The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-05

III OF July was quiet SUNDAY IN New ork
there was an unaccustomed absence of serious
affrays, and the public we're taught that even
in the citadel of Democracy it is possible for
Democratic officials to enforce the Excise
law.
PHILADELPHIA FREE TRADERS.
IT is alleged that Colonel William b. Thomas
the disorganizing- Republican, Abolition
Democratic, Conservative Chase, and Rad-
cal-Reform candidate for Congress in the
Fourth district, is one of the most decided
free-traders in Pennsylvania. If this be true,
it is the most serious objection that could be
urged against his election. The tariff ques-
tion is rapidly becoming the most important
issue in national politics. A small wing of
the Republican organization has drifted off
into the free-trade camp, and they are in
spired with an earnest hope that, through the
AID of the bulk of the Demo ocracy, they will
once more remand the nation back
to a condition of industrial servitude.
If they can pick up few
more Republican, Democratic recruits, they
hope to remodel the tariff during the sessions
of the next Congress according to the most
approved plan that Birmingham, Manchester,
and Sheffield manufacturers and British iron
masters can devise. If this scheme succeeds
no State in the Union will be half as seriously
damaged as Pennsylvania, and no city will
be SO irretrievably injured as Philadelphia
By manufactures Philadelphians live, move,
and have their being If their productive
industries are stricken down tens of thousands
of Philadelphia houses will become tenant
present inhabitants of the city will be
compelled to seek their daily bread in some
more favored locality. 1t is not worth while
for Philadelphan to stop to argue tue alb
stract question of free trade or protection.
Let him look into the workshops, and see
how many of his fellow beings are dependent
for their livelihood upon the industrial arts,
and let him reflect upon the disastrous influ-
ence which approximate free trade always has
exercised upon diversified American industry
No dry lessons of political economy will be
necessary to teach him that for this city there
is but one true doctrine, and for this State
but one true policy. All ordinary
partisan distinctions sink into utter insignif-
canoe when an issue so vital to this COM
munity as protection is forced into a Con-
gressional canvass. 1t is a terrible mistake
to suppose that protection benefits mainly
employing manufacturers. 1t matters but
little whether few thousands are added to
or q few thousands taken from their store
But to tens of thousands of operatives no
political controversy possesses one-tenth as
much interest as the plain question whether
they are to be permitted to earn their liveli-
Al,
been qualified by long and expensive train
ing, OF whether they are to be compelled
to abandon the anvil and loom and take up,
after q probationary period of semi-starva-
ton, plows which they do not know how to
handle. The Philadelphian who seeks to i'm
pose upon them this cruel necessity is pub
lie enemy, and he should not be trusted for
one instant in any public capacity in which
he would be able to betray our citizens. We
may stand the infiction of an incompetent,
or dishonest, or a rebellious Representative
without being very seriously damaged, pro-
vided he is faithful on the doctrine of
protection, but to send free-trader
to Congress at this juncture would
be to perpetrate a blunder worse than crime,
which, in its immediate and ultimate results,
would prove immeasurably injurious. When
Great Britain makes up her Parliament of the
Fenian leaders, when the United States
Senate is composed of the aristocracy of Eng
land, when we put our city government under
the absolute control of the most desperate
roughs and corruptionists of New York, we
should also send free-trader to represent the
Fourth district in Congress-but not before.
THERE is possibility, which we hope will
prove a certainty, that the Senate will yet re-
consider the decision of last week with regard
to the income tax. The Senators opposed to
the tax who were absent when the vote to
continue it was taken, are indignant at the
mean trick by which the popular wishes were
defeated. Senator Conkling, who was sick in
bed when the vote was taken, has announced
his intention to call up the subject again,
and, unless some of the Senators who pro-
fessed to be opposed to the tax follow the ex-
ample of Abbott and Anthony, and change
their votes, there will be a majority against