The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1888-09-19
GEN. HARRISON'SLE LETTER
THE NOMINEE OF THE REPUBLICAN
PAKTY FORMALLY ACCEPTS.
He Discusses Public Questions with Dig
nifty and Clearness-The Interests of tho
Workingman Must Be Looked After
Treats of the Chinese Question, etc.

nomination to the presidency by the Chi
cago convention is as follows:
ISpIANAPoLIs, Sept. II. 1888
"HoN M NJ EsrEE AND OTHERS. COMMIT
TEE-GENrLEMEN: When your COMMITTEES
visited me on the Fourth of July last, and
presented the official encouragement of my
nomination for the Presidency OF the United
States by the Republican National conven-
ton / promised as soon as practicable 10
communicate TO you more formal accept
ance OF the nomination. Since that time
the work OF receiving and addressing, al
most daily, large delegations of my fellow
citizens, has not only occupied all my time,
but has In some measure rendered it TN
necessary for me % use this letter as a
medium Of communicating 20 the public
my views upon the questions involved in the
campaign.
l appreciate very highly the confidence
and respect manifested by the convention,
and accept the nomination with a feeling of
gratitude and full sense of the response
bilities which accompany it.
''It is a matter of congratulation that the
declarations of the Chicago convention upon
the questions that now attract the interest
of our people are so clear and emphatic.
There is further cause for congratulation in
the Democratic party, if in any degree I'M
certain or contradictory, can now be judged
and interpreted by executive acts and mes
sages and by definite propositions in legisla-
ton. This is especially true of what is pop
nlarly known as the tariff question. The
issue cannot now be obscured. IL is not a
contest between schedules, but between
wide-apart principles. The foreign compel
itors of our market have, with quick in
stinct, seen how one issue Of this contest
may bring them advantage, and our own
people are not so dull as to miss or neglect
the grave interests that are involved for
them The assault upon our protective
system is open and defiant. Protection
is asSailed as unconstitutional in the law
or as vicious in principle, and those who
hold such views sincerely cannot stop short
of an absolute elimination from our tariff
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 80
much the length of the step as the direction
of it. Judged by the executive message of
December last, by the Mills bill, by the de-
bates in Congress and by the st? Louis plat
form the Democratic party will, if supported
by the country lay the tariff laws upon a
purely revenue basis. Is this practical free
trade-free trade in the English sense? The
legend upon the banner may not be free
trade; it may be the moro obscure motto
tariff reform, but neither the banner nor
the inscription is conclusive or, in-.
deed, very important. The assault itsel(
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 part of
the domestic competing article is enhanced
to the amount OF the duty on imported
articles-that every million of dollars col
lected for customs duties represents many
millions more which do not reach the treas
ury, but are paid by our citizens as the in
creased cost of domestic productions result
ing from the tariff laws may not intend to
discredit in the minds of others our system
of levying duties on foreign products, but it
is clearly already discredited in their own
We can not doubt, without impugning their
integrity, that if free TO act upon their con-
victions they would so revise our laws as to
lay the burden of the customs revenues upon
articles that are not produced in this coun-
try, and 20 place upon the free list all COM
peting foreign products
The Republican Faith.
81 do not stop to refute this theory as 20
the effect of our tariff duties Those who
advance j. are students of maxiins and not
Of the markets. They may be safely al
lowed TO call their project tariff reform,
if the people understand that in the end the
argument compels free trade in all compet-
ing products. This end may not be reached
abruptly, and its approach may be accom-
panied with some expressions of sympathy
for our protected industries and our work
ing people, but il will certainly come if
these early steps do not arouse the people 20
effective resistance The Republican party
holds that a protective tariff is constitu-
tional, wholesome, and necessary. We do
not offer mixed 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 be-
lieve it TO be one of the worthy objects OF
tariff legislation to preserve the Ameri
can market for American producers.
and TO maintain the American scale
of wages by adequate, discrimn-
ating duties upon foreign competing
products. The effect of lower rates
and larger importations upon the public
revenue is contingent and doubtful, but not
so the effect upon American production and
American wages. Less work and lower
wages must be accepted as the inevitable
result of the increased Offering of foreign
goods in our market By way of recon-
pense for this reduction in lis wages and the
loss of the American market it is suggested
that the diminished wages of the working
man will have an undiminished purchasing
power, and that he will be able TO make up
for the loss of the home market by an en-
larged foreign market Our workingmen
have the settlement of the question in their
own hands They now obtain higher wages
and live more comfortably 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 and the
country whether the protective system shall
be continued or destroyed
How tn Use the Surplus.
1.-THE fact of treasury surplus, the
amount of which is variously stated, has di-
rected public attention TO a consideration of
the methods by which the national income
may best be reduced to the level of a wise
and necessary expenditure This condition
has been seized upon by those who are hos
tile TO protective custom duties as an adj
vantageous base Of attack upon our tariff
laws. They have magnfied and nursed the
oh 49, 4