The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1888-09-15
SQUARELY ON THE ISSUE
GENERAL HARRISON'S SOUND LET
TER OF ACCEPTANCE.
Protection for the American People-The
Greatest OF All Party Principies-
The Needs of the Nation and
Their misunderstanding
Reform Theories.
They Only Tend Toward Free Trade.
What Should be Done with the Surplus
How to Remedy the Labor Immigra-
ton EvIl-Ths Generals Stand
ON the Chinese uues-
tion-Facts for
the Voters.

ton EvIl-The Generals Stand
On the Chinese Ques-
tion-Facts for
the Voters.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, Sept. IL.
THE following is General Harrison's
| letter accepting the Republican Presi
Dental nominations:
Indianapolis Ind, Sept 11-Hon. M. M.
Estee ana OLhels, Commiotee-Gentle
men: When your committee visited me
on the 4Gh of July last, and pre- sented
the official announcement of my nnnina-
ton for the Presidency of the United
States by the Republican convention, |
promised as soou as practicable TO commu-
nicate to you more formal acceptance
of the nomination. Since that time the
work of receiving aud addressing, almost
daily, large delegations of my fellow
citizens has not only occupied all of my
time, but has in some measure rendered
it unnecessary for me to use this letter as
medium OF communicating to the pub
lie my views upon the questions involved
in the campaign. appreciate very highly
the confidence and respect manifested by
the convention. and accept the nomina
tion with feeling of gratitude ana full
sense of the responsibilities which accom-
pany it.
1t is matter of oongratulation that
the declarations of the Chicago conven-
ton upon the questions that now attract
the interest of our people are so clear and
emphatic. There is further cause of con-
graduation in the fact that the conven-
ton utterances of the Democratic party,
if in any degree uncertain or contradic.
tory, can now be judged and interpreted
by executive acts and messages. and by
detinate propositions in legislation.
This is especially true of what is pop
ularly known as the tariff question. The
issue connot now be obscured II is not
a contest between schedules but bet ween
wide-apart principles. The foreign com
petitors of our market have, with quick
Instinct, seen how one issue of this con
test may bring them advantage, and our
people are not so dull as to miss or neg
lect the grave interests that are involved
for them. The assault upon our protec-
tive system is open and defiant.
DROTECTlON is assailed as uncousti-
tutional in law or AS vicious in princi
pie, and those who hold such views
sincerely connot stop short of an absolute
lTOU1 OuT bdTlU laws OF The
principle of protection.
The Mills bill is only step. but it is
toward an object that the leaders of
Democratic thought and Legislation have
clearly in mind.
The important question is not so much
the length of the sep as the direction of
it. Judged by the executive message of
December last, by the Mills bill, by the
1x.ha FOG inf and h,,t r
platform, the Democratic party will, if
supported by the country, place the tariff
laws upon purely revenue basis This
is practical free trade-free trade in the
English sense. The legend upon the
banner may not be Free Trade" il NAV
be the more obscure motto Tariff Re-
form" but neither the banner nor the
inscription is conclusive or, indeed, very
important. The assault itself, it is the
important fact.
Those who teach that the import duty
upon foreign goods sold In our market is
paid by the consumer, and that the price
of the domestic competing article is en-
HANGED to the amount of he duty on
imported artlcles-that every million of
dollars collected for customs duties rep
resents many millions more which do not
reach the treasury, but are paid by our
citizens as the increased cost of domestic
| productions resulting from the tariff laws
may not intend to discredit in the minds
of others our system of levying duties on
competing foreign products, but it is
clearly already discredited in their own
| We cannot doubt, without impugning
their integrity. that if free to act upon
| their convictions they would SO revise
| our laws as to lay the burden of the Gus
| toms revenue upon articles that are not
| produced in this country, and to place
upon the free list all competing foreign
| products.
do not stop to refute this theory as to
the effects of our tariff duties Those who
advance it are students of maxims and
not of the markets They may be safel,
allowed to call their project Tariff Re
| FORM, if the people understand that in
| the end the argument compels free trade
in all competing products. This end may
not be reached abruptly and it's approach
may be accompanied with some express
sions of sympathy for our protected in
dustries and our working people, but it
| will certainly come if those early steps
do not arouse the people to effective
| resistance.
| NECESSITY OF PROTECTION.
THE Republican party holds that a pro-
| teotjve tariff is constitutional, whole.
some and necessary We do not offer a
| fixed schedule, but a principle. We will
revise the schedule, modify rates, but
| always with an intelligent provision as
to the effect upon domestic production
| and the wages of our working people,
| We believe it to be one of the worthy
| ,b;>,tS Of tariff lauislatinp RI
| the American market for American pro.
ducers and to maintain the American
scale of wages by adequate discriminating
duties upon foreign competing products
The effect Of lower rates and larger i'm
portations upon the public revenue is con-
tingent and doubtful, but not SO the ef-
feet upon American productions and
American wages.
7 ESS WORK and lower wages must be
IL accepted as the inevitable result of
the increased offering of foreign goods in
our market. By way of recompense for
this reduction in his wages, and the loss
of the American market, it is suggested
th at the diminished wages of the work
ingman will have an undiminished pur-
chasing power, and that he will be able
to make up for the loss of the home n ,r-
ket by an enlarged foreign market D r
workIngmeu have the settlement OF the
question in their own hands. They now
obtain higher wages and live more com
fprtably than those of any other country.
They will make choice between the
substantial advantages they have in hand
and the deceptive promises and forecasts
OF those theorIzing reformers. They will
decide for themselves aud for the coun
try whether the protective system shall
be continued or destroyed.
THE fact of a treasury surplus, the
| amount of which is variously stated. has
directed public attention to a considera.
ton of the methods by which the nation
al incomes may be reduced to the level
of wise and necessary expenditure.
This condition has been seized up,n by
those who are hostile to protective Gus.
toms duties as an advantageous base of
attack upon our tariff laws. They have
magnitied aud nursed the surplus; which
they affect to deprecaJe, seemingly for
for the purpose OF exaggeratiny the evil
in order to reconcile the people to the
extreme remedy they propose.
A proper reduction OF the revenue does
not necessitatp, and should not suggest,
the abandonment or impairment of the
protective system. The methods sug
gested by our convention will not need
to be exhausted in order to effect the nee
essary reduction. We are not likely to
be called upon, l think, to make pres
emit choice between the surrender of our
protective system and the entire repeal
of the internal taxes. Such contingency
i'll view of the present relation of expen-
ditures to revenue, is remote. The in
spection and regulation OF the manufac-
tnra nd ale of nlanmarDarina IL i'm mr.