The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-07-27
THE COMING ISSUE

! n Is Protection Against Free Trade--Cob-
Mask of Tariff " Reform" AS They Did In
ISS8-Their Platform Commits Them to
| Absolute Free Trade-This Is Protec-
| ZIONIST Country and Defeat Stares Them
| In the Face.
1t is reported that canvass of the
| Delegates to the National convention in
Chicago showed that every one of them
| favored revenue tariff, which is mere
" another name for Cobdenism, or En-
glish free trade. Indications are that
the democratic party will in this cam
paign take holder ground on the tariff
question than ever before. Hitherto
there have always been some democrats
who Indignantly denied the charge that
their party was committed to free trade.
But each succeeding year the number
with the requisite cheek to keep up this
denial has diminished till this year it is
not likely that any self-respecting dem
ocrat will be found to disclaim for his
party its manifest radical Cobdenistic
| tendencies. Democrat and free trader
have come to be almost synonymous
terms.
We welcome this uncloaking of the
free trade party. We have no fears as
to how the people will decide when
and free trade tariff. The only dam
ger in past contests has been the re-
luctance of the democratic leaders to
take an unequivocal position.
Though employing the arguments OF
Golden and Bright, of Summer and
Perry, of Carlisle and Mills, all of whom
are avowed free traders, uncompromis-
ingly hostile to protection in any form,
democratic orators and editors have dis
claimed that they were. teaching free
trade. To their success in persuading
the people that they were opposing only
the abuses of protection, not protection
itself, has been due whatever impress
sion they have been able to make on the
popular mind.
| For this is protectionist country.
Let no one forget that. Itstarted in as
protectionist under Washington and
Hamilton and jefferson and Madison,
and it continued such in later years UNI
der the teachings of jackson, Clay and
Webster. Nor has it forgotten that
Lincoln and Grant and Greeley taught
the same policy.
And to-day it sees the greatest and
noblest of its statesmen advocating its
continuance. Many years will have
passed before the American people de-
sert these statesmen for the shallow
school of American free traders, repre-.
scented by Cleveland, Carlisle and Mills.
So the palmer the issue is made, the
better it will suit u.s. And it must OF
necessity be made plain in this cam
paign, after the many rabid free trade
speeches and editorials which have been
put forth in defense of so-called tariff
reform" After the bold free trade
declarations from the recognized lead.
ers of the democratic party during the
past four years, the party managers can
hardly have the impotence to insult
the intelligence of the people by in
structing their paraders, as they did
, four years ago, to cry in unison:
| Don't, don't, don't be afraid;
| Tariff reform is not free trade.
As for the republicans, they ea6no|
hedge if they would, and would not il
they could. Their Mckinley tariff is
there to define their position more
clearly and forcibly than it could posi-
bly, be defined in mere words. There is
not line of it which is not protective
and he who attacks it at any point i.
attacking protection.
Let its enemies dome on. The people
OF this country know what it has done
for them, particularly the working peo
pie and the farmers, and they viii
know enough to recognize in its assail
ant the enemy of their own interests
There will be no snap Judgment like
that of 1890 in this election. Let the
free traders keep that in mind. In the
words of President Harrison, "In 1891
it was conflict of predictions, now oul
adversarics must face trade statistics
and prices current. American Econo
mist