Los Angeles herald., 1892-10-10
THE TWO CHAMPIONS.

The debate Saturday night between
Mr.. Estee and Mr.. White was one of
those intellectual jousts which have
tendency to strip from partisan politics
much of the acrimony that ordinarily
characterize heated political campaigns.
The meeting was model of rapt and or
derly attention to the speakers, and we
rarely see 30 large an assemblage OF peo-
pie composed nearly equally of the ad-
herents of both parties where the decor
um of the lecture room transfers itself to
the platform of controversial politics.
The writer had the pleasure Of sitting
for 156 days with Mr.. Estee in consti-
tutional convention. During that
heightened session the Republican
champion was very often the leading
advocate or opponent of important
propositions, and always commanded
the attention of the members. He was
never magnetic in the sense that he
swayed his audience by his eloquence; (;
but he was always interesting and never
failed to give cogent reason for the posi-
ton he assumed. He was what may be
termed a hard and plodding speaker.
He has not changed either in style or
force since that time. Hence it is not
astonishing that in Saturday nights
debate he failed in the important par
ticular of stirring the depths of his
audience, or in electrifying their sensi-
bilities. He was clear enough in state
ment, but strained in his conclusions.
For instance, when he replied to Mr..
Whites declaration that, under the
Democratic tariff of 1S46, our white
winged commerce fretted every sea, and
our tonnage was rapidly competing for
the prominence on the ocean with that of
Great Britain, Mr.. Estee said that it
was not the high protective tariff which
succeeded the civil war that swept and
kept our ships from the ocean, but the
privateers which England had fitted out
for the south and which had destroyed
our merchant fleets.
Had he reflected for a moment, he
would have known that there was an
other and a more abiding cause. He
would not have falsified the fine eulo.
GUM he had just paid to American en-
terprise and art, by claiming that be-
cause a few Alabamas had destroyed
our merchant marine, it could not have
been rebuilt in the twenty-seven years
that have elapsed since the war. He
would have reflected that not one Of the
fifty odd English bottoms he had just
passed at Port Costa waiting to carry
our wheat to foreign ports was more
than ten years from the stocks; and he
would not have stultifed himself by
passing so severe a judgment upon
American skill and energy as to have
implied that we could not have dupli-
Gated our loet fleet in a quarter of a
century had there not been some great
underlying cause for our decadence in
chip building.
Apart from the fact that Mr.. Estee
had the worst cause to support with his
argument, he was pitted against gen.
tleman who is at once magnetic and
logical-quick at repartee, keen at find
ing salient points, popular in his mode
of address, and fully equipped at all
points with the historical and current
facts pertinent to the case in hand.
Had the contention been before a
court, with perfectly impartial judge
presiding, we have no doubt that judg-
ment upon the presentations from both
sides would have been for tariff reform
and against Mckinley bill protection.
Much more certain must be this verdict
from popular court such as presided
at Turnverein hall Saturday night.