Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-06-09
the DEMOCRAT AND ITS AWFUL EDITORS
The new editors of the Democr


ses cut like a twO-edged sword.
They have been only few weeks
on the tripod but in that short space
of time they have demonstrated
how whitening is their wrath and
how awful is their ire. In their
second edition they demolished
the Banner by referring to it as "a
newspaper published in Nashville"
Such an utterance from the Clarks-
willie Weekly Democrat was terrible
and scared like the touch of moult-
en- iron. The scintillations of their
burning wit have scorched the
wings of other soaring journals and
one stroke of their biting sarcasm
curled up the Memphis Scimitar as
crisp and charred as the carcass OF
an incinerated sinner.
Last week their lightning was
turned on the CHRONICLE, and they
were so cruel as to say that its edit
or lacked ideas. Being made the
object Of such satire we felt called
ON to give up the ghost but were
saved from an act so rash by a
timely discovery. We found that
in another column they had said
the same thing about 1.-THE average
society girl" and we were cOmforted.
To be put in the same box with the
Gnafnfxy rIrl c.t1ok, a
bad thing after all, so we took heart
and decided to live. These satirical
young gentlemen announced in
their salutatOry that they were
willing to brave the hardships of
journalism because "Our taste is
here" That was a modest way Of
asserting that their talent lay in
that diaection, but who could have
guessed what terrible talent it
was. Such amiable young gentle
men who smile so pleasantly and
look so nice could neither of them
have been taken for the soul of
Dean Swift in disguise or the wan
dering spirit of an ancient Fury on
a masquerading tour. The surpris-
ing discovery OF this talent in the
new editors of the Democrat, effects
the finder with the feelings that
the traveller is said to have expert
enced who came Unexpectedly on
an old carriage standing on an mac
ceSsible summit of the Andes. He
wondered,
Not that the thing was either rich or rare,
But how in thu D.! 1t got there"
1t is probable that these young
journalists don't intend to be so
awfully awful, so heatedly hot and
so stingingly singing, as they seem.
When they assert that we and the
dear girls lack ideas, it may be that
their object is to insinuate in a
mysterious way that the able edit
Ors of the Democrat are blessed
with an abundance of that valuable
commodity. 1t is not SO much to
demolish Others that they speak
thus severely as it is to exaIt them
selves. 1t is a kind of lofty way
they have of impressing the public
with the greatness of their knowl-
edge. They think like Bunthorne,
Every one will say as we walk our mystic
way,
If these young men expess themselves in
terms too deep for me,
Why, what singularly deep young men
These deep young men must be-
But to consider seriously the OBJ
jectiOns of our First street cOntem-
pOrary to what we had to say about
the tariff, we think the objections
came from failure to catch on to
the drift of our remarks. Not from |
lack of ideas, of course. We can't |
say that, because we are not sarcas-
tic. We affirmed substantially that |
no phrase could be formulated that |
would express with sufficient exact
itude mean position OH the tariff |
question. All we said was to prove !
the inapplicabiIity of phrases to that !
purpose and especially of the phrase
"a tariff for revenue only"
As democrat we are for "a con-
sentative and judiCiOus revision of |
the tariff" Mr.. Henry WattersOn |
says that is all he has ever contend
cd for and we are with him there.
We don't consider that his pet |
phrase above quoted expresses that
position. To the contrary, if it
means anything, it advocates a very
radical Overturning of the existing
order of things, and virtually favOrs
free trade. 1t has been often urged
by free trade advocates that re-
ductiOn in tariff would increase the
revenue derived from duty on inn
ports, and it is true. \ high pro-
teCtive tariff is not an embargo but
the higher it is made the nearer it
approaches that point. 1t cannot
be claimed that tariff for revenue
only means simply to raise $780,
900, 900 by import duties, or to raise
any specified amount, by that
means. Remember that we speak
of what the phrase expresses in It
self. Under the present system of
taxation the government has sur
plus revenue of SS0,000,000. The
New York Sun and some other
politicians, advocate the entire
of the Internal Revenue,
and il that was done a much larger
than 5000, OOO,O 900 would ,
have to be collected by the imposi-
ton of tariff. This large surplus
in revenue certainly demands re-
of the laws of taxation {
by the next Congress, or at least by
the next administration. Is a sim I
pie howl of tariff Tor revenue only {
sufficiently expressive to indicate 9
any we'll defined adjustment of tax 6
alton? Can the Democrat say that '
that phrase in itself proposes all I
this: To let the Internal Revenue '
remain as it is and to levy such a
tariff as will bring into the National
so much more money as 8
NAV be needed to run the Govern
ment; that tariff to be adjusted so :