Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-10-12
TWO GREAT ISSUES.
INVOLVING REPUBLICAN BETRAYAL
 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The Hon. John Boyd Thacher, of AL bany, president of the New York State League of Democratic Clubs, delivered the following address before the con- vention in New York city, Oct. 8:
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CoNvENTIoN-On this, the fifth annual gathering of our state league, we may well join in con- graduation over the past, which is se- cure, and the future, which is full of promise. As for the past, we have suc- ceeded in enlisting an army of young and enthusiastic Democrats who have formed one or more political societies in every assembly district in the state, and to whom five years of toll have brought many substantial victories. As for the future, we have the assurance of the people that they will stamp with ap- prova1 the work we have in charge and direct with the clear voice of popular sovereignty that the executive affairs of this nation shall be administered once again by Democratic hands and under the honest, prudent, intelligent, jealous stewardship of Grover Cleveland.
 THE DEMOCRATIC MISSION.
 What it's mission is to human soul the preservation of the constitution is to the Democratic party. Not defeat, not betrayals, not powers, can separate us from this love. We guard it as a sacred thing from devotion to the instrument itself, from reverence for the patriots who formed and shaped it, from grati- tude for the blessings already secured us by its influence, but more than all because it is adapted today to our pres In from its guiding spirit brings to us na- tional misfortune. There were some Athenians who could not hear the name of Aristides without murmuring, and there are ears among our own people to which the constant repetition of the con- stitution has an irritating and rasping sound.
 The two chief issues presented by our political opponents involve betrayal of the constitution. The one issue is that the power of taxation is without limit and includes right to discriminate in its imposition. Taxation is the road over which nations sometimes pass tc their destruction. It is the sunken rock on which many ship of state has been broken asunder. The people have never deposited unlimited power with the gov. ernment for such purpose. The actual need of the government in it's efforts to protect life and property bounds the first circle of the right of taxation. The pro- motion of the public welfare bounds the second and wider circle within which taxes may be laid. But the pressure of the benefcent atmosphere must be the same everywhere within these two zones. For public purposes alone shall taxes be levied-not for the single benefit of any man, however great, or for any class of men, however powerful. Taxa l tion which bears grievously on some one class of the community, while it en- riches another, does not draw it's breath from the spirit of the constitution.
 A CRIME AND A BLUNDER.
 The system of protection, the fostering | of unnatural industries by the imposi tion of unnatural taxation, is not only 2 crime, but, according to the climax o1 | Talleyrand, it is a blunder. With the grandest country the sun ever looked upon, with possibilities of wealth sucl as dreamers only have touched, this sys tenn of protection is forcing nature tt ] play part for which she was not cast \ Where corn would grow this system builds factory that the cry of impossi ble tin may be heard, and where mill would flourish it browses the incapable sheep. It puts darkness for light an( heat for cold. No man has yet recorded the utter, wanton wastefulness of tn
 protective system. The chemist, the me chanic, the inventor, are seeking to lesser the expense of those dynamic energie man uses in his daily work. Nature con verts her heat into power absolutel,
 without waste. Mans best engine waste
 heat most prodigally.
 But the scientist is spending his day
 and nights in an attempt to produc
 electricity directly from the burning o
 coal, so that both light and mcdaniel
 energy may be turned loose from tn
 simple oXidization of fuel. For what
 Shall the skill of the inventor and tn
 frugality of the masses spare at tn
 spigot that few wasteful and privat
 interests shall spill at the bung of ou
 national resources? Would it not b
 wiser to support these interests directl
 ourselves, that we, and not they alone
 that the many, and not the few-ma
 control the national barrel? The cap
 tai of America supplying the market ! OA VAO "O1A AA VIII DA4LS HI S10dI01 IL
 turns than the trusts and monopolie
 can ever roll up for themselves, and a
 the same time make a general and ger
 erous distribution to the man who dail
 expends the capital of his family in tn
 sweat of his labor.
 THE FORGE BILL.
 The other issue which involves bt trayal of the constitution is the Daver port force bill. This iniquitous measur is to make the federal government cer tralized government and enable it t reach it's powerful hands for unlawfr purposes into four and forty state Federal bayonets are not only to guard but, what is far different, to control an manage the sacred urn into which til citizen deposits his secret ballot. Tn
 hands which will hold the bayonets wi be moved by human hearts, and whil the nature of man is made of the sam material, moved by the same impulse responsive to the same motives, the foo