No thinking laborer or business man can listen to one of the long speeches of Senator Schurz, without noting how carefully the speaker avoids all reference to protection of home industries and the practical issues of taxes and custom fees. While the Chicago Tribune has preached for years that reform consisting in the abrogation of customs duties should be effected, so the excessive high labor wages may be lowered, Mr. Schurz has nothing to say concerning this important question. And he well knows that these questions are of great importance to the majority of Germans. Nine-tenths of the German population of America are diligent laborers or small storekeepers. Among them are thousands of whom a protective tariff is of vital importance. Should the tariff on iron be lowered, as the apostles of free trade advocate, the big rolling mills in Chicago that provide a livelihood for thousands of families, would have to close their doors, because they could not compete with the cheap capital and labor of the mills in England.

These questions are of greater importance to the German public than they are to English-American, because the German laborers, are much greater. While Mr. Schurz knows this, he does not talk about it because he can not say anything in conformity to the wishes of his German listeners. Now which is more important to the laborer, Schurz as Secretary of State, or protection to home industries?