The record-union., 1894-01-12
FACING SOUTH BY NORTH.

In one of his anti-rebellion satires the
late James Russell Lowell gave the reply
of a congressional candidate to a COM
mittee that had asked him what was his
position on the negro question; he
answered in rhyme that he was ''fur the
niger, and agin' the nigger." and there
fore on that question he was ''facin'
south by north"
Mr.. Representative Geary Of California
is much in the same position. A Demo-
crat he should be, and pretends 10 be,
favorable to the reduction of the tariff
schedule according to the policy Of his
party as expressed in its platform, to
which he subscribed. AS a Californian,
with an eye to political preferment, he
caters to local claim for protection, and
is therefore masquerading in the regalla
of the radical Republican protectionist.
Which is to say that Mr.. Geary is of the
timber of which demagogues are made,
especially that order of them which has
an itching for high local station. Now
Mr.. Geary is member of that all power
full mechanism which turns the inner
wheels of party-he is one of the Demo-
cratic congressional caucus, and by his
voluntary pledge is in honor bound to
stand by its guns. His party received a
verdict in its favor after heated political
IN oh tba Of fbo
tariff, to the end that special class privi-
1edges, just such as Mr.. Geary now
smiles upon, should cease, and revenue
taxation be laid only upon such articles
as do not eat the bone and substance of
the masses of the nation. The party with
consistency is endeavoring to keep faith
with the people, and Mr.. Geary has said
to it that he is with it. But when he
breathes the atmosphere in which his
ambitions as yet reside, he declares his
sympathies to be with those opposed to
the policy TO which he is caucus pledged,
as well as by sacred agreement with the
people.
So we have Mr.. Geary, blythe grace of
the party magnates, masquerading as
friend of certain industries in California,
which are clamoring to be excepted from
the reform to which the Administration
party is pledged. There are any number
of privileged industries in every State
whose special friends are demanding that
they be fostered at the expense of the
consumers, and if every Congressman
should adopt Geary's tactics the whole
country would be a camp of opposing in
terests, each battling to feed upon the
other fellow.
Mr.. Geary's attitude is taken to give
him strength at home, while at Washing
ton he consorts with and couusels among
those pledged to reformation of the tariff.
Hewill vote with these party colleagues on
all the provisions of the reform bill which
do not affect some industry in which
he has an interest. political or otherwise,
and in the end will vote for the bill as a
whole, and this enables him to make a
holy demagogic show of himself and to
assume the attitude of defense of Califor-
mia interests.
Look at the utter absurdity of the posi-
ton. If revision of the tariff on the lines
proposed by the Democratic party is good
it is good for the whole country, and be-
cause it is based upon sound polltico-
economic proposition that knows no local
lines, and is not circumscribed by the
selfish interest of any person or class.
Upon such proposition the Democracy
went before the people, and Mr.. Geary
was in the heat and dust of the battle, and
pledged to the scheme if the people in
dorsed him, which on the faith they had
in his protestations they did, as did the
Nation for his party. Now we have this
Representative playing the demagogue
and declaring in effect that his pledges
and pleadings were buncombe, and in
tended for other than the local atmos-
phere.
So we have Mr.. Geary combining with
the Wine Dealers Association, at their
request, to beat down one of the reform
provisions of the identical policy he was
elected to conserve. The grspe-growers