The Superior Times

ADDRESS TO VOTERS
By the Republican State
Central Committee.

MILWAUKEE, Oct. 27, 1894.

The time is almost at hand when the voters will be offered another opportunity to give expression to their political convictions through the ballot box. The election to be held November 6th is one of paramount importance, and will register the sentiments of the voters upon the great financial and industrial questions that are in controversy between the parties. There never has occurred in the same period of time so great a change in business conditions as has been witnessed since the election of 1892.

With the incoming of the Democratic administration on the fatal 4th of March, 1893, everything was changed. Prosperity yielded to adversity; gain to loss; labor to idleness, plenty to pinching want. In the last twenty months the history of every day has been a story of panic, loss and suffering. Fortunes have been wrecked, industries crippled, investments rendered unprofitable and labor driven into idleness. The Democratic promises of better times, larger profits, higher wages, cheaper living, more of everything desirable and less of everything hurtful, have all remained unfulfilled. Industry has been paralyzed by delay and uncertainty. The cause of the disastrous depression is found in the attempt to wipe out protective legislation, and to substitute for it the doctrine of a revenue tariff.

The Democratic party has been in full control of the government for half a presidential term, and during that time has abundantly demonstrated that it lacks both the intention and ability to give the country fair and wise government. Neither in the presidency nor in congress has there been found courage or competency. The promises of the Democrats have proved delusions and their theories dangerous. We judge them not by their professions, but by their practices, not what they promise to do, but what they have done.

The people must look to the Republican party, that has brought them so much prosperity in the past, to bring them relief from these perilous and distressing Democratic times. To bring them out of distress into prosperity, out of lawlessness into peace. This can be done only by enacting an intelligent and equitable tariff law, shutting the gates against the cargoes of manufactured goods that are intended to displace those made here, and thereby turn into the streets American workmen who should be employed to supply the home market. Republicans, if given the power, will restore wages to the former standard, and give to business the life and profit which it enjoyed in 1892.

The Republicans will legislate for the United States, not for England, France or Germany. They will give the people free sugar instead of free diamonds, free necessaries instead of free luxuries. They will restore the gold reserve and put a stop to the increase of the public debt. They will adopt a foreign policy that will command respect instead of exciting ridicule. In short, they will restore the conditions that existed before the country was visited by the calamities of a Democratic administration and bring the country back again to the prosperity that it enjoyed under thirty years of Republican rule.

The tax-payers of Wisconsin are invited to scrutinize the facts as to the management of state affairs by the present officers. They came into power under the promise that they would reform the management and reduce the expenses of the state government. They have failed to keep either pledge. Instead of reducing expenses they have greatly increased them. A comparison of the figures taken from the official records show that the expenses during the three years of Democratic rule, viz: 1891-93, are largely in excess of the expenses for the last three years of Republican rule, 1888-90. That the state tax is to be reduced this year is wholly due to the fact that there is a large amount of money in the treasury derived from unusual sources. It is owing entirely to this extraordinary income that the taxes are reduced. The records instead of showing economy and good business management, show the most wasteful extravagance and reckless methods. Had the present state officers been as economical as their Republican predecessors, there would have been no tax this year, and there would have been a handsome sum left in the treasury. Any tax payer can satisfy himself of the correctness of this statement by an examination of the reports of the secretary of State. Our opponents seek by the use of irrelevant figures and statements of expenditures over which the state officers can exercise no control, to establish the fact of their economy. They have presented no comparative statements, containing only such items of expense as are under the control of the state officers. Nor will they do this. Such statements, which are the only fair ones to make, in all cases, show increased expenses during the past three years. The extra money received by the present administration amounts to over $800,000 in excess of the amount reported as on hand. This $800,000 represents what has been expended in the last three years in excess of what was expended in the previous three years for precisely the same purposes. There has been collected from the ex-treasurers and applied to the reduction of the state tax for this year about $500,000. The Democrats claim much credit for this amount, as it might appear to them were it not for the fact that they have squandered in extravagant expenditures the entire amount, so that the tax-payers have not had the benefit of a dollar of it. It has been asserted and proved beyond controversy, that the present state officers have in no direction shown good business management or practical economical methods. On the contrary, the undisputed figures of the public records show that their administration has been characterized by extravagance and waste.

It is with the deepest chagrin that we discharge the duty of calling the attention of the citizens of our state to the attempt to rob the treasury through the unlawful letting of the printing of the roster of Wisconsin soldiers. The attempt was one of the boldest, as it was one of the most stupid, ever made to defraud the public. A contract was secretly made by the governor, under the advice of the Attorney-General, to let the printing, in defiance of the constitution of the state, which declares that all printing shall be let to the lowest bidder, at a price nearly three times as great as it would have cost had it been sent to the state printer and been done under his contract. Had not the existence of the contract been ascertained—although every effort was made to keep it secret, in utter defiance of the law which requires that all contracts shall be placed on file where they may be inspected—the state would have lost a very large sum. It was only after the threat of legal proceedings that the governor was frightened into cancelling the contract.

Before this cancellation, however, the Governor's private secretary had sold an interest in it for a bonus of $50,000, and $25,000 of the money so received was used to pay a note on which the Governor was an endorser and which had gone to protest. After the contract was cancelled, the parties purchasing the interest in it brought suit against the Governor, his private secretary, the Attorney-General, Assistant Attorney-General, and other state officers, to recover the money paid. The people of Wisconsin were then called upon to witness the shameful spectacle of their state officers, elected to protect the public interests and sworn to faithfully discharge the high duties imposed upon them, arraigned before the bar of justice for an attempt to loot the state treasury. The roster suit is now pending before the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court having held that, as the complainants had a guilty knowledge of the transaction, they could not come into court with clean hands, and so were not entitled to receive the logic of the decisions which, while non-suiting the plaintiffs, convicted the defendants of an attempt to defraud the state.

How can honest men, who respect themselves, have a pride in the good name of the state, or desire to see pure government, vote for continuing in power the officers implicated in the roster conspiracy?

In state and nation have the Democrats forfeited their claims upon the confidence and support of the people. In the state they have engaged in unlawful and fraudulent practices, and greatly increased expenses by extravagant and reckless management. In the nation they have violated every promise made to the people, and, instead of bringing better times, have dragged the country down from the heights of prosperity to the depths of adversity. There is safety in voting the Republican ticket. It stands for honest government and good times.

HENRY C. PAYNE, Chairman.