Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-09-20
THE ISSUES STATED.
HarTiSOn'S Letter Of Acceptance.
PLAIN And MANLY DECLARATIONS.
Every Living Issue Fairly Met.
PROTECTION AND AN HONEST VOTE.
Labor and Other Questions Discussed.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, September Il

! Hon VI. VI. hStee and others, Committee.
GENTLEMEN: When your committee
visited me on the 4th of July last and pre-
Sented the official announcement of my
nomination for the Presidency of the Uni
ted States by the Republican Convention,
| promised, as soon as practicable, to COM
municate to you more formal acceptance
of the nomination. Since that time the
work of receiving and addressing almost
daily large delegations of my fellOw-citi-
ZenS has not only occupied all my time,
but has in some measure rendered 1t un-
necessary for me to use this letter rs a
medium of communicating to the public
my views upon the questions involved III
the campaign. | appreciate very highly
the confidence and respect manifested by
the Convention, and accept the nOmina-
ton with feeling of gratitude and full
sense of the responsibilities which accom-
pany it.
1t is 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 en-
phatic. There is further cause for con-
| graduation that in the fact that the Con-
ventiOn utterances of the Democratic par
ty, if in any degree uncertain or contra
dictOry, can not be judged and Interpreted
by executive acts and messages, and by
definite propositions in legislation. This
is especially true of what Is popularity
known as the tariff question.
| THE ISSUE CAN NOT BE OBSCURED.
| 1t is not a contest between schedules, but
between wide apart principles. The for
| eign competitors of our market have, with
quick instinct, 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 in
vOlved for them. The assault upon our
protective system is open and defiant
Protection is asSailed as unconstitutional
in law or as vicious in principle, and those
who hold such views sincerely can not stop
short of an absolute elimination from our
tariff laws of the principle of protection.
The Mills bill is only step, but it is to-
ward an object that the leaders of Demo
cratic 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-
bates in Congress and by the st. Louis
platform, the Democratic party will, if
sustained by the country, place the tariff
laws upon purely revenue basis.
THIS Is PRACTICAL FREE TRADE
Free Trade in the English sense. The le-
gend upon the banner may not be "Free
Trade::" it may be the more obscure mot
to, "Tariff Reform" but neither the BAN
ner nor the inscription is conclusive, nor,
indeed, very important. The assault it
self is the important fact. Those who
teach that the import duty upon foreign
goods sold in our market is paid by the
consumer, and that the price of the do
nestle competing article is enhanced to
the amount of the duty on imported arti
cles-that every million of dollars collect
ed for customs duties represents many
millions more which do not reach the
treasury, but are paid by our citizens as
the increased cost of domestic produc-
tions resulting from the tariff laws-may
not intend to discredit in the minds of
others our system of levying duties on
competing foreign products, but it is,
clearly, already discredited in their own.
We can not doubt, without impugning
their integrity, that, if free to act upon
their convictions, they would so revise our
laws as to lay the burden of the customs
revenue upon articles that are not pro-
duced in this country, and to place upon
the free list all competing foreign pro-
ducts. 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 allowed to call their project Tariff
Reform" if the people understand that in
the end the argument compelS Free Trade
in all competing products.
CLEVELAND ANSWERED.
This end may not be reached abruptly,
and its approach may be accomplished
with some expressions of sympathy for
our protected industries and our working
people, but it will certainly come, if these
early steps do not arouse the people to eff
fective resistance. The Republican party
holds that protective tariff is cOnstitu-
tiOnal. wholesome, and necessary. WedO
not offer fixed schedule, but 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 believe it to be one of the WORTHY OBJ
iects of tariff legislation to preserve the
American market for American prOduc-
ers, and to maintain the American scale
of wages, by adequate, discriminating du-
ties upon foreign competing products.-I
The effect of lower rates and larger i'm
portatiOns upon the public revenue is con-
tingent and doubtful, but not so the effect
upon American production ana American
wages. Less work and lower wages must
be accepted as the inevitable result of in
creased offering of foreign goods in our
market.
Byway of recOmpense for this reduction
in his wages, and the loss of the American
market, it is suggested that the diminish
ed wages of the workingman will have an
undiminished purchasing power, and that
he will be able to make up for the loss of
the home market by an enlarged foreign
market. Our workingmen have the set
tlement of the question in their own hands
They now obtain higher wages and live
more comfortably than those of any other
country. They will make choice between
the substantial advantages they have in
hand and the deceptive promises and fore
casts of those theOrizing reformers.
THEY WILL DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES
and for the country whether the protect
i've system shall be continued or destroyed.
The fact of treasury surplus, the amount
of which is variOusly stated, has directed
public attention to consideration of the
methods by which the national income
NAV best be reduced to the level of a wise
and necessary expenditure. This condl
has been seized upon by those who are
nOStlle 10 protective CUSTOM uuIleS dS iIi
advantageous base of attack upon our
tariff laws. They have magnited and
nursed the surplus, which they affect to
deprecate, seemingly for the purpose of
exaggerating the evil in order to reconcile
the people to the extreme remedy they
propose. A proper reduction of the rev
enue does not necessitate and should not
suggest the abandonment or improve
ment of the protective system. The meth
cd suggested by our Convention will not
need to be exhausted in order to effect
the necessary reduction. We are not
likely to be called upon, think, to make
present choice between the
SURRENDER OF OUR RPRoTECTIVESHSTE
and the entire repeal of the internal
taxes. Such contingency, in view of
the present relation of expenditures to
revenues, is remote. The inspection and
regulation of the manufacture and sale