The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-02-28
Tha Republican Issues,
The call for the Republican Natio,

lean e1ecIOrS OF the SeVeral states.
md o., ''I-o all other voters without
:egard 10 past political difference"
| who are III favor of several PROPOSE
lions, which are expressed in language
as follows: Eleyating and dignify1ng
American labor extending and pro-
.ecting home industry" giving free
| popular education to the masses of the
people," securing free suffrage and en-
honest counting of BALLOTS - effect
ually protecting human rights, in
! every section of our common country
promoting friendly feeling and per-
manent harmony throughout the land.
| All of these expressions commit what
Sydney Smith regarded as a serious
offense. They "overwork the par
! ticiple" Some of them are too gen
| eral for praise or assault.
! What is meant by 'eleyating and
| dignifying American labor by the
party which is on record for the uni
versal importation of Chinese laborers?
VIII any action by any party, in a Ma
| tional convention. have any relation to
| the law of supply and demand in work?
| VIII it affect wages, hours or work in
any way? As good old DR.. johnson used
to say: Gentlemen, clear your minds
of humbug." The most pitiable fall
lacy is the humbug of suppoSing that
you can humbug others. The men who
work with hands, with tools or with
brain, in this land, know that that kind
Of talk in the call is humbug; that it is
uttered by men who take them to be
fools. Sobriety, industry, skill, honesty
and courage enable men to hold their
own at breadwinning, unless hordes
of heather are brought i'll, to crowd
them out, or thousands of convicts are
put at work which completes with the
vocation and arts of law-abiding citi
zens. The party of cheap Chinese labor,
and the party whose legislators are
charged by every Republican paper to
defy and disregard the great demand
for the abolition of the present method
of convict labor, talks about ''elevating
and Identifying American labor" 1t is
the same party, whose leaders IN 1880
forced the policy of threatening thou
sands of workingmen with dismissal il
they dared to vote as they pleased. The
ma ority of the names signed to this call
are those of men who never did an hon
est days work in their lives. Those not
gorged with monopoly gains, made by
robber law, are political tramps, glued
to the Treasury, and kept from jail or
exile by the fact that they preserved
the grand old party" by frauds worthy
of the gallowS or the prison, in the
South.
Extending and protecting home in
dustry" means the increase of high tar
Iii duties. Already they make every
man who has to buy the necess aries OF
life pay more than price and half for
them. They close the markets of the
world to the manufactured products of
America. They have wiped out Amer
lean commerce and destroyed American
ship-building. They have caused a
large portion of our factories to stop
and large portion of our foundries to
shut up-because they are gorged with
overproductions that can not be sent
abroad and are not needed at home,
where there is glut. Stopping or
shortening upon work means the dry
rot of bankruptcy to the manufactures
and the quick distress of enforced idle
ness to the wOrkingmen. a prohibition
tariff is constipation to commerce, par
alys;s to manufacturing, starvation to
labor, and coniiScatiOn to the money of
producers and cOnsumers-all because
more stuff is made than can be sold at
home, and high duties cut off mar
ket abroad. The stuff rots unsold in
the stOre-houses. The workmen 90
idle in the streets, to find hunger and
hopelessnesS at home. The honest man.
ufacturer is taxed at ruinous rate on
the raw materials needed by him in his
work. He has to stop; his hands are
discharged. The few mOnOpolists
ner they have made on the energies. in
genuity and miseries of men in these
States. Knowing what protection
really means, knowing the profligacy it
works in taxes and the ruin it works in
trade, prices, labor, production, man
ufacturing and buying, we say: ''Wel-
come the issuer' Civilization. con-
science, events, opinion, needs and man
ifest destiny make for revenue reform.
The Democracy stand for it, and stand
or fall with it.
To ''givino free popular education to
the masses o. the people" no one is OPP
posed. The Democracy say: do it
by States" Every State has its COM
mon school system. Progress from ig-
norance to knowledge is going on ev-
erywhere. The Republicans say: ''Do
this work through pauper schools set
up in States by the central Government,
through political emissaries." That is
their last scheme of paternalism. They
invent it, to get a means to use up part
of the yearly S100,000,000 surplus,
which, they say. must be perpetual.
The Democrats demand that taxation be
cut down TO the line of actual expenses.
All beyond that line is robbery. The
people clearly understand the question.
The other propositions are self-refut-
ing or meaningless. Securing free
suffrage snd honest counting of bal
LOTS is work not in the charge or pur-
pose of those who put in Hayes and
Wheeler, by fraud of count, and Gar
field and Arthur, by fraud of corrup-
ton. 4 committee chairmaned by
Sabin, who is declared by every re-
form Re publican to have bought
his election to the Senate, mont
tored by VIM. E. Chandler, who
executed the Florida fraud and the
Robeson-Roac contracts, and coun-
seled in the interest of those who car
ried the last Convention at Saratoga by
crime, is simply guilty of satire and eff
frontery in talking of free suffrage
and IAN honest counting" '.Effectu-
ally protecting human rights" is Re
publican indictment of the Republican |
United States Supreme Court, for de- |
cidinO the Ciyil-Riohts bill unconstitu- |
tional. The party lacking knowledge |
Or purpose to legislate efficiently for
''humar rights is the Republican. Its