Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-07-16
FREE TRADE AND eEcrIoNALIsM
Why Massachusetts Damocratic Edi-
tor WIN not Support cleveland.


The Democrats of the Bay State have lost
one Of their organs ard q representative man.
d. A. Buckley. editor of "The Cambridge
News hitherto strong Democratic paper,
has seeded from the party on the tariff issue
To Record" reporter he said last night
II have been Democrat as long as | can
years have voted the straight ticket, but !
cannot 60 free trade. This year | am going
for the first time to vote the Republican
ticket. have always believed in Democracy,
and was one Of the convention at Baltimore
that nominated Horace Greeley, but the
attitude of Cleveland and his party on the
tariff question has decided me in taking up
arms for Harrison"
"why am going to champion Republican
isms
Because, among other things, l think the
tariff is a sectional question. | will explain
what mean by that. As we remember
right well, one of the most powerful reasons
given by the Southern advocates for seces-
sion, in the days Immediately preceding the
the slaves, was that of free trade, which
would make the Southern Confederacy the
richest nation on the face of the earth. The
argument they used was clear, logical and
convincing to as. Those Southern writers
said in substance we as a people are pro-
ducers of raw material We
don't manufacture, and we possess
neither the appliances nor the kind of labor
which would successfully compete with the
free labor and great water privileges of the
North. 1t is, therefore, self-evident that
the tariff for protection discriminates against
the South in favor of the North, and its So
called intelligent labor. We demand Free
| Trade. 1t is for our interest to open our
ports to the manufactured goods of all ma
tons. II any one should ask how are the
expenses of the Southern Confederacy to be
paid, we reply that cotton is king, a slight
export duty on which will pay the entire ex
pense of running the Government machinery
| This export duty, although directly OBJ
tanned from the planters, will be paid by the
consumer in slightly increased price OF
the cotton to be carried abroad, TO be
manufactured into fabrics by cheap European
labor, to be returned again to trife of thu
present prices charged us by the Northern
manufacturers, who eat at our expense ant
fatten the mudsills of the North"
| This was the view expressed by Southern
writers. The conditions between the Soutf
and North have undergone something of
change since those days when Cotton wa
King" but not to the extent that many woulC
suppose. Anyone giving the subject thu
slightest thought, can plainly see that Ere,
Trade is Southern question, the only mel
in the North to be benefited by it being mel
with fixed incomes, millionaires, or those O
inherited wealth.
1.-The men who labor with hands ant
brains, especially those who have fled from
foreign climes to better their condition anc
that of their children here, will, in my opin
ion, refuse to vote for any party platform o.
men who will manifest disposition to re
duce the social and material conditions o
the American labor to that of the southern
slave. What reasons President Clevelant
had for raising that tariff issue | know no
and much less care. 1t was neither wise
polite nor just, and will lead to his and hi
party's defeat, which trust will be as over
whelming asdeserved.
The labOrer, or artisan, in this country who
would vote for Cleveland and for free trad,
must be benighted, indeed. 1t is a will-o'
the-wsp and like it will lure the working
men who follow it into the pit of povert,
and social degradation, and now to bring tbs
matter home. Do you think Lowell, Law
renee, Haverill, Lynn, or Brockton, woult
have had an existence were it not for pro
tective tariff? Certainly not. Slavery is
dead issue. The bloody shirt, is dead is
sue. Then what is left? The tariff and free
trade. one securing our prosperity and the
other our destruction as a nation. | shall
vote the Republican ticket, and trust al
even minded and thinking Democrats will dc
the same.