St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-13
THE REpUBLICAN PLATFORM.

IL 10 DuI CHdl lldUl6 u SUppUSc tidI Iiio
eminent gentlemen who laid down the
chart for the guidance of their ship
adopted by the Republican state conven-
ton were more DESTROYS of finding a
course that avoided shoals than to lay one
which should definitely define their
course or the port of their destination.
1t may be that they were using what the
Minneapolis Tribune says the Fopulists
used in framing their platform, 1.-THE
tricks or the old parties" But it is more
probable that. absorbed as they are in
their various business vocations, they
had no definite views of their own, and
thought it safer to travel in the wake of
the national craft.
On some one of these theories must be
they adorned their string of platitudes.
One would think that the fate of the
bigger ship in 1892 running on that
course would have suggested that it ha
dangers which should be avoided, but
we suppose that these gentle men mis-
took the elections since as indicating
that the course was all right and safe,
and that they might run their fore-and-
after over it with confidence. Anyway,
whatever motive influenced them,
whether it was blind faith in the eff
cacy of the Minneapolis platform, or be-
cause, to save themselves. they could
not invent another, they copied literally
that remarkable declaration of deceit.
They are in favor of tariff on imports,
the like of which are made in this
country. which twill equal the differ
ences between the wages and labor a
home and abroad"
We are surprised, always assuming that
these gentlemen really mean what they
said, that they did not indorse the Will
son bill as it went from the house, or at
least demand the speedy passage of the
bill as amended by the senate. They
know-that is, they should know-that
after Censusless Porter had dumped
into his statistics of trade those of the
carpenters and blacksmiths, and every
other unprotected vocation in the coun-
try in order to swell the product, he
couldn't make the labor cost-that is,
the wages pald-any more than 25 per
cent of the entire cost of all the products
or all the industries in this blessed land.
though more carefully complied and
trustworthy statistics never made the
cost in protected products more than IL
per cent. They knew, or they should
have known, that the Mckinley tariff,
designed ostensibly to cover this ''dif-
ference" amounts to 40 per cent of the
entire cost of our dutiable imports, and
they might have known thot the senate
bill reduces this by about 20 per cent.
leaving an average tax of 80 per cent
on the imported products of ''pauper
labor to cover difference" in wages
which is less than 20 per cent.
The committee and the convention
evidently deemed it necessary to ann at
the silver question so as ''to hit it if il is
bear and miss it if it is calf" They
are evidently aware that 1t Is a question
that ISN'T dead; one, OH the contrary,
that is very lively one. and one that is
raising the Old Ned with their party. 1t
wouldn't do to take the defiant position
of their mentor, the Pioneer Press, on
the one hand, nor follow the Californi-
ans on the other, and it wouldn't do to
Stop over quite as far as the young men
did out at Denver; and still something
must be said that would make their un-
easy and FESTIVE voters think that they
meant to ''do something for silver"
And so they declare themselves very
friendly to silver, and wish it we'll and
hope it may recover from its present in
disposition and ultimately get Oh its
pegs again. They want a parity, IA
substantial parity" and blmetallism
Chow that word mus. make the Pioneer
Press groan), and TO accomplish all
this they want the United States
to do all it can to restore silver
to tie worlds currency. Well.
that's what the Populists want and
the Blandites want and the Cameron
ians want, and what everybody wants.
The mischief is how to do it, and about
methods these gentlemen maintain a
profound and dignified silence which
they wish to pass for wisdom enabling
them TO do it If II ~ are intrusted with
the job. To be sure, they have. or their
party has been trying it ever since 1879,
and their efforts have not been bloom.
ing success; but If the patient can stand
it, they can't see why they shouldn't
be permitted to try some other nostr,Im.
And so, on the two questions that
easily lead all others just now, this
branch of the party which assumes to be
the yicegerent of Omniscience to take
care OF us poor helpless mortals, keep
us from the pitfalls and guide our feet
In pleasant paths. eonfesses that on
one of them it doesn't know what 1t is
talking about. and on the other that il
hasn't anything serious to say. As to