The Clifton clarion., 1888-06-27
Free Trade"

The nominations of both the par ties have now been made, and for the next four months the issues between the two parties will re- ceive thorough ventilation. The Democrats having declared for a policy of tariff reform, the Re, publicans propose to stand by pro lection. We believe the Demo crats will win upon their platform, although the Republicans are striving hard to create a prejudice by yelling free trade" with lusty lungs. In this connection we pub lish an extract from a speech by prominent farmer of Nebraska be- fore the recent Republican State convention, in which plank was inserted calling for high tariff. Delegate Watson said:
 You are denouncing the Mills bill as free-trade measure, and yet if a Republican president should be inducted into office next March he would fail in his duty to the country if in his inaugural he did not indicate policy in con-
  sonance with the plan of the Mills bill. There are more farmers and farm laborers in the three states of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska than there are workingmen and women in all the highly protected industries in the country. You tell us there is a duty on wheat and corn, and on barley, oats, pork and beef. But what good does it do the farmer? Whom does 1t protect him against? The price of his crop is fixed at the thresh- ing-machine by the amount of wheat raised in India and Russia, the lowest wage countries in the world. Yet you increase the cost of production by laying tax on the clothing and farm implements of the American farmer. We would not care for the tax if tbe government needed it. The farm CTS of the northwest are loyal people. You know that. All We have We will freely give to the nation when she needs it. The grievance that we complain of is that you take our money when you have no use for it. We of Nebraska burn corn for fuel and pay 100 per cent. duty on blankets. Free trade would not follow if the duty were reduced one-half. There are more farmers in treeless Ne braska than there are persons en- gagged in the entire lumber indus try. Why should we pay the lumber syndicates premium of g a thousand feet for lumber, which, with us, is a necessity"
 And the Providence Journal, a leading Republican paper, re- marks that unless the tariff is taken from wool, wooden mills will have to close down. When the Republican convention meets at Chicago it will have a good time in framing a platform that will satisfy the trusts and the people who demand relief from the pres sure of unnecessary taxation. The eight millions of farmers and the nine millions of professional men merchants, bricklayers, stone masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, shipbuilders and laborers who earn their living outside of the pro- tected industries, are in no mood to pay taxes year in and year out to build up colossal fortunes for a few thousand manufacturers, em- ploying S5O,00O operatives, or only five per cent. of the wage earners in America, as shown by the cen sus of 1880. Democracy demands not free trade, but such revision of our revenue laws as will de- stroy the trusts, open new mar kets to American manufacturers, new fields for the employment of American labor. And Democracy will win
 President Arthur in his message