Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-05-26
The Pennsylvania Republican Convention.

The convention of Pennsylvania Repub-
licans at Harrisburg Wednesday was a
notable gathering, and the ticket placed in
nomination is an exceptionally strong one.
General Daniel II. Hastings who has been
selected as the party standard will be re-
membered as the man who so ably conduct
ed the work of relief for the sufferers
from the great Johnstown flood.
He is a man of great executive abil-
ity and will make the Keystone state an ad-
mirable governor. There is no uncertain
sound in the platform adopted by the con-
vention. It is . succinct and comprehe n
sive declaration of Republican principles.
Especially strong is its reference to the
tariff question which is couched in the fol-
lowing language.
The threats and efforts which the Demo-
cratic party, now in control of the execu-
tive and legislative departments of the ma
tional government are making to destroy the
system of protection to American industries,
have wrecked our manufacturing establish
ments, destroyed the value of our farm pro-
ducts, ruined our employers, beggared our
workingmen and brought distrust upon the
honesty of their proposed legislation.
We denounce the Democratic attack upon
the American protective system because its
effort already has been to reduce to idleness
two millions of workingmen and values to
an amount greater than the national debt
created for the suppression of the Rebel
lion; because it enlarges the free list only
upon products which employ the greatest
number of American workmen; because it
strikes with equal cruelty the farmer, the
miner, the lumberman, the iron, the glass
and the textile worker; because it transfers
work from our own mills, mine and work
shops to foreign countries; because it is
sectional, aimed directly at Northern in
dustries and fosters the plantation system
and destroys the farm; because it is VIC
ous in its changes from specific to
ad valorem duties, in its reduction of the
revenues of government by many millions
of dollars, and it resorts to war taxes and
internal and direct taxes to make up the de-
iciency it needlessly creates.
We command and approve the efforts of
our senators and members of Congress to
delay and defeat the passage of legislation
hostile to any American industry, and we
denounce the treatment of our workingmen
by the Democratic committee of the Sen
ate, which in violation of courtesy and of
all legislative traditions, denied them a
hearing, when they desired, in constitu-
tional manner, to demonstrate against this
destructive legislation.
1t is entirely safe to say, in view of the
manifestations of popular opinion during
the past year that this language ably voices
the sentiment of an overwhelming majority
of the American people. The indications
continue to increase that the sway of the
South in our national affairs is destined to
be brief one. So far as Pennsylvania is
concerned the people of the country have
had striking illustration the present year in
the more than one hundred thousand ma
jority by which Galusha A. Grow was cleo
ted congressman at large from Pennsylva-
MIA. There is reason to believe that the
feeling which inspired this overwhelming
Republican victory extends pretty much
over the country, and that the grand old
Keystone state will be by no means alone
in the immense Republican majority it will
roll up next fall.