The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-09-19
HARRISON'S ACCEPTANCE.
HOW THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE
VIEWS THE SITUATION.


VIEWS THE SITUATION.
A Labored Consideration of the Tariff as
the Paramount Issue-Other Matters,
Mostly Very Old, Considered from Re-
publican Standpoint.
INDIANAPOLIS, September 1.-THE
following is General Harrison's letter
taccpting the Republican Presidential
nomination.:
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, September II.
Hon. M. NJ. Estee and Others, Com
mittee:
GENTLEMEN: When your committee
visited me, on the 4th of July last, and
presented the official announcement Of
my nomination for the Presidency OF the
United States by the Republican Con-
venton, promised as soon as practlca-
bic to communicate to you q more
formal acceptance of the nomination.
Since that time the work of receiving
and addressing, almost daily, large dele
cations of my fellow-citizens has not
only occupied all of my time, but has IN
some measure rendered 1t unnecessary
for me to use this letter as medium OF
communicating to the public my views
upon the questions involved In the cam
paign.
I appreciate very highly the conf
dence and respect manifested by the
Convention, and accept the nomination
with a feeling of gratitude and tull
sense of the responsibility which accom-
panies it.
It is matter of congratulation that
the declaration Of the Chicago Conven-
ton upon questions that now attract the
interest of our people, are so clear and
emphatic. There is further cause OF
congratulation in the fact that the Con-
yention's uttersnces of the Democratic
party, if in any degree uncertain or con-
Trajectory, can now be judged and inter-
preted by executive acts and messages,
and by definite propositions in iegisla-
ton. This is especially true OF what Is
popularity known as the tariff question.
The issue cannot now be obscured. 1t
is not contest between schedules, but
between wide.apart principles.
Foreign competitors of our market
have, with quick instinct, seen how one
issue OF this contest may bring them ad-
vantage, and our own people are not so
dull as to miss or neglect the grave in
terests that are involved for them. The
assault upon our protective system is
open and defiant. Protection is assalled
as unconstitutional in law or as vicious
in principle, and those who hold sucn
views sincerely cannot stop short OF an
ABSOLUTE elimination from our tariff laws
of the principles 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 so much the length of the step as
the direction of it. Judged by the Ex-
ecutive message of December last, by
the Mills bill, by the debates in Congress
and by the st. Louis platform, the Dem
ocratic party will, if supported by the
country, place the tariff laws upon
purely revenue basis. This is practical
free trade-free trade in the English
sense, The legend upon the banner may
not be "Free Trade" it may be the more
obscure motto, s"Tarif Reform" but
neither the banner nor the inscription is
conclusive, or, indeed, very important.
The assault itself is the important fact.
Those who teach that import duties
upon foreign goods sold in our market
is paid by the consumer, and that the
price of the domestic competing article
is enhanced to the amount of duty on
the imported article-that every million
of dollars collected for customs duties
represents many millions more which
do net reach the treasury, but are paid
by our citizens as the increased cost OF
domestic productions resulting from the
tariff laws-may not intend to discredit
in the minds of others our system OF
leaving duties on competing foreign
products, but it is clearly already dis.
credited in their own. We cannot
doubt, without impugning their integ-
rity, that if free to act upon their con-
victions, they would so revise our laws
as to lay the burden of customs revenue
upon articles that are not produced IN
this country, and to place upon the free
list all competing foreign products.
I do not stop to refute this theory as
to the effect of our tariff duties. Those
who advance it are students of maxim
and not of the markets. They may be
safely allowed TO call their project
ssTariff Reform if the people under
stand that in the end argument compels
free trade in all competing products.
This end may not be reached abruptly,
and it's approach may be accompanied
with some expressions OF sympathy Tor
our protected industries and our work
ing people, but it will certainly come II
these early steps do not arouse the peo-
pie to effective resistance.
The Republican party holds that
protective tariff is constitutional, whole
some and necessary. We do not offer
fixed scedule to modify rates, but al
ways with an intelligent provision as to
the effect upon domestic production and
the wages OF our working people. We
believe it to be one of the worthy objects
of tariff legislation to preserve the
American maket for American produ-
GERS, and to maintain an American scale
of wages by adequate discriminating
duties upon foreign competing products.
The effect of lower rates and larger
importations upon the revenue is con-
tingent 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 and increased offering of foreign
goods in our market. BY way of recon-