A Michigan Orator Packs the Armory and Rides Down the Populists

The people were treated to a speech on the tariff and the money question from the Republican standpoint at the Armory last night, such as goes right home to their minds, and Hon. Roswell G. Horr, of Michigan, who delivered it, won a place in the opinion of Seattleites which he cannot readily lose. He divided his time between the two great issues of the day — the tariff and money — and after disposing of the Democrats with cold facts about the tariff he took up the financial fallacies of the Populists and riddled them through and through with common sense and ridicule until he had almost the whole audience laughing at them, and the ordinarily vociferous Populists were subdued by his contemptuous argument and the laughter of the other nineteen-twentieths of the audience, for they were talked clear out of court.

The Armory was about as full as human beings can make it, for they not only occupied all the seats, but formed a fringe on three sides of the floor and in the galleries, and, once there, they stayed to the end, thus paying the best possible tribute to the powers of an orator.

It was 8:10 o'clock when the speaker and his retinue of vice presidents mounted the platform. John Arthur took the chair and the vice presidents were: Gov. McGraw, John K. Humphries, S. H. Piles, C. E. Fishback, T. W. Gordon, J. F. Hale, J. Shippen, W. E. Boone, Angus Mackintosh, James Leddy, State Senator J. C. Horr, Judge Richard Osborne. Mr. Arthur introduced Mr. Horr as a man of distinguished ability, thorough knowledge of political affairs, great service as a congressman from Michigan and as a writer on the New York Tribune; more particularly as the man who had demolished Populism in Oregon.

Mr. Horr began by saying he intended to discuss some of the questions which divide the people of the United States and would discuss them from the standpoint of a Republican. He took his hearers back to the year before the last presidential election and pictured the prosperity which prevailed then, contrasting it with the depression which had set in immediately after the advent of the Democrats into office. A patriotic American naturally asked: "How does this all happen?" He had a right to say "I told you so," for he had warned the people that if they took the business interests of the country out of the hands of the Republican party, which had experience, and put it in the hands of the Democratic party, which never had much experience and never did much business, there would be trouble.

He reviewed the history of the last fifteen months, telling how the panic began and how the people's hopes were dashed by the early adjournment of congress after the confirmation of Cleveland's appointees. The people wanted congress to meet again, but Cleveland did not seem to hanker much after that Democratic congress. Finally, away late in the summer, he stopped fishing long enough to call congress together. He gave an ironical description of the president's message urging the repeal of the Sherman law, and compared the action of the senators to that of a doctor who, when a man is burning up with fever, hires a hall and organises a debating society, and for nine long weeks discusses how many drops of paregoric to give the patient. He used the same parallel with regard to a fire company discussing how to put out a fire, and said: "What would you do with such a fire company? You'd bounce 'em, wouldn't you? That's what we propose to do."

Then he launched into the tariff question. There was no real free trade country in the world, but England raised $100,000,000 a year on the free trade tariff principle, which was the exact opposite of the American system. A duty on the necessaries we could not produce ourselves always raised the price of the article and was always collected off the plain, common working people — illustrating by the case of tea — so we raise our duties on articles we can produce. He stated the Democratic position as strongly as he could and stated the robber baron theory: if what the Democrats say is fact, then they are right and protection is the collection of taxes and putting them in the pockets of a few, and is robbery.

But, he continued, a duty levied on the protective plan does many things which free trade does not. It causes men to engage in the manufacture of the article and thus builds up new industries. He had been in a number of factories which had come into existence under the McKinley bill — silk plush, binding twine, cotton ties, tin plate. He told of the Welsh committee which called on President Cleveland and told him it would look for a tin plate factory, and Cleveland said: "If you should happen to blunder onto one, I wish you would come back this way and let me know. We have not been able to find one." Yet right across his dooryard in the treasury department he would find a report showing that the United States had made 51,000,000 pounds of tin plate in the last year, and could see the finest tin plate factory in the world from the window of the law office in the Mills building in New York, where 250 boxes of tin plate were made every week, right under his executive nose.

Then he dealt with the effect of protection on labor, and quoted the Democratic argument that wages in this country were only apparently higher, as they had a greater purchasing power in Europe. M. D. Harter had made that statement at a joint debate at Auburn, N. Y., and he had replied that if that were true the people had better stay in Europe. He related how he had compared wages of foreign-born workmen here and in Europe, and he never found men who had not got from 50 per cent more to four times as much wages here as on the other side. He ridiculed Cleveland's statement that tariff reduction might reduce wages but it would give more constant employment.

