Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1911-09-28
EVIL THE WORM EVER TURE2
Southern lndustTialiStS Feel Their Interests
lmpeiled by Free Trade Political
AScendency.
New York SIM

new Ork Sun.
You can't get anyone in the whole
Piedmont section, extending from DAN
vile, Va, to the Georgia line, and for
that matter beyond it, to believe that
General Winfield Scott Hancock wasn't
right when he said that the Tariff is
local issue. Hancock was cartooned and
lampOoned on the score of that utter
ance. Thomas Mast exploited some of
his finest thoughts, and minor humor-
lists played with it rs so many kittens
with an equal number of bagatelles. All
the same the general had hit the bulls
eye, and now. nearly forty years after
ward, the manufacturing classes of this
region, and indeed the whole country.
are uneasily aware of it.
Things went along smoothly enough
while the Republican party was in pow
er. The South's budding industries got
the Protection they needed at the hands
of the hated foe. The mills and mines
and refneries and lumber camps pros
pered under Yankee Legislation, and the
beneticiaries thereof sent to Congress
ardent reformers, heroes of the fish fry
and the barbecue, garlanded laureates
of female seminary commandments and
full-throated songsters who denounced
Protection in words of purest fire and
sacrificed the Octopus without restraint.
A beautiful arrangement while it last
ed, whereby the captains got luxury
"a-coming and a-going," for their pro-
ducts were promoted in the market
while they delighted themselves and
their neighbors by imprecating the Re-
publican minions who achieved the pro-
motion.
But change has come over the once
roseate prospect, and mighty ominous
and painful change it is. The Demo-
Gratis have captured the House of Rep
resentatives and bid fair to capture the
Senate, also, with radiant probabilities
for the White House, and already the
shadow of Democratic ascendency is be-
ginning to chill the spines and marrows
that yesterday were stiffened and warm
ed In deceptive and luxurious anes-
thetlc. OF course the wise chieftains
of industry in these parts do not believe
that the present activities of the House
Democrats constitute anything more Sc
rious than campaign preparation with
reference to next year. They realize,
however, that should the Democracy
win in 1912 the bluff of 1911 will take
menacing form so far as their interests
are concerned, for the pledges on which
a party gets into power are not easy of
, reputation afterward
The humorous element of this particu-
lar situation is to be found in the fact
that the Southern cotton millers are not
receiving more Protection than the ad-
vocates of Tariff for revenue only have
proclaimed as part of their program.
They get just 40 per cent of Protection.
and the proof that this is not prohibi-
tory or anything like prohibitory is
abundantly evident in the statistics.
The total manufacture of cotton goods
is about 5000, 00O, 900 in the United
States at large, and the figures show
that some $lO6, 900, 900 worth of the
same kind of goods is imported from
Europe and elsewhere. 1t seems, there
fore, that the Tariff as it stands stimu-
lates competition, whereas to the ex-
tent to which the tax is lowered a re-
formed Tariff will apparently suppress
home industries in the interest of for
elgn Industries. This is the prospect
unfolded to the Southern millers bv
Democratic success and Democratic fer
vor following thereon.
1t may be said of almost all the man.
ufacturing establishments in the So
called Piedmont section that thew are
operated wholly by natives taken chiefly
from the mountain farms and intro
duced to splendid and increasing civil
lzation. The proprietors have built
pleasant and salubrious VILLAGES for
their working people; they have erected
and are maintaining churches, schools,
amusement centers, etc., and within the
last few years have advanced their
wages and curtailed their working hours
very considerably This condition of
things, contributing to the prosperity of
all concerned, for even the farmers are
thus furnished with profitable markets.
} they now see threatened with a GRIN
, ping if not destructive blow. 1t was
created under Republican dispensa-
!, ton; kept alive by Republican policies.
| yet at last they see it imperiled by
} Democratic success, notwithstanding
the fact that nine-tenths of its benefici-
aries are Democrats. Almost ANYBODY
can say 81 told you so.'
The question with the millers is that
of averting the destruction which thew
now see impending and which thew at
last recognize as their own fault. The
truth is that they didn't foresee Demo-
cratic success and have been nuring a
viper in their bosom, or words to that
effect. They have allowed their con-
gressmen to play in the sunlight of Mr..
Bryan's and Mr.. Champ Clark's smiles.