Los Angeles herald., 1892-11-07
TWO GREAT ISSUES.
INVOLVING REPUBLICAN BETRAYAL
OF THE CONSTITUTION.

stitution in Danger.
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 i'll 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 Sc
cure, and tho future, which is full of
promise. AS for the past, we have sue
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-
proval 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 its 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 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 it's influence, but more than all
because it is adapted today to our pres
ent needs, and because every departure
from its guiding spirit brings to US ma.
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 a right to discriminate in
its imposition. Taxation is the road
over which nations sometimes pass to
their destruction. 1t is the sunken rock
on which many ship of state has been
broken asunder. The people have neve:
deposited unlimited power with the gov
ernment for such purpose. The actual
need of the government in its 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 beneficent 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
tion which bears grievously on some one
class of the community, while it en-
riches another, does not draw its breath
from the spirit of the constitution.
A CRIME AND A BLUNDER.
The system of protection, the fostering
of unnatural industries by the imposi.
ton of unnatural taxation, is not only
crime, but, according to the climax of
Talleyrand, it is a blunder. With the
grandest country the sun ever looked
upon, with possibilities of wealth such
as dreamers only have touched, this sys-
tenn of protection is forcing nature to
play part for which she was not cast.
Where corn would grow this system
builds factory that the cry of impossi.
BILE tin may be heard, and where mills
would flourish it browses the incapable
sheep. 1t puts darkness for light and
heat for cold. No man has yet recorded
the utter, wanton wastefulness of the
protective system. The chemist, the me-
chanic, the inventor, are seeking to lessen
the expense of those dynamic energies
man uses in his daily work. Nature con.
verts her heat into power absolutely
without waste. Mans best engine wastes
heat most prodigally.
But the scientist is spending his days
and nights in an attempt to produce
electricity directly from the burning of
coal, SO that both light and mechanical
energy may be turned loose from the
simple oxidization. of fuel For what?
Shall the skill of the inventor and the
frugality of the masses spare at the
spigot that few wasteful and private
interests shall spill at the bung of our
national resources? Would it not be
wiser to support these interests directly
ourselves, that we, and not they alone
that the many, and not the few-may
control the national barrel? The capi-
tai OF America supplying the markets
OF the wbrld will bring in greater re-
turns than the trusts and monopolies
can ever roll up for themselves, and at
the same time make general and gen.
erous distribution to the man who daily
expends the capital Of his family in the
sweat of his labor.
THE FORCE BILL.
The other issue which involves a be-
trayal of the constitution is the Daven-
port force bill. This iniquitous measure
is to make the federal governments a CEN
tralized government and enable it to
reach it's powerful hands for unlawful
purposes into four and forty states.
Federal bayonets are not only to guard,
but, what is far different, to control and
manage the sacred urn into which the
citizen deposits his secret ballot. The
hands which will hold the bayonets will
be moved by human hearts, and while
the nature of man is made Of the same
moved by the same impulses,
responsive to the same motives, the foot
ings Of the ballots in all the urns will
tally with the desires of the government.