USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
-80-
we will have a surplus of at least 160 million bushels. Kansas this year is reported as having 30 million bushels of wheat. In 1875, the U. S. Agricultural Department reported 9,455,555 for Kansas, or an increase in about 7 years of 20 million bushels. Indiana in 1880 produced 47 million bushels. The theory of protection was that all should be consumed at home. It has failed; we are compelled to seek the open markets of the world. Steam, the great motive power, is fast breaking down the boundary line of nations. Shall we accept these new conditions? Whether we like them or not, we cannot run away from the 19th century. Commerce is today the great medium of exchange. To be a curse, chain it. Make it free and every monopoly must face the com- petition of the world. In wheat, the farmer has to compete with the Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Sea ports. With the so-called "pauper labor" of Europe and now with Indiana (who this year will export largely to Europe) we have to compete with the Hindus. The Hindu works for 7 to 10 cents a day, or about that amount. We exported over 98 million bushels of corn in 1880, over 95 mil- lion pounds of pork, nearly 130 million pounds of beef, over 759 million pounds of bacon. (See page 288, Indiana Report of Bureau Statistics for 1880). Our exports of butter and cheese are enormous. We have to compete with Holland, Normandy, Schleswig Holstein, North Germany, England, Ireland, Norway, and the sharpest competition comes from Denmark; and yet pro- tectionists are so desirous of encouraging this "home labor" that affects more hearths and homes than any other "American in- dustry", that they persistently refuse to repeal the duty on the salt (that is so necessary to the manufacture of a superior article). This work that produces this surplus for export, besides supply- ing enough for our own people, is the "home labor" that has to seek its own markets, and face all competition, and not a voice in Congress, with but one or two exceptions, is raised in its behalf. The farmer has to sell under a system of free trade, and buy un- der a system of the highest tariff taxation known to any com- mercial nation. Talk about the pauper labor in Europe. Hides come from all parts of the world, and come in free, pay no duty. In hides we compete with the peons in Mexico, with the Van- queros of Central America, with the Hindus of India, and with the African negro on the west coast of Africa. If we in the dis- trict are compelled to seek the world's market to sell in, we ought to have the world's market to buy in. Why should Mr. Kelley, over the way, be saved from competition any more than the man who raises hogs, wheat, cattle, hides, butter or cheese."
B. Woods.
-81-
Lake County Star, June 30, 1882
In December, 1882, my father made a speech before the Na- tional Agricultural Convention at their meeting in the Grand Pacific hotel in Chicago. He was Lake county's delegate to the meeting and spoke on the tariff question. An account follows :
"In looking over the Chicago papers, we see the tariff question was introduced in the National Agricultural Convention by a gentleman from New York in the shape of a resolution favoring "Protection", which opened up the ball. In the course of the discussion, our Lake County delegate, Mr. B. Woods, took a hand in, which the Tribune reports as follows :
'Mr. Woods of Indiana asked why capital should be pro- tected and labor left to take care of itself. When the panic of '73 came, it was just as Mr. Medill said, the protected manufacturers kicked their men out to starve. Who went to work and maintained American credit abroad and made resumption possible ? It was the American farmer in his field and the American farmer's wife in the dairy. (Applause.)
'Protection promised the American farmer a home market and it had failed. The Americans are bound to feed the world, and a lower tariff means general and permanent prosperity. The farmers are the men today who are competing with the pauper labor of Europe, with the African negro and the seven-cents-a- day Hindoo.'
