Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1896-10-31
Republican MisrepresentatiCns An
AWerod.

| EDITOR liC lSpND
licans of the county and nation as
we'll, seeing that the oppressed
masses throughout the land are turn
ing their backs on the party of trusts,
corporations, monopolies, and force
bills, and are going over in droves to
the cause of the people, are resort
Ing to every means fair or foul,
with money, power, influence, pur-
suasion, and misrepresentation i'll
order to stop the wholesale assertions
from their ranks. They see with fear
and trembling the handwriting on
the wall, and driven to despera-
ton thereby, do not hesitate at
deliberate falsehood. or any other
vile method to deceive the people.
Here on the Eastern Shore they are
everywhere telling the people that
we have no protection for potatoes
under the present tariff, a deliberate
and malicious falsehood, as they well
know. Every one who ever read the
present tariff law, knows that every
potato landed in this countryis taxed
45 cents on every barrel before it is
allowed to land on the dock. AS
there is not single barrel OF sweet
potatoes brought here from other
countries, if there was a tariff OF n
hundred dollars barrel on them, it
couldn't do us any good, because, as
| said, there is not single barrel OF
them brought into this country from
anywhere.
They also tell the people that we
now have free trade in the country,
that there is little or no duty on
foreign goods, and that is why the
factories up North are not running
more, and employing more hands;
smother deliberate and cold-blooded
falsehood, with which they hope to
fool our people. No one knows bet
ter than these same schemers, that
the present tariff passed by the
democrats, is only five cents in the
dollar less than the Mckinley tariff,
the present tariff giving our manu-
facturers by the government bonus
of 40 cents on every dollars worth OF
goods they make. and which we have
to pay, while the Mckinley tariff
gave them AZ cents bonus, as l said
before a difference only of five cents
In the dollar-a difference so slight,
that if it wasn't on the records, we
would never know or feel it in any
way, whatever, and q further refu-
tation of their assertion that
the letting in of foreign goods has
stopped liz home factories. | will
state that the treasury reports just
published show, that we are manu-
featuring and sending to other coun-
tries more stuff OF all sorts than evel
before, and that the amount of goods
brought here during the past veal
from other countries has been less
than for many years by tens Of mil
lions of dollars. Anyone doubling
this statement, can buy postal
card, and write to the Secretary OF
Treasury at Washington, and see
whether it is correct or not. So that
it will be readily seen that it il
not because we haven't protection
enough, nor because of the increase
of importation of foreign goods, that
our factories are idle, and people
unemployed are tramping the streets
by the hundred thousand all over
the country. We have got to seel
further, for the root of this evil thai
we now endure.
How can we start cur factories
until the farmers and other consum
ers of their products, get something
to buy and pay for them with? Wha'
is the use to start them, and pile thu
goods up in the warehouses and ne
one in the land with money to buy
them This is putting the cart before
the horse, it is starting at the wrong
end; prosperity has got to start firs
with the farmer, with the consumer
he has got to get more for what III
raises: more than Is cents for corn,
cents for meat and lard, more than Al
cents for wheat, or cents for cotton
and more than 90 cents for potatoes
before the factories can start and rul
on full time. Start the farmers first
and the factories will start them
selves. No amount of tariff that cal
be piled on manufactured goods cal
give the farmers money. Give thu
farmers of the great West none.
with which to buy the factory pro
; ducts, and then and not before will
the workers in factories North b.
employed and have money will
which to buy our products. Th'
farmers of the great West, grease thu
wheels that run the machinery OF thu
Uni~e,s.,. If this great depression
= in business and low prices were con
fined to this country alone, and PEG
ple in other countries were prosper
ous-then we might say, that it wa
tariff, or some other local law, tina
was the cause of our present condi-
tion-but when we know that low
prices and stagnation of trade ex-
tends over all the great commercial
= nations of the earth, to nations tina
have high tariff like ourselves, as wei
as to free trade nations like Englan d
then we must look further than the