The evening times., 1898-11-30
WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 30, 1855.
The Omen Door"

Many worthy people in the United
States appear to be worrying them
selves needIessiy over a question which
is populaTly referred To as the open
door" They are melted to this anguish
Of mind principally by the antics of cer-
tain Administration and trust hired or
gans none of which are exactly clear
as to what they mean, or fear OF want
in the connection.
BY the term open door as applied 10
commerce in the Far East is meant that
the nation SEEING Chinese or ether ports
which heretofore have been open=d 10
the trade Of civilized countries by
treaties with the former barbarous SOW
ereigns Of the same. agrees to keep them
in the Ike condition. With such range
ments the United States has no concern.
our acquisition cf the Philippine archi-
pclago-including the Sulu Islands
rests upon grounds totally different to
those assumed by England and Ger
many when they occupied open treaty
ports previously owned by China. The
basis of our occupation Of the Philip
pines is conquest and war indemnity.
But even that consideration is but a
splitting Of stTaws compared with the
main issue Of our imperial departure
from the pTovincialism Of past days
and our accession to the position of one
Of the worlds great maritime and colo
NAL powers.
Il may be a burning issue with GER
tain protected American trusts and
monopoIies, whether or not We shall ad-
minister our island possessions of Porto
Rico, Hawaii, Luzon and MindanaO SO
that future sugar crops may not come
into the United States proper without
paying protective" tribute TO the Have
meyer combination. or other interests Of
a like character. 1t may cause loss of
sleep to other beneficiaries of the Ding
ley tariff system to think there is dam
ger that trade between American Porto
Rico and our States on the mainland
may possibly escape paying them unde-
served and unearned revenue; and the
extent and method of that eXaction
doubtless are matters Of intense interest
be only temporary.
Our reason for saying this is an eX.
uelIent one. There is really no need FOR
an open door through the old and un-
civilized Chinese tariff system Of the
United States. Dewey at Manila and
Schley, Miles and Wheeler at Santiago
have battered down its walls TO that eX.
:ent that doors and windows are quite
superfiuous. The winds and tides OF
free commerce will sweep through the
rotten old structure without the slight.
est reference to such apertures as Ding.
ley might be willing to open a crack. oil
the trusts permit for a valuable consid.
Grafton.
The policy of expansion is good, an
cient, basic Democratic faith and doc.
triIe. For one reason, because IL is
Complementary TO and involves the
,other Democratic doctrine of free trade
Ne Of the chief incentives The Time.
has had in its crusade to drive the Ad-
ministration into the policy of annexine
Spanish colonies has been the certainty
that thereby the system of protection
for favored interests, at the expense oi
American labor and American consum.
ers generally, would be effectually de,
stroyed. Every intelligent Democratic
leader has seen this from the start. L
has been too obvious to be hidden from
anyone in the party save a small minor.
ity of demagogic provincial politicians
whose only operation in the economy Of
national politics has been and is tc
serve the Republican organization by
acting as virulent germs and spreading
the bourbonic plague in the ranks of th'
peoples army they infest and poison.
II is not The Times, nor yet the intel
ligence of the National Democracy
which alone has realized the doom o
trust and monopoly protection in colo