AN EXCELLENT CANDIDATE

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, July 14, 1893.

An Excellent Candidate.

   The last number of the Elmira Sunday Telegram contained an excellent photo-engraving of our respected townsman Mr. Hugh Duffey and accompanying it was the brief notice of his career which follows:

   "Hugh Duffey, one of Cortland county's best known citizens, was born near Portage, N. Y. in 1840. He was educated in the common schools and with the Christian Brothers in Buffalo. Having served his apprenticeship at the machinist's trade, Mr. Duffey, then a young man of twenty-two years, went to New York city where he was chief of a line of transport ships during the [civil] war. Returning to Buffalo he with others organized a company and began the active manufacture of horseshoe nails. Afterwards the company moved its works to Middletown, N Y., where Mr. Duffey at once became prominent as a citizen and as a man of business.  In 1878 he became the vice-president and superintendent of the Cortland Wagon company, which manufactory under his superintendence has become one of the most extensive of its kind in the world. He is also president of the Brantford Carriage company, at Brantford, Can. During his residence in Cortland Mr. Duffey has become one of its most influential and esteemed citizens. In 1881 he was elected president of the village. At present he is president of the Sixth Judicial District World's fair commission and is also a member of the local board of the normal school. In politics Mr. Duffey is a Democrat. While always a firm partisan, he has constantly declined any nomination for office, having three times been tendered the senatorial and congressional nominations and each time declining the proffered honor. He has been spoken of for the office of state treasurer, which office is to be filled next fall, and if he could be persuaded to enter the field he would make a strong showing, for no one in this part of the state is so favorably known among the conservative leaders of his party. He has always been a steady attendant at the state conventions and in many instances his influence has been effectual in securing a desired nomination. As chairman of the county committee he has seen the Republican majority during three consecutive terms of office fall off nearly 1,000. As a citizen Mr. Duffey has ever been alert to foster and promote the welfare of Cortland, and on many an occasion he has spoken with pride of its reputation and growth."

   On several occasions within the past few weeks, prominent Democrats, not only in this county but in several others, have intimated that Mr. Duffey would make an excellent candidate for the office of State Treasurer, and many of them have suggested to his friends here, that his name should be presented to the Democratic State Convention. The only question which has at all disturbed his friends has been the very essential one as to whether he would permit the use of his name. He has heretofore declined to accept nominations for important offices, when the chances for an election were greatly in his favor. If he could be induced to take the nomination he would make an ideal candidate. He has been accustomed for years to handle large business interests successfully, and his business experience would be worth thousands of dollars to the state. He is a Democrat of the old school and a capital party organizer. As a business man he has few equals and no superiors. He has friends in almost every part of the state who would be pleased to see his name on the ticket, and who will help to place it there if he consents to enter the field. The citizens of this county without regard to party would be pleased to support him.

   The DEMOCRAT sincerely hopes that Mr. Duffey's friends will prevail on him to leave his important business interests in other hands for a time, and suffer thorn to use his name in connection with the nomination for the office of State Treasurer.

PAGE FOUR—EDITORIALS.

  

◘ The amount of advice the Republican papers and their coadjutors, the independent press, so-called, have been furnishing the President lately is both voluminous and worthless. If it could be sold in the market for ten cents per column the proceeds would come pretty near relieving the present stringency in the money market. But there never was and never will be any market value for such a worthless article.

  

◘ Our Republican exchanges are shedding crockodile [sic] tears over the occasional lynching of a black fiend in the south who has ravished some white woman. Human nature is pretty much the same the world over and we presume our Republican brothers would be found tugging lustily away on the rope in case the white victim happened to be closely related to any of them. The citizens of Port Jervis in this state strung up a negro for the crime a year ago and men of all parties were concerned in the transaction. There was no chance to make political capital out of that transaction. The law does not furnish punishment equal to the enormity of the crime, hence citizens make the only proper punishment.

Party Above All Things.

