St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-09-15
COLE SQUIRMS.
He Replies and the Globe Submits
Evidence

A. LELAND, ESQ.,, President Minneapolis
Free Trade Club. Minneapolis, Minn.-My
Dear Sir: have read your letter in the GLOBE
addressed 10 me, in which you are pleased to
compliment the address which | delivered
before your club last winter, and in
which you ask me whether l would
advise the members of the state
league to follow the lead of its president and
second vice president who are Republicans,
or that of the first vice president who is Il
Democrat, You shall have candid answer.
The state league is II bipartisan organiza-
ton. Its objects are n reform of the tariff
laws. This can only be accomplished through
the regular political organizations, and |
think 1t would be very unwise for the mem
bers of the league, whether Democrats or
Republicans, TO abandon the political party
to which they belong, and thus yield its con-
troll to the enemies of tariff reform. The
effort should be to bring both parties as
nearly as possible to our views on these i'm
porTant questions.
The names of your club and of the state
league are unfortunate. and l criticised them
as such in the address to which you Gllude.
They should be styled tariff reform" clubs
or leagues. Any organization in the United
States to-day, which should avow a de-
termination to eliminate all SAVIOR
of protection from our tariff
following. The extent and mode of apply
ing the principle of protection, the Repub
l1can platform does not profess to indicate,
In the language of Mr.. Harrison's letter of
acceptance, it is a principle and not sched-
ule, which the platform renOunces.
The language which follows the declara
ton in favor of the American system OF pro
tecton in the Republican state platform eX
plains the views of the party on tariff reform,
and qualities the general declaration. If you
Will carefully compare the stenographers
report of my address TO your club on
this point with this part of the
tariff plank in the Republican state plat
form, you will find them substantially iden
teal. The clauses of the constitution of the
state league which you quote hopefully an
ticipate the time when all protection will be
unnecessary and the great progress of
American industry will enable 1t
to successfully compete with the world,
but neither that nor the platform of any po-
litical party of which have any knowledge
recommends in revision now to be made
such a radical change of national polity
The platform of a political party announces
the policy of the present, not what it may be
under the changed condition of things which
another decade may bring. Very respect
fully, GORDON Z. COLE.
ST. Paul, Mimi, Sept. IS, 1888.
The Republican state platform draft
ed by Gordon E. Cole says:
1t is uncompromisingly in favor of the
American system of protection.
March II, 1886, Gordon E. Cole wrote
to the GLOBE as follows:
I oppose the pres ent extravagant tariff be-
cause IL is altogether higher than is required
for the protection of any existing interest,
and bears heavily on large masses of our
people who are not protected; and L
especially oppose the present tar
1T because in many cases, by reason
tariff positively Injuries the manufacturers
which it claims to protect. Free trade never
will be demanded in this country. l think
the national government will always be sup
tOA 49, u, 7
peal internal revenue, viz, on whisky and to-
bacco? By no means. The advocates of this
only do so as an eXpedent to reduce the
surplus in the treasury and at the same time
retain all existing import duties. In my
opinion if anything should be taxed it should
be whisky and tobacco, especially the former
An average tariff of 40 or 40 per
cent is not protection but extortion,
and can only be justified by Pope's
aphorism. ''Whatever is, is right" How
much would reduce the tariff? give it up.
That's conundrum that does not admit of a
categorical answer. | would place all or
most of the necesSares OF life in common
use, /. e., the necessaries of life to the mass
of our people, on the free list. So also those
articles which we can not hope success
fully to produce. To illustrate. l would
not levy duty on bananas to encourage
their production in Minnesota. | favor
placing raw material on the free list as rap
idly as possible consistently with due re-
should be by a system of gradual
to produce a financial panic or de-
stroy or injure interests which have
been built up under the existing tariff. To
illustrate my ideas of duties on raw material,
take the article of wool. / own a few sheep,
but under a protective tariff on raw or I'M
manufactured wool it has gone steadily down
until it does not pay farmer to grow it,
while the duty on it so handicapS
wooden manufacturers in this coun-
try as to destroy the dOmeS-
tic market. believe a removal of the tariff
would. by stimulating this market and in
creasing the home demand, increase instead
of decrease the price that the wool power
would receive.
If this does not convict Mr.. Cole of
remarkable qualification nothing can.