The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-06-17
ThaIssnes.

They obtrude themselves. They
are recognized by every man of
~erdinary sense.
The Kentucky Democracy re-
solved that the tariff question is
paramounts 1t is paramount, of
course, to questions of less import
ance. 1t is paramount to the COM
paratlvely tritiing and monetary
silver controversy, and in that sense
mainly the Kentucky Convention
used the phrase. But the tariff
question is itself one arising out of
and covered by the greater and
Ibroader one between strict con-
struction and loose, between Fed
eralism and Democracy. The claim
by the Republicans of the power of
Congress to tax for private as well
MS public purposes, to enrich
favored class as well as to support
the Government is but one of the
many and grievous expressions of
the people which flow naturally
and almost inevitably from the
HamiItonian theory of constitution
al construction. The Force Bill
was another, and worse. 1t
carried for the American
people far greater terrors than any
tax bill, no matter how unjust the
Halter might be. 1t was said by the
leading Republican organ in this
city, as an incentive to its passage,
that "it held within its imbrace a
hundred Mckinley bills" In other
words, it was intended to extinguish
the freedom of elections, to destroy
home rule, to render popular suf-
frage q mockery and to hand the
Federal Government over in per-
petuity to a band of partisan con-
spirators in coalition with the vast
aggregation of private monopolies
for whose benefit Il e Mckinley
Bill was passed.
The Force Bill is not dead. If
its desperate friends sought TO
revive it after the sweeping verdict
of the November elections, when or
by what degree of popular con-
domination may it be considered
killed? If there is one leader of the
Democratic party wise, vigilant and
steadfast, entitled to speak with
authority on this question, that one
is Senator German. We commend
to the people his timely admon-
ition:
'I warn you that the issue made
by the Force Bill has not ceased to
exist. The President and a great
majority of the Republican Senators
and Representatives urged its adopt
ion and still approve its principles.
The judgment of the country 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 /
have no doubt of the triumph of
the principles of the Democratic
party. The success of the Demo
cratic party will make sectional con-
tests hereafter impossible, result
osershadowing in importance all |
other political considerations, and |
without which it is idle to talk of
the future prosperity and 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 ga hundred Mckinley
Bills" dozen shipping bills, untold
subsidies, and every outrage upon
This. ana succeeding generations
which a conjunction of private
greed with irresponsible and un-
limited power might engender.
In q sense the tariff question is
paramount, but no clever Demo
cratic leader would think of con-
Quoting the fight upon that issue,
separate and alone. Force and COR
ruption in elections, corrupt and
corrupting subsidies, made promi-
nent in President Harrison's recent
speeches, the shameless extrava-
ganee and jobbery of the Billion
Dollar Congress, the necessary hos
tility of any party holding Federal
ist doctrines to popular home rule,
- its almost equally necessary
u to frugal and honest ad-
nion-all these are issues of
ahiDg campaign, living
not one of them
pscured for sim