The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1896-10-29

the honest payment of all debts, pub
lie and private. Tt favors the use OF
the largest possible amount of silver
that can be maintained in circulation
at parity with gold, and in fact de-
mands that every American dollar,
whether of gold. silver or paper, shall
be equal in both purchasing ana deot
having power to the standard money
of all the great civilized nations OF the
globe, and it is pledged to use its utmost
endeayors with such nations to bring
about an international agreement for
the free coinage of both gold and silver
at a uniform ratio, which shall insure
their equality as money throughout the
world.
So much for the party differences up
on the money 4u':tl NOW let Us
| look at their relative positions upon the
| important questions of revenue ana the
protection of American industries ami
American labor. Four years ago the
democracy was returned to power upon
platform in which the paramount is
sue was the free trade principle, incor-
porsted in the proposition to limit the
tariff on imports to the actual needs OF
the government, with the aid of the
revenue proposed t. be raised by the
imposition of an income tax. The low
tariff law known as the Wilson Dill
was passed and is now i'll force, and the
income tax law was enac Ell which the
federal supreme court declared to be
unconstitutional. Since the new tariff
law went into effect the revenues o. the
government have been VIGOROUSLY III
adequate for the payment OF govern
ment expenses, and to make good the
deficit 1t has been necessary to add mil
lions upon millions to the national debt
by the issuance of Understanding
bonds, instead of reducing that debt
many millions year as had been done
for years under Republican administra-
tons. And while this increase of debt
has been going on wages have been
greatly decreased in almost every ave-
nue. of labor, and hundreds of thous-
ands of men and women have been
forced into ldleness by the closing of
the mills and workshops in which they
were formerly employed, and which
could not be operated at a profit with
the American market opened to entry
of foreign manufactured products free
or nearly free, Of tariff duty. The
Democratic tariff policy has been an
utter failure, as millions of the Ameri-
can people have cause to know, and
yet the new democracy proposes to let
the evils which have resulted from it
go uncorrected by letting the present
perniciOus law remain in force. The
Republicans, on the contrary, propose
all Immediate return to the tariff policy
which brought abundant revenues to
the government, encouraged and pro-
tected the manufacturing industries of
the country, gave employment and
good wages to labor and furnished a
ready market and good prices for farm
products, These are the greatest Of the
questions now before the people. There
are other issues involved but it is to the
questions of money and the tariff that
the contending parties have given the
chief measure of their attention during
all the great campaign now closing. 1t
now rests with thu voters of the cOun-
try, the great common people" about
whom politicians delight to prattle, to
determine which of these two lines of
economic and financial policy the ma
ton shall adopt, and this they will do
by the ballot, which
GAS lightly falls as falls the snow upon the sod,
But executes the freemans will as lightning
does the will of Cod