Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-06-28
THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM
A Wise Summing up Of the One
Great Issue of the Day.

"a WISE summing up OF the one
Great Issue of the Day.
The Kansas City Star, and indepen-
dent paper which has shown good judg-
ment in the past and has always been
outspoken has this to say:
The Presidents annual message de-
clared the issue of the impending Presi-
Dental campaign. He threw down
the gauntlet; the Republicans have
taken it up.
The platform prepared for the Chica-
go convention is sufficiently outspoken
to make this issue clear, though it does
not state the case fairly. The contest
this fall is not to be between Protec-
tion and Free Trade, because free trade
is not necessarily the opposite of pro-
lection. Taxation is necessary, be-
cause government is pauper and
must be supported by systematic con-
tributions. But taxation does not
necessarily imply bounties exacted from
| the people for the benefit, not of gov
ernment, but of the favored few who
control the product of certain sections
! of the country and particular indus
tries. Protection Us. Free Trade is not
and honest definition of the issue, but
Protection rs. Revenue Tariff is.
The Chicago convention has declared
an abiding faith in ''the American is
injected for pyrotechnic effect; it is
mere clap-trap. Protection is no more
American than it is European. In point
of fact, there is nothing more radically
anti-American than the theory of pro-
lection, for it is dramatically opposed
to the principle of equal rights for all
people. Protection could never have
been fastened upon American polity
had it not been an incident of the
necessaries growing out of the strug
gle to establish a Nation. The war
tariff was not devised in order to pro-
tect the owners Of salt and iron mines,
nor to yield bounties to the manufac-
lures of clothing and boots and
shoes. 1t was resorted to as means
for raising the extraordinary revenue
necessary to defray the expenses of the
war for the maintenance of the Union.
The time has come when this revenue
is redundant and the war taxes should
be reduced.
The struggle which the republican
party proposes to make in behalf of the
bounties which the tariff yields to
favored classes. The principle is false;
the naked theory, stripped of it's tax
feature, is unconstitutional; the prac-
tice is pernicious. Protection has its
sophistries, and the merit Of the ap-
preaching campaign will be to expose
and controvert them. The system will
command the defense of the protected
classes with all the money and influence
they can summon. 1t will have all the
aid and comfort which the trusts
and every form of monopoly can give
it. 1t will secure important support
from very large class or ignorant
men who have been pursuaded, against
all the facts, that they share the bene-
fits of the bounty system which go eX-
clusively to swell the accumulations of
those who are already enriched from
the enforced contributions levied upon
the consumers. Tke campaign this
fall will demonstrate whether or not
the American people are prepared to
emancipate themselves from the thrall-
dom of protection as they did from the
tyranny of Great Britain a hundred
years ago and from the curse of slavery
twenty years ago. Fortunately, the
fight for freedom now will be one of
reason and peace, not of the clash of
arms and fraternal bloodshed.
The issue has been made. All else
in the republican platform is of subor-
dinate interest and Importance. The
democratic party has declared plainly
against the principle of protection and
has nominated bold and aggressive
opponent of the bounty system. The
republican party has declared for the
principle of protection, and to make its
position in the campaign consistent the
Chicago convention should now nomi-
nate James G. Blaine or Congressman
Mckinley, each in his way the ablest
exponent of the theory to which the
republican party has attached itself.
-