Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-06-21
Cleveland and Tax Reduction.

It is confessed on all sides that the
one vital issue of the contest just OPEN
| ed by the nomination of the Democratic
candidates is tariff revision and reve-
nue. reduction. They constitute one
| issue and they are paramount. -Four
years ago the convention of both the
great parties confessed the necessity for
revenue legislation, and both prom
| Used tariff revision and reduction of
| revenue in elastic and evasive terms.
The Republicans straddled monopoly
projections; the Democrats straddled
legitimate protection to labor; and the
pledges of neither side have been full
| filed. In the meantime hundreds of
millions have been added to the then
| large surplus in the Treasury that had
| been wantonly extorted from our in-
dustries only to foster monopoly, inn
| poverish industry and trade, withdraw
money from the regular channels of
business and tempt jobhers and profit
gates to theft and debauchery, and the
Democracy would to-day be founder
ing in hopeless confusion of tariff sem
timent but for the heroic deliverance
made by President Cleveland In his
last message to Congress. That was a
call to the scattered and discordant
Democratic army to form in line of
battle, and it has crystalized the party
on the clearest and simplest tariff basis
and revenue policy that could be pre-
sented to the people. 1t declares that
our manufacturing industries shall be
fostered and given enlarged and en-
during prosperity by cheapened raw
materials, by the full protection of the
wages of American labor and by re-
moving all taxes as far as practicable
frnfro the npnaGGGripS of ftfa
There were some who hesitated and
straddled here in 1888, as they hesitated
and straddled at Chicago in 1884; but
the convention has planted Cleveland
and the party on the broad and equita-
BILE protective policy of Henry Clay
rs leader of the Wings in 1912 and of
Merrill and Kelley as leaders of the
Republicans 10 1861, by demanding the
cheapest necessaries of life for the mass
of the people and the fullest protection
nf the difference in the wages of labor
at home and abroad. No deliverence
ever came from the Executive of the
nation that so sqnarely and emphatic
ly demanded the protection of labor as
did the recent message of President
Cleveland, and the convention has
honestly accepted the issue and will
manfully present and defend it before
the supreme tribunal of the Repu blic
The tariff is accepted by both parties
as the supreme issue of the contest and
it will be discussed more generally and
more searchingly than ever before in
the history of our political conflicts.
1t has been discussed i'm the past chief
Iy as theory, presenting the single
question of protecting and encouraging
manufacturing industries or cheapen-
ing all products to consumers and lew
wing tariff duties solely for revenue;
but it is now presented to the people
as practical question that calls for a
solution of an anomalous condition of
industry, commerce and trade. 1t is
brought face to face with the people
by the general paralysis of over-taxa-
ton and the extortion of needless mill
ions from industry to overflow the
Treasury and tempt authority to prof
ligate and crime.
No party would ever have proposed
our present high tariff duties in time
of peace, for no party could have lived
that did so. But we have high tariff
and internal taxes as the legacy of |
war that ended twenty-three years ago. |
They have built up powerful monopo-
lies in our leading branches of business |
energy, and the few who profit by |
these excessive taxes are powerful in
politics, while the many who suffer by /
them have been misled by the ever
ready cry of peril to the protection of /
labor. The workingman has been de-
luded with the large wages paid him +
here in comparison with the wages of
European countries, but he had to
school himself into an understanding
of the fact that of his one. two or three
dollars earned per day he lad to pay
nearly fifty per cent. of it back to his
employers in the shape of taxes upon