Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-10-02
The Iowa Idea.
New York Tribune.

The Iowa idea has been defined
afresh. It's inventor and expounder.
the Hon. A. b. Cummins. is seeking
reelection this year as governor oe
Iowa He opened his canvass last Sat
turday at Des Moines in speech re-
viewing and restating dogma which
has been the bone of much sensational
and bewildering political contention.
The Tribune has never held that the
Iowa idea, as originally formulated.
ran foul OF any accepted and estab-
lished republican doctrine. Even as 1t
appeared in the Iowa platforms of 1901
and 1902, 1t merely echoed in sub
stance the declarations of the repub-
lican national platform of 1892. In ur-
ging revision OF tariff rates to meet
the changing conditions. industrial and
commercial, of succeeding decades, it
suggested no departure from sound re-
publican principles. We could not
and did not--sustain the protest made
last summer against it's teachings by
the Hon. David b. Henderson, or agree
with him that ii spelled surrender to
free trade sophistries.
This year Senator William b. Allison
wrote thg tariff. reciprocity and anti
trust resolutions embodied in the Iowa
platform. But Governor Cumnlins sub
scribed to them and the republican
state convention approved them by a
unanimous vote. Now, in his first cam
paign speech. the governor gives a new
and final reading of the idea with
which he has come so largely to be
identified No one, he tells his Des
~ J.o /, 80,
advocate than he of the protection
theory. Protection, he asserts, is "as
sound theoretically as it is efficient
practically" And adds: Tariff laws
founded upon the policy of protecting
home markets, are not only of the
highest efficiency, but of the strictest
national morality, and have little pa
thence with the theorist who bases his
objection to such laws upon the prop
osition that they contravene natural
right
Personally, Governor Cummins ex-
plains, he still believes that there are
duties in the Dingley tariff which
ought to be reduced to fit new con-
ditions in manufacture and commerce.
But he no longer holds that the task
of scaling the Dingley rates is an inn
mediate and peremptory one. He does
NOT expect amendatory tariff legisla
ton from the incoming congress. Nor
does he advise an effort to change the
schedules now. No beneficial revision.
he thinks, can be hoped for amid the
partisan heats and bitternesses of a
presidential contest
Revision can await it's seasonal BILE
opportunity; and While ii waits the
governor of Iowa sincerely deprecates
dissension among tariff advocates ovsr
minor differences of Judgment. He
appeals both to revisionists and 10
stand patters" 10 show solid front
! against the enemy. As he says:
we may differ. we do differ, re-
! speeding the details OF application, but
when the policy itself is threatened, It
! becomes every man who approves II.
whether he be republican or demo-
| crat, whether he is for revision o.,
| against revision, to lift his voice in its
defense and cast his vote for it's safe
| ty
Such is the latest and fullest disclos-
ure of the Iowa idea. Who will say
/ now that it bristIes with heresies or
that 1t truclSles to free trade senti-
ment? II there Is any treason In 1t
to protective principles, the enemies Of
| the protective system are certainly
welcome to make the most OF IT.