The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-07-16
mo. 36.

these fundamental principles of a
free popular government, based on
home rule and individual liberty,
was never more urgent than now,
when the tendency to centralize all
power at the Federal Capitol has
become a menace of the reserved
rights of the States that strike at
the very roots of our government
under the Constitution as framed
by the republic.
2. We warn the people of our
common country, jealous for the
preservation of their free institu-
tons, the policy of Federal control
of elections to which the Republic
can party has committed itself is
fraught with the gravest dangers.
scarcely less momentous than would
result from a revolution practically
establishing monarchy on the ruins
of the republic. 1t strikes at the
North, as we'll as the South and in
jures the colored citizen even more
than the whites. 1t means horde
of deputy marshals at every polling
place, armed with Federal power,
returning boards, appointed and
controlled by Federal authority,
the outrage of the electoral rights
of the people IN the several States,
the subjugation of the colored peo-
pie to the control of the party in
power and the reviving of race an
tagonisms, now happily abated, and
of the utmost peril to the safety
and happiness of all; a measure
deliberately and justly described
by leading Republican Senator
as "the most infamous bill that ever
crossed the threshold of the Sem
ate." Such policy, if sanctioned
by law, would mean the dominance
of self-perpetuating oligarchy of
Office holders, and the party first
entrusted with its machinery could
be dislodged from power only by
an appeal to resist oppression
which is inherent in all self-gov-
erning communities.
Two years ago this revolutionary
policy was emphaticaliy condemned
by the people at the polls but in
contempt Of that verdict the Re-
publican party has defiantly declar-
ed in its latest authoritative ut
terance that its success in the
coming elections will mean the
enactment of the force bill aud the
usurpation and despotic control of
elections in all the States.
8. We reiterate the oft-repeated
doctrines of the Democratic party
that the necessity of the govern
ment is the only justification for
taxation, and whenever a tax is un-
necessary it is unjustifable: that
when custom house taxation is levi
ed on articles of any kind pro-
duced in this country the difference
between the cost of labor here and
labor abroad, when such differ
ence exists, fully measures any
possible benefits to labor, and the
enormous additional impositions
of the existing tariff fall with crush
ing force upon our farmers and
workingmen, and for the mere adj
vantage of the few whom it enrich
es exact from labor a grossly un-
just share of the expenses of the
government. We demand such re-
vision of the tariff laws as will re-
move these Ubiquitous inequalities,
tighten their oppression and put
them on a constitutional and eqait-
able basis.
We denounce the Mckinley law,
enacted by the Fifty-frst Congress.
as the eliminating strocity of
class legislation; we ipdorse the eff
forts made by the Democrats Of the
present Congress TO modify its
most oppressive features, in the di-
rection of free raw materials and
cheaper manufactured goods that
enter into general consumption,
and we promise its repeal as one
of the beneficent results that will
follow the action of the people in
entrusting power to the Demo-
cratic party. Since the Mckinley
tariff went into operation there
have been ten reductions of the
wages of laboripg men to one in
crease. We deny, secondly, that
there has been any increase of pro-
perry to the country since it went
into operation; third, we point to
the dullness and distress which