The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-06-12
Stop tho Nonsense.

Since the Dingley bill has been under
discussion In the Senate. Democratic Sena.
tors have been voting for protection in.
n and undisguised. Democrats have
themselves proposed new protective duties,
the most striking being the duty Of 20 per
cent. upon cotton, recommended by the
Hon. AUGUSTUS o. BACON Of Georgia. Yet
this proposition was less sensational than
the vote upon 1t. In aSenate in which there
arc thirty-two Democrats. the vote in oppo.
sition to the cotton duty was only 10. the
number favoring It being ~.
To those who have watched the course
Of the Democrats since Congress assembled
In December, 1898, to perform the tariff
promise OF 1892, the recent proceedings in
the Senate have been about as natural as
sunrise. Some other people, principally the
old CLEVELAND Cuckoo crowd, have made
them the occasion or the opportunity for
surprise and Indignation. They denounce
or they mourn as q new ~decadence this
abandonment of the once Democratic princi-
pie that the tariff must be for revenue only.
For example, the Commercial Appeal Of
Memphis says that the Democrats are
changing front -; that " the poison seems
w hoNO hhiSStSu " Soou iiui - "
once stanch, and caused them to desert
the old standard and change front on
. dominant Democratic principle" The
Baltimore Sun, the most unquenchable
Cuckoo Of all, thinks it sees among the
Democrats in the Senate "the open specta-
lie Of q radical division Upon the question
sf a tariff as to principles which the party
has always heretofore deemed vital and
fundamental" In the Senate itself Mr..
CAFFERY Of Louisiana and Mr.. MILLS of
Texas are flashing their colleagues as trait
ors to q first principle of Democracy.
This state Of mind is humbug. What
ever the abstract conviction Of the com
planning parties may be, the indignation
now visited upon certain Democrats who
are acting with the majority in the Senate
is pure hypocrisy. The protests Of the al
legged revenue-only men are just four years
too late for them to be entitled to respect.
The evidence that this is true is as simple
and as clear as the Democratic tariff plank of
1892. 1t consists in the fact that, from the
day when the tariff bill of that year was laid
before the House of Representatives By GRo-
YER CLEVELAND and WILLIAM L. WILSON,
framed upon no economic principle whatso-
oNcIs oiiu, icooo VI H. oh tuc pTiuCipic' . VIC
Democratic platform, capricious, and. on the
authority of Mr.. Wilson's own mouth, for
protection. down to the day when the bill
left the hands of Congress to be signed by the
President, not q single newspaper of this
Cuckoo crowd and not a single member of
Congress, either of those still in or of those
that have been left out, ever said a word of
protest that the bill was not for revenue
only, or ever offered a bill honestly for that
purpose in its place. The revenue-only
principle was abandoned then by every news
paper now using it as a bludgeon for the
Democrats who don't stand by it, and by
every Democrat now spreading it over the
record Of the Senate debates. The rumpus
raised by its present champions is a cover
for their betrayal of it four years ago, like
the "peridy and dishonor" phrase which
President CLEVELAND flourished before
Congress as a cover for his own.
A revision of the tariff which shall abolish
the deficit in the Federal revenue and
end commercial uncertainty is much too i'm
portant for more time to be wasted now with
essays upon a theory long ago discarded,
and with pharisaic r~eviling of Democrats
who know hat a tariff for revenue only is
not their party's principle and who are sin,
cere enough to say 30.
Humbug is the most tiresome thing in
the world. Tariff for only talk in
1897 is a useless and awful bore.