   The Cortland Standard pretend to be very solicitous in regard to the health of President Cleveland and in a recent editorial says, that "His death or disability at this time would be a national calamity," for the reason that "However mistaken his ideas on the tariff may be he is regarded as sound for honest money." The death of the Chief Magistrate of the nation ought to be regarded as a calamity for other than selfish reasons, but of course our neighbor must be permitted to look upon this question from the same point of view that he contemplates every subject. But the President is in no more danger of death just now, than our neighbor is of telling the truth about anything that concerns a Democrat, or the Democratic party. With the exception of an occasional twinge of rheumatism, the President's health is good.   He has gone to Gray Cables to rest up and take a vacation from the hard work he has been obliged to perform since he was inaugurated.

   The Standard in common with all the Republican papers criticises the President because he did |not call a special session of Congress earlier. Before the call was issued our neighbor was insisting that the call should be for Congress to meet as early as September and when the President issued a call for August he cries out, "Too late, too late."

   But here is something that must have been furnished by the girls in the attic:

   "But while this lesson has been in progress, "object lessons" of a very different character have been given the nation. One of those lessons is that the people of the United States cannot afford to trust the making or unmaking of its laws to a party so steeped in financial heresy that the country must be brought to the verge of ruin before the party can be brought to its senses. The giving of "object lessons" to financial lunatics is too costly a luxury.

   Another ''object lesson" which the President has unintentionally taught the country is that it cannot afford to elect a man to the presidency, no matter how sound his own financial opinions may be, who must depend on a party in Congress the majority of whose members are cranks and lunatics on subjects relating to the currency. When this is done, the President must either yield to his party, or the country must be brought to the verge of bankruptcy before Congress will have its eyes opened so as to see the gulf yawning before it."

   Nearly all the so-called states now represented, in Congress by silver cranks and lunatics, were admitted to the Union under Republican administrations for the purpose of increasing the strength of the Republican party in Congress. The state of Nevada has less than half as many inhabitants as the city of Syracuse, and yet she has two Republican silver crank U. S. Senators to offset the votes of the two honest money Democratic Senators of New York. The same is true of Colorado, Montana and other western states. With such a record, well known to our neighbor, it is the height of impertinence for him to publish such lies, except upon the theory that all his readers are either bigots or fools. If the editor of the Standard will compel all the cranks and lunatics of his own party in Congress to vote for the repeal of the Sherman act, the DEMOCRAT stands ready to guarantee that the act will be repealed by a large majority.

   The Republican party looted the treasury and left it as bare as old mother Hubbard's cupboard, with millions of indebtedness outstanding, and then finds fault with the Democratic administration because it does not at once replenish the treasury with that of which they have robbed it.

   President Cleveland came into office when the treasury had been robbed of its contents and at a time of year when our trade with foreign countries is almost at a standstill. Our merchants were buying largely of the old countries but we were selling nothing to them. This made the balance of trade largely against us and as our creditors across the water demanded gold in payment, that precious metal left the country in largo amounts and is being hoarded abroad. This fact frightened the banks or they pretended to be frightened and they refuse to let any money out of their vaults. The Republican newspapers, caring very little what becomes of the country so long as they can benefit their party, search every nook and cranny in every State in the Union for failures and publish column after column of such news. Six months ago the failure of a one-horse bank in Kansas would have attracted no notice whatever. Now it is seized upon by the Republican press as a sweet morsel and magnified into a great misfortune. The Republican press is doing far more to create needless alarm and suspicion by publishing frightful editorials and sensational financial news that all the failures that have occurred could have produced.

   The tariff forces the Europeans to buy most of their wheat and other grains of India and Russia. Some of these crops are short this year and later in the season there must be a demand for American cereals abroad.

GIVE US A GOLD STANDARD.

Ex-Senator Henderson's Ideas.

   WASHINGTON, July 2d.—Ex-Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, who has devoted long and careful study to matters of finance, has addressed to Secretary Carlisle the following communication:

To Hon. John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury:—

   DEAR SIR:—I promised to give you in writing the substance of my statements made to you in conversation touching the monetary condition of the country. I then expressed the belief that the present stringency is produced, not by any lack or insufficiency of our currency, but by the loss of confidence produced among business men because of the bad quality or inferior character of a large part of that currency.

