Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-10-26
IOUR VOTE.

In eleven days from this, you will vote
on the subject now agitating the Ameri-
can people. 1t is the first time in twenty
eight years-we might say for thirty, for
the years Immediately preceding the
civil war were spent in discussing slavery
that an economic question has been
almost the sole issue of a campaign. 1t
I is the first time in thirty years that the
people of the United States are to vote
upon the question Of taxation pure and
simple. It is true that party names are
used as the rallylng point of either side,
but 1t is not true that the present election
is partizan struggle. Strange to say, the
issue-the reduction OF taxation has been
promised in the platform Of both of
the great political parties Of the Nation.
Every four years, both have promised it.
No stronger tariff for revenue only and
reduction of taxation clauses have been
framed by the Democratic party than were
framed by the Republican party up to its
Convention at Chicago last June. None
who reads the tariff clauses in its platforms
from 1856 up to 1884, which we recently
published in full, could have told whether
they were Republican Or Democratic ut
terances. There was nothing to distin-
gush them. The Republican party prom
ised in plain English, to size the revenue
to the wants of the government economi-
cally administered. to adjust the duties of
the tariff under which this revenue was
raised so as to protect American manufac-
lures and products, and to reduce the tar
lff taxation. All this was plain enough
aud on it it carried every Presidential
election from 1860 up to 1884. The trouble
was that it was merely promise-the
promise was excellent but it was only
promise. Year after year a Republican
administration ruled in Washington,
sometimes holding all and sometimes only
some of the other branches of the govern
ment. But under neither condition did
it make, or join the opposition in making
any reduction of taxation. Its position
was anomalous 1t presented the re-
markable picture of several admins
tratlons with their heads-Granc,
Garfield and Arthur-in accord with these
promises, and sending messages to Con-
gress urging reduction of taxes. but the Re-
publican members of Congress elected on
the same platform, paying no attention to
these messages and going on in the same
old track with but one variation-.hey
raised instead OF lowering the taxation.
The surplus in the Treasury from the col
lection of unEeeded taxes swelIed, and
soon the circumstances of the people
against it begun to swell.
A: last the patience Of the people was
exhausted, and in 1854 they went to the
ballot-box and turned this party that
would not perform its promises. out. With
strange infatua ton, the Republican par
ty seems never to have understood what it
was turned out for. Long out of accord
with the people and in close communion
with what are to America, the governing
classes il fell into the deluson that 1t
was dismissed for not having the taxes
proceeded to mend matters. There it
pledged itself to stand by the War
Tariff and keep up the Tariff tax, if it
had to give untaxed whiskey by reason of
it. It is party laboring under this de-
fusion that asks your aid on November
9Th. 1t brings no recommendation from
its last place; for a record points SO far
back into the past tn at this generation can
not recall it, and for candidate presents
a gentleman who is fully in accord with it
in all the policy for which the people dis
missed it.
Another party asks your aid on the same
day. 1t is the Democratic party. On the
great issue of taxation its platform
promises have been so like the Republican
that you could hardly tell them apart. The
d: Inference Is that this party performs its
promises. In 1885, for the first time in
twenty eight years, its Presidential candi |
date took his seat at Washington. From |
that day the party went to work to make |
good What it had promised the people it
would do-reduce the taxes. 1t passed a
bill called the Mills Bill, and has placed it
before the people. 1t was framed cautious
ly with reference to endangering the
which exist in the country. 1t /
was long and fully debated in open session
by the House, amended where it was
shown to be necessary. and finally passed.
There was not an in erest involved in it