The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-08-04
CLEVELAND AND THE TARIFF.
The Presidents Position and the Chicago
Platform.


The Presidents Position and the Chicago
Platform.
A recent article in the Philadelphia
Ledger concerning the tariff views of
President Cleveland has awakened
good deal of discussion in political cir
cles. The editor of the Ledger is known
to hold intimate relations with the
president, and its columns have on sew
eral occasions been made a medium of
communication with the public. 1t is
assumed, therefore, that its statement
as to his attitude on the tariff question
is authoritative-as really so as if made
by the president personally. 1t is not
surprising that the Ledger manifesto
should have occasioned widespread
amazement. 1t attributes to the presi-
dent views which are directly antagon-
istic to those of his party and fatty OPP
posed to his own repeatedly declared
opinions The Ledger says:
Upon the silver question 1t is known to ev-
eryone that there is no one in authority, no one
in the country. whose financial policy Is safer
or sounder than Mr.. Clevelands, and 1t is, II
not absolutely known, at least confidently be-
lieved that his economic policy is opposed TO
any revision of the tariff which will injure the
peoples Industrial interests or jeopardize their
prosperity Mr.. Cleveland Is known by his own
declarations, which are conclusive, to be favor
able to revision OF the Mckinley act but he
is also known by his own declarations to be I'M
favorable to free trade or TO anything like
free trade, or to anything that would be unjust
or harmful to our great manufacturing inter
ests"
The democratic policy, as declared at
Chicago, antagonized all protective
duties as robbery and as without war
rant in the constitution. The demo-
cratic national platform demanded that
the Mckinley act, designed for the en-
consignment and protection of our
great manufacturing and industrial in
terests, should be repealed, and pledged
the party to make its repeal special
and immediate duty. Mr.. Cleveland,
accepting his nomination on that plat
form, emphasized his approval of its
principles in carefully digested letter
in which he denounced protection as
''extortion," as oppressive to the PEG
pie and as directly favorable to pri-
vate and selfish gain" and explicitly af-
firmed that tariff legislation can only
find justification in the necessities of
the government. If any candidate for
president ever occupied, by his own
avowals, an attitude of hostility to the
great system of manufacturing indus
tries which has grown up under repub-
lican tariff legislation, and to the pro-
tective policy which now exists, that
candidate was Mr.. Cleveland. His cleo
ton was urged specifically on that
ground by the revenue reformers and
free traders of the country. He re-
ceived the votes of all such reformers
and free traders. He received as well
the votes of thousands of workingmen
who had been deluded by his appeals
and those of his advocates into the be-
lief that they Were suffering from
evils which he would cure by reversal
of our tariff policy. His election was
hailed at home and abroad as the
triumph of free-trade ideas. These
facts are known of all. They are part
and parcel of the history of the times.
Is it any wonder, then, that state
ment, semi-officially made, that while
in favor of tariff revision, Mr. Cleve-
land is ''unfavorable to anything that
would be unjust or harmful to our
great manufacturing interests" should
provoke wide amazement--that demo-
cratic newspapers should receive 1T
with incredulous surprise?
1t can hardly be otherwise than that,
If Mr.. Cleveland's position shall prove
to be what it is thus declared to be,
serious divisions will arise in the demo-
cratic ranks as to tariff legislation.
The great majority of the party leaders
are in full sympathy with the Chicago
platform. They honestly desire the
determination of the protective system,
root and branch. They are unwilling
now to acknowledge that they won the
presidency by false pretenses. These
men will not tamely acquiesce in the
proposed abandonment of the vantage
they have gained by long years of
stubborn fighting. 1t maybe they will
not be able to hold their ground-we
hope they will not be able-but they
will not surrender, without a desperate
struggle, the principle which they re-
gard as fundamental in the party faith.
Republicans, of course. will find gen.
nine satisfaction in this possible demo-
cratic breakup on the tariff question.
The matter. however, has higher than
a partisan significance. 1t involves the
welfare of great national interests
which the accepted democratic policy
menaces with disintegration and ruin.
The conservation of these interests
should be the first concern of repub-
leans. If that result can be reached
through democratic dissensions, precipi-
tated by the president, then surely
these dissensions are to be welcomed.
We may have little respect for the con-
sistency of the man who, once lifted to
place, can repudiate the declarations
by which he climbed into power; but
if that insincerity inures, in the inev-
table 10 gle of events, to the advantage
of the public, we can well afford to
moderate our partisan criticisms of the
spectacle of political regeneration
thus presented, in a keen enjoyment of
the continued practical triumph of
principles for which we stand, and have
always stood, in our politics Frank
Leslie's Weekly.