Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-09-13
e,eneral Harrtsen,s Letter.

LCdu CduQluopO LA eAO tOoA~AOSy Az w |
ore the country and has been carefully
cad by all intelligent voters who wish to
now how to vote at the approaching
lection. Mr.. Harrison's letter has more
han usual significance for it is really
lis first utterance on public affairs, and
" it, almost alone he is to stand or fall |
n the estimation OF his countrymen.
lie has not been prominent heretofore
n public life. He served term in the |
United States Senate, but in that he
made little record beyond the damnatory
,ue on the Chinese question which if his
party had ever been sincere on that is
sue would have insured his defeat before
the Chicago Convention. Since his
he has said many words, but
in them all he has given expression to
very little thought. Mr.. Quay, the
Chairman of the party's National Com
mittee, is reported to have characterized
Mr.. Harrison's speeches as "gabble,"
and to have ordered the candidate to
"shut up" Thus about all the electors
of the Union have before them OH which
to form an estimate of the Republican
nominee is this letter. With it came
many opinions of the leading journals of
the Nation as to its weight and
significance. Many of them are merely
partisan outgivings. and not worth
the ink that prints them. They are
merely er-cathedra opinions pro or con.
But there are some of them which will
be taken as honest expressions of opin-
ion. The Springfield Republican, Sam.
Bowles old paper, the Providence Jour
nal, the New York Times, and others
whose views have been wired to us are
Republican papers. Their estimate of
the letter is not high one. They all re-
gard the paper as fve-feet-fve affair,
no larger than its author. The dsinter-
ested opinions of such journals will have
| weight with the Republic in forming an
estimate of the mental caliber of its
author. That estimate outside of mar
row and hide bound partisan circles will
not be high.
Judged by his letter, General Harrison
is as dwarfed in brain as he is in stature.
Its every utterance, from the first line to
the last, is cribbed, cabined and confined
within the narrowest limits of the party
shibboleths by which the Republicans
are attempting to mislead the people in
the pending campaign. Mr.. Harrison is
put before us by his friends as being at
least man of high personal character.
He is pressed upon the people as worthy
of support because of his strictly relig-
ious life. There is no surer test of high
character, no more unerring proof of re-
ligious sincerity than fairness, frankness
and truthfulness. Tried by these
tests, measured by these stand
ards, Mr.. Harrison is found sadly
wanting. His argument from one end
to the other is disingenuous, unfair and
full of downright falseboods. He is un.
able to rise one jot above the mora
status of the ward politician to whom
honor, fairness, candor and truth are
nothing, and "politics" is everything
Judging him by his pretended high char
acter and claims to have conscience
the public had a right to expect of tn
Republican candidate that he would no
stoop to gross and unfair misrepresenta
tion. This expectation was not me
by Mr.. Harrison. Had Mr.. Blaine
Murat Halstead, Whitelaw Reid, Steve
? Elkins, Dudley, Dorsey or any othe
political charletan written the letter i
could not have been burdened with more
or greater false statements. The old clap
trap cries, the stale and trite ad captain
dum fallacies are in it everywhere. 1t i.
needless to specify the items in detail
, They are all through it, and there il
, nothing but them in the letter. Let thil
serve as specimen. 1t is taken because
this falsehood is the only thing that ap
proaches originality in all Mr.. Harrison
has said:
We cannot doubt, without impugnins
their integrity, that if free to act upo1I
, their convictions they would so revise
! our laws as to lay the burden of the Gus
toms revenues upon articles that are mo-
produced in this country, and to place
upon the free list competing foreign pro
ducts. do not stop to refute this theor,
: as to the effect on our duties. Those
, who advance it are the students OF max
, inns, and not Of markets.
!, He is speaking of the Democratic
party and if he had been inspired by
the father of lies to misstate the facts he
could not have succeeded better. From
the days of Jefferson to the day wher
Cleveland wrote his letter of accept
ance, the Democratic position ha.
been Numerically the opposite of this
ascribed to it by General Harrison
That position may thus be summarized
The object of tariff is to produce rev.
enue for the support of the Government
This tax should be so imposed as to ad
NIT free such goods as can not be pro.
duced in our own country. The bulk OF
the Customs duties should be so levied
as to be collected on imports of articles
which compete with our home products.
The object of so adjusting the
imposts is to foster home in.
dustries, develop our domestic resources
and particularly in order to maintain the
rate of wages paid to American laborers
General Harrison knows this much al