Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-31
TARIFF AND PARTIES.

No doubt the reports to the effect that the
President and Secretary Blaine are whet-
ting knives for each other, and that Messrs.
Mckinley. Reed and Cannon, of Illinois,
are preparing bull Of accommodation
from the Republican party against the
Secretary of State, are largely the result Of
active imaginations among the opposition
press. The President and Secretary of
State are to be presumed to have sufficient
discretion to keep their rivalry without
bounds while they are Joined in the work of
government; for to do anything else would
be to furnish political capital to the enemy.
Likewise, however, the House leaders may
resent Mr.. Blaine's excursion into the
regions, unknown to them, of reciprocity
policy. They may be credited with sufficient
sense to restrain from turning Mr.. Blaine
out of the Republican party lest perchance
they might turn the Republican party out
with him,
Nevertheless, the light in which Repub-
ican politics are revealed by q snapshot
Photographic view, at present is very in
structive, and the instruction need not by
any means be confined to party lines. The
most valuable educational aspect of the goal
to which Republican struggles with the
tariff are tending bids fair to be the demon
stration that the tariff is too tough nut
for the political leaders on both>sides of the
House. 1t is hardly too early to make the
statement that both parties have now tried
to wrestle q bout with the tariff, and both
parties have got badly thrown.
The Democratic ill-success with that
knotty problem has become amatter of polit-
ical history. Tariff revision of some sort
was promised by the platforms of both par
ties in 1884. After prelude in the shap.
of Morrison's horizontal reduction, tine
Democracy was admonished by President
Cleveland's famous message to expectorate
on its hands and 60 to work. 1t did so with
the result that, after nine months founder
ing on the subj bject, during which Randall was
put outside the door, the bill was stalled
between the Senate and the House, and the
attempt had to be abandoned from sheer in
ability to keep a quorum together to 90 on
with the work. This .fasco was completed
by Democratic defeat at the polls, and the
record on that side was completed.
The Republicans were not at all reticeut
about calling attention to the Democratic
failure. They enlarged on tine fact that the
problem was too difficult for Democratic
sIatesmanship, and in effect called upon the
country to 'see how We will settle itl'
They have been settling it for about eight
months. and have not got the bill quite as
far along in Congress as the Mills bill had
progressed two years ago. The Senate has
got under way with its perpetual motion of
debate. The point where a quorum cannst
be kept together, even by the arbitrary
rulership of Reed. has been reached. Blaine
is sashing at the pet measure of Mckinley
and Reed; while Mckinley and Reed are
biting their thumbs at Blaine; and the
main reason why the President has made
no sign is likely to be that he cannot make
up bis mind whether he hates Reed less or
Blaine more. Really if we compare the
discontinue and generalization of the Re
publicans at the opening of August, 1890,
BY their tussle with tariff, with the similar
results of the Democratic struggle in August,
1888, it is difficult to see how the Republic
ans have the best of it.
Thus it is legitimate conclusion that the
tariff is too tough a nut for the present
breed of politicians to crack; and that,
while tariff tinkering is likely to trouble
business, it will smash parties much worse.