Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-09-17
Harrison's Letter of Acceptance.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. Sept.


the 4th of July last, and presented tn
official announcement of my nomina
ton for the Presidency of the Unitet
States by the Republican Convention
l promised as soon as practicable t.
communicate to you a more formal &C
ceptance of the nomination. Since
that time the work of receiving anC
addressing, almost daily, large delega-
tons of my fellow citizens has not
only occupied all of my time, but has
in some measure rendered it unneces-
sary for me to use this letter as me-
dunn of communicating to the public
my views upon the questions involved
in the campaign.
| appreciate very highly the conf
dence and respect manifested by the
convention, and accept the nomination
with feeling of gratitude and a full
sense of the responsibility which ac-
company it.
Judged by the Executive message
of December last, by the Mills bill,
by the debates in Congress and by
the st. Louis platform, the Demo-
cratic party will, if supported by the
country, place the tariff laws upon a
purely revenue basis. This is prac-
teal free trade-free trade in the
English sense. The legend upon the
banner may not be 'sfree trade =
it may be the more obscure motto
''tariff REFORM but neither the ban
ner 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 COM
peting article is enhanced to the
amount of the duty on imported az
ticles 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 citizens 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 COM
peting foreign products, but it is
clearly already discredited in their
own. We cannot doubt, without
impugning their integrity, that if free
to act upon their own convictions
they would so revise our laws as to
lay the burdens of the customs rev.
enue upon articles that are not pro-
duced in this country, and to place
upon the free list all competing for
elgn products. | do not care to stop
to refute this theory as to the effect
on our tariff duties. Those who adj
vance it are students Of maxims and
not of the markets. They may be
safely allowed to call their project
sstariff reform if the people under
stand that in the end the argument
compels free trade in all competing
products. This end may not be
reached abruptly, and its approach
may be accompanied with some ex-
pressions of sympathy for our pro-
tected industries and our working
people, but it will certainly come if
these early steps do not arouse the
people to effective resistance.
The republican party holds that
protective tariff is constitutional,
wholesome and necessary. We do
not offer a fixed schedule. but a prin-
ciple. We will revise the schedule,
modify it, but always with an intel
ligent provision as to the 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 Amer
lean market for American producers
and to maintain the American scale
of wages by adequate discriminating
duties upon foreign competing pro-
ducts.
The effect of lower rates and larg-
er importations upon the public rev.
enue is contingent and doubtful, but
not so the effect upon American pro-
duction 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 Amer
lean market, it is suggested that the
diminished wages of the working
man will have an undiminished pur-
chasing power, and that he will be
dUlc W Ludho up IOI OiIO 1lOIl6 IudIhGU
by an enlarged foreign market.
The fact of Treasury surplus,
the amount of which is variously
stated, has directed public attention
to q consideration of the methods
by which the national income may
best be reduced to the level of wise
and necessary expenditure. This
condition has been seized upon by
those who are hostile to protective
customs duties as an advantageous
base of attack upon our tariff laws.
We are not likely to be called upon,
[ think, to make present choice
between the surrender of our protec-
tive system and the entire repeal of
the internal taxes. Such a contin-
gency, in view of the present relation
of expenditures to revenue, is re-
mote. The inspection and regula-
ton of the manufacture and sale of