Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-09-20
HARRISON'S LETTER.
His Formal Acceptance Of the Nom
ination.
A Clear Concise and Direct Presentation
of tho Issues TO BIO Fought For.

Clear Concise and Direct Presentation
OF tho Issues to be Fougdt For.
Con Harrison letter accepting the re
puO .ioan presidential nom nation is as fol-
lows:
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, Sept. II.
Hon. M. NJ. Estee and others, committee:
Gentlemen-Wheny your committee visited
ne on the 4th of July last and presented
the official announcement OF my nomination
Tor the presidency of the United States by
the republican convention, l promised as
Soon as practicable TO communicate TO you
more formal acceptance of the nomina
ton. Since that time the work OF receiving
and addressing, almost daily, large delega-
tons OF my fellow citizens has not only oc-
/ cLpied all my time, but has in some meas
ure rendered IL unnecessary for me TO use
thls letter as medium of communicating
10 the public my views upon the questions
involved in the campaign. | appreciate
very highly the confidence and respect
manifested by the convention and accept
the nomination with a feeling of gratitude
and full sense of the responsibilities
which accompany IL.
! 1t is a matter OF congratulation that the
! declarations 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 congratulation in
the fact that the convention utterances OF
the democratic party, If any degree uncer
tain or contradictory, can now be judged
and interpreted by executive acts and mes
sages, and by definite propositions in legis-
lation. This is especially 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 principles. The On compel
itors of our market have, with quick in
stinct, seen how one issue of this contest
may bring them advantage, and our own
people are not so dull as TO miss or neglect
| intRrpStQ inVOlVpH
them. The assault upon our protective
system is open and defiant. Protection is
assailed as unconstitutional in law, or as
vicious in principle, and those who hold
such views sincerely cannot stop short Of
an absolute elimination from our tariff laws
of the principle Of protection. The Mills
bill is only step, but il is toward an object
that the leaders of democrat thought and
legislation have clearly in mind
The important question is not so much
the length of the step as the direction Of it.
Judged by the executive message of De
cember last, by the Mills bill, by the de-
bates in congress and by the st. Louis
platform, the democrat party will, If sup
ported by the country, place the tariff laws
upon purely revenue basis. This is
practical free trade-free trade in the Eng
lish 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
conclusive, or, indeed, very important.
The assault itself is the important fact
Those who teach that the import duty
upon foreign goods sold in our market is
paid by the consumer, and that the price of
the domestic competing article is enhanced
to the amount of the duty on the imported
article-that every million of dollars col
lected for customs duties represent many
millions more which do not reach the treas
ury, but are paid by our citizens as the in
creased cost of domestic productions re-
sulting from the tariff laws may not in
tend to discredit in the minds of others our
system of levying duties on competing for
eign products, but il is clearly already dis
credited 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 bur
den Of the customs revenue upon articles
that are produced in this country, and to
place upon the free list all competing
foreign products.
| do not stop to refute this theory as to
the effect of our tariff duties. Those who
advance IL are students of maXims and not
of the markets. They may be safely al
lowed to call their project tariff reform. -
if the people understand that in the end the
arguments means free trade in all compel
ing products. This end may not be reached
abruptly, and its approach may be accom-
panied with some expressions of sympathy
for our protected industries andour working
people, but it will certainly come if these
early steps do not arouse the people TO
| effective resistance.
The republican party holds that a protec-
tive tariff is constitutional, wholesome and
necessary We do not offer a fixed SEIZED
ule, but principle. We will revise the
schedule, modify rates, but always with an
intelligent provision as to the effect upon
domestic production and the ways of our
working people. We believe it to be one
of the worthy objects of tariff legislation to
preserve the American market for Ameri-
can producers, and to maintain the Ameri-
can scale of wages, by adequately discrimi
mating duties upon foreign competing prod
ucts. The effect of lower rates and i'm
portations on the public revenue is eontin-
gent and doubtful, but not so the effect
upon American production and American
wages.
Less work and lower wages must be &C
copied as the inevitable result of the in
creased 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
diminished wages of the workingman will
have an undiminished purchasing power,
and that he will be able to make up for the
loss of the home market by an enlarged
foreign market
Our workingmen have the settlement of
the question in their own hands. They
now obtain higher wages and live more
comfortably than those OF any other coun-
try. They will make choice between the
substantial advantages they have in hand
and the deceptive promises and forecasts
of theoriZing reformers. They will decide
for themselves and for the country wheth-
er the protective system shall be continued
or destroyed.
The fact of a treasury surplus, the
amount of which is variously stated has
directed public attention to a consideration
of the methods by which the national in
come may be best reduced to the level of a
wise and necessary expenditure. This con-
dition has been seized upon by those who
are hostile to protective custom duties as
an advantageous base of attack upon our
tariff laws. They have magnifed and
nursed the surplus, which they affect Ia
deprecate, seemingly for the purpose of ex-
aggerating the evil in order to reconcile the
people to the extreme remedy they pro-
pose.
A proper reduction of the revenue does
not necessitate,. and should not suggest
the abandonment or impairment of the pro.
tective system.
The methods suggested by our conven
tion will not need to be exhausted in order
to effect the necessary reduction.
We are not likely TO be called upon,
think, to make present choice between