New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-09-17
psPTIFS And THEIR POLICIES.

There Is an unerrlng method OF determining
whether the Republican or the Democratic party
deserves the support of high -mindod, lntelli-
gent Americans That is the practical one OF
taking an inventory of the working stock which
each party has contributed TO the civilization
and progress of the present generation Such
an investigation involves two general conclu-
sions First, that little, if anything. would
be left if the Republican policies OF that period
were stricken out and second that nothing
worth saving would be lost if the Democratic
policies were eliminated.
The Republican party has been since the
first election of Lincoln the only working force
in American public life. If there is united
country to-day it is because Republican legls-
lation and administration prevented It's dis
rlption. If the reproach of slavery has been
removed it is because that party restored the
Union on the basis of universal liberty. The
war debt has been reduced two-thirds, the cur
rencv il as good as gold and there is a system
of National banks by which no noteholder has
ever lost dollar. These are achievements OF
Republican finance, conducted on the principles
that pledges made to creditors must be fully
redeemed that honesty Is the best policy Tor
nations as we'll as men, and that common cur
rency of unquestioned value is needed for free
trade among the States of the Union. IL the
West has been filled with settlers and its re-
sources have been rapidly developed, it is be-
Cause the Homestead law and the Pacific Rail-
way legislation opened the way for its material
| nropress. If industries have been diversified,
and if the working people of America arc moro
prosperous than the masses of the population
| in Europe, it is because the interests OF free
labor have been Systematically protected by
Republican legislation. Everything which has
counted as progress during the last thirty years
has carried the impress OF the strong Will and
the enlightened mind of the Republican party.
What has the Democratic party been doing
during these thirty years of industrial triumph
and political progress? Absolutely nothing in
the form of creative legislation or practical re-
form. Its energies have been expended in OBJ
structing Republican legislation and in unsuc-
| cessful attempts to repeal it, 1t opposed all the
Characteristic war policies, such as the Legal
Tender act, the tariff and internal revenue
system. and the National Bank act. After the
war it was arrayed against the constitutional
amendments, and TO this day it stands i'll the
South for minority rule and tho suppression Of
majority rights The Resumption act excited
funding acts, by which the public debt was
largely reduced received no assistance from
that quarter The Protective system under
which the country has prospered and wrought
It's miracles of debt-payng has had IN the
Democratic party an irreconclabe enemy. For
thirty years that party has been persevcring in
its attempts to undo whatever RepublicaniSm
has done Not one policy of creative tenden-
ces or National scope can it claim to-day as
distinctivey its own.
This is the record not only of a generation
of legislation and administration, but also OF
the existing tendencies of the two parties.
There has been Democratic Administration
and il was not even a clean one for the Gar
land scandal was one of the worst ever known
in Washington-and the only impulse which 1t
has contributed to the politics of the time has
been a movement for the repeal of the Pro-
tectiye Tariff to which all the business and
industrial interests are now adjusted and have
been for thirty years. So radical and uncom-
promising has that destructive policy become
that the Democracy has paid its tribute in con-
vention assembled to the malign genius of Cal
houn, and revived the old notification doctrine
of the unconstitutionaity of the Protective
Tariff Its old time hostility TO National banks
has rcappeared, and its open sympathy with
the free-silver movement is survival OF all
the follcs and vagares of the obstruction which
it offered to honest financial legislation after
the war. All its policies are destructive, I'M
settling and revolutionary. In contrast with
1t stands Repubcanism at once conservative
and progressive force, with creative instincts
and National policies to work out for the high
est ends of American civilization