He then asserted that when we build up a new industry we drive down the price of goods. "This is a question of fact," said he, "and we won't theorize about it. If steel rails can be bought for $30 now, and they used to cost $140 before any were made in this country, we cheapen goods." He quoted the salt industry, in sight of his own home, where salt now sold for 40 cents a barrel and the barrel cost 30 cents. He asked some Democrat to name some article of which protection had not driven the price down, and a Populist shouted "Interest." Mr. Horr promptly answered, "Interest is not a manufactured article; I'll get at the money business after awhile." He did, and he made the Populists feel sorry.

He told the story of the wire nail duty, how the Democrats wailed at the prospect of it and how it falsified all their predictions and brought down the price. "You can thank protection that you can eat a square meal without that old chromo staring you in the face," he added, of the old lion-and-unicorn crockery. Somebody called out "sugar," and he said the Republicans found that America could not produce enough sugar, and that therefore the duty on it was a free trade tariff, and they took it off, but now the Democrats proposed to put it on again. He would rather pay $10 for a suit made by American men and women than $7 for one made abroad.

He then took up raw material and denied that there was such a thing on the markets of the world, saying in reply to a cry of "wool": "You can't tell me wool is raw material, for I have had the backache too often hoeing corn to feed sheep with." If there was any time left, they could fix up the rest of the universe, but "My country first and England afterwards, and if I had my way it would be a good deal afterwards." At this motto the whole audience responded with cheers.

In Oregon he struck a new issue — a party proposed that the government run a paper mill and manufacture paper money. They objected to a currency based on gold and silver because it took work to get the gold and silver. He exposed the fiat money fallacy, saying that a bill was never issued that did not contain a promise to pay something. "You cannot frame such a bill to save your Populist soul," said he, and all but the Populists endorsed the statement with a cheer.

Now the Populists, of whom there were about 100 on the right-hand side of the hall, began to grow fractious. One of them asked him whether the $400,000,000 of demand notes issued by President Lincoln in 1861 were not legal tender, and after telling him that the notes were not issued by Lincoln but by congress, Mr. Horr said these notes were not a legal tender, for it was not necessary to make them so, as the people were anxious to get them. He compared those demand notes with gold, saying, "Every Populist in the house would take all the gold he could carry, whether it was legal tender or not, simply because he wanted it." All this talk about fiat money was based on the idea that you could make something out of nothing. The Creator of the universe was the only being who could make something out of nothing, and the difference between him and the Populists was so great that it would be a very long time before they would reach him.

He gave a homely illustration of what fiat money really was by telling how he had to feed a calf when he was a boy. He found that four quarts of milk a day was the proper allowance, but the calf wanted more, so he gave it fiat milk, which was three-fourths water, and thus gave the calf sixteen quarts of "milk" a day. "What was the natural consequence to the calf? Why, it would burst." The roof rang with laughter, and the Populists at last remained silent while the speaker applied the illustration.

He then said: "Why, my good Populist friends, go and read the history of your country." One of the men he was thus excoriating interrupted him, and somebody cried out, "Put him out," but Mr. Horr said, "No, no; he's not bothering me," and he went on beating the wind out of Populism in a manner which made the audience fairly reel with delight. Said he: "It is just a disease, like the measles; when you have it once you never have to have it again. Kansas is just getting over it. I have been in twenty-eight counties of Kansas and I predict that my friend Mr. Morrill will be elected by 25,000 majority. Do not be afraid of Populism. One Populist can shake more yell out of himself than forty common men, but you must count him only as one man; do not count his yells."

The Populists gave up interrupting. He said their theory was based on the idea that American business men were a set of scoundrels. They kept publishing that infamous lie that some Englishman came over to this country in 1873 and bought congress to demonetise silver. He had served six years in congress, and he believed that both Republicans and Democrats were honest men, trying to do their duty. The Populists wanted to get out of their billions and trillions and learn that two and two make four, and learn the difference between mine and thine.

He then expatiated on the resources of the country. Men of tact and business sense were needed. "You're all right; it is true, you have a few mortgages, but I have put a mortgage on my little farm, and the only honest way to get rid of it is to pay it. One would think from the way these Populists talk about mortgages that there was a big animal going around the country and clapping a mortgage on a farm every time it catches a farmer with his back turned. If you attend to your farm, you will pay off your mortgage four times while your neighbor is trying to pay it with chin music. I ought to know, for I am in the chin music business myself."

Mr. Horr closed with a tribute to the business men of Seattle, saying that nowhere would a more honorable, upright set of men be found. He went direct from the meeting to the depot to take the train to Spokane.