Helena weekly herald., 1889-09-12
THE PARTY FOR YOUNG MEN.

older men, bound up by long associations,
and familiar with the sophistries OF free
trade, and accustomed to the old State
rights doctrines as an apology for secession,
can still cling, though with q relaxed and
hesitating tenure, to the name and fortunes
of the Democratic party, but it passes COM
prehension how any young man familiar
with the history of Cur country and OF
political parties, with an ordinary amount
of patriotism and hopes for the future,
generally predominant in young men, can
associate himself with a party whose
policy led up to secession as directly as the
needle points to the pole, which was ready
to sacrifice the Union to preserve slavery,
which declared that the war for the Union
was failure, and after il was won declared
with equal emphasis that the war debt
could never be paid, and has done its best
to verify its predictions, which opposed to
the utmost limit of its palsied power the
enactment of the national homestead law, a
law that has covered with happy and pros
porous homes our broad national domain
purged from the pollution of slavery.
The Democratic party is the party of the
past. If it stands for any thing to-day, it
is for conservatism as opposed to progress.
If it has been consistent in one thing above
all others it has been for restricting within
the narrowest limits the powers of the
national government. In accordance with
this principal it has always arrayed itself
against any national Improvements by the
general government and iostered those OF
the States. and under this stale policy
nearly every State in the Union under
Democratic control became heavily in
volved in debt, and in many of them these
debts have been defaulted and repudiated.
On the contrary, the policy OF the Re-
publican party has for lis great distinctive
features the strengthening and exaltation
of the nation, seeking the welfare OF the
parts through the power and prosperity of
the whole represented in the general
government. All the tendencies of modern
discoveries and improvements are towards
unifcation State lines have been over
ridden and broken down by the railroad,
the telegraph. Business relations are be-
coming constantly more and more extended
without regard to arbitrary State lines.
Not only are our relations at home be-
coming more intimate and extended, but
abroad also. Where few years ago only
a few Americans went abroad, now there
are thousands and in all our relations to
foreign nations the United States stan ds
for unit, represented by its general gov
ment. Union and concentration every
where is the outgrowth of higher civiliza-
ton.
The Republican party more appropriate
ly represents this centripecal tendency,
while Democracy stands for the centri-
fugal tendency that always characterizes q
less advanced degree of development.
We admit that checks and brakes are
sometimes necessary on the wheels of pro-
gress, and we are free to admit that the
conservatism of Democracy is performing
some useful service But it seems to us
wholly alien to the spirit of any aspiring
young man TO become moss back, TO be
content with achieving no higher destiny
than that of being q brake on the wheels
of progress.
Democracy is the party of the past; Re-
pubicanism of the present and future.
Nothing more exactly represents this than
the position OF the two parties on the tariff
question The Democratic doctrine of low
revenue verging much into free
trade is the policy adapted TO the
obsolete and abandoned system of slavery
when the South, that has always dictated
the Democratic policy, was entirely occu-
pied in growing cotton, taking pay for the
raw material in manufactured English
goods. The South is still chiefly engaged
in growing cotton and the chief market for
this staple is England. This cotton is
shipped in English bottoms and they want
return freight in English manufactures ad-
mitted free of duty.
If the South were always destined to
grow cotton as its chief staple and had no
other better resources, we admit that it
would be to the advantage of that
section, regardless of its connection with
the rest of the country, to ad-
vocate and fight for free trade. The North
is naturally tie poorer portion of the
country, but by diversified and intelli
gent free labor has grown rich and popu'
lous. On the principle that the majority
should rule, the North is right in insisting
that the policy that best suits its interests
should be the policy of the nation.
The Republican policy demands that We
should, so far as possible, onsume and
manufacture our raw material at home
thus creating an increased demand fol
labor and gathering the highest rewards
that skilled labor always commands. Fo
Q time this policy may diminish our owl
commerce but it builds up internal com
merce, which is hundred fold better in al
its incidental effects.
1t may be said that the Republican
policy of protection is just to the South
Even if this charge be true, it i
the first business of the men o
the North, who are the majority
to take care of their own interest
first. Government is solely a busines
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