"In answer to Prof. Denslow on Friday, Mr. Woods said:
'If to be successful, he had to ask the government to impose a duty on wool and if that tax had to come from his neighbors, he did not want it. (Applause). If he couldn't raise wool at a profit, he didn't want the farmers to help him out. Every industry had as much weight as it could bear; it should be honest and carry its own weight, and if it was a losing industry, should not try to put its loss on somebody else's shoulders. He contended that there were farmers in the Northwest who believed that the duty on wool was more than counterbalanced by the duty on woolen goods. He wanted every poor man to have a blanket and he did not want that blanket to be costly simply that his enterprise might be made successful.' "
Lake County Star Dec. 22, 1882
Agriculture is the great interest in Indiana. More labor is used in it than all the rest combined. Its prosperity concerns more
-82-
hearths and homes than any other. Wagon shops, blacksmiths, agricultural machinery of all kinds, railroads, hands employed on railroads, merchants, storekeepers, and mechanics of all kinds, and the wages received all depend on the success of the crops. All share in a general prosperity, all are hurt in a failure. All this is American labor in the highest sense. All are willing to be taxed by duties on imported goods for revenue to the government, but to place these duties so high as to make them protective so as to increase the price of everything they buy, and thus tax their industry to support some other industry, is no better than robbery. The tariff does not help the farmer at all, he has to compete with all the world; he has a surplus that the home market cannot con- sume and must seek the open market of the world. And yet it seems the purpose is to increase the price of everything he buys. Why tax lumber? Why place obstacles in the way? Cheaper lumber will help every worker in wood and every man in town or on a farm. So with steel and barb wire for fencing. Increase the cost of the raw material and the maker of all these, from an ax to a harvester, must charge up the increased price to the purchaser. The man that makes the plow is as much interested as the man who holds the plow. The manufacturers are themselves affected. They cannot sell as much on account of the increased cost caused by "protection". They cannot extend their business and employ as many hands, and this reacts on the mechanic and laboring men. No one is asking for free trade, all asked is that the rights of Ameri- can labor shall be considered, that the greed for monopoly shall not rob the honest industry of the country, that class legislation shall cease, that taxation shall be reduced to the wants of the government. Our senators and representatives in Congress must not think that the farmers are indifferent, that the people are ignorant and do not understand what is going on at Washington. If they do, one of these days they will find their mistake. The political storm of '82 was but a summer breeze compared with the cyclone that will sweep the country in '84.
(And in 1932. S. B. W.)
B. Woods.
Lake County Star February, 1882
DISPUTED
Crown Point, Nov. 16th, 1885
Editor Star :
The Star of Nov. 13th says: A number of prominent Demo- cratic free traders held a convention in Chicago this week to dis-
-83-
cuss ways and means of tinkering more effectively with the pro- tective tariff.
If this as stated is true, it would give character to the meet- ing different entirely from what it was. There was no partisan politics about it. Many of the foremost men there were Republi- cans, and of course many Democrats. The marked feature of the last meeting was the number of large manufacturers or their representatives. Sarjent, the heaviest hardware manufacture in the United States was there, as also was Means, the Boston shoe manufacturer. A prominent ship-builder, Vinton, the maker of steam engines at Indianapolis, Smith of Ohio, on wool, etc., Aultman, representing the Buckeye mowers and reapers, and many others who are tired of "protection" which gives them only the home markets, and when that is supplied, they have to stop work, throw their men out of employment, or reduce wages by importing the cheapest labor of continental Europe, hence follows strikes, socialism, dynamite, and labor everywhere demoralized.
Give the manufacturer free raw material and he can then meet all competition and throw his supplies into the markets of the world, keeping his works going, and more steady employment for the working men.
If these things are not worth considering by American citi- zens, I should like to know what is.
Bartlett Woods.
-84-
GENERAL ARTICLES
The American farmer sold his product abroad and got a balance of trade in our favor, thus making it possible for the manu- facturer to get money for his business. Then they didn't call agriculture an American industry.
TO THE FARMER
The farmers and the planters from their surplus products have made prosperity possible. There is no mystery about it; it is simply the natural laws of trade, a surplus in one place and a scarcity in another. Forty millions of gold is coming from Europe and 41 million bushels of wheat, besides cotton, pork, beef, etc., has gone and is going to that gold standard country that Bryan says we should have nothing to do with. The world will have business with each other and Bryan can't, with his ravings, stop it. It is a case of Mrs. Parkington sweeping back the Atlantic ocean. No use, Mr. Bryan, steam ships, telegraphs, the nineteenth century and common sense of the American people are against you. We are part of a great commercial world and shall take a big part in it as we are doing today. Wheat is going up and sil- ver has nothing to do with it. Supply and demand-an univer- sal law-knocks the bottom out of the claim that silver rules prices.
B. Woods.
Lake County Star Oct. 9, 1896
The "Mob Endorsed" is just what has brought on our crime and rotten politics. The politicians have paid more attention to the mob than they have to the better class of citizens.
S. B. W.
THE MOB ENDORSED
No wonder the resolution endorsing President Cleveland's administration was voted down, two to one, at the Chicago Demo- Populist convention. Cleveland had sent U. S. troops to Chicago to protect life and property from the fury of the mob. That was enough! Instead of endorsing Cleveland, they endorsed the mob that held Chicago in its grip, creating a reign of terror, not only in Chicago, but in our own city of Hammond, so terrorizing the people by their brutal violence that our own officials whose duty
-85-
was to preserve the peace were so cowed that to save themselves they had to wear a write ribbon as a badge of surrender to the rioters.
