Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-09-13
"GALL AND NORWOOD. +"

To-day, the people Of Maine will elect
their state ticket, and all things point to
largely increased Democratic vote, and
very close call, if not a defeat for
Blaine, his boom, and the Republican
party in that state. The readers of the
DEMOCRAT will recall a recent editorial
in these columns, wherein it was shown
that the old gentleman of the New York
Sun and his Office cat would plow into
Blaine and his boom at some time before
the election, and dance all over him and
the other pier of the bridge, in the per-
son of Allison, just as an Apache dances
scalp dance. To prove the DEMOCRAT
was right, we give space to the following
editorial from the old man Dana's pen
on Brother Blaine, and assure our read
ers that it has had time to be read, di
gested and do good work in to-day's
fight. 1t is from the issue of the Sth inst:
| Mr.. Blaine's speeches in the present Maine
| canvass may be described as protection with
| incidental prohibition. Protection is his
leading suit, and prohibition his small
trump. And he is a protectionist generally
and throughout the United States, while as
prohibitionist he appears to be severely
local and confined to Maine.
It is noticeable that, while MIR. Blaine is
firmly persuaded or at least is bent on per-
suading the voters of the Pine Tree State
that protection is the one issue between the
pnv, md kho - h.
linchpin of present politics. the straight-out
Prohibitionists decline to be stampeded by
his alarm about protection, and insist that
prohibition is the chief of issues and the one
thing needful. Mr.. John Peter st. John, for
instance, who is tagging Mr.. Blaine through
the State, said at Sebago the other day:
"But we are told that the success of the
Democratic party means free trade and free
rum. Let us see if it does. Democrats
have had good working majority in the
Lower House of Congress for four years.
At each session an attempt has been made
to reduce the tariff, which utterly failed, and
this, too, in the face of the fact that even
the Republican party, in its National plat
form in 1884, acknowledged that after
twenty-four years of Republican rule there
were inequalities in the tariff, and prom
ised to correct them, but they have made no
serious attempt to do so. Neither of the old
parties has has any well-defned policy
touching this matter. All the protectionists
are not in the Republican party, nor are all
Democrats free traders
And then the chief of the Drys Jumped
upon the Republican party for its neglect of
prohibition. Not fig does Mr.. st. John
care about protection, although he has al
ways been protectionist. The thing that
interests him is prohibition. And here is
where Mr.. Blaine's great protection act fails
To n pRnfn Tn
lots of people think it is a good thing, but
exactly what it's got to do with the ques-
ton, Who shall be the next Governor of
Maine! many good people fail to see. The
prohibition come-outers are not to be scared
by the protection bogey. They are of age,
and know what they want; and in this
particular off year they want to do their
best to pulverize the Republican party.
In Maine itself this evil disposition of the
Prohibitionists may not do the Republi-
cans any harm; but in New York, New Jer-
sey, Pennsylvania, for instance, where pro-
lection is too strong to be frightened with
bugaboos in an "of'' year, the Prohibition
lists may be powerful enough to do the Re-
publicans deadly hurt. And what will MIR.
Blaine's protection speeches avail? The
people he really fears, the confident and
persistent enemies who resolved to ruin the
Republican Party if it will not make itself
wholly theirs, are the Prohibitionists, and
the Prohlbltionists, as far as the present
campaign is concerned, care no more about
protection than they do about the decease
of Hecuba or the mysterious assailant of
Billy Patterson. Men of one idea, there is
no place for protection speeches in their
cerebral storehouses. They want Prohibi-
tion with big P, and Protection with
big they don't care a Congressional Re
cord for.
Mr.. Blaine is probably as sharp an OBJ
server of the proceedings of the Prohibi-
tlonlsts as there is, and we venture to think
that the more he sees of them the more he |
dislikes them. They are queer fish, and will |
not nibble at protection bait. Perhaps the |
sly Augusta fisherman can land them, and /!
then again perhaps he will have to fall in
the water after them.
The people of Maine who have trained
heretofore with the Republican party,
are so tired OF specious pleading, and gilt
tering humbug that even Blaine's mag
netic utterances fall fiat upon their ears,
and in their savage fight for Prohibition,
they are determined to sink the little res
pect they had for that party's tenets, and
do their level best to elect men who will !
at least enforce the laws, even if they had |
no hand in framing them. The bugaboo
OF Protection is aptly explained by st. |
John and we repeat, the people of Maine |
know better to-day, what they are voting
for, than ever before.