Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-10-20
IT is FREE TRADE.

1t is common for the Democrats to deny
that theirs is a free-trade policy. Recently
they have become exceedingly irritable
upon this subject, and they vehemently it.
crate that they are not free-traders; that
neither the Mills bill nor Grover Cleveland s
December message mean free trade. There
is before us now protest from gentle
man of intelligence and character, who is
an ardent Democrat, against the RECORD
UNIONS charge that the Mills bill means
free trade. Why" he exclaims, will
YOU not be fair? Here is our Mr.. Brice,
Chairman of the Democratic National Com
mittee, doing your General Harrison the
justice of saying that neither he Mr.. Brice,
nor the National Committee, for one mo-
ment believe or counienance the silly and
cowardly stories circulated about General
Harrison and the labor strike of II, and
the dollar-a-day absurdity. Here is our
free-trader, and yet you refuse to do him
the justice Of accepting his protest as true.
Is this fair piay?"
We reply: Yes, it is fair play. While
have never declined to give him the bene-
fit of that disclaimer, though it involves
confession of intellectual incapacity, we de-
ny his claim of right to say for us what tht
result of his preaching and teaching will be
OF that every American citizen must judge
| for himself. We prefer to Mr.. Cleveland's
the judgmen: of Senator Stanford based
upon observations abroad. and the English
Interpretation of the policy. We prefer the
judgment of the Glasgow Herald, which
but echoes the expressions OF scores of it;
contemporaries
President Cleveland does not avow himself tc
| be, and evidently does not regard himself as 6
| free trader. Yet whether Mr.. Cleveland is IL
| the right or in the wrong, he cannot help adopt
ing freetrade arguments and b0lster1ng them
| up with free-trade illustrations. Take. for ex
| ample, his argument against the wool tariff
| that the farming class lose vastly more by the
| increased prices of clothes than they gain from
the enhanced price of wool. This reads like al
extract from some old speech of Mr.. Bright s
But look at his view of the situa
| tiou as expressed by himself: 1t is condi
| ton that confronts us, not theory Precisely
so Words almost identical with these have
been used with enormous effect in this country
| by Adam Smith, by Richard Golden, by Sil
| Robert Peel.
Weprefer the heinterpretation of a free-trade
| journal in free trade country, such as the
| Spectator, of London:
Grover Cleveland has done more to advance
the cause of free trade than any Prime Minister
of England has ever done.
To the opinion of Grover Cleveland
who has demonstrated his ability to face
in two directions at one and the same time
as in the case of civil service reform--we
prefer the opinion of the more consistent
Democracy represented by the accom- plished
Henry WaterSon, who has declared
The Democratic party, except in the person o
imbeciles hardly worth mentioning, is not upon
the fence. 1t is free-trade party or il is moth
ing. There can be no cooked-up platform and
no compromise candidate. The black flag i.
up. No quarter Will be asked and no quarter
will be given.
The Republican party recognizes in the
Cleveland policy an inevitable drift toward
fiscal system that means the reduction o.
American labor to the level of the cheap
ill-condltioned labor of Europe, and it doe:
not propose to advance so much as the sole
of the foot into the threatening waters. Ii
the first step lies danger.