Tariff To The Front

Every intelligent -workingmnn wno reads the newspapers and thinks seriously about his own oondition and prospecta iu lito must have been struck by Mr. Bryau's persistent refusal to discusa the tarifï question. In all his speeches he pusheB it asido, saying that it is not an important issue in this campaign. When he was in Congress a few years ago he regarded it as a very important issue, llïs efforts were niainly directed towards breaking down the MoKinley Protective Taritt' law. He was elected in Nebraska on a wave of short-siehted transitory uiti-tarilï agitation. He was one of the most conspicuous free-traders in Congress. He wanted to go a good deal furthei' in that direct ion than did Wilson himsolf. In faet, he was on the tariff question :is he is on the money question, an rxtreme theorist. If the tariff was au important question in the yeai's when our industries were prosperous and our i uni.nlil I in) il 1 1 PITHlkYi - - wages, what is the matter vvith it now, Mr. Bryan? Everybody knows that a large proportion of the manufacturing concerns in the country have been. closed siuce the Wilson bill, which Bryan supported, went into operatíon. Everybody knows that wages havo been reduced since the bill got in its deadly elïeots, and that dreds of thousands of Wilüng and able workingmen have been thrown out of employment, and have been obliged to consume their small savings to support their. families. Everybody knows, too, that during this period there has been no contraetiqn in the money of the country. There is just as rnurh money now is there was in the good time we had when Harrison was President. The goyernruent has not even stopped coining silver- it actually coined over $8,000,000 last year. Mr. Bryan has utterly failed to convince the intelligent workingman that the coinage laws of the country have anything to do with the present business depression. What then is the matter? Why are limos hard 'i Why is labor scantily eniployed? Why are so many faetones silent? The workingman vrould like an auswor to these questions i'rom the man who is seeking their votes for the presidency. They know what the answer is. They know very well that if we buy millions of dollars' worth of goods in foreign countries which we used to make in this country men and women formerly employed in making those goods are thrown out of work. That is what Mr. Bryan's tariff theories put into practice by the Wilson law have done to the labor element of the United States. In the matter of woolen goods alone over $00,000,000 have been taken away from American working people and given to the English and the Germans. , In tlu single item of lumber, over $8,000,000 a year is now paid to the Canadians that ought to be paid to American labor. Mr. Bryan does not think the tariff is an important issue in this campaign. The laboring man out of work knows that it is the real issuo, that Mr. Bryan is artfully dodging it, trying to divert attention to his preposterous scheme of coining the bullion and old coins of the world into United States dollars for the benefit of silver owners. There is only one way of making times better in this country, and that is to furnish more employment to labor. How can this be done ir we buy foreign goods. instead of making what we need at home? This is a plain question which no free-trader has ever yet been able to answer. The free-trader gives us theories, but the protectionist deals in facts. Let us open the milis and shut the niouths of the cheap money agitators.