buying less. With candor that was
astonishing, this trade journal stated
England did not seem to be disposed
to reciprocate for the increased trade
brought her by the Wilson bill; that
instead of buying more American farm
products in return for the increased
shipments of cotton and wooden goods
to America, she had chosen to pur-
chase the bulk of her breadstuffs from
Russia and British India. What the
American farmer wants in order to get
back his old prices, is to get back his
old market, the American market, the
best in the world, and in order to do
this he is going to give the silver dem
agogues the go-by and vote steadily
for Mckinley and protection.-Cedar
Rapids Republican.