The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-07-29
THE ALTERNATIVE.

The great speech delivered in the
United States Senate on Tuesday last
by Senator Aldrich of RHODE ISLAND
was in certain sense the formal open
ing of the Presidential campaign on the
Republican side. II is understood that
the speech was delivered at the wish Of,
and by arrangement with, men high in
the councils of the Republican party
by whom the speech is to be circulated
as campaign material. SO far as this,
Mr.. Aldrich's great speech was par
tisan effort.
But there was nothing partisamin the
telling facts which Mr.. Aldrich skill
fully marshaled in his address. Facts
are impartial; and the particular facts
| to which attention was called had been
given to the world by committee of
five able Senators, three Republicans
and two Democrats, after an investiga-
ton of unparalleled thoroughness and Of
| incalculable economic value. Senator
Aldrich pointed with pardonable pride
to the record. In two years the average
wages of many varieties of laborers in
many places had slightly increased. In
the same period the cost of the necessi-
ties of life had fallen by a considerably
greater percentage.
The two years under consideration
embraced the passage and first enforce
ment of the Mckinley tariff law. That
law was hailed by Democrats as ruin
ous and iniquitous. Long after its pass
age non-partisan committee, cogni-
zant of the fullest facts, declares that
the apprehensions felt and pretended at
the passage of the bill have not been
realized. It has not increased the cost
of living but the cost of living has de-
creased, in part as direct result. 1t
has not lowered wages, but wages have
everywhere held their own and in some
instances shown an appreciable upward
trend. This, we cannot too often repeat,
is the testimony of the Democrats as
well as Republicans, who have made the
matter an exact study. The position of
the workingman has been bettered more
than three per cent. within the very
time when ruin and robbery were pre-
dicted as his fate.
Democratic free trade orators will en-
deavor to meet the force of these facts.
They will in Alabama cry out that the
protected laborer is fsring too we'll !; and
they will in RHODE ISLAND follow the
lying lead Of the disingenuous Journal,
and try to have it appear that "the
tariff is not an ISSUE"
That cry is tired now. 1t has seen
service.
1t worked to charm so long ago as
when the Democrats nominated James
X. Polk, an unknown Tennessean, for
the Presidency, and put on with him
Dallas, a protectionist Democrat from
Pennsylvania to lull the North.
The Democracy won that year on false
pretences. The low tariff of 1s48 fol-
lowed, and misery followed that, with
charitable souphouses established here
in PROVIDENCE by public funds, and
skilled carpenters and masons working
at rs cents day to fight off starvation.
The Democrats have been trying to
win victories on false pretences ever
since. But the tariff is an issue. The
Journal, which lends its hypocrtical
misrepresentation to the cheat, knows il
is an issue, and the main issue.
Six months ago, when the Presiden-
tial election was farther off and the
Journal felt that 1t could be franker
than it Is to-day, 1t said that perhaps
the woolen manufacturers of the East
would be better off with free wool,
even If woolens had to be admitted free
also.
Perhaps they would-the manufac-
turers-though many Of them do not
think so. But would the factory labor.
ers be better off with the product OF
foreign wool workers at starvation