Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-01
THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE TARIFF
LRAGUE-THE PATH OF WISDOM.

The American Protective Tariff league
may hold banquets and felicitate each
other on the Mckinley bill, its chair
man, Bliss, may bloviate, and Levi p.
Morton may go through the motions of
a speech, and even the Napoleonic Nc
Kiniey himself may sing the praises Of
high protection, and blush visibly when
they associate his name with the COVER
norship of Ohio. but all the same the
party which has dared to outrage the
aspirations OF the American people by in
creasing the war tariff-or rather the
post war tariff, which was higher than
the war tariff itself-is doomed. The
percentage of the American people who
approve of this peculiar tariff perform
ance is, in fact, quite small. Nine
tenths of the people OF the United States,
at the time the Mckinley bill was passed,
had arrived at the conclusion that at
last we had reached stage at which a
moderate and judicious reduction of
import duties was a highly rightful as
we'll as expedient thing. To run counter
to such a legitimate aspiration of a
whole people was not only to invite but
to compel defeat.
No howl about free trade-an abstrac-
ton in which no sensible people take
stock-can deaden the popular sense of
this great national injustice. The peo-
pie asked for bread and they were given
a stone.
Never was there clearer way opened
before party than that which invites
the Democracy to power and opportuni-
ties of usefulness on a national scale.
All it has to do is to sit down upon the
extremists in its own ranks, and success
will come almost without effort. The
late lamented Samuel J. Randall wrote
the platform on which Mr.. Cleveland
was elected in 1884. 1t reprobated Re-
publican extravaganza and said, in ef-
feet, that the tariff should be revised in
accordance with the changed conditions
following the war, and that the duties
which were imposed by it should be so
adjusted as to afford protection to the
American laborer, always keeping in
mind the cardinal Democratic idea OF a
national government economically ad-
ministered. Mr.. Henry J. Watterson
was allowed to write the national plat
form of 1888, on which Mr.. Cleve-
land was defeated, and it subtly in
sinuated the ideas so dear to Wat
terson himself. The Importance OF a
phrase was illustrated in the campaign
of 1880, when General Winfield Scott
Hancock, perhaps the most interesting
man who ran for president for forty
years prior to that date, wrote letter
in which he alluded to the tariff as a
"local" question. 1t is almost univer-
sally conceded that if General Hancock
had either left that letter unwritten, or
had omitted that phrase, he would have
been elected.
The true policy of the Democratic
party is to nominate for president man
who embodies the just, conservative but
decisive demand OF the American peo-
Pile for tariff reform, and to so frame Its
national platform as to give to the Amer
ican workingman the guarantee of a
fair and honest protection against the
pauper labor OF Europe. If this is
done, all the American Protective Tariff
leagues in the world cannot save the
Republican party from an overwhelming
overthrow.
David Bennett Hill embodies that
personality. So do others, and notably
Mr.. Cleveland. But Mr.. Cleveland has
been once defeated. Precisely what
force should be accorded TO this last
point it is for the party to carefully con-
slider. Perhaps the solution which will
be finally favored will be to look outside
of the Empire state for candidate.
But, if it shall finally be decided to take
him from that state, the Democrats of
New York should themselves be permit
ted to name the man.