St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-09-27
Restoration of fraternity

Restoration of fraternity
between the sections. None of them
could have weathered the disclosures OF
unprejudiced and free discussion. and
few of them would ever have been
thought of except for belief in the
Northern mind that the South required
more than the arbitrament of arms to
qualify it for its rehabilitation in the
Union; that it required system of re-
organization and term Of probation
and discipline before it could be
trusted; being, as matter of fact
composed of human material SO
different from that composing
the North. For twenty-five years these
deluSiOnS have been artfuliy cultivated
by the Republican leaders and offered
from time to time as justification for
such measures of party necessity as the
changing pressure of public opinion
seemed to demand. All this while, the
white people of the South have stood
sometimes dazed.and sometimes amazed,
and sometimes indignant, wondering
at all times how the people of
minds and hearts to pursue a
course so mistaken and relentless.
All this while, South as North. men and
women have lived and died, have
prayed, loved and toiled, true to their
country and themselves, hoping year
after year for better times, still looking,
not backward, but forward, until, at
this moment, the war, and all that it
embraced, rises like specter in the
memory of those who bore a part in it,
whilst to the millions who have been born
and have come 10 their majOritySince its
close, it is myth of the Middle Ages.
Yet the mailed hand of the Republican
leader still clasps the sword of conquest
and the savage face of eternal venge-
ance is turned upon us, without the
enough that white man living in the
South is not Republican to obtain for
him from those who claim monopoly
of patriotism, enlightenmentan and virtue,
the description OF an enemy and "a
traitor.
The War Tariff.
For years we have been told that we
are engaged in dreadful conspiracy to
rob you of that last sacred relic OF the
war: 10 destroy the industries of the
North by eliminating the high-taX feat
ure of our Chinese revenue system: and
much st.ess has been laid upon the
enormity of this. If l were protec-
tionistI could make very plausible,
though an illus0ry, argument on the
Southern side of the question; for we
have vast stores of raw material ripe,
and sometimes clamorous for its contin-
uOus share of the booty wrung from the
people through the tariff; but, for the
life of ME, can not see how the North,
and particularly how New England,
with Its need of cheaper processes and
larger markets, can find anything to
fear in reducing the war taxes to a
peace-fOoting according to the promise
of their authors, and In as near an ap-
proach to free trade as may be
permitted by the requirements OF
the government. which must always
derive, as it has always derived. its
chief revenues from moneys collected
at the custom houses. For, though l
think the Mckinley bill the sum of all
error in theory and abomination in prac-
tice. l am 10y no. means so advanced a
free trader as Mr.. Blaine, whose scheme
of reciprocity. carried to its logical con-
clusiOnS, would ultimately dispense with
import duties altogether and bring us
face to face with direct taxation. |
still think that fairly LAID revenue
tariff is. on the whole, the least op-
pressive form of taxation which the wis
dom of man has devised for meeting the
expenses of government. Be this as it
may, how can the manufacturers of
New England fail to see that the pro-
tectionism of the Mckinley bill. con-
sistently pursued, must inevitably de-
stroy their manufacturing fabric? ..
Blaine and Free Trade.
The new apostle of free trade, who
has come to light amid the darkness of
protection, tells us that the dogma of
restriction has done its perfect work,
and abandoning the home market con-
ceit which erStwhile filled his vision, he
now cries in the wilderness for ampler
markets. shall not quarrel with Mr..
Blaine about the route, OF the incidents
of travel, which have brought him from
total blindness to something like real
ization of the truth. That he ascrlbes
to the doctrine of protection what I
ascribe to God, and that III getting to
my ground he seems more for me than
! have every been for myself shall not
break the friendly relation of years. 1t
is enough that, though long time COM
ing. he has arrived. [ agree with him
that the home market is no longer suffi-
cient; that we must find sale for our
surplus production; and that the
system of foreign exchanges which l
have always advocated and he now adj
vocates, is become indispensable. AS
to New England, the case is simply
more imperative than it is anywhere
else. You must have markets. And
where are you going to get them? And.
how are you going to get them? Ger
tainly not. under existing condition,
within the limits of the United States.
In the West you have
Already a Powerful Rival,
a rival with which, in many things, you
can no longer compete; rival which,
in all things, will presently outstrip
you, il you get no relief. In the South
the competition is not so far advanced:
but, even at the South, time enough is
taken from the diversions of murder,
considered as one of the fine arts, to lay
foundations. which, under the pro-
tective system. bode you danger.
You cannot bring hides here from
Illinois. make them into leather,
and send the leather back to Chicago to
be sold at profit. You will not be able
to bring cotton here from Georgia, Ala
bama and Mississippi, and work it for a
profit against the mill that sits on the
edge of the cotton patch, when the far
seeing money and the skilled young
fellows you have sent down there have
made ready for the contest. The
doctrine of protection dooms your man.
ufactures justas surely as the doctrine of
secession doomed slavery. Though /
have so much faith in New England wit,
sense and sagacity, that am sure you
will see this long before protection has
done for you what secession did for the
South. Other wise, the prospect would
be gloomy indeed. AS it is, L exper. to
see Massachusetts solid for free trade,
when in Kentucky there is a con-
siderable demand for protection,
and for the obvious reason that
you require free raw materials,
which we possess in abundance.
You can not set our house in order any
more than we can set your house i'm
order. The attempt on either side to
do so is wicked and mischieyous. But
we can all unite upon the common
ground of mutual confidence and re-
spect, mutual patriotism and concession,
in helping each the other with his bur-
den. not by sectional OF partisan exac-
tions, but by the good offices of friend
ship, rearing meanwhile, upon the
yet furrowed surface of the old Union,
with its incessant jealousies and quar-
L. l. xt~.Al "a F.