Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1898-03-24

has been an increase of more than 100
per cent. in our sales to those two
countries during the past year, very
large proportion of it coming from
the south.
The president of the Manchester
Association of Engineers, who has
recently been in this country, in
speaking of our iron and. steel manu-
features, says: '"The United States,
with her bOundleSS natural resources,
coupled with the energy of her people,
is destined to become the workshop
of the world" He might also have
added that her protective system is
the cause of the progress she has made
in this line.
The Minnesota populists do not take
kindly to the fusion proposition which
few office holders in Washington
cooked up to insure their own re-
election. The gentlemen who visited
them the other day to promote fusion
were coldly received, and the COM
mittee called a meeting OF a state
convention for June Is, the chairman
in issuing the call for the convention
giving no approval of fusion, but an
nOuncing that it was the sense of the
committee that the integrity of the
peoples party should be preserved.
Foreign manufacturers continue to
invest money in manufacturing estab-
liShmentS in the United States, now
that they have investigated the Ding
ley protective tariff law. A new silk
mill at South Bethlehem, Pa, another
at Patterson, n. j., dress goods
plant at Athena, n. j., velveteen
mill at Mystic, Conn.,, and other eStab-
liShments Of this character in which
foreign capital will give employment
to American WOrkmen, are announced
as among the business developments
since the enactment of the new tariff
law, and others are to follow.
Populists, individually and in con-
VentiOnS all over the country, are
rejecting the fusion proposition which
Chairman Butler and the other chair
men with whom he is cooperating
for selfish purposes proposed in their
joint addresses two weeks ago. Butler
comes to the front now with a state
ment that he is not favOring fusion,
but fair and honorable cooperation"
Everybody knows, however. that he
openly worked against the pOpuliStS'
tickets in Ohio, Iowa, Kentucky, and
elsewhere, and for democratic success
last year, and is working to the same
end again.
Those 'debt-ridden" and mort
gage-eaten" farmers of Nebraska
must have found very rapid improve
ment in their condition since the
rejection of free silver and free trade,
and the adoption of a protective tariff
with "a sound money system. Late
reports from that state show that a
movement is on foot for the OrganiZa-
ton of cooperative beet sugar fac
tories in various parts of the state
and that the area to be planted to
beetS this year will be ten thousand
acres in excess of that of last, and
this, too, in the face of the threat by
the factories now existing of reduc-
ton in the price to be paid for beets
in case of the annexation of Hawaii.
The protection sentiment is no
longer looked upon in the south as
treason to democratic principles.
Governor CulberSOn Of Texas, who is
a candidate for the L. S. senate, in a
recent statement, intended as reply
to Senator Mills assertions on this
subject, says that the advocacy of
duties on imports of raw materials
has not always been considered undem-
OCratic. On the contrary, he shows
that the tariff of 1916, known as the
Walker tariff, and considered a safe
democratic tariff standard, placed
duties on most of the raw materials
The state of Texas, it now appears.
will be represented in the senate by a
man having broad views on the pro-
tectiye question, and thus add to the
thirty or forty votes from the south
cast for protection in the recent legiS-
latiOn on that subject.
When the farmers of the country
stop to compare their condition at the
close of a years trial of republican
administration and protective policy
with that of the years Immediately
preceding 1t under democratic admin
iStratiOn and free trade policy they
must reach the conclusion that it is
not case of happen-so, but that just
so long as the government is under
democratic free trade control, bust
ness will be stagnated factories
closed, men out of employment, wages
reduced and farm products low in
price and slow of sale. Under the
three years operations of the Wilson
tariff the business of the country
become terribly depressed; thousands
OF men were out of employment.
prices of all products sold at and below
cost of production. What is the diff
ference at the present time? Merely
that the policy of the government has
been changed; that the low tariff
measure has been stricken from the
statute books and law placed thereon
which protects American industry
and gives employment to American
workmen, and at the same time pro-
duces revenue to meet the expenses of
the government. The effect of this
change has been, in single year, that