Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1893-04-08
Must Face the Music.

Must E1ce the music.
It will be well, right at the outset
of their power, for the Democrats to
understand that they cannot safely
shirk tariff revision. The tariff was
the great issue in the canvass, what
ever Mr.. Cleveland and other leading
Democrats think of it now. On this
the Democracy made its appeal to the
people, and on it that party gained
its victory. I'VE denounce Republi-
can protection" said the Democratic
national platform of 1892, as fraud
upon labor, as robbery of the great
majority % the American 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 q dollar
for tariff duties except for purposes
Of revenue only, and demand that the
collection of such taxes shall be linn
tied to the necessities of the Gov
eminent honestly and economically
administered. We denounce the
Mckinley tariff law, enacted by the
Fifty-first Congress, as the culminat-
ing atrocity of class legislation. Mr..
Cleveland pledged his adherence to
this doctrine, and on 1t he was
elected.
But, says the Globe Democrat,
President Cleveland and the inner
council OF the Democracy are now
understood to say that tariff legisla-
tion will have to be postponed until
the Sherman law is repealed, and
that the silver question is the issue
Of paramount Importance. In doing
this they are turning their backs
squarely on their national platform.
While that deliverance, as we see,
dealt vigorously and drastically with
the tariff, it lodged and shuff1ed on
silver. 1t denounced the Sherman
law as a "cowardly make-shift," but
the rest of the silver plank was a
mass of evasions and platitudas which
could be made to mean many things
or nothing, and which was inter-
preted in different ways in different
parts Of the country, as was intended
by its trainers. This section of the
platform was tricky and dishonest
from beginning to end, and was
known to be such by every intelli-
gent Democrat. A thousand words
were said on the tariff during the
campaign to every one on the silver
question in any Of its aspects. No
Democrat, anywhere or at any time,
considered silver to be an actual issue
in the canvass.
An attempt, therefore, by the
Democrats to put the tariff in the
background, to postpone considera-
tion of it until after the Congression-
al elections next year, or to deal with
it in a shuffling or half-hearted way,
will arouse the popular disgust and
call down upon them the popular
wrath. The majority of the people,
whether wisely or the reverse, have
ordered radical change In the tar
III, and they have commissioned the
Democrats to bring this about. The
Democrats have posed as the foes of
the Republican tariff policy. They
have, in their national platform, de-
nounced this policy, and promised to
reverse it If they should be intrusted
with power. They have been taken
at their word by the country, and,
being invested with the proper au-
thority, they are ordered to carry out
their pledges promptly and honestly.
Sinking or temporization in this ext
gency will be fatal to them. Tariff
reform, according to the Democratic
plan, is demanded, 80 that the coun-
try can get that party's ideas and
desires on this question, and no I'M
necessary delay or any sort of evasion
or deception will be tolerated.