Middletown transcript., 1892-10-20
McKINLEY's soPHIsTRY.
j. A. B. DILwoRTH.

It doubtless is most satisfactory to
the greater portion of=the American
people, that the present political con-
test has been unusually free from what
is known In this country as mud sling
ing. 1t has been an educational cam
paign throughout, and neither party
has given much countenance to SANDERS
and vituperations. To me it is an
evidence of a higher moral elevation
reached by the American people.
Party passions have subsided. The
mind seeks for information, and the
desire of the public heart is that truth
and justice should prevail at the coming
presidential election. That condition
Of the public mind appears to me to be
so plainly Apparent, that | view with
amusement some of the utterances that
have recently fallen from the lips of
Governor Mckinley. My respect for
Major Mckinley as an earnest honest
patriotic citizen has been second to no
mans. have always disagreed with
him on the question of tariff legisla-
tion and with his protection procliyi-
ties, bat / have ascribed to him pure
motives, and did not believe that his
interest in his own political welfare,
nor any interest he might have in his
own or his friends manufacturing
business, prompted him to advocate
protection, but that he was protec-
ZIONIST because he honestly thought the
best interest of the country would be
best conserved by protection laws.
His great speech, made at the Atlanta
(Ga.) Exposition in 1886, outlined a
policy of protection that was perfectly
consistent, even defending communi-
ties for protecting themselves against
other communities by license system.
must now confess that the speeches
Mckinley has been making in this
campaign have panied me much; not
because any arguments that he has
advanced have shaken my faith in the
principle of free trade, for 1 am free
trader even if my party is unprepared
for it. He has not done that in the
least. If affected at all by him, he has
my faith in the eternal
justice of free exchange of commodi-
ties among men. am not panied
because OF any fear that he has en-
dangered the Democratic cause by his
speeches, for really think his work
has been Intellectual; but I am panied
to think that astatesman, whom I re-
spected so highly, should resort to
and subterfuge 10 sustain
cause and TO advance an argument.
/ have spoken of this in apreyious
letter, and with regret. He did this
when he used lot of worthless statis-
ties, furnished by an interested indus
try, to claim that the average wages
of an American workman was seventy
seven per cent. higher than an English
workman's wages. The statement was
not true; nor was it, if true, anything
but sophistical when used by him in
the connection in which he used it.
He knew better when he claimed, as
he frequently has done in this CAM
paign, that the foreign manufactures
paid the duties, and hence helped to
pay the American taxes. He knew
that his celebrated ten dollar suit was
largely shoddy, but he concealed that
TACT, or sought to do so, from his
auditors, and now he has resorted to
and subterfuge to induce
his hearers to believe that protection
avs, as principle of government,
have been declared by the Supreme |
Court Of the United States to be con-
'titutional. Major Mckinley is a
awyer, and of ability and national re-
pute, and he knew that while he truth
FULLY stated what that decision was,
le falsely appropriated the decision as
legalization Of the protective princi-
,les Of his proscriptiye tariff bill. He
NEW right well that the Supreme |
COURT of the United States has never
ustained any such theory, that the
axing laws may legally be used for be-
towing bountiss on special benefciar