New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-07-29
4 QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE.

At the convention of the Womans Christian
Temperance Union in Maryland General FISK
the candidate for President, and Chairman
Dickie, of the Prohibition National Campaign
Committee, did not agree. Mr.. Dickie Loyalty
recognized his duty as an Assistant Democrat
and in his address warmly Endorsed the tariff
plank of the Democratic party. But General
Fisk followed and earnestly deprecated the
free-trade tendencies of Mr.. Dickie," the re-
port states. Here comes into prominence a
question of conscience, which General FISK
and every other Prohlbitionist will have to
meet this year.
General Fisk was Republican, and strong
ly attached to the Republican principle OF pro-
lection for home industry. He knows how
greatly the welfare of the whole country, and
especially of the working people, depends upon
the defeat of the free-t trade movement TO break
down the present tariff. Mr.. Diclie, and others
who chose to serve the free-trade cause through
false pretence of seeking General Fisk's
election NAV profess to find in the Democratic
platform only a reasonable and moderate reduc-
ton of duties, made necessary by the excess
of revenue. But General Fisk knows better
He has intelligence enough to see and cand0r
enough to say that the revenue can be reduced
without breaking down the protection OF home
industry, and that the chief purpose OF the
Mills bill is not to reduce revenue but to break
down protection.
No intelligent and candid ProhbitiOnist can
deny that the immediate tendency of his Pro
hibition ticket this year is to promote the cleo
ton of President Cleveland, and of Demo
cratic free-trade majority i,fCongress. Cen
Al. 1. 10 lo ont
effect however ardently he may hope that a
different result may afterward follow. The
question of conscience for him, and for every
Prohibtionist, is whether he has right to do
evil in the hope that good may come.
In years past General Fisk and most Of his
present supporters would have answered that
they believed the Republican party had served
its purpose: that it's success was no longer
necessary to the safety of the country; that the
Democratic party would never venture to re-
vive disloyalty, to aSSal the public credit, or
to break down the protection of home indus
tries Therefore, they reasoned in pursuing
a course which tended Immediately to the cleo
ton of Democrats, they were not imperiling
the welfare of the country in any respect; they
were not then doing evil that good might come.
But there can now be no doubt in the minds
of sincere men that grave and probably ir-
revocable evils must follow Democratic Ma
tiona victory. Not to speak of the rehabilita-
ton of unreconstructed rebels, the revival of
dislOyal spirits. the hOnoring and rewarding
of the worst enemies of the Government, the
debasement of the Civil Service this one thing
every sincere Prohibtionist can see that a
Democratic victory this year means triumph
of free trade.
General Fisk and his supporters will have
to answer TO their own conscences whether
they have any right to do this evil in the hope
that any good result will follow. Their sin
cerity Of purpose must be determined from
their own acts. 1t is not possible for them to
be ignorant that the free-trade platform of the
Democratic party discloses the true purpose
of the President and nearly all his supporters
or that their triumph would in all probability
be followed by the passage of a bill much more
injurious than the Mills bill to American in
dustry. 1t has been frankly declared by the
leading supporters of that measure that they
regarded it only as beginning. Sustained by
the people, assured of power for four years
more, they would certainly go further in the
same direction. General Fisk knows, and his
intelligent supporters know, that Prohibition
votes this year will not elect single Pro-
hibitionist, but will elect some Democrats, and
their direct ten 1ency is TO elect n free-trade
President and Congress. Have they right
to do this evil thing in the mistaken belief
that the cause of temperance will thereby be
made stronger?