The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-01-06
CONSERVATIVE REFORM.

The Republicans of this city who
took part in the electioneering of the
past few weeks. appear from their re-
marks in public to be strong Mckinley
ties. If so they are not in accord with
the views of the best men of their own
party in the past or in the present.
The necessity of tariff reform has been
conceded by many influential Republic
cans. and the exorbitant rates of duty
imposed by the Mckinley law are con-
trary to the declarations of the party
in their platforms.
In the Republican platform of 1884
we find this enunciation:
'"The Republican party pledges itself
to. correct the Irregularities of the tar
if. and to reduce the surplus, not by
the vicious and indiscriminate process
of horizontal reduction, but by such
methods as will relieve the taxpayer
without injuring the labor or the great
productive interests of the country"
It will be observed that the Wilson
bill which is causing so much noise
and defamation on the part of the Re-
publicans. contemplates similar cor
rections of evil to those proposed in the
Republican platform of 1884 Instead
of keeping the pledges which even
then were necessary TO be made in or
der to placate the people, the Repubh-
can party when it returned to power
piled on the tariff taxation heavier
than ever.
The inequalities of the tariff. the bur
dens. it imposed on labor and the great
productive industries of the country,
and the fact that it was tax which
had produced a needless surplus, were
all acknowledged by the Republican
party in 1884, and the pledges given
were to save the party from being de-
posed When it returned to power four
years after. it proceeded to throw away
its promises, and the Mckinley mon
strosity was enacted in violation thereof
and caused its overthrow in national
affairs.
The Democratic party was placed in
power for the express purpose of re-
forming the tariff. If anything was
ever demanded of party by the voters
of the country it was the reform of
the tariff, required at three successive
elections.
The Republican leader, Mr.. Reed, re-
fers to the Wilson bill as ''tariff-tinker-
ing" Well, is not that what his own
party proposed in 1884? Also by his own
confession is not that which the Re-
publican party worked at several times
during its thirty years of power? But
Republican iff-tinkering was an in
crease of patches on nearly every oc-
casion, and made the public burden al
ways worse and never lighter.
Such Republicans as Lincoln, Grant
and Garfield were opposed to the sort
of protection which increases with the
progress of the people, instead of de-
creasing with the advance of years
and experience in producing commodi-
ties They believed in the kind of
protection which led to free trade"
The local Republicans seem to believe
in the kind that leads further from
free trade, and the very name of the
thing seems to put them in a furore
and a fright.
The Wilson bill, which so many of
them attack, is as conservative a meas
ure as could be framed and give sat
isfaction to the demand for reform
Its very conservatism has rendered it
an object of assault from Republicans
who predicted that it would be star
iff-smasher.1 It does not propose to
disturb too quickly established inter
ests. All changes of public policy af-
fecting vested interests should be made
as gradual as possible consistent with
correct principle. And the tariff bill