   There is no error of more common prevalence than that the abundance of money issues necessarily adds to the commercial or business energy of a people. Of course, a certain amount of money tokens are absolutely essential with which to effect [sic] the smaller exchanges of commodities. These money tokens do not create exchanges, but the exchanges create a necessity for the tokens. Money tokens do not grow wheat and corn, nor manufacture cloth, nor operate railroads, nor sail ships. Labor and skill do these things; and, among a people entirely civilized, over 95 per cent of the exchanges necessary in these operations are consumed through the medium of bank checks. Experience demonstrates that this mode of exchange is more convenient, safer, and less expensive; and experience also demonstrates that these bank facilities become enlarged or contracted as money tokens become scarce or abundant. This is a business law as inexorable as the laws of nature. Hence there is less danger in limiting the bulk of circulating money than people generally imagine. The bank check is better for another reason, to-wit: that having performed its office, it ceases to circulate; it is removed from the volume of circulating money and is forever cancelled. If the exigencies of business demand another check, it is issued anew, and that, in like manner, is destroyed when its object has been accomplished. We shall never have a perfect currency until every note used for circulation shall be destroyed on its return to the authority issuing it and no new note issued except for value and at the call of business demands. England has come to this, and America with England's experience will do likewise.

   Mr. Henderson then goes on in an exhaustive statement, quoting tables, the commercial conditions existing, treats the Bland act and the Sherman law in a comprehensive and logical manner and concludes as follows:—Give us a gold standard of value. Now is the most acceptable time. We have tried the double standard and it is a most frightful failure. European nations are enjoying prosperity because they enjoy a uniform currency and the confidence it inspires. Let the American people be freed from the curses of bad legislation and they will attend to the rest. We have a rich soil, capable of the highest production. We have the best machinery for its cultivation. Our manufacturers are so advanced as to compete in the markets of the world. We have ambition and industry combined with inventive genius and that quick intelligence which seeks and acquires the highest excellence in every effort of human endeavor. With these advantages we can compete with the world for our share of gold. I have already shown that with a gold standard the last seventeen years would have given us enormous wealth and abundant currency. That opportunity has been lost, but the next ten years of confidence will repair the loss.

   Yours respectfully,

   J. B. HENDERSON.

A Communication.

Editor Democrat:

   DEAR SIR:—Permit a stranger to say a few words in your paper. Having plenty of leisure I have amused myself in reading the local papers of Cortland and comparing notes the past few weeks. I can but ask the question—Is the editor of the Standard a loyal American citizen? or is he so prejudiced that he cannot view the present financial situation in the light of his usual common sense?

   The editorials in his valuable paper for the past week seem, to me, unworthy of a man of his ability. Rather than try to induce his readers to make the best of the present financial situation, they appeal to the worst elements of poor human nature, and have a tendency to make matters worse rather than better. These editorials reflect upon the intelligence of those who look upon this subject differently from what he does.

   I do not pose as infallible, but having been an ardent Republican before said editor was old enough to cast his first vote, and having studied both sides of our financial difficulties in the past and present, I can but see the ridiculousness (to use no harsher term) of placing the present "hard times" entirely upon the Democratic party.

   Let every loyal citizen while he deplores the present situation, admit the truth, which is, that both political parties have made some mistakes and while all must bear the results let each strive to do his part to better the situation. Don't let us think because a man is a Democrat he is all bad, or because he is a Republican he is fit for heaven.

   VISITOR.

   Cortland, July 13.

A New Corset Company.

   The "Empire Skirt and Corset Co." has been organized under the laws of West Virginia to carry on the business of manufacturing skirts, corsets mid ladles' furnishings. One of the factories of the company will be located in Cortland and will be in charge of Mr. C. L. Wright. The officers of the company are as follows:

   President—Charles T. O. Mackee.

   Vice-President—Ellis F. Edgar.

   Treasurer—William A. Osborn.

   Secretary—John C. A. Sutor. —Standard.