Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-10-17
ENOUGH TO KNOW.
A Contest Between Protection and Some
thing Else.

A Contest Between Protection and Some
thing Else.
From the Milwaukee Wisconsin
SIT is at any rate contest between
protection and something that is not
protection"
That quotation is from recent issue
of the London Daily News and relates
to the political conflict now being waged
in the United States. It was employed
by Gen. Harrison in his sledge- hammer
speech delivered on Saturday night to
illustrate and enforce this truth: at is
OF no concern to the American work
ingmen to know what that other thing
is; it is enough to know that it is not
protection"
In the settlement of this question of
national policy-industrial protection or
free trade-which within month
American voters will decide at the
polls, there can be no cropping in the
dark. The familiar history of this coun-
try during the past sixty years is
torch of illumination whose brightness
permits no misleading OF these facts:
Every revenue tariff has been followed
by business and industrial depression;
every return to the policy of protection
has stimulated industries and set our
throbbing workshops again in motion"
The quoted words are Gen. Harrison's.
They are the history of American tariff
legislation epitomized.
1t is with these known results of pro-
lection and free trade, not with theories,
that American workingmen are going to
deal in deciding which way they will
4 l. G. 4 Il
that President Cleveland and the ma
tlOnal Democracy of to-day stand for
tariff reform and do not contemplate
free trade. Workingmen whose daily
wages, and bread and butter, and home
comforts and home necessities for wives
and little ones are at stake, are not GO
ing to split hairs or weigh tricks of argu-
ment. Whatever else the proposed
policy of the Democracy is, it is not in
dustrial protection.
So much as that at least, every boss
and orator of the Democracy admits;
and beyond that the intelligent wage
Garner or farmer or manufacturer is in
different whether he is informed or not.
1t is all much as though new substi-
tute for bread were TO be offered to
hungry mem. Convince them that it is
proposed to abolish bread that the new
care snap of the finger whether its
properties are animal, vegetable, min
eral or what not; they will reject it and
keep their bread though they have to
fight for it.
Carry tho parallel a step further:
The hungry men who thus summarily
reject any offered substitute for bread.
do not seek to find and often never
know all the chemical properties of the
bread they eat or all the mystery of it's
assimilation. But they have eaten
bread and know it is their staff of life.
Though they never learn any more,
that is enough; they will 60 right on
eating bread.
In just this direct and homely but
-eminently sensible fashion, the
wage-earners all over the United States
are going to>deal with the great polit-
ical issue that now confronts them. It
makes no difference to them what vir-
tues are claimed for or seductive names
applied to the thing the Democracy
offers; that thing is not the bread of in
dustrlal protection, which they have
tried and which they know to be the
staff of their industrial life.
The offered substitute may be good
for something or good for nothing; it
may be stone. It is not bread; UPON
this point the industrial history of the
country has informed them; upon this
fact their decision is going to hinge
Therefore it is, that by the vote of
the Worklngmen, the Republican policy
of industrial protection is destined to
triumph In this year of grace.
IL IS at any rate a contest between
protection and something that is not
protection"