Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-10-17
The Guns of the Enemy Seized and
Turned Against Him With Great


Effect.
In his December message Cleveland en-
deavored to load the Protective system
with the odium Of Trusts and injurious
commercial combinations The Demo
cratic Congressmen repeated the charge
in many speeches on the Mills bill. The
Democratic newspapers have bombarded
the Republican quarters and the citadels
of our Home Markets with paper pellets
covered over with black, fierce word.
about trusts. In his brief Portland speech
made soon after his arrival home from
his years. visit abroad, Mr.. Blaine found
the air full Of these vociferous charges
against Protection and the Republican
party. Without taking time then to fully
discuss the question Of trusts, he
merely stated a simple fact, that trusts
commercial combinations, are not peculiar
TO countries having Protective tariff, that
they exist just the same in Free Trade
countries, that they prevail in England
quite az much a. In the United
States. At once terrible how
was set up, that Blaine was the
champion of trusts, therefore tacitly adj
hitting that the Protective policy is the
cause of them. These audaeiously false
charges against the American system and
it, able champion exploded in the air.
Yet they were continually renewed, es-
pecially In the West. At Goschen, Indi-
ana, where forty-ive thousand people
were assembled, Mr.. Blaine deemed it OPP
perfume to take up the challenge which
Cleveland and his INSCRIPTIONS lieu:en
ants had thrown down, and most thorough
work he made of it, He pointed out anG
laid bare the fact, that the five most obi
Gus and oppressive trusts known to the
country - the sugar trust, the whiskey
trust, the Standard oil trust, the cot
ton seed oil trust, and the sal
trust-are headed and controlled by Dem
ocrats. lie called the attention of the
country to the fact, that the Republicans
want to take off $50, 600, 900 per annum OF
sugar, while the Democratic majority of thu
Ways and Means Committee, backed by thu
Democratic majority in the House, yielded
TO the demands of the heads of the Sugal
Trust, and would not consent to the reduc
ton which the Republicans are desirou:
Of making. One has only to read Mr.
Blaine's Goschen speech toappreciate how
completely answered were the Democratic
charges against the Republicans about
trusts. lie did more. He did what thu
bold and skilful general often does on the
field of battle-he seized the guns of the
enemy and turned them upon him witt
tremendous effect, driving him completely
from his lines, and placing the Republi-
can cohorts in full possession of the field
The sequel of the campaign charge
against the Protectionists, raised by
Cleveland and taken up by his lieutenants
gaze the fact that the Demo
cratic President, Carlisle, Mills and
Scott are the sponsors and the tools of
trusts, whose Democratic managers are
expected to see to it that Cleveland and
Thurman are not defeated by the Repub-
lican masses in November. If ever a
body of sehemng politicians were caught
in their own snare, overwhelmed by facts
arguments and satire, Cleveland and his
gang have been by the Republican Senate
Tariff bill and by Mr.. Blaine at Goschen
Were it not that Puck is in the way of the
enemy, he and Punch could have a theme
whose real illustration would put the con
tinent in roar of laughter. Cleveland
on Trusts was, but is not. Mills anC
Scott were, but their presence Is no NOR,
among the sons of men. Possibly theil
torn hemlets and broken swords could b,
found on the field of Goschen.