The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-11-13
The Republican Party and the Tariff.

Now that the election is over ana the
shouting done, now that the Repuoll-
cans nave obtained a decisive II not d
glorious victory, it is well for us to stop
and ask the question, Where are we
at?o What have 1--WE. the people lone
in nltting the Republicans in power, and
what are the Republicans going to 10
with the power that has been given them
The irresistible reply to at least the
second branch of this enquiry is, nothing
at all. The Republican party has been
conducting a campaign of deliberate false
hood. 1t has had no programme what
ever 10 present TO the people; it has no
purpose or policy of any sort, except that
of getting back into office, and it has
simply taken advantage of the general
distress to turn the people against the
Democracy.
1t is worth recalling. now, that not
a single Republican candidate for office
has even limited at an attempt to repeal
the Democratic tariff law; not an organ
has ventured to recommend such a pro-
ceeaing. They have denounced the meas
IRE as ian attack on American mills
and homes:'' they have attributed to it
all the distress of the last year; they
speak of it as drafted in the interests of
British manufacturers; there is no limit
to their grotesque rhetoric in abusing it.
And yet they nave not and do not now
show a sign or a symptom of a desire
to change it. On the contrary, the pur-
pose of the abuse being achieved in the
return of the party to power, the firms
which fatten on protection have restored
wages, reopened their mills and devoted
themselves to creating a boom under the
operation of the very law which last
week they told US was an irremediable
blight upon American Industries.
In one way. as tariff reformers. per-
haps we should not cavil at this ire
mendous vandication of the work the
Democratic party has already done, and
in fact we do not. We feel assured that
the cause of tariff reform. we might
say Of free trade, has received a for
ward impetus which can never be wholly
checked. We have before now pointed
out the strong free trade tendencies in
the Republican party. We expect the
rising generation will live to see all par
ties in this country as in England free
trade parties. The logic of science and
the logic of the balance sheet will hence
forward supplement each others teach
ings. and other issues must be found to
Illustrate the fundamental differences of
the p%afties. They will never be wanting
SO long as the Republican party retains
its cehtralizlng tendencies. those sub
versiye ideas which are so aptly illus
trated in the new New York Constitu-
ton. But. for the present. we are con-
tent With laying before the moralists
who exllt in the result of Tuesday last
the moral question involved in the Re-
publican tariff campaign.
We wonder, for instance, if Mr.. Scud-
der. Mr.. Ellison or Mr.. Atkinson of this
city. who preached -"non-partisan" ser
mons iii an exultant strain on Sunday,
have really thought over the amount of
falgellood involved in the rabid con-
~denanation of a thing which you pres
emily purpose to uphold with all your
might. We wonder if they think the
position of Messrs. Seabury G Johnson
moral, when they cut and hack their
laborers' wages before election day and
restore them the day after, with no more
prospect OF a change in the tariff than
there is of the sun rising in the West
and setting in the East. This sort of
thing i1apresses our unecclesiastical
minds as the most detestable form of
prehensive of the safety of the country
in the hands of a party run by such
miscreants as woul resort to it. We
are moved to think that they stand by
the present bill not for what is good
but for what is bad in it. So far from
exposing American industries naked to
the competition of Europe it must give
a rich bounty at least in the lines of
thread and chemicals, and the offence of
the Democracy lay not in attacking
American mills and homes. but in leav-
ing to interruptions capitalists too rich
an opportunity to prey upon American
consumers.
This is indeed what large masses of
voters thought in Furnishing the party
last week. Their blunder was in con-
fiding their interests to an open enemy
{ in order to escape a friend who had not
lone his full duty.
A LITTLE over we years ago. Con-
gress did just one liberal thing for the
development Of American shipping. 1t
f. passed the law which enabled the Inter
national Navigation Company to pur-