Year: 1876

P. NJ. the immense wigwam containing
some three thousand persons at that time.
j. Hill, Esq, moved the election of the
following gentlemen as officers of the
meeting: President. General }. j. Jack
son; Vice Presidents, VIM. Logan, j. W.
Stout w. Wells.


General Jackson, in introducing the
speaker. made the following Interesting
remarks:


FELLow-C -CITIZENs:-Thirty-six years
ago this SUMNER great time 1t Will ap
pear to you when you consider it-l had
the honor of being arrayed in spolitical
contest with the father of my distin-
guished friend, General Ewing.


The General here briefly reviewed the
history Of the Democracy since the days
of Van Buren, and introduced General
Ewing, amid the rousing cheers of the i'm
mense audience. General Ewing said:


Mr.. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GEN
TLEMEN: 1t was with sincere pleasure
/ accepted the very cordial invitation of
your Committee to address my fellow
citizens at Parkersburg to-day. feel
attached to West Virginia for family as
well as political considerations. In the
borders of your State my father was born;
at the salines of the Kanawhs, with the
labors of his own hands, he paid off the
mortgage on his Revolutionary fathers
farm, and acquired the means of his own
education. Among you are still living
many of the friends of his early life one
of whom does us the honor to preside
here to-day. My sympathies go out to
the masses of the Democracy of West
Virginia, too, because know they and
the Ohio Democracy are one on what l
conceive 10 be incomparably the greatest
political question Of the day. Applause


When d man after a fairly prosper
Gus career finds his business disappear
ing, the accumulation Of former years
eaten up, his debts becoming every
month more and more 5urdensome, it is
due to himself, his wife and his children
that he should ask the cause. If it be
from any wreng on the part Of an indi-
vidual, a court of law or OF equity would
most likely give him relief; if it be
from wrong on the part of the Govern
ment he has in his own hand the remedy
of the evil, and if the wrong be general
one, and the people will act together,
the remedy is absolutely pertect-the
ballot.


Now, the men engaged in productive
industry in this country, whether they be
capitalists or day laborers, are suffering
immensely in their interests. The injury
is confined TO no section; it is universal
throughout the Republic. In almost
every county in every state are hundreds
of laborers willing to work, and without
employment; and many hundreds more
working on reduced time. There is
scarcely a product of labor, whether OF
shop or field but has steadily fallen in
price for the last eighteen months. There
is scarcely variety of labor the wages of
which have not greatly fallen. Nine
tenths of the business men have been
doing losing business; one half OF them
are struggling on the edge of bankruptcy,
and the other half are close behind,
marching on. The only reason that most
OF the business men do not close their
business at once Is, that to quit is imme-
diate bankruptcy; yet, to go on, unless
remedy be afforded for the EVIL times, is
Just as certainly bankruptcy too.


Now, if il be q political cause which
creates this distress and insolvency
throughout the United States it becomes
the people to treat politics for once as
business; to look at the causes, at the re-
sponsibihties, at the probabilities of relief
through one party or the other, not as
partsans, but rs men having the inde-
pendence and the sense of duty to protect
their own business and property from
destruction.


What is the causeH The approximate
cause is the shrinkage Of all the values
in the country. Land has fallen in price,
labor has fallen, ard almost every pro-
duct. You have an exceptional case here
in oil, but almost every other product OF
the earth or OF the hsnd of man has been
falling steadily for eighteen months. That
Is the cause of the distress, and why?
Because business can not be conducted
on ong-continued failing market
because money shrinks from invest
ment in anything that is dropping IN
price. or from loan to any men who are
doing business on falling market. The
money with which business Is done IN
this country has already fed from the
business to a large extent, because OF the
unsately OF loans to business men, or pur-
chases of lands or products. To Illus
trate this: Take a man engaged in man
ufscture of iron. He buys pig-metal, say,
at S24 per ton. When he shall have
manufactured it, he ought TO get s44 per
ton for the products the labor OF man
ufacturing is worth $50 per ton. But
while he is manufacturing it, pig-metal
falls 81 ton; and the consequence
is that when he turns it out
a. manufactured product, instead
of getting s44, that 81 t.ll in the
raw material must be taken of his manu-
factured poduct, because the purchaser
can always buy at price IS low as the
manufacturer, at the time OF the pdTchdSe,
could make it for. Therefore, the manu-
facturer must stand the fall on the raw


material and must always do losing
business when the price of raw material
is falling in value. So too with the job
bing merchant who buys goods TO job
them out. He buys shoes at $50 q dozen,
but before he sells them out the whole
sale price in the East has fallen to s25
He must reduce his price s. per dozen,
and therefore does q losing business
/ No matter what is the raw material the
manufacturer uses, no matter what are
the goods the merchant sells, in the fall
irg of prices while in his hands he bear;
! the loss.


Manufacture aad exchanges are done,
to large extent. on credit; not by the


men who are rich, but by those who
want to be rich, who unite their energies


and talent with the capital of non pro-
ducers- They must borrow or have cred
it. But if their business be losing one
they can not borrow or get credit. Now