Montgomery County sentinel., 1888-06-29
THE REPUBLICAN, PLA 7,FORM.

biguity in its methods of dealing with the
tariff question, since it endorsed the Presi
dents message and the Mills bill without
variableness or shadow of turning. The
Chicago platform is entitled to like COM
mendation, for it goes further in its sane
ton OF what its trainers call protective and
what we hold to be tariff robbery than any
other platform ever adopted since the Gov
ernment was founded-further, we think,
went before. The Republicans in Congress
have been hesitating all these months since
the Presidents message was delivered, doubt
ing whether they should attack the surplus
by lowering the sugar duties or by repeal
ing the internal tax on intoxicating liquors.
Hitherto nobody but Judge Kelley has
avowed himself in favor of the latter policy.
The convention has resolved all these doubts
by demanding the repeal of the whiskey
tax rather than that of any protective duty
great or small.
The platform is so at variance with former
deliverances of the party, with scores of reso-
lutions of State Legislatures under Republi-
can control, with hundreds of speeches and
votes of Republican statesmen now living,
with the report Of the Republican Tariff
Commission only five years ago, and with
the recommendations Of successive Repub-
| lican Presidents and Secretaries of the
| Treasury, that the party can be likened
only to the man who made a monster, of
which he became the unhappy victim.
| "Protection is the Frankensten of the Re-
publican party. Is has taken possession of
and will destroy its maker as utterly as any
party was ever destroyed in all history"
1t will array the intelligence, the scholar
ship, the common sense, the yearly growth
of the country on the opposite side, not all
at once, perhaps, but more and more as the
years roll on. 1t is an appeal to stupidity,
| ignorance and prejudice. Consequently it
will be stronger the first hour of its pro-
mitigation than it will ever be again. All
institutions of learning will work against it,
consciously or unconsciously, day by day.
Even the manufacturers, whose interest it is
intended to support, cannot write in favor
of platform which proposes to petrify the
existing tariff, and allow no reductions and
no changes except in the way of an increase
of duties. By SO petrifying the tariff with
out regard to its character or its effect upon
particular industries, particular classes, or
sections, but taking the whole thing as a
"Thus saith the Lord" the Chicago conven-
ton has passed the baton OF Progress over
the Democratic party, has made itself the
representative of inertia as well as of exces-
sive and unjust taxation.
The platform is as long as it is dishonest.
Insincerlty or down right falsehood is to be
larations. 1t seems unnecessary to spend
time in discussing the professions, protesta-
tions and denunciations that make up the
greater part of its inordinate length, for they
are merely clap-trap intended to gull the
unthinking and divert attention from the
real issues of the campaign The trainers
of the several paragraphs must have laugh
ed at their own impudence in putting them
before the public.
Nothing matches the high tariff and free
whiskey plank in the platform better than
the demand for large appropriations to carry
of the Treasury surplus. For the first time
in the history Of parties extravaganza is de-
clared to be good thing. For the first time
economy in the public service is deprecated,
and by the plainest inference denounced as
inapplicable to national administration
More pensions, more river and harbor bills,
national aid to State education, fertilization
bills, navy bills, and everything else that
will take money out of the Treasury.
The Democratic position, as stated in the
Democratic platform, which is in accord
with the message of the Democratic Presi-
dent and the action of the Democratic ma
jority of the House of Representatives, is to
"enforce frugality in public expense and
abolish unnecessary taxation. Our estab-
lshed domestic industries and enterprises
should not, and need not, be endangered by
the reduction and correction of the burdens
OF taxation. On the contrary, a fair and
careful revision of our tax laws, with due
allowance for the difference between wages
of American and foreign labor, must pro-
mote and encourage every branch of such
industries and enterprises by giving them
assurance of an extended market and steady
and continued operations" That is the
Democratic position, and on the lines here
laid down the legislation now before Con
gress framed
Now turn to the Republican position as
stated in the taxation plank of the Repub
lican platform. The proposed Democratic
legislation is denounced boldly, and espe,
cially the proposition to put wool on the
free list. The Republican proposition is to
adjust and maintain" the duties on wool
$50 as to furnish full and adequate protec-
ton to that industry" and TO "effect all
needed reduction of the national revenue by
repeating the taxes upon tobacco, which are
an annoyance and burden to agriculture,
and the tax upon spirits in the arts and for
mechanical purposes, and by such revision
of the tariff laws as will tend TO check i'm
ports of such articles as are produced by
| our people, the production of which gives
employment to our labor, and release from
import duties those articles of foreign pro-
duction Except luxuries) the like of which
cannot be produced at home. If there shall
remain larger revenue than is requisite for
the wants of the government we favor the
entire repeal of internal taxes rather than
the surrender of any part of our protective
system"
Here then we have the proposition of the
two parties in regard to taxation. The
Democratic policy is to 'enforce frugality
in public expense and abolish unnecessary