Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-10-11
FIRST JOINT POLITICAL TILT.
A knight of the High Tax Party
UnhOrsed.
zone more unfortunate
Gone to his death.r

The first joint discussion in Los Ange.
les county of the issues of the political
campaign occurred Tuesday night last
at the Rosedale schoolhouse. The
friendly contest was between Richard
Dunnigan, Esq, on behalf of the Demo.
Gratis, and G. G. Stephens, ESQ.,, as coun.
sci for the Republicans. A respectable
audience representative of the opposing
party organizations in the vicinity Of
Rosedale greeted the speakers and made
up in livery enthusiasm what it may
have lacked in numerical strength.
Mr.. Tom F. Smith, of the Rosedale
Republican Club, called the meeting to
order, and Colonel J. N. Voss, one OF the
leading Democrats Of the county, intro
| duced Mr.. Dunnigan, who began the dis
cussion and who throughout his thirty
minutes opening address was heartily
applauded. A clear, strong, methodical
speaker he presented his side of the
question with earnest and persuasive
power, without bombast or oratorical
theatricals, stating fact after fact, sta
tistc after statistic, arraigning the Re-
publican party for tergiversation and du-
plicity in office, and treason to the people
in and out of Office in manner at once
lucid and convincing, to the evident
appreciative delight of at least the DEM
ocratic element present. The history of
the tariff, of unjust taxation, the policy
of the Mills bill, the inequity of trusts,
the plausible subterfuge and sophistry of
the so-called protection to labor"
the theory so harped on by the Republi-
cans, were tersely and ably reviewed,
presenting strong indictment of the
party of great moralities. The damaging
record of the Republican party, which,
for twenty years, in full control of the
United States Government, was con-
trasted with the honest, clear and eco-
nomic administration of the Government
by Grover Cleveland, to the ut
ter confusion and dismay of
every intelligent Republican in the
house and to the unmistakable delight
of the unterri6ed. Then MIR. Dunnigan
took up the Chinese record of Benjamin
harrison and fairly excoriated "Ah
Ben" as an antagonist of workingmen-
OF white men of all classes, as we'll
Democratic as Republican, though dur
ing the present campaign Benjamin was
posing as the only original Jacob and
friend of American labor. Ere this
thirty minutes expired, Mr.. Dunnigan
cut out abundant work for his opponent
in the way of presenting questions to be
answered. But it is the policy of the
Republican party during this campaign
to be discretly silent when direct or lead
ing questions are asked by the Demo.
Gratis in political debate, and MIR.
Stephens, we'll drilled as he is in that
peculiar policy, lodged almost every
issue rendered him by his opponent
He, Stephens, sang the usual Republican
song, to wit: A surplus is a blessing,
the more we have of it the
better. The American working
man is the happiest and best paid
laborer on earth. Washington, Hamilton,
Jefferson anu Jackson were protection.
lists. The villages surrounding the great
manufactures where the wage-worker
lived and occupied his own home, were
so many paradises, peopled by contented
and happy stalwart men and more than
happy women. These happy homes were
the direct result of protection. These
paradises would be blighted if the Mills
bill became law and the free trade
Democrats remained in power. The: Q
was no need for change. The surplus,
he contended. should be used up in
building public works, postoffices, Gus
tom houses, San Pedro harbor improve.
ments, etc. 1t should be used in giving
the country navy. We had no navy
now. Our present men-of-war were mere
tubs. If our citizens when abroad we're
outraged, we had to call on an English
man-of-war to protect them! Give us
more surplus and still more surplus. We
are the greatest people upon the face Of
the eartn, and protection made us what
we are.
As to the Chinese question, that is not
political issue, said Mr.. Stephens. 1t
was not an issue in the early days in
California. James G. Blaine was now the
leader of the anti Chinese question in
the East. We have now a Chinese
Exclusion law, whoever was entitled to
the credit of securing it. But if the
Chinese now in the United States were
driven back to China they would carry
the mechanical skill they gained here
back with them, and teach their country
men, and it would be only little while
until millions of Cinnamon in China
would make boots, shoes and other arti-
cles Of wearing apparel and flood the
American market with their products. to
the ruin OF American workingmen
Mr.. Stephens filled out bis one hours
time after this style of intellectual re-
freshment. 1t was an essentially Re-
publican harangue, almost purely ad
captandum in it's entirety. But it was
delivered in pleasant vein. spiced with
anecdote and was devoid of the usual
offensive epithetic abuse and denuncia-
ton of the Democracy so disgracefully
characteristic of Republican orators and
the whole Republican press. Mr.. Dun
nigan's thirty minutes rejoinder
exposed the fallacy of his op-
ponent's arguments--or rather of
the fanciful excursions into the
regions of fiction Of that voluble
champion of the party of high taxes.
His opponent admitted, said MIR. Dun
nigan, We had no navy. Yetthe Repub-
lican party, whose God he worshipped, ,
spent $40 600, ,000 ostensib bly, in building
navy for the United States, what has
become Of those millions? Let the un-
happy shade of John s. Robeson, late
Republican Secretary of the Navy, and
his co.conspira contractor Chorpen-
ming answer. He, Stephens, had de-
nominated the surplus as a national
blessing. Some of the Republican ora
tors denied that there was any surplus at
all. If there was no surplus, or if the
surplus was national blessing, why had
Republican Senate reported tariff bill
affirming the principles of the Mills bill,