United States troops saved Chicago and Hammond. This made Altgelt, Tillman, and their set mad, and they had their re- venge on Cleveland by denouncing him and nominating Bryan, and Bryan well represents the mob spirit that nominated him.
B. Woods.
SHOULD BE AMERICAN
One thing after another proves that the American people are surrendering the government, especially in towns and cities, to an element hostile to American ideas. It will only be a few years when it will be a decided disadvantage to be born in the United States. The country is becoming less American every day. Last week the common council and the board of education of Chicago designated St. Patrick's Day and Good Friday as legal holidays. If on Good Friday the schools are to be closed, why not Corpus Christi, All Saints, and every saints' day in the calendar, and if St. Patrick's Day is to be set apart as a legal holiday, why not the 12th day of July, the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, and of the victory of William, prince of Orange? Are we going to let every nationality under the sun run this government and Americans take a back seat? If we honor Ireland's patron saint's day, why not St. Andrews of Scotland, St. George of England, St. Dennis, St. Michael, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, etc., etc. If the Americans were to designate days, they might name days that have some relation to American events, and have an historical and patriotic claim to recognition. The whole thing as it has occurred in Chicago is an insult to the American people. This is the United States and the verdict of the war established this fact, and every man that is American in heart, whether native or adopted, should resist all such efforts as contemptible, inconsistent, and subver- sive of the best interests of our common country.
B. Woods.
March, 1883
WE SHOULD BE ALL AMERICANS
This is the United States! We are all Americans-there is no such thing known to our laws as a double allegiance, we cannot be Irish Americans, or English or German Americans; and any man that endeavors to divide us, and to create an antagonism be- tween our citizens is an enemy to the best interests of our country. There should be no clanning of nationalities, every man should
-86-
cultivate the best of feeling towards his fellowman whether he is born in Europe or in the United States. Nationality should be lost and all merged into one grand brotherhood of American citizen- ship, all voting and working for the welfare and honor of our com- mon country. It is time every man who aspires to represent Lake County in the Legislature should understand and accept this as one of the fundamentals of the American system of government.
Lake County Star April, 1883
B. Woods.
WHAT IS A GOVERNMENT FOR?
What is government for if it is not to protect life and property ? The theory is that we have in the state of Indiana an excutive branch, with the governor at the head, to see that the laws are properly executed and enforced. In practice, this is all bosh, the people do the work and pay their taxes, build expensive court houses, jails and penitentiaries, furnish money from their earn- ings for the ornamental part of governing, but when it comes down to hard pan, when a farmer loses a horse, or a citizen's house is broken into and robbed, the government, either state or county, does nothing, not a finger is raised, not a dollar does the law give or authorize. The police power of the county is not worked; if it moves at all, it goes at its own risk and at its own expense. The man robbed has to help himself the best he can, and he can hunt the thief and catch him if he can; if he does, then the pomp and circumstances comes in, the thief is then surrendered by all the show and glitter of power. He is tried in a $50,000 or a $150,000 court house, sleeps in a patent $25,000 jail, and if he has money enough, our own foolish laws, with no fault of our officers, give him so many chances that he has the best of opportunity to escape. It is a strange condition of things. The individual is entitled to complete protection, and the government in which he lives should exhaust its force, if necessary, to give it. And the government that -does not do this, but leaves the individual citizen to battle with thieves and vagabonds, is no real government at all.
Bart Woods.
Lake County Star October 26, 1883
Bartlett Woods always had a warm spot in his heart for the pioneer settlers and their descendants. When Olive Salisbury died, he wrote her obituary, his reason being, I think, that she was the daughter of Allen and Julia Brass, who had been our
-87-
family's friends since the early days of the settlement of the county. The acquaintance began when the Brasses kept a hotel on Ridge road and Columbia avenue, where the Hugo Kaskes live now. D. A. R. Chapter is named after Mrs. Brass.
MRS. OLIVE SALISBURY
On Thursday last a telephone message came to Crown Point bearing the sad intelligence of the death of Mrs. Olive Salisbury.
