The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-20
REPUBLICANS AND THE TARIFF.

There is one thing that is very anus
ing in the present attitude of the Re
publictn party on the tariff question.
1t is the proposed distribution by the
Congressional Campaign committee of
that party (Which has at the head of
1t that rank anti-free silver man Bah
cock of the speech of Senator Hill
against the Senate measure in which
the New Yorker took occasion to call
that bill some very hard names, and
the conducting of their campaign on
that line.
1t cannot be denied that there are
some weak points in the Senate bill 1t
was a compromise measure. Schedules
were amended by the conservative Sen
ators on the Democratic side, and the
! long-winded Quay with his endless
speech, and. his Republican aides on
\ the other side. Still it is essentially
reform measure and the weak points in
| it instead of being Democratic crea-
I tons are improvements on the aggra-
waited bad points of the Mckinley mon
strosity.
Therefore when the Republicans be-
| SIN W dlldth lile Dll1 anu lnelT
attack on the ground of these compro-
misses they must see that they are
| throwing boomerangs that will come
back against McKinleyism. Every ar
gument they use can be turned against
them in their ultra protective attitude,
and they present the spectacle ludic-
rous in the extreme of sitting on both
horns Of the dilema and swearing at
| the Democrats one minute for having
gone so far in the direction of revenue
| tariff and the next minute swearing
harder because they did not go further
in that direction. If the humor of this
situation does not cause wide spread
guffaw, the American people and their
sense of humor have been greatly mis-
| judged and exaggerated
Their talk, too, about the Democrats
being unable to carry out their pledges
is no argument for the Republican
party, because it is no argument
against the great principle of tariff for
revenue that was laid down in the
Chicago platform. If it be granted
that there were Democratic obstruc-
tionists in Congress of sufficient num-
bers to hinder the full embodiment of
this principle, the only way to do by
way of remedy will be to send to Con-
gress more Democrats who are not OBJ
structionists and not send Republicans
who will Immediately proceed on their
principle of giving the trusts and cor
morants all they demand.
Then there is the howl about alleged
concessions to the Sugar trust and the
Iron trust and a few other trusts. If
that is evil, how much greater was the
CRYING evil when the Republicans did
not limit the number of trusts that
were to receive spoils but invited all
of them to come in and write their
own schedules without even so much
as protesting. They made a complete
surrender, House, President and Sen
ate; allowed the trusts to put the
members, so to speak, in their vest
pockets and carry them there.
Tariff reform has been opposed by
the united capital of all the fairfield
trusts-which can afford to spend mil
lions of dollars to keep their hold on
the purse strings of the American peo-
pie and. in line with their policy, sur
round Congress with strong Hobbies, |
threaten to buy the defeat of members, |
endeavor to corrupt legislatures, ready |
to DO anything in fact, and because
complete victory is not won over them
in the first encounter, that is no reason |
for condemning the victor who has
gone into the battle and gained the
key point on the battle field and is
only resting for a space before renew !
ing the determined assault.
Just now business men can figure on
nothing with certainty. They look for |
ward to the next presidential cam
paign with a fear that the policy of
the government is to be changed and
therefore cannot have any secure
foundation for their business. They |
lay to on their oars and wait for cei
talnty to come. So it will be as long |
as the government is made a partner
in every private business interest and |
business men are the playthings of |
Congress. Only when the government |