The Russellville Democrat., 1892-06-30

ftfAE0 their party as formulated by Jefferson and exemplifed by long and illustrous line of his successors in Democratic leadership, Madison to Cleveland we believe the public welfare demands that these princi- pies be applied to the conduct of the Federal government. through the acees them, and we solemnly declare that the need of return to these fundamental principles of free, popular government, based on home rule and individual liberty, was never more urgent than now, when the tendency to centgalize ali power at the Federal capital has become a menace of the reserved right of the states that strike at the very roots of our government under the constitution as framed by the public.
 Two--We warn the people of our com mon country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of Federal control of elections, to which the Republican party has committed itself, is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momentous than would result from revolution practically establishing mon archy on the ruins of the republic. It strikes at the North as we'll as the South, and injures the colored citizens even more than the white. It means horde of dep uty marshals at every polling place armed with Federal power, returning boards ap- pointed and controlled by a Federal au- thority, the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several states, the subju- gation of the colored people to the control of the party in power and the reviying of race antagonisms, now happily abated, of
 the utmost peril to the safety and happi- ness of all; a measure deliberately and
 justly described by leading Republican senator as 'the most infamous bill that ever crossed the threshhold of the
 senate" Such policy, if sanctioned
 by law, would mean the dominance
 of self-perpetuating oligarchy of office
 holders, and the party with it's machinery
 could be dislodged from power only by an
 appeal to the reserved right of the people
 to resist oppression, whichsis inherent in
 all self-governing communities. Two
 years ago this revolutionary policy was
 emphatically condemned by the people at
 the polls but in contempt of that verdict
 the Republican party has definitely de
 clared in it's latest authoritative utterance
 that it's success in the coming election will
 mean the enactment of the force bill and
 the usurpation of despotic control of cleo
 tons in all the states. Believing that the
 preservation of Republican government is
 dependent upon the defeat of this policy
 of force and fraud, we invite the support
 of all citizens who desire to see the consti-
 tuition maintained in its integrity with the
 laws pursuant thereto which have given our country hundred years of unexampled prosperity; and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be entrusted with power, not only to the defeat of the force bill, but also to relentless opposition to the Re publican policy of profigate expenditure, which, in the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and emptied the overfowing treasury, after piling new burdens of taxation upon the already overtaxed labor of the country.
 Three-We reiterate the oft repeated doctrines of the Democratic party that the necessity of the government is the only justification for taxation, and whenever a tax is unnecessary it is unjustifable, and that when custom house taxation is levied on articles of any kind produced in this country the difference between the cost of labor here and labor abroad, when such difference exists, fully measures any possible benefits to labor, and the enor- nous additional impositions of the exist ing tariff fall with crushing force upon our farmers and workingmen, and for the mere advantage of the few whom it enriches, exact from labor a grossly unjust share of the expenses of the government; and we demand such revision of the tariff laws as will remove their iniquitous inequalities, tighten their expressions and put them on constitutional and equitable basis. But in making reductions in tariff it is not pro posed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote, their healthy growth. From the foundation of this government taxes collected at the custom house have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must con tinue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for sue cessful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of la bor and capital thus involved. The pro- cess of reform must ba subject to the exc eution of this plan dictate of justice We denounce the Mckinley tariff law enacted by the Fifty first congress as the culminat- ing atrocity of class legislation we en- dorse the efforts made by the Democrats of the present congress to modify its most features in the direction of free raw materials and cheaper manufactured goods that enter into general consumption, and we promise to repeal as one of the benefcent. results that will follow the ac- tion of the people in entrusting power to the Democratic party. Since the McKin- ley tariff went into operation there have been ten reductions of the wages of labor ing men to one increase. We deny there has been any increase of prosperity to the country since it went into operation.
 We point to the .dullness and distress, which wage reduction and strikes in the iron trade have caused, as the best possi- bic evidence that no such prosperity has from the Mckinley act. We call to the fact, that after thirty years of re- strictive taxes, against the importation of foreign wealth in exchange for our agri cultural surplus, the homes and farms of the country have become burdened with real estate mortgage debts of over $2, ,500,- 900, 900, exclusive of all other forms of that in one of the chief ag- ricultural states of the West there appears a real estate mortgage debt averaging s165 per capita of the total population, and that similar conditions are shown to exist in the agricultural exporting states. We denounce policy which fosters no in austry 90 much as it does that of the sher- if.
 Four-Trade in the exchange on the basis of reciprocal advantages 10 the country is time-honored doctrine of the Democratic faith, and we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the peoples desire for enlarged foreign mar kets and freer exchange by pretending to closer relations for a country whose articles of export are almost ex- clusively agricultural products, with other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting custom house barrier of prOhibitiye tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to exchange them for commodities which arr