Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-10-20
SENATOR sTANFoRD's TESTIMONY

No one will deny that Senator Leland
Stanford is man of cultivated powers of
observation, nor that his opportunities to
see and study the world have been very
great. Neither will anyone question the
calmness of his judgment, the clearness of
his perceptions, nor the impartielity of his
mind. More than this, he is many-sided
man, at once a legislator, fnancier, a
student of civilization, a patron of the arts,
a legal scholar, an employer of many men,
an educator, a phllanthropist and a student
of political economy. Now such a man
with his mind especially impressed by this
campaign with the chief feature of political
agitation. who has been travelling Tor some
months in Europe, could not help forming
a judgment as TO conditions of civilization
under political systems related to the dis
cussion involving the political parties of
this country. Let it be understood that
Governor Stanford has not been, as all Cal
ifornians know, radical in the doctrines of
political economy which he has enter
taiGed, nor has it been his custom to state
as facts anything, or to settle upon conclu-
sions until convinced of their absolute
truth.
Now what does Governor Stanford tell
us Immediately upon his return from Eu-
rope? He declares that free trade is the
issue. deny it as much as the Democracy
may; that free trade policy adopted in the
United States would be ruinoua to Ameri-
can industrial interests; that tie working
men of this country and its interests de.
mand protection. They will never have
free trade" says the Senator. He says
to the American people that in free
trade England the cost of living is greater
and the wage is much less for the working
people than in this country; tEet they have
not there the comforts of life to which our
people are accustomed. Why? :ncause of
Englands free trade economic system.
Now, it is indisputable that, these being
the facts, the nearer we in America ap-
proach to that system the more we endan-
ger the uplifting, civilizing conditions that
surround the American sovereign. There
is no one in California who for a moment
believes that if Senator Stanford was not
profoundly convinced of this fact, that he
would lend himself to its promulgation.
He has summed up the whole Presidential
canvass; he has compassed the main issue
of the campaign; he has defined the lists of
,he conteDding hosts in these terse SEN
eI, &c So
land. He is the unanimous choice of the
English for President of the United States
Why? Because of his free trade notions"
The Senator adds: "Of course, England is
a great producing country. With her sys-
tenn of free trade, labor is cheaper there
than here. Free trade for the United States
would make this country great English
market. 1 shall do what can to prevent
any such condition of affairs from coming
to pass"
In this conclusion that the United States
does not want free trade; that it cannot
afford TO make approaches toward it; that
free trade would make this country "a
great English market; that it would re-
duce the American worker as the author
of the Mills bill declared it to be the pur-
pose of his party to do) to the level of the
laborers 'of all other countries" the people
OF the United States will concur on the 9th
of November, recording their verdict of
approval of Senator Stanford's judgment
with the emphasis of an unparalleled
electoral majority for the Republican
standard-bearers and the American system
of protection 10 home industries