The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1890-06-06
Friday, Dune 6, 1880.
Music in the Air.


TO work untold misceief with the party as at
present constituted. That it is an honest
attempt to carry out the leading and prom
inent measure embodied in the National
platform OF the party by the leaders who
really believed in the theory of protection
run mad, will, in view of the efforts of
Mckinley and those of his party who hold
the reins of control, Lot be doubled. But
the Senate has shown determination to
halt the measure and submit it to critical
examination through which it will never
pass ina shape that its parents will know
their own offspring. When Senator Plumb
OF Kansas demanded that the bill should be
submitted to the deadly parallel column in
which the increase over the present tariff
by the new bill should be shown and the
reasons given for the changes, the motion
meant death to the measure.
Butterworth denounced the bill as a mo-
nopoIy tariff, in the House, and Plumb in
the Senate was supported in his cold blood
ed move to prove by the deadly parallel
column that the bill is surely that. The
West is growing more and more opposed TO
the high and ever ascending higher tariff
doctrines that the present leaders of the
party have run mad with. The farmers
organizations, Alliance, Grange, Wheels
and the Knights of Labor claiming TO have
100000 members, all are turning away
from, and publishing resolutions against,
tariffs virtually prohibitive. The agricul-
tural papers are speaking out in no uncer-
tain tones against, not the Mckinley bill
only, but are discussing and condemuing
the protective system which after thorough
trial of 80 years, the farmers find themselves
on the verge of bankruptcy.
The efforts to force the measure through
revealed the desperation of the situation.
The step had been taken which led up TO
a logical termination that the Mckinley
bill embodied, and when the people are
brought face 10 face with the cold facts they
find that they are not what they in a dreamy
nebulous kind of way thought was meant by
"our protective policy" The party may
be said to be noncommltal on all other
questions but this. 1t has straddIed the
liquor question, and is now trying to strad-
die the money question, has run aground
on the pension question, and if the "pro.
tective policy" is stranded in the Mckinley
tariff what is left TO hold together on? The
republican party is made up very largely of
intelligent, pushing and what is termed the
better class Ia dangerous class to fool with
who are DIVIDED among the great organjza-
tions which are demanding radical reforms,
and surcease from the hand of monopoly
and the money power, which have captured
and held in their control 1.-THE party since it
emerged from the war of the rebellion. The
conditions which confront US have forced
this fact 10 the fore ard the masses Of the
party are realizing what heretofore they
have stoutly denied and resisted, that the
tariff is partial in its favors, and radical
reforms are demanded which conflict with
the monopolist and money class interests.
The very existence of the republican
party is trembling in the balance. With
the new organizations crystalizing and pres
sing forward with clear cut demands, and
the murmur of dissatisfaction growing
louder against tariff policy which mounts
higher and higher to save manufacturing
industries which declare they must fall
unless total prohibition of foreign made
goods is decreed, while the agricultural
interest and all Immediately depending on
it are sinking, is arrying formidable OPP
position 10 the very theory of protection.
Protection of our home industries as un-
derstood by the public, had for its object
the fostering of infant manufacturing enter
prises by tariff on foreign goods, in order
to prevent the low price ofthe foreign
article from breaking down the domestic
enterprise till it got fairly on its feet and
was able to compete with foreign manufac,
turers, when the competition by domestic
manufacturers would lower the price TO The
level of the worlds prices and tariff fol
"protection" become unnecessary. In prac
tice this has not turned out so and manu-
facturers who are the equals of any in the
world are demanding higher tariff taxe'
against foreign competition than ever be-
fore. Had this been foretold in the begin
ming the policy could never haye beer
inaugurated.
On the other hand the democrat party
exult in whatever promises discomfort t
the republican party its great, morta
enemy, but as 10 policy it has but very
vague and shadowy political ritual com
posed chiefly OF glittering generalitIes. /
always faces to the past, looking at JEFF
ferson. Jackson, Lee, heroes of the deat
past, but does not address itself 10 the pres
ent. 1t has no we'll defined monetary pol
icy, no foreign policy, no commercial
policy, and only talks of tariff reform
which has a very indefinite meaning. Il
may mean great deal and it may mean
very little. The republican campaign
leaders talked tariff revision" which the
sequel has proven meant higher tax on
raw material and on the completed goods
putting the cost, as all may see, far above
the ruling prices of the world, which the
consumer must pay. These facts are be-
coming more evident TO plain people and
hence we find all of the new organizations