To her many friends here it was a surprise, as lately we had been assured that Mrs. Salisbury's health had much improved, and it was fondly hoped that her heart trouble, which had render- ed her an invalid during her home here, was so far relieved by a treatment from one of the best specialists from Chicago and from the loving care of her family, that renewed health would give her many years of life and happiness with her children, her family and her friends. But this was not to be, our kindest wishes are often thwarted, and the Angel of Death comes stealthily and sud- denly on its mission.
On Monday of last week Mrs. Salisbury went down to the city, on Wednesday felt unwell, but not in a way to create alarm. On Thursday, the fatal day, after a few hours suffering, she quietly passed away, surrounded by her two boys, her sister's family and her aged mother. It was her high privilege to live in an atmosphere of loving kindness and affectionate devotion, every effort to make her comfortable and happy; in this she fully re- ciprocated, her friends know how cheerful and kind she was in all her intercourse with them, sociable and pleasant in all her rela- tions. She made friends and held them, so that when word came of her death, sympathy and expressions of condolence came natur- ally to all who so well knew her in life, and who will remember in memory her who they so much respected while living.
Olive Brass was the daughter of Allen and Julia Brass, born in Lake County, on the Ridge in what is now Calumet township on April 19th, 1849. Was married to Elmore J. Salisbury in Chi- cago. Mr. Salisbury died Feb. 19th, 1884, leaving Mrs. S. a widow with two sons to whom she was devotedly attached; she lived for them, and watched over their welfare with all the keen solicitude and care of the kindest of mothers.
On Sunday at their home in Englewood services were con- ducted by the Rev. R. A. White, attended by many of her friends and acquaintances. On Monday the remains were brought to Crown Point, the funeral services being held at the Presbyterian church, Rev. Lattimore officiating. By request Mrs. Church made an address full of feeling and kindly words. The attendance was
-88-
large showing their desire to pay their tribute of respect. The burial was in the Crown Point cemetery, being laid to rest by the side of her husband.
Bartlett Woods.
Lake County Star April, 1897
Only once to my knowledge did my father break into print with poetry. His verse was the result of a row in a church at Ross. Two factions claimed to have sole ownership and control of the church, one group locked the door against the other and to get in, the other faction broke in the door.
"By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them"
Should dogs delight to bark and bite, For 'tis their nature to, But Christians who profess to know Their sins are washed as driven snow, Should live in blissful peace and joy, And to each other should employ Words full of love for Christ to glorify.
And yet, at Ross, the "Church of God", Was meeting night a howling mob,
These "Christians" in a fearful rage, Used such big words t'would shame this page. And a general fight all around Has made a fight that's devil's play,
And used these "Christians" in a fearful way. The door was smashed by a "Christian's" stroke, And that's the way the door was broke.
The moral is : That those who pray Should show their works in a different way,
That "Love is God" And "God is love," And this should rule and be our trust, For the 'Church of God'* In the town of Ross.
B. Woods.
* Note-The name of the church at Ross.
-89-
Bartlett Woods wrote the following in answer to a sermon by the Rev. William Brooks of the Crown Point Baptist church in 1882.
"There has been some complaint from one of our pulpits that Crown Point was unfortunate in its founders, as men without religion. In justice to the memory of the men and women who first built their cabins on the site of Crown Point, we would say a word. Those early days are fresh and green in our memory. In the sectarian sense, it might be true, in some instances, but not in all. They had their faults, but let us be charitable. Sectarianism should tread lightly on the graves of the old pioneers. It assumes the right to judge the living, but let the dead rest in peace. Their wants were pressing-wanted everything. Their whole energy had to be directed to supplying these wants for the com- fort of themselves, their wives and their little ones. Such men in such situations think, they cannot help it, their very surroundings make them think; perhaps free thought and a free press are a curse ! If so, men should not think; the old churches were right and Luther was wrong when he demanded the right of private judgment. This right in matters of conscience is the foundation of civil and religious liberty. Would the world today have been better under the old system of repression and uniformity of reli- gious belief enforced by pains and penalties so horrible in their nature that the mind recoils at the very thought of such a system! Has not this free thought been productive of the highest good to the human race? Would we today exchange the 19th for the 14th and 15th centuries? We think not. This brightest gem in Christianity in the words of Christ, that "We should love one an- other. That we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us," is more practical reverenced and enforced by the re- ligious and moral sentiment of the people in lands where thought is free and the conscience untrammeled than in those lands where the mind is fettered and held in abeyance to the old dogmas of the church. Wherever thought has been the freest, there, all over the world, will be found the most prosperous, moral, human, and intelligent people-a people in the most advanced stages of civiliza- tion.
