Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-09-19


will not cloud their understanding, and
that menace will not intimidate them, let
us urge the peoples interest and public
duty for the vindcation of our attempt to
inaugurate righteous and beniticent re-
form:
GROVER CLEVELAND.
GEN. HARRIS0N'S LETTER.
INDIANAPOLIS, September II, 1888.
Hon. NJ. M. Estee and others, Commit
tee.-Gentlemen When your committee
visited me, on the 4th of July last, and
presented the official Duucement of my
nomination for the Presidency of the
United States by the Republican Conven-
ton, promised, as soon as practicable, to
communicate to you more formal accept
ance of the nomination. Since that time
the work of receiving and addressing, al
most daily, large delegations of my fellow
citizens, has not only occupied all Of my
time, but has in some measure rendered it
unnecessary for me to use this letter as a
medium Of communicating to the public
my views upon the questions involved in
the campaign.
appreciate very highly the confidence
and respect manifested by the Convention,
and accept the nomination with feeling
of gratitude and full sense Of the respon-
sbility which accompanies it,.
1t is matter of congratulation that the
declaration of the Chicago Convention
upon questions that now attract the inter-
est of our people, are so clear and emphat-
ic. There is further cause OF congratu-
lation in the fact that the Conventions
| off tip Marty If in
any degree uncertain or contradictory,
can now be judged and interpreted by ex-
ecutive acts and messages and by definite
propositions in legislation. This is espe-
cially true of what is popularity known as
the tariff question. The issue cannot now
be obscured. It is not contest between
schedules, but between Wide-apart princi-
Piles.
Foreign competitors of our marke have,
with quick instinct, seen how one issue OF
this contest may bring them advantage,
and our own people are not so dull as to
miss or neglect the grave interests that are
involved for them. The assault upon our
protective system is open and defiant.
Protection is assailed as unconstitutional
| in law or as vicious in principle, and those
who hold such views sincerely can not
stop short of an absolute elimination from
our tariff laws of the principles of protec-
ton.
The Mills bill is only step, but it is
toward an object that the leaders of Dem
ocratic thought and legislation have clearly
in mind. The important question IS not
SO much the length of the step as the
direction of it. Judged by the Executive
message of December last, by the Mills
BILL by the debates in Congress and by the
st. Louis platform, the Democratic party
will, Unsupported by the country, place the
tariff laws on a purely revenue basis.
This is practical free trade-free trade in
the English sense. The~1egend uponthe
banner may not be "Free Trade;" it may
be the more obscure motto, Tariff Re-
form :" but neither the banner nor the in
scription is conclusive, or indeed very i'm
portant. The assault itself is the lmpor-
tant fact.
Those 10 teach that import duties up
on foreign goods sold in our market IS
paid by the consumer, and that the price
of the domestic competing article is en-
hanced to the amount of duty on the i'm
ported article-that every million OF dol
lars collected for customs duties represents
MANY millions more which do not reach
the treasury, but are paid by our citizens
as the increased cost of domestic produc-
tions resulting from the tariff laWs-may
not intend to discredit in the minds of
others our system of leaving duties on
competing foreign products, but it is
clearly already discredited in their own.
We cannot doubt, without impugnlng
their integrity, that if free to act upon
their convictions, they would so revise
our laws as to lay the burden OF Gus
toms revenue upon articles that are not
produced in this country, and to place up
on the free list all competing foreign pro-
ducts.
| do not stop to refute this theory as to
the effect of our tariff duties. Those who
advance it are students of maxim and
not of the markets. They may be safely
allowed to call their project ''Iarif Re-
form," if the people understand that IN
the end argument compels free trade In all
competing products. This end may not be
reached abruptly, and tsapproach may be
accompanied with some expressions OF
sympathy for our protected industries ana
our working people, but it will certainly
come if these early steps do not arouse the
people to effective resistance.
The Republican party holds that pro-
tective tariff is constitutional, wholesome
and necessary. We do not offer fixed
schedule to modify rates, but always with
an intelligent provision as to the effect
upon domestic production and the wages
of our working people. We believe 1T to
be one of the worthy objects of tariff leg
islation to preserve the American market
for American producers, and to maintain
an American scale of wages by adequate
discriminating duties upon foreign COM
peting products.
The effect of lower rates and larger i'm
portations upon the revenue is contingent
and doubtful but not so the effect upon
American production and American wa
ges. Less work and Tower wages must be
accepted as the inevitable result OF an in
creased offering of foreign goods in our
market. BY way Of recompense for this
reduction in his wages and the loss of the
American market, it is suggested that the
diminished wages of the workingman will
have an undiminished purchasing power,
and that he will be able to make up for
the loss of home market by an enlarged
foreign market. Our workingmen have
the Settlement of the question in their
own hands. They now obtain higher
wages and live more comfortably than
those of any other country. They will
make their choice between the substantial
advantages they haye in hand and the de-
ceptive promises and forecasts OF those
theorizing reformers. They will decide
for themselves and for the country wheth-
er the protective system shall be continued
or destroyed.
The fact of the Treasury surplus, the
amount of which is variously stated, has
directed public attention to the considera-
ton of the method by which the national
income may best be reduced to the level of
wise and necessary expenditures. This
! condition has been seized upon by those
| i1n 70 va
as an advantageous base upon our tariff
| 1ouc Thav have uapnifipd and nursed