, 1888-09-12
HARRISON ACCEPTS.
The Bold Hoosier Boy Sends
Forth His Letter.
He Says the Democrats are in
Favor Of Free Trade,
And Thinks There is no Present
Prospect Of Free Whisky.
Harrison

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. = follow
ing is Gen. Harrison's letter accepting the
Republican presidential nomination:
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, Sept. 11.-Hoa.
N. NJ. Estee and Others, Committee
GENTLEMEN: When your committee Wis
tied me on 4th of July last and presented
the official announcement of my nominal
ton for the presidency of the United
States by the Republican national conyen-
ton, | promised, as soon as possible, to
communicate you a more formal accept
ance of nomination. Since that time the
work of receiving and addressing, almost
daily, large delegations of my fellow citi-
zens has not only occupied all of my time,
but has. in some measure, rendered it I'M
necessary for me to use this letter as a
medium of communicating to the public
my views upon the questions involved in
this campaign. l appreciate very highly
the confidence and respect manifested by
the convention and accept the nomination
with a feeling of gratitude and a full sense
of the responsibilities
wHICH ACCOMPANY IT.
1t is a matter OF congratulation that the
declaration OF the Chicago convention
upon the questions that now attract the
interest of our people are so clear and
emphatic. There is further cause of con-
graduation in the fact that the convention
~utterances of the Democratic party, if in
any degree uncertain and contradictory,
can now be Judged and interpreted by ex-
ecutIve acts and messages and by definite
propositions in Legislation. This is espe-
clally true of what is popularity known as
the tariff question. The issue cannot now
be obscured. 1t is not a. contest between
schedules, but between wide apart princi-
pies. Foreign competitors of our market
have with quick instinct seen how one
issue of this contest may bring them ad-
vantage, and our own people are not so
dull as to miss or neglect the grave inter
ests that are involved for them. The
assault upon our protective system is
OPEN AND DEFIANT.
Protection Is assailed as unconstitution.
al In law or as views of principle, and
those who hold such views sincerely can
l not stop short of an absolute elimination
from our tariff laws of the principle of
protection. The Mills bill is only a step,
but it is toward an object that the leaders
of Democratic thought and legislation have
clearly in mind. The important question
is not so much in the length of the step
as the direction. Judged by the execu.
tive message of December last, by the
Mills bill, by thessdebates in congress and
by the st, Louis platform, the Democratic
party will, if supported by the country,
pass tariff laws upon a purely revenue
basis. Is this practical free trade in the
English sense? The legend upon their
banner may not be free trade; it may be
the more obscure motto tariff REFORM"
but neither banner nor inscription is con-
elusive or very important. The assault
itself is
II IMPORTANT FACT.
Those who teach that the importers
duty upon all foreign goods sold in our
j market Is paid by the consumer and that
\ the price Of the domestic competing arti-
cles is enhanced to the amount of duty on
imported articles-that every million of
dollars collected for customs duties repre-
sents many millions more which do not
reach the treasury but are paid by our cit
liens as the increased cost of domestic
productions 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 i. is
clearly already discredited in their own.
We cannot doubt, without impugning
their integrity, that if free to act upon
their convictions they would SO revise our
laws as to lay the burden of customs reve-
nues upon articles that are not produced
in this country and to place upon the free
list all
COMPETITIVE FOREIGN PRODUCTS,
| do not stop to refute this theory as to
the effect of our duties. Those who ad.
vance it are students of maxims and not
of markets. They may be safely allowed
to call their project tariff reform" if
people understand that in the end the ar.
gument compels free trade in all compet-
ing products. This end may not be
reached abruptly and the approach may
be accompanied with some expressions of
sympathy for our protected industries and
u working people, but it will certainly
come if these early steps do not arouse
the people to effective resistance. The
Republican party holds that the protec-
tive tariff is constitutional, wholesome
and necessary. We do not offer a fixed
schedule, but a principle. We will revise
the schedule, modify the rates, but always
with an intelligent provision as to the eff
feet upon domestic production and the
wages of our working people. We be-
lieve it to be one OF worthy objects of
tariff legislation to preserve the American
market for American producers, and to
maintain an American scale of wages by
adequate discriminating duties upon
REIG COMPETING PRODUCTS.
The effect of lower rates and larger i'm
portations upon the public revenue is
contingent and doubtful, but not so the
effect upon American production and