Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-05-30
The Issues.

The issues of the next presidential
canvass are not far TO seek. Taey OBJ
trude themselves. They are recognized
by every man of ordinary sense.
The Kentucky democracy resolved that
the tariff question is paramount 1t is
paramount, of course, to questions of less
Importance. Tits paramount TO the com.
paratively trifing and momentary silver
controversy, and in that sense ma MY the
kentucky convention used the phrase
But the tariff question is itself one aris-
ing out OF and covered by the greater and
broader one between strict construction
and loose, between federalism and democ>
racy. The claim By the republicans o:
the power OF congress TO tax for private
as well as public purposes. to enrich a
favored class as we'll SIS 10 support the
government, is but one of the many and
grievous expressions Of the people which
How naturally and almost inevitably from
the Hami!tonian theory of constitutional
construction. The force bill was another.
and a worse. IL carried for the American
people far greater terrors than any tax
bill, no matter how upj lust the latter might
be. 1t was said by the leading republi-
can organ in this city, as an incentive TO
its passage, that lit held within its en-
brace a hundred Mckinley bills" In
other words, il was intended to extin-
guish the freedom of elections, to DESTROY
home rule, TO render popular suffrage a
mockery and to hand the federal govern
ment over in perpetuity 10 a band of
partisan conspirators in coalition with
the vast aggregation of private monopo>
lies for whose benefit the Mckinley bill
was passed.
The force bill is not dead. If its des-
perate friends sought to revive it, after
the sweeping verdict of the November
elections, when or by what degree of pop.
ular condemnation may it be considered
killed? If there is one leader of the
democratic party wise, vigiant and stead
fast, entitled to speak with authority on
this question. that one is Senator Cor
man. We commend to the people his
timely admonition:
warn you that the issue made by the
force bill has not ceased to exist. The
president and great majority of the re-
publican senators and represen tatives
urged its adoption ard still approve its
principles. The judgement of the coun-
try upon the issue thus made will be
again appealed to. But as the people of
the several states are still free to select
their own representatives l have no
. doubt of the triumph of the principles of
the democratic party. The success of
the democratic party will make sectiona
contests hereafter impossible, a result
overshadowing in importance all other
political consideration, and without
which it is idle to talk of the future
prosperity aud greatness of our common
country.
SO speaks Senator German. 1t is notice
to the south, it is notice to the west, it is
notice TO the friends of free government
everywhere, not to suffer themselves to be
divided by trivial or temporary subjects
of difference, lest the party which openly
attempted to strangle the liberties OF the
country in the late congress return to
power and revive and pass the force bill,
bearing in its embrace "a hundred Nc
Kinley bills. dozen shipping bills, I'M
told subsidies, and every outrage upon
this and succeeding generations which a
conjunction of private greed with ire
sponsible and unlimited power might en-
gender.
In a sense the tariff question is para
mount, but no clever democratic leader
would think of conducting the fight upon
that issue, separate and alone. Force and
corruption in elections corrupt and cor-
Tupting subsidies, made prominent ID
President Harrison's recent speeches, the
shameless extravaganza and jobbery of
the billion-dollar congress, the nece ssary
hostility of any party holding federalist
doctrines to popular home rule, and its
almost equally necessary hostility to
frugal and honest 6ministration-all
these are issues of the apprOachinp cam.
paign. living and pressing, and not one
of them should be lost or obscured for
single moment.