Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-09-12
THAT OTHER LETTER.
The Fruit of BeDjamin's
Cogitations.
HE ACCEPTS THE NOMINATION
Scattering Remarks on the Ques'
tiOns of the Campaign-JOur-
nalistic Criticisms.
Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD

naliStlc Criticisms.
Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD.
INDIANAPOLIS, September 11.-Follow
ing is General Harrison's letter accepting
the Republican Presidential nomination
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, September IL.
Hon. NJ. NJ. Estee and others, Committee
GENTLEMEN = When your Committee
visited me on the 4th of July last anc
presented the official announcement ol
my nomination for the Presidency of the
United States by the Republican National
Convention, promised as soon as prac'
ticable to communicate you more for
NAL acceptance of the nomination. Since
that time the work of receiving and ad-
dressing, almost daily, large delegations
of my fellow citizens has not only occu.
pied all of my time, but has in some
measure rendered it unnecessary for me
to use this letter as medium of COM
municating to the public my views on
the questions involved in the campaign.
I appreciate very highly the confidence
and respect manifested by the Conven-
ton, and accept the nomination with a
feeling of gratitude and the full sense of
the responsibilities which accompany it..
1t is matter of congratulation that
the declarations of the Chicago Conven-
ton upon the questions that now attract
the attention of our people are SO clear
and emphatic. There is further cause of
congratulation in the fact that the Con-
vention utterances of the Democratic
party, if in any degree uncertain and
contradictory, can now be judged and
interpreted by Executive acts and mes
sages, and by definite propositions in
legislation. This is especially true OF
what is known as
THE TARIFF QUESTION.
TIE issue cannot now be obscured. 1t
is not contest between schedules, but
between wide apart principles. Foreign
competitors of our markets have, with
quick instinct, seen how the issue of this
contest may bring to them advantage,
and our own people are not so dull as to
miss or neglect the grave interests in
volved for them. The assault upon our
Protective system is open and defiant.
Protection is assailed as unconstitu-
tional in law, or as in views Of
principle, and those who hold such views
sincerely cannot stop short of an abso-
lutte elimination from our tariff laws of
the principle of protection. The Mills
bill is only step, but it is toward an
object that the leaders of Democratic
thought and legislation have clearly in
mind. The important question is not 80
much the length OF the step as the direc-
ton of it.
Judged by the Executive message of
December last, by the Mills bill, by the
debate in Congress and by the st. Louis
platform, the Democratic party will, if
supported by the country, place the tariff
laws upon purely revenue basis. This
is practical Free Trade in the English
sense. The legend upon the banner may
not be Free Trade; it may be the more
obscure motto Tariff Reform but neither
the banner nor the inscription is con-
elusive or indeed very important. The
assault itself is the important fact. Those
who teach that the import duty upon
all the foreign goods sold in our market
is paid by the consumer, and that the
price of domestic competing articles is
enhanced to the amount of the duty on
imported articles; that every million of
dollars collected for custom duties repre-
sents many millions more which do not
reach the Treasury, but are paid by our
citizens as the increased cost of the do
mestic product, resulting from the tariff
laws, may not intend to discredit in the
minds of others our system of levying
duties on competing foreign products, but
it is clearly already discredited in their
own. We. cannot doubt, without i'm
pugning their integrity, that if free to act
upon their conviction they would so re-
wise our laws as to lay the burden of the
customs revenues upon articles that are
not produced in this country, and to
place upon the free list competing
foreign products. l do not stop to
refute this theory as to it's effect on
our duties. Those who advance it are
the students of maxims, and not of mar
kets. They may be safely allowed to call
their project "Tarif Reform" if the peo-
pie understand that in the end the argu.
ment compels free trade in all competing
products. This end may not be reached
abruptly, and it's approach may be ac-
companied with some expressions of
sympathy for our protected industries and
our working people, but it will certainly
come if these early steps do not arouse
the people to effective resistance.
PROTECTION NECESSITY.
The Republican party holds that a
protective tariff is constitutional, whole
some and necessary. We do not offer a
fixed schedule, but principle. We will
revise the schedule, modify the rates, but
always with an intelligent provision as to
its effect upon domestic production and
the wages of our working people. We
believe it to be one OF the worthy objects
OF tariff legislation to preserve the Ameri.
can market for American products
and to maintain the American
scale of wages by adequate dis
eliminating duties upon foreign com
peting products. The effects Of lower
rates and larger importations upon the
public revenue is contingent and doubt
full, but not 60 the effect upon American
production and American wages. Less
work and lower wages must be accepted
as the inevitable result of the increased
offering of foreign goods in our market
By way of recompense for this reduction
in his wages and the loss of the American
market, it is suggested that the dimin
ished wages of the workingmen will have
an undiminished purchasing power, ant
that he will be able to make up for thu
loss of the home market by an enlarged
foreign market.
Our.workingmen have the settlement
of the question in their own hands. The,
now obtain higher wages and live NOR
comfortably than those of an.
other country. They will max
choice .of the substantial advantage
thew have in hand and tn