The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1892-06-30


upon the already over taxed lator |
of che country.
Section We denounce Repub |
lican protection as a fraud on the |
labor of the great majority OF Amer |
lean people for the benefit of few.
We declare it to be fundamental |
principle of the Democratic party |
that the federal government has no |
constitutional power to impose and |
collect tariff duties except for the |
purpose of revenues only and we
demand that the collection of such |
taxes shall be limited to the neces-
saries of government when honest
ly and economically administered.
We denounce the Mckinley tariff
law enacted by the ifty-frst con-
gress rs the eliminating atrocity of
class legislation; we endorse the ef-
forts made by the Democrats of the
present Congress to modify its most
oppressive features in the direction
of free raw materials and cheaper
manufactured goods that enter into
general consumption; and we prom
ise its repeal as one of the benef-
cient results that will follow the ac-
ton of the people in entrusting pow
er to the Democratic party. Since
the Mckinley tariff went into opera
ton there have been ten reductions
of wages of laboring men to one in
crease. We deny that there has
been any increase of prosperity to
the country since that tariff went
into operation and we point to the
dullness and distress, wage reduc-
tions and strikes in the iron trade,
as the best possible evidence that no
such prosperity has resulted from
the Mckinley act. We call the at
tention of thoughtful Americans to
the fact that after thirty years of
restrictive taxes against the impor
tation Of foreign wealth, in exchange
for our agricultural surplus, the
homes and farms of the country
have become burdened with a real
estate mortgage debt of over two
THOUSAND five hundred million dol
lars, exclusive of all other forms of
Indebtedness; that in one of the chief
agricultural States Of the West there
appears real estate mortgage debt
averaging $165 per capita of the to
tai population, and that similar con-
ditions and tendencies are shown to
exist in other agricultural exporting
States. We denounce policy which
fosters no industry so much as it
does that of the sheriff.
Sec. 4. Trade interchange ON basis
of reciprocal advantages to countries
participating is a time honored doc
trine of Democratic faith, but We de
nounce the sham reciprocity which
juggles with the peoples desire for en-
Iarged foreign markers and freer ex-
changes by pretending to establish
closer trade relations for the country
whose articles of export are almost
exclusively agricultural products,
with other countries that are also ag-
ricultural, while erecting the custom
house barrier Of prohibitive tariff taxes
against the richest countries Of the
world, that stand ready to take our
entire surplus Of products and to ex-
change therefor commodities which
are necessaries and comforts of life
among our own people.
Sec. 5 We recognize in trusts and
combinations which are designed to
enable capital to secure more than its
just share of the joint product of cap
ital and labor, the natural consequence
of prohibitive taxes which prevent
free competition, which is the life of
honest trade, but We believe their
worst evils can be abated by law, and
we demand a rigid enforcement of
laws made to prevent and control
them, together with such further legis-
lation in restraint of their abuses as
experience may show to be necessary.
Sec. 6. The Republican party while
protesting policy of receiving public
land for small holdings by actual set
tiers, has given away the peoples
heritage till now few railroads and
nonresident aliens, individuals and
| corporations possess larger area than
that of all our farms between the two
| seas. The last Democratic admins
tration reversed the improvident and
unwise policy of the Republican party
touching the public domain and re-
claimed frcm corporations and syndi-
Gates, alien and domestic, and restored
to the people nearly one hundred mill
ion acres of valuable land to be sacred
ly held as homesteads for our citizens,
and we pledge ourselves to continue
this policy until every acre of land SO
unlawtully held shall be reclaimed
and restored to the people.
Sec. 7. We denounce the Republi-
can legislation known as the Sherman
act of 1890 as cowardly makeshift,
fraught with possibilities of danger in
| the future which should make all its
supporters, as we'll as its author, anx-
ious for its speedy repeal. We hold
to the use of both gold and silver as
the standard money of the country
and to the coinage of both gold and
silver without discriminating against
either metal or charge for mintage,
but the dollar unit of coinage of both
metals must be of equal instrinsic and
exchangeable value or be adjusted
through internationa, agreement or
by such safeguards of legislation as
shall insure the maintenance of parity
of the two metals. An equal power
of every dollar at all times in the
markets and in the payment of debts,
and we demand that all paper cur
currency shall be kept at par with and
redeemable in such coin. We insist
upon this policy as especially neces-
sary for protection of the farmers and
laboring classes, the first and most
defenceless victims of unstable money
and Auctuating currency.
Sec. 8. We recommend that the
prohibitory 10 per cent tax on state
bank issues be repealed.