The Hot Springs star. (Hot Spings [Hot Springs], Dakota [Dakota Territory, i.e. S.D.]) 1886-189?, 1888-09-21
GEN. HARRISONSLErTER
THE NOMINEE or rne RePuBLrCAN
PAkTY FORMALLY ACCENTS.

A
He Discusses Puhiis Questieas WITH DIR
atty a.A Clearness-Ihs Interests q the
Woraingnan Must De Locked Aftsr-
Treats of tho Chiness Questaen, etc.
indianapolis speeial.l
Gen. Harrison's letter accepting the
nomination to the presidency BY the Chi
cago convention is IS follows:
IxD1ANArol1s, Sept. II, 1854
"HoN MN. ESfEE n OTHERS, CoMMrr-
1EE-GENTLENEN: When your committee
visited me on the Fourth Of July last, and
presented the oficial announcement OF nv
nomination for the Presidency Of the United
States by the Republican National conven-
ton I promised Is soon as practicable to
communicate to you . moro formal accept
ance Of the nomination. Since that time
the work Of receiving and addressing. Ill
most daily, large delegations Of my fellow
citizens, has not only occupied all my time,
but has In some measure rendered It un-
necessary for me to use this letter as q
medium Of communicating to the public
my views upon the questions involved In the
campaign.
Appreciate very highly the confidence
and respect manifested by the convention.
and accept the nomination with a feeling Of
gratitude and q full sense of the RESPONSE
bilities which accompany 1t.
ut is q 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 cong~ratulation In
the fact that the convention ~utterances of
the Democratic party, II in any degree UNI
certain or contradictory, a now be judged
and interpreted by executive acts and mes
ga OpS and nv ~1of7nito n~Oynori<So,,, Il. 1~-.,p.
ton. This Is especially true Of what is pop
ularly known as the tariff question. The
issue cannot now be obscured. It is not q
contest between schedules, but between
w~ide-apart principles. The foreign Compel
itors Of u market have, with quick In
stfnct, 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 assaulted 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 a step, hut 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 step as the direction
of it. Judged by the executive message of
December last, by the Mills bill, by the de-
hates in Congress and by the st. Louis plat
form the Democratic party will, il supported
by the country. lay the tariff laws upon a
purely revenue basis. Is this practical free
trade-fleet trade in the English sense. The
legend upon the banner may not be free
trade: 1t may he the more obscure motto
tariff reform, > but neither the banner nor
the inscription is conclusive or, in
decd, very important. The assault itself
is the important fact.
Those who teach that the import duty
upon foreign goods sold in our market in
paid by the consumer. and that the part of
the domestic competing article is enhanced
to the amount of the duty OH 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 discrcdited 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 to place upon the free list all COM
peting foreign products.
The Republican Faith. N-
81 do not stop to refute this theory as to
the effect of our tariff duties. Those who
advance it are students of maxims 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 connect
ing products. This end may not he reached
abruptly, and its approach may lie accom-
panied with some expressions of sympathy
for our protected industries and our work.
ing people, but it will certainly come if
these early steps do not arouse the people to
effective resistance. The Republican party
holds that a protective tariff is constitu-
tional, wholesome, md necessary. We do
not offer a 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 Amcri-
can market for American producers.
and to maintain the American scale
of wages by adequate, diHrilmin-
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 reconl-
pense for this reduction in his wages and the
loss of the American market 1t 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 w%orkingmcn-
have the settlement of tho question in their
own hands. They now obtain higher wages
and live more comfortably tlan those of
any other country. They will make choice
between the substantial advantages they
hive in hand and the deceptive promises
and forecasts Of those theorizing rcformers.
They will decide for themselves and the
country whether the protective system shall
be continued or destroyed.
How to Use the Surplus.
"Thc fact OF a treasury surplus, the
amount of which is variously stated, has d.
rected public attention to q consideration of
the methods by which the national income
may best he 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 ad-
v%antagcous base Of attack upon our tariff
laws. They have magniied and nurscd the
surplus which they affect to deprcciate,
seemingly for the purpose of exaggerating
the evil in order to reconcile the people to