The St. Johns herald., 1892-09-15


 single exception of Major McKin- Iley's discovery that "the foreigner pays the tax" and that was proba- ply an oversight, for the President is guilty on his own account of scores of assertions as remote from the truth. Every exploded conten- tion as to the benefits of protection n ill general and of the Mckinley bill in particular that has been doing duty in the party organs for the past two years is rehashed, and it is due to the argumentative and literary ability of the organs to say that their work has not been i'm proved by being run through the Presidential mill
 In the face of Homestead, C@ur d'Alene, Tennessee, Buffalo and five hundred strikes in protected indus tries since the passage of the Me Kinley bill,- the workingmen are told again that protective duties not only keep up wages, but are "the only barrier against reduction to the European scale." Not a word as to the influence of new, vast and rich country, where. whatever the tariff at any time, wages have always been higher than in old and crowded Europe. That one conten- tion of the Presidents is enough to lay under suspicion the trustworthi- ness and sincerity of every mate rial statement in the letter.
 The happy effects of mitigating the stress of Republican protection by even partial reciprocity are en- larged upon. So also are the hap py effects of lessening the severity of the barbarous Republican navi- gation laws. And the benefits of thus going two steps on the Demo- cratic road toward unshackled com merce having become obvious to all men, Mir. Harrison has the impu- dence to ayow belief that the De mocracy would destroy these good fruits of Republican policy!
 The tin-plate swindle is indorsed, of course-a completely exposed swindle that in two years has in tar if taxes alone cost the American people $2 for every pound of tin plate made in this country-a swim dle which has burdened every busi- ness into which the use of tin plate enters, thus saddling o!d-established industries with the weight of one that was born in fraud and is to be defended only by the sort of proved falsehoods which President Harri- son is not ashamed to repeat.
 The policy of the Force bill is in- dorsed. This is the one portion of the letter that entities the President to respect. It shows courage. The Force bill was beaten by a Congress Republican in both branches, in spite of MT. Harrison's utmost ef- forts. But he stands by his gunslike the obstinate little man that he Is, and repeats with pleasure the blum der of the Minneapolis platform in recommitting the party to the ini- quitous scheme.
 There is not word about trusts, not one. There are those who will think that for mere forms sake there should have been virtuous paragraph about the trusts. But two imperative reasons exist why President Harrison should have passed the gentlemen of the trusts dumbly and respectfully by. One is that they are the treasurers of his party-the gentry from whom the fiat" is fried" that enables Mr. Harrison's Dudleys to gather "foaters" into blocks of five" The other reason for silence is that very disgracefnl feature oi Mir. Harrison's Administration has been the failure to enforce the law which forbids the existence of trusts. It Is not wonderful that in enumerating