Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-10-06
AMERICA Us. ENGLAND.
ADDRESS OF THE IRISH AMERICAN
ANTI-FREE TRADE LEAGUE.
Stirring Reasons Why Irishrnen in
America Should Not Help Eng.
land Elect Cleveland.

The following address has been issued
by the Irish-American Anti-Free Trade
League, and should be read by every per
son of Irish birth, by every Irish-born
American and every American-born Irish
man:
Fellow C0untrpnen In view of the ap-
preaching Presidential election we desire
to direct your earnest attention TO the
greal importance of the consequences in
volved therein.
And first of all we enter our protest
against the claim, so often made, that the
Democratic party is entitled, as by right.
to demand the suffrages of Irish-Ameri-
cans, and we emphatically repudiate every
such claim as derogatory to our citizen
ship and insulting to our manhood. The
primary obedience OF the citizens is to the
Republic-the embodiment of our national
sovereignty, in presence of which oblipa-
tons to party sink into insignifcance.
When we gladly ahjured allegiance to the
British crown, and plighted our solemn
fealty to America and her Constitution.
we were instantly clothed in all the at
tributes of perfect freedom, and endowed
with the estimable privilege of casting our
votes, without let or hindrance for the
principles and men of our choice, guided
by the lights Of our own experience and
the dictates of conscientious duty to the
Government. Otherwise we would be
merely exchanging unwilling allegiance
to monarchy for willing and degrading
servitude to party.
An Irishman who fails to believe in and
~ 10 he Il
companionship with the American people.
and should have remained in the condi-
ton in which he was born.
We will soon be called to the perform
ance of the highest duty conferred on us
by the Constitution-the election of cit
izen to preside over the country for the en-
suing four years.
In voting for a candidate we must re-
member that we place the seal of our ap-
proval on his party and its principles, and
We should carefully scrutinize him and
them, so as to enable us to act our part in
an intelligent and patriotic manner. This
is a grave responsibility, and we should
approach it in 4 spirit commensurate with
It's dignity, and with as careful preparation
as if the existence of the Republic de-
pended on each single vote Two parties
are asking our support, and one great issue
on which depends in an especial manner
the prosperity or adversely of the working
men of America is at stake. That issue
involves the abandonment of protection to
American industry and the adoption of
English free trade or low tariff in its
place.
There can be neither evasion nor double
dealing this time. Mr.. Cleveland has
Written the platform of his party in his
free trade message and he must stand or
fall Oh it. The fact that his opinions are
eulogized and supported by the English
press, and the peculiar manner in which
the Mills tariff bill has been prepared
under his directions, ought to arouse the
suspicious Of the American people. As if
to declare hostility to the great manu-
featuring States of New York, New jersey.
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Connecticut and Rhode Island, their rep
resentatives are contemptuously excluded
from the tie Committee of Ways and Means,
whose duty 1t is to formulate all revenue
and tariff measures, and the places which
(by the vast interests they represent they
ought to occupy are filled by free traders
from agricultural and semi-agricultural
States.
After four months of secret consultations
with members of the English Golden
Club and agents of British importing
houses, and persistent refusals to hear
American workingmen, who desired to
save their industries from destruction, the
free-trade majority of said committee have
presented bill which, if passed, will ut
terly ruin several of our greatest indus
tries, and iniure them all.
Let it not be forgotten that the trainers
of this bill, radical as it is, have not dared
go as far in the direction Of English free
trade as Mr.. Cleveland demanded in his
message, thus showing that instead of be-
ing better than his party he is far worse.
But if he should be reelected his vicious,
inequitable and illogical schemes against
our dearest interests will be carried out TO
the fullest extent, and workingmen will
be abandoned to unequal competition with
the pauper-paid laborers of Europe, who
are daily crowding our shores to escape
from the degraded condition to which Mr..
Cleyelands pro-British policy would speed
lily reduce us.
Now, to show how well Joseph Cham
berlain, of the fishery treaty commission,
was rewarded for his eminent services to
this Government, it should be well known
and widely circulated that he is largely
interested in the manufacture of tin plates,
wood screws and cotton thread, and that
the Cleveland-Mills tariff bill proposes to
establish free trade in tin plates and to re-
duce the duty on wood screws and cotton
thread so low as to ruin those industries in
America and give Chamberlain and other
English manufacturers monopoly of our
market. Truly, this renegade's visit to
America was productive of gratifying re-
suits to his Government and himself.
Surely Irishmen who voted for Cleve-
land must feel little pleasure in rejecting
that they helped to place in power the
man who has thus permitted Chamberlain
to return home elated with the prospects
of filling his Golfers at the expense of our
American workingmen.
With confidence in your intelligence
and patriotism, we call on you to redeem
the errors of the past by uniting with US
IN defense of American honor and Ameri-
can interests, and in condemnation of those
English free trade doctrines which have
produced such disastrous consequences in
Ireland, and would produce like results in
America.
Every man and every measure supported
by England should be resisted by Irishmen
to the bitter end. The English anxiously
desire Clevelands reelection, because his
policy will increase their manufactures
and decrease ours; therefore, he ought to
be so overwhelmingly defeated as to deter
any future President from following his
example.