The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-31

prospered under it and is prospering, it is better to endure some slight incon- veniences and inequalities, for a time, than to incur the uncertainty and dis turbance of business which necessarily results from the process of making changes.
 The second thing is that if the con- sideration of all the questions thus re- opened is at the hands of a party in power which is avowedly hostile to the principle of protection, the uncertainty incident to the discussion will be ac- complished by loss of confidence and fear of the results. Mills will be closed and workmen thrown out of employ ment. If this were to happen, the con- traction of manufacture would leave the farmers without market for their product, and the whole fabric of our business prosperity would come tunb- ling down. That is why, when the tar if is to be revised, it should be revised by it's friends.
 Now, what do the democrats propose? They avow their unrelenting hostility to the principle of protection and ask that the people of the country put in their hands the revision of the tariff in order that they may revise the protection out of 1t and >reDear the experiment of MT. Clevelands second administration, which, according to Mr. Gompers, president of the American Fedora tion of Labor put three million American workmen to walking the streets without work and without bread for their families. The specific ground upon which the demo- crats now say they should be permitted to revise the tariff Is that the tariff sprotects the trusts. Observe that they do not pro- pose to confine themselves to cutting off the duties upon the articles made by the trusts, but their remedy is to destroy the trusts by dragging them down in the general ruin. The census of 1900 showed that less than 15 per cent. of the manufactured pro- duct of the country was made by trusts. If the duties which protect trust made arti- cles are unreasonablly high then they ought to be reduced as to all the producers with out any reference to the question whether they are made by the trusts or not, and if the duties are reduced as to any of the producers they must be as to all. You> do not hurt the trusts by such reduction unless you make the reduction so great that It will become unproftable to manufacture the articles In this country. If that is done you can kill the trusts, you can close their mills; you can turn their laborers out of employment, but you close the mills also of all other producers of similar articles and you substitute for domestic production 
 articles. As the production of foreign articles is In very great measure con trolled by trusts, you substitute foreign trust for an American trust. As you pass along the line, gradually destroying industry ofter industry, you will speedily attain the blessings of free trade ill exchange for the injuries of domestic production. We ought first to give American competition chance to see whether with wise laws and effec- tive administration, preventing oppression uDfalr American competition will not ultimately take care of itself and take care of the trust question at the same time. The latest and greatest combination, the United States Steel Corporation, was supposed to be an overwhelming monoply, but the statistics of the American Iron and Steel association for last August show that alreadg in the year 19O1 independent companies produced over 57 per cent. of the iron ore of the country, over 57 per cent. of the total pig iron, over 40 per cent. of the bessemer steel rails, over 37 per cent. of the stT7lc- tural iron, over 49 per cent. of all rolled products. Are you going to. ruin all such independent industries for the purpose of punishing the trusts?
 The second proposal of the democratic party is contained In the plank of the New York platform adopted while the anthra- cite coal strike was at its height, and now famous as the "coal plank.
 We advocate the national ownership and operation of the anthracite coal mines by the exercise of the right of eminent do- main.' It is serious thing that great party should put such declaration in its platform. The least of the offerses in- volved In the declaration is that 1t is un- constitutional. 1 say that 1t is the least of the 0ffenses because a man has right to argue an unconstitutional position to the people who make constitutions and ask them to change the constitution, but he ought to be frank about it and say that he wants the constitution changed. The demo- cratic leader MT. Hill, shrinks from that because the demand for q change of the constitution of the United States, to make the proposition of the coal plank possible. would reveal the greater fault that 1t seeks to break down absolutely the line of de- marcation between federal and state au- thortty and vest in the national government all those powers over the ordinary affairs of life which our carefully devised con StitutfOnal system has vested in the states If the principal embodied In this proposi- tion were adopted the American system of local Self-government would be at all end and the states would become but countries and geographical divisions of great cen tralized power. For if the national govern ment has power to enter the state of Pennsylvania and take the anthracite coal Held into its possession and ownership and mine. the coal to supply the wants of the bltuminous coal fields of Ohio and Illinois 1t can take the grain fields of the west to furnish food and the cotton fields of the south to furnish clothing; it can take the railroads and ships that transport the neces- sary supplies, and the mills and furnaces which it the raw material for use.
 The proposition involves not merely the destruction of our political system, but of our social system as well. Why the asser- tion of the pawer negatives the right of states to local self-government, it's exercise would be rank and extreme socialism. Under it paternal government controlling the business of the country would take the place of the individual enterprise, freedom of contract, and open competition which have made America great and prosperous.
 The worst thing about 1t is that it is not honest. It negatives the basic principles of the democratic party. That the govern ment which governs least governs best that the federal authority shall be strictly con fined within the limits of express consti- tutional authority; that the sovereign local control of the states shall be maintained inviolable, were the fundamental principle of Jefferson's political religion, and have