Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1896-02-06
MANUFACTURERS AND POLITICS.

MANUFACTURERS AND POLITICS
An Association which Il Noe : creast !.
the Country.
II the newly elected president OF the
American Manufacturers association
is fair representative of the prevail
ing sentiment in the association. the
latter is to be congratulated on his Sc
lection: but the country Is not to b
congratulated on the association. The
country has abundant use for an ASSOC
citation devoted to the encouragement
of manufactures and manufacturing
interests; but it has no use for an or
ganization which holds these purposes
subordinate to the establishments OF
partisan political theories and which
/ proposes to commit the manufacturers
of the country to q protective tariff.
The number of manufacturers who do
not believe in the protective theory or
doctrine is. very large-quitc as large
probably as the number of those who
do believe in that doctrine. Such
an effort as the newly elected president
of the association made in his address to
| commit the association to protection
must inevitably result-if the menu
bers have the courage OF their opinions
| lin splitting the association in twain,
and such result is one upon which the
country will look with q good deal Of
complacency.
There is an unwritten lava law OF
decency-which ought to prevent q
man put in the position of this newly
chosen head of the manufacturers as
ISOLATION from making any such dis
play of himself as Mr.. Search did in
Chicago. Under that unwritten law
politics have no place in such an organ
liza tion; and the man who seeks to in
troduce them or to commit his hearers
or the organization to his own partisan
views on any subject is o transgressor.
If the republican manufacturers Of the
country wish to form an organization
for the booming of protection or any
other article in the party creed they
have an undoubted right to do so. They
have no right to commit or attempt to
commit an organization composed of
democrats as well as republicans, OF
free traders and revenue rcformers as
well as protectionists, to republican
tenets on any subject. It is not only
bad taste, but bad faith to do so; and
the new president of the American as
ISOLATION must be convicted of both.
Il has no necessary bearing upon
the good taste or good faith of the OIL
cial mentioned to say that he is not
even an intelligent exponent of the
principle for which he contended be-
fore the association, and to which he
sought to commit that body; but such
is the. patent fact. When he talked
about securing adequate protection for
American industries by the reenact-
ment of the Mckinley tariff, and in the
same breath of an abundance of rev.
enue being the one thing needful, he
showed himself utterly incapable of
grasping or comprehending the first
of protection or of revenue.
If he had had any capacity in that re-
gard, or if he had ever read the his
tory of the tariff and McKinleyism,
he would have known that the latter
was andsis utterly incompatible with
the adequate revenue" which he pro-
fesses to regard as of prime necessity,
and that its being SO is its chief merit
in the eyes of its intelligent advo-
~ dS III tAC dCCI VI ICN-
enue, not increasing il, that the Nc
kinley tariff was adopted, and, as we
have shown on more than one occasion,
It served admirably the purpose it's
trainers had in view.
If President Search would for a mo-.
nent forego his partisanship and con-
;ider the subject intelligently, he would
zee that this must be SO. He would
ee that just in proportion as tariff
ecomes really protective it ceases to
roduce revenue because it prevents
he importation of the goods from
ihich revenue is to be collected.
1t is not at all to the credit of the
american Manufacturers association
nat it listened without protest to the
artisan harangue of its new president.
would have been far better occu-
led in discussing and adopting the
solutions of sympathy with strug.
ing Cuba--Detroit Free Press.