The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-26
RIVER AT 8 A. NJ.

La Crosse .............10 1.9 -0.2
Davenport 800 15 23 ~O2
st. Louis ..............3O 12.6 -0.6
Fall. *Rise.
Note-Barometer corrected for temperature
and elevation p: F. Lyons, Observer.
THE SAME OLD TUNE.
A maid may forget her ornaments
and a bride her attire before Mr. Nc
Kinley can leave his blessed tariff nom
sense out of any speech that he makes.
1t all comes back to that in the end.
For a few moments, in a crisis, the
pressure of party Importantly and pub
lie opinion may force him to look the
real issue of the campaign in the face.
Then he braces himself for the effort
and actually utters the world gold"
without suffering collapse. But,
when the important duty is discharged,
with vast sigh of relief Mr.. McKin-
ley settles back again and goes to talk
ing about the tariff This was the
substance of his speech to the pottery
employees who visited him recently,
and to a delegation of farmers. He
threshed over with them the same old
straw, and based his arguments upon
the same old humbug He fills his
speech with laborious calculations &c
to the volume of exports and imports
and the amount of customs that have
been collected at different periods.
He is as disingenuous in this
second him. They speak and he speaks
OF foreign trade in the years 1890 and
1881 as compared with the present time
and attribute the discrepancy to a
change in tariff laws. They know
that is, most of them do, perhaps Mr.
Mckinley may not know enough TO
know it-that this is absurd and dis
honest. There has been in the inter
val a financial panic, followed nv
financial agitation, that disturbed all
industries, depressed trade and threw
business into confusion. They confess.
when they are arguing about free coin
age, that it was the threat of free sill
YER AIDED to the imitation of our cur
rency already accomplished, that threw
the United States into it's present
plight. They admit in this an all-suf-
ticient cause fer every shrinkaee in
commerce and in revenue that has oc-
CURED. Then they turn about and
in the next sentence, attribute the
same shrinkage to particular revenue
act.
AS to which is right, no man
need be long in doubt. Our high tar
If friends are fond of comparing the
statistics of revenue for the first twen-
ty months of the Mckinley act with
the first twenty months of the German
act. But why take the first twenty
months? Why not make the compari-
son over consecutive period of timeq
What fairness in contrasting 1890 with
1894? Let us take the best possible point
OF comparison and compare the last
year under the Mckinley act with the
first year under the German act. which
Immediately followed it; which were
more nearly similar in conditions than
any two years could be if separated by
wide interval of time. The German
act went into effect in August, 1894
The fiscal year of the government ends
on June 80 of each year. If we set
out, therefore, the figures for the fiscal
year 1894, they will give us the reve-
nues for the last year of the Mckinley
act If we take the revenues for the
fiscal year 1895, they give US practically
the first year of the German act. or.
literally, two months of McKinIeyism
and ten months of Gormanism. The
customs revenue for the first wear was
$131 SIS, $50. For the second year it was
1852, 15S,617. Thus. if customs receipts
are an indication, the new act was
q greater revenue-getter than the old.
Now, what is the sense Of a man
who aspires to be president of the
United States standing on street cor
ner and grinding away at his ram
shackle old hand organ, turning out
the same whining, wheezy old
tunes, and holding out his tin cup for
tAAC SOI1lA1 VI lH0 is
1t worthy of the dignity of his posi-
ton? Is it worthy Of a fair inteIli-
gence to keep on attributing loss in
revenue to an act which Increased rev.
enue, and disturbances of trade to an
act that came into being long after
trade had been paralyzed by an en-
tirely different cause? In the long run.
no issue and no man loses anything
by being honest The tariff argument.
as employed in the present campaign.
is utterly insincere and false. For ev-
cry laboring man that it convinces it
will cost the Republicans two voters,
who see through its transparency and
rafuse to be humbugged. while they