The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1897-06-24

Oh INCOME OUT 1rOm tQe Iarm, can
stand here with more propriety, rossi-
bly,, than any other man and demand
equality and justice
''The cry is, Protect American Ia
Dor against the pauper labor of Eur
ope.' It is your sole reliance in ap-
pealing to the voters to say, 1--WE do
| not want the prices which we pay you
for your work to sink to the level of
your European competitors.
"Who competes with the American
farmer? Where are you driving him?
Take the producer OF wheat. Who are
his Competitors? The people of India,
Argentina and Russia. Take the cot
ton grower. Who compete with him?
The people of Egypt and India. You
are driving the producers of those
staple crops which are largely export
ed, to the level of the paupers who
work in Egypt, in India, in Argentina,
and in Russia. You can not deny the
proposition.
Gas long as we had a monetary sys
tenn which gave US fair prices Tor our
exports, we could stand the competi-
ton By reason of our rich virgin soil
and chr improved machinery and the
superior industry and intelligence Of
the American farmer. But we have got
to o point, since the repeal of the Sher-
man law and the final humiliation of
silver as money, where we are face to
face with . crisis in agricultural affairs
in this country; and you gentlemen
who are pressing madly onward, i'm
agining that you can hold your farmer
vote, that you can hold the wheat
grower to your standard BY pretending
that he will be benefited indirectly
while you can not give him bounty
and can not compensate him, will find
when this question is presented to him,
as IL will be presented in the next two
wears. that you must first explain why
you refuse to give the farmer equality
aud justice in this scheme OF protec-
ton. If You can hold his vote after he
shall be made to clearly understand the
class favoritism involved in the refusal
to vote this bounty, then he will de-
serve his fate, and will be fit mud
sill to serve as o basis of the pluto
cracy which now controls in this
country.
Il said moment ago that the Amer
lean farmer furnishes the exports with
which you pay your foreign exchanges.
will give the exact figures. All the
exports sent abroad by this country in
1896 amounted to 1868, 900, 900. OF that
sum, the farmers dug out of the ground
and shipped, because the home market
wotld not take it, $593, 600, 900 worth,
or nearly three-fourths. You are not
able to consume his surplus, and he Is
forced to sell wherever he can find q
buyer. You force him to buy at home
in q market the prices Of which have
been raised from 80 per cent. advalo-
rem,' which is the true Democratic
proposition, I believe, to somewhere
between 100 and 150..per cent on many
articles and an average OF over 30 per
cent on all.
"Mr. President, 1t is not worth while
for us to discuss here how the word
sonly' came to be left out of the plat
form, or why. 1 will say this however,
that the reason it was stricken out was
because we wished to confine the atten-
ton Of the country and fight the battle
on the money question only. We d1d
not care to have the tariff brought into
it as An issue at all; and after the pas
sage of the Wilson bill, those OF us who
were perhaps more advanced than the
Senator from Missoui in our ideas on
this question did not feel that We could
consistently contend about the word
sonly' when the Wilson bill from one
end to the other had recognized the
protective principle, and that the party
stood committed to the acknowledg-
ment that it was right and proper-or
expedient if you choose-to protect
American industries.
Somebody will ask, and all OF you
are asking in your minds now, what
right have You to take money out OF
the Treasury and pay bounty to any
body; what right have you to raise
money by taxation and pay 1t out In
bounties? You Republicans can answer
that when you explain by what right
you took money out OF the Treasury
and paid bounty to the sugar planters
of Louisiana, not on exports, but on
what they produced. But l want to
ask you who dispute the right to take
money out of the Treasury and pay 1t
out in bounties, what right have you to
levy taxes which take money out OF the
pockets of the people and pay bounties
to the manufacturer? You may call it
tariff, but it is q bounty on manufacture.
ing, and the farmer has to pay one-half
of It. What mean is that the agri-
cultural population of this country be-
ing about one-half of it, therefore, In
proportion to cosumption, they pay
one-half of the tariff duties OF this
country, and they get nothing In re-
turn. What right, If we come to the
question of right and wrong, have you
to take money from these people and
pay it as q bounty to manufacturers?
'T believe that il has been asserted
here by almost every Democrat who
has had anything to say about the in
iouities of this bill that it proposes
scheme of robbery by which the people
are to be mulcted, robbed, MOI 80 much
to put money into the Treas Try, but
indirectly by raising the prize OF all
that is consumed in the co.iphy:
think the Senator from Texas (Mr.
Mills calculated yesterday that for one
dollar paid in revenue the bounty to
the manufacturing industries would be
something like twelve dollars. The
figures were staggering. To take the
uost conservative estimate IL the bene-