The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-12-19
Matebman 4 guurnal.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1894.
McKinleyism,

The hysterical repetition with which
the mugwumps, on the slightest coca
sion, proclaim the death of Mckinley
ism indicates that they may be feeling
some doubt about the matter after all.
McKinleyism seems to them to be a
sort of fetch What this particular
ism is they do not define. McKin-
ley was chairman of the committee of
ways and means in the fifty-frst con-
gress. That body passed tariff law
which embodied the republican princi-
pie of protec ion as it had been pro-
mulgated in the republican national
convention of 1888. The republicans
promised to enact such law, and they
kept their pledge. In this respect they
appear to better advantage than the
party to which tie mugwump scoffers
are an unwelcome and Improbable
annex.
The country reached the golden era
of its prosperity under the fulilment
of republican pledges. This i'll assorted
combination of democracy and mug
wumpism succeeded in 1892 in persuad-
ing enough of the people that the gen.
eral prosperity was all sham; that the
goose that was laying golden eggs,
ore in number and larger in size than
ever before, was fraud, and that the
way to real prosperity and real national
greatness was to kill the fowl and
possess themselves of the raw material
of her golden supplies.
People are sometimes persuaded to
do foolish things. They did foolish
thing in 1892. Experience has dis.
PEELED the illusion the charmers wove
around the people. The people admit
that they were fooled, that the prom
ises of the democracy were lies, that
the warnings of the republicans were
wise and that their promises had be-
hind them a national progress, unex-
ampled in the worlds history, and an
amount of individual prosperity and
happiness enjoyed nowhere else on this
round earth. The reaction came in the
rece ut elections, and the result was an
expression of renewed trust and belief
in the order of things spurned in mo
ment of mingled passion and credulity
in 1892
McKineyism stands, with these mug
wumps, for the policy of protection to
American industry, and we believe it
will be found, when the republicans are
again trusted with all the powers of the
government, as they unquestionably will
be by The fourth of March, 1897, that
McKinleyism " is possessed of vitality
enough to enact rational and consis-
tent protective tariff law, under which
the country will revive and resume the
industrial march halted in 1892 by a
voice as hostile 10 its welfare as that
which in 1861 for time stayed the
progress of the nation. The republic
can party is progressive. There is an
element of truth in the statement that
the tariff act of 1890 will not be re-
enacted; there is an element of libel
in any declaration that it will be enacted
in its entirety. Nearly decade will
have passed before, at the earliest day,
the republicans can again frame tariff
measure. Conditions change rapidly
with the passage of time. Had the re-
publicans remained continuously in
power, as party of progress embody-
ing the best intelligence of the country,
it would have modified the act of 1890
to conform it to changing conditions.
When the time comes to take this task
in hand the republicans will adapt the
principles of the act of 1890 to condi-
tons then existing. Tie mugwump
contingent has reason for it's disqui-
etude. The soul of McKinleyism is
marching on. 1t will get there in SO.