The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1888-02-02
THE TARIFF,
AAd Not Political Prohibition, the Is.
sue this Fall.
From the Toledo plsds.1 l

lr tOiu suo AOicuO Disuo.I
In recent number OF the Blade, we
discussed the fact that the tariff dwarfs
all other matters at issue in the political
Held, and that the battle Of the ballots,
st the November election for President
and for members Of the Fifty-frst Con-
Rress, will be fought upon that one issue.
We then took up the call for national
shird-party Prohibition convention, and
Hfter mentioning that it favored pro-
lection and enumerated o number of
ether objects ostensibly supported by
that party, including prohibition, we
went on to discuss the unwisdom of the
friends of protection who favor political
prohibition in dividing forces in the
face of the coming struggle. We showed
conclusively that any protectionist who
votes next fall for Presidential or Con-
gressional candidates on the third.party
ticket simply wastes his vote and helps
the free trade enemy.
We are in receipt of letter from
Wakeman, Colorado, taking Us to task for
that article. The writer is evidently sim
cere, and as he couches his remonstrance
in moderate language, we shall briefly
discuss some points in his letter, which
is too long to publish entire. He first
objects to our calling political prohibit
tion an "idea," and the tariff an tissue"
He says:
Your reason for declining the former
only an idea, and the latter an issue, is
that to become an issue the people must
he interested and divided in reference to
the thing at issue. infer from this
that you mean to say, or do say, that
the people are divided and interested on
the tariff, but not on the subject of pro.
hibition. It seems to me that political
prohibition is an issue, and one that the
people are infinitely more interested in
than the tariff. While I have been a
lifelong Republican, and in favor of
just protective tariff, yet | LOOK upon
This tariff issue which Cleveland has
sprung upon the people as utterly insig.
nificant in comparison with legal prOhi-
bition.
The last sentence of the above shows
the mistake under which our correspon-
dent is laboring, which is this: Het kinks
that because he believes third-party Pro-
hibition to be more important than the
tariff issue, that therefore everybody else
ought to think SO. Now, the fact is, the
great majority OF the voters of the United
States don't think SO; and the question
is not what they ought to think but what
they do think. 1t is because it is GER
tain that the vast mass of the people are
deeply interested in the tariff issue, and
put it ahead OF every other political .ques-
tion, that we say, as does every man
who is close observer of public feeling,
that the fight this year is going to be a
square-cut one on the tariff.
The tariff question will not be settled
by the Fiftieth Congress at the session
now in progress. Hence the struggle
will be, ON each side-Republican pro-
tectionists on the one side, free trade
Democrats on the other-to elect a ma
jority Of members of the Fifty-first Con-
gress next November, and a President.
If the Democrats elect that majority and
their candidate for President, the pro-
tective features of the tariff will be de-
stroyed by legislation in the next Con-
gress. If the Republicans win, they
will be preserved.
No other party, be it the third party,
or the Labor party, or any other, can do
anything but draw votes from one side
or the other. If the third-party Prohi-
bitionist voter favors protection, he
should vote with the mass of voters on
that side; for his vote can have influ-
ence when 80 cast, but if cast for the
third-party ticket it practically helps the
free trade cause, while doing no good for
prohibition.
Our friend, too, confuses the advocacy
OF prohibitory legislation with the advo-
cacy of a separate political prohibition
party. We may remark to him that the
BLADE often uses the phrase political
Prohibitionists" in referring to the latter.
We believe in prohibition and prohibi-
tory laws and amendments but we do
not believe that this is question that
should come into politics. All the pro-
gress that has ever been made has been
made on non.partisan lines of action.
Maine, and Rhode Island, and Iowa, and
Kansas became prohibitory States with
out the third political party; local
option has redeemed large sections of
the South, and portions of several North
ern States, without the third political
party. The battle over the tariff will
not affect the steady progress of this
work. 1t is going on, even though the
leaders of the third party dislike the To-
cal option plan, which is successfully re-
claiming the land from rum. The polit-
ical Prohibitionists can not point to a
single accomplished thing favoring pro-
hibition which their party has ever done
Of itself. 1t is humbug.
Our correspondent then goes on to ask
the following questions, to which he re.
quests replies:
Ffrst-Which are the workingmen oi
America suffering most from tO-day-an
inefficient protective tariff, or from the
mss OF intoxicants, which prohibitory