The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-07-17

lion. AS an apostle of sound money |
or sound finance of any kind, his record,
down to his latest exploit in borrowing
money to cover the treasury deficit,
does not command admiration or in
inspire confidence. The peril of the
adoption of the policy of free and unlim-
tied coinage of silver has been mag
nified and exploited for the purpose of
distracting attention from the tariff
issue. The platform declarations of
the two great parties in 1892 meant
substantially the same thing, the coin
age and use of silver as money by in
ternational agreement - international
bi.metalism, but the democratic party
in congress had voted overwhelmingly
for free and unlimited coinage of silver.
Undoubtedly the two parties will take,
in 1896, substantially the same ground
as to silver. The silver craze, such as
it has been, will have passed it's culmi-
mating point. There will be left only
the smoudering embers of burned
out issue.
The tariff and revenue adequate,
not to create national deficit of fifty
million dollars annually, but to meet
the requirements of the government
administered under an enlightened pol
icy, such as the national progress and
development demand, will be the DOM
mating and the inevitable issue. Such
an issue cannot injuriously affect trade
and manufactures. There is nothing
in the revival of business, such as it is
or may become, that can displace this
issue from the place of leadership.
Should business increase, the ranks of
industry fill up and wages advance with
longer strides than they have been pro.
crossing since a democratic congress adj
journed and the threatened peril of fur
Their tariff reductions was happily passed,
they would still be, in 1896, far behind
the point reached in 1892 under the be-
nefcent laws and policy of republican
administration.
The democratic tariff of 1894 was a
protective tariff in some of its impor-
tant features. The republican protec-
tive principle remained in tin spots
and these spots so inAamed the anger of
the head of the democratic party that he
wrathfully characterized the measure as
the embodiment of "party peridy and
dishonor," and denied it his signature.
The democratic leader of the house, in
accepting his mutilated and dismem-
bered offspring, vehemently declared
that the battle for demo cratic tariff re-
form would go on. They had only car
ried the outworks, but in the next as
sault they would capture the citadel.
Business was to start with mighty
impulse forward, according to the pre-
dictions of President Cleveland, when
the Sherman silver-purchase act should
be repealed, but the movement of trade
and industry was steadily backward, not
forward. Then the signal for relight-
ing the fires in the silent mills was to be
the enactment of the tariff-reform meas
ure. The reform" was enacted, but still
the wheels did not go round. Congress
and president were yet democratic, and
Wilson's menace was on record. Over
industry, trade and commerce still
brooded these paralyzing facts. The
November elections changed the aspect
of affairs. The democratic congress at
length expired. The life of republi.
can congress began. Democracy's OPP
pOrtunities for mischief were in check,
and industry, with very black eye and
an arm in sling, began to emerge from
its solitudes. Now every mugwump and
every democratic editor and politician is
hailing the advent of every swallow that
is skimming the industrial air as the
harbinger of spring and the vindicator
of tariff measure that a democratic
president dishonored and denounced
with ferceness and opprobrium that
is the despair of every republican mas.
ter of invective.
The reconstruction of the tariff
upon republican principles, the restora.
ton of the unity and purpose of the
republican system, its re-establishment
with special reference to furnishing the
government an ample revenue and re.
storing just regard to every industry
in every section of the country, will be
the first great task of the republican
party in power again. And so the
tariff, with these objects of primal i'm.
portance in view, must inevitably be
the leading issue in the canvass of 1896