"The first settlers of Crown Point were learning life's lesson in a hard and rugged school. If any of them did reject the dog- mas of the churches. Luther doubted. Wesley doubted. Pro- testantism is the child of doubt; it claimed the right and exercised it, and today, every Protestant church is, in its own way, an em- bodiment of free thought formulated into a creed which it honest- ly believes to be right. Others equally as honest may differ and cannot see as they do. So these old settlers doubted. They had a
-90-
right to doubt as they had a right to think and it was no crime. If religion consists in believing in the dogmas of the churches, many of them were not religious, but if religion consists in help- ing one another, in not only visiting the sick, but staying with them, and ministering to all their wants, in feeding the hungry, in giving shelter to the wanderer and to the orphan a home, then they were in the best sense religious. When shall we all learn charity, not judging one another. Church dogmas are not re- ligion. The great bulk of men and women believe in Christianity and the creeds are as some see it, antagonistic. On the simple questions of the right and wrong, of virtue and vice, all, or nearly all, can agree, but as Pope says :
"In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity, All must be false that thwart this one great end, And all of God that bless mankind or mend." B. Woods.
1882
Sam B. Woods Griffith, Indiana
The following article, written by my father in 1889, on "Crime and Its Remedy" would apply just as well today as it did then :
CRIME AND ITS REMEDY-1889
The young men who were arrested in Chicago for the burglary of the Fair store here, were brought into court Friday afternoon, pleaded guilty, and were each sentenced to two years in the penitentiary and a fine of $100. It is a sad sight to see such youth- ful prisoners, the oldest not more than 22 and the youngest about 20, pleading guilty to a crime that consigns them to a prison, their freedom gone; honor, honesty, integrity, respectability and man- hood sacrificed; too lazy to work, they turn their backs on honest labor, in their early manhood they take up the career of a thief, not only bringing troubles on themselves but misery and anguish on their homes; think of the poor father and mother bearing this burden and this sorrow. It is a terrible social condition and cause for deep anxiety to know that the greater number in our peniten- tiaries are young men. Why is it? One cause is that wealth and luxury breed contempt for labor; it is a fast age; wealth, loves display. All this talk of "striking it rich" of booms, of short cuts to wealth, are paraded in every paper and lauded as something to exult over. As a people we worship success; any way to win; with too many the almighty dollar is king; the old fashioned
-91-
thrift and daily toil for an honest dollar is too slow ; to the young and unthinking older people this glitter of wealth, this greed for gold, unmans them, raises false hopes which end in disappointment and discontent; boys having learned no trade or way to live honestly, steal, the older ones, not getting money fast enough, em- bezzle; both lead to the penitentiary. Our daily press is full of reports of dishonesty, an every day occurrence, so much so with many it is looked on with apathy and indifference, but the good men and women of our country are thinking of all these things and are considering and formulating a better plan of education, an education that will dignify labor, besides an intellectual train- ing, one that will learn the hands to work. Mr. Ham, the fore- most advocate of this new education, at a meeting in Chicago, presented his views as follows: "Mr. Ham said, after introducing the subject by a comparison between academic learning and the value of an education that dignifies labor: 'Nothing is more ra- tional than that a complete social revolution should involve a radical change in the methods of education. In the world of the future, which is to be controlled by science, all men and women must be educated, and it is obvious that all are not to be educated by educating a part. In the new world that is being developed by science and art, labor will be the universal law. In it no man will be trained to direct others to work but all will be told to put their own hands to the plow. It is amazing that it should never have occurred to educators that it is a great waste of energy to train one man to direct another to do that which he is himself equally capable of doing. The entire social fabric rests upon labor and manual training in its science. Labor then, being the law of life, its principle should be taught exhaustively in all schools. The schools that does not do this is not worthy of the name it bears; for as it is the duty of all to work, it is the right of all to be thoroughly grounded in the exercise of work.' " It may be said this plan will cost something. It will. Crime menaces our life and property and is a source of loss to the community, both in character and financially, so much so that it can hardly be es- timated. The money point of view is the lowest consideration, but from this it will be far cheaper to prevent crime than to punish it. The solid common sense of our people recognize labor as honor- able and believe that the best friends of social order and real pros- perity are those working in the direction of giving to labor its full share in the distribution of wealth and look with respect and honor on all those, however, humble, who try to get an honest living.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.