The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-08-26
Queries Regarding Change in
the Tariff Propounded.
Can a Revision Upward Be Un-
dertaken With Safety? :
Should Present Rate on Lum-
Der Be Maintained?

Luverne, Mimi, Aug. l9.-Herbert j.
Miller, republican candidate for congress
against James T. McCleary, has issued
the following open letter to his op-
ponent. 1t is in reply to the at
tack made by Mr.. McCleary on Mr.. Mil
ler's platform:
To the Hon. James T. McCleary,
Washington, d. c. Dear Sir: I have
read in The Minneapolis Journal of Aug.
10, your reply to my announcement as a
republican candidate for member of
congress in this district
The personalities in your reply pass
without comment. In addition to these,
however, you therein impugn my repub-
licanism and charge me with giving aid
and comfort to opponents of adequate
protection to American industries. By
implication, necessarily, you include in
the same category an attempt to read
out of the party all republicans who be-
lieve as 1 do and all republican news
papers that advocate needed revision of
the tariff. This is too important mat
ter to leave unchallenged. For twenty
five years, in this district, beginning at
a time ante-dating your residence in the
state and covering the ten years preced-
ing your election to congress when your
political views were not publicly known,
1 have given unfaltering allegiance and
continuous support to the republican
party, and 1 submit that my party 10y
atty will not be questioned by any re-
publican citizen or any republican news
paper in the state to whom l am known.
The stated ground for this charge in
your reply is that the statements in my
announcement are evidently not in har-
mony with the national platform" The
true ground for your attack, however, is
that these statements do not agree with
the extreme ultra protection stand you
have taken. l re-affirm that I stand
squarely upon the platform and that
there is not one word of disloyalty to
it in my announcement. For support of
these statements 1 call attention to a
comparison of my announcement with
the following principles declared in the
tariff plank of our national platform:
Protection, which guards and develops
our Industries, is cardinal policy of the
republican party. The measure of pro.
lection should always at least equal the
difference in the cost of production at
home and abroad. We insist upon the
maintenance of the principles of protec-
ton and therefore rates of duty should
be readjusted only when conditions have
so changed that the public interest de-
mands their alteration. To a
republican congress and a republican
president this great question can be safe
ly intrusted."
You must have overlooked the import
ant fact that the platform fixes what
the measure of protection should be sat
least" but does not define what it should
be cat most" The great question of
what it should be "at most is neces-
sarily, and the equally important ques-
ton of the readjustment of rates of
duty is expressly, entrusted by the plat
form to a republican congress and re-
publican president, and thus primarily
to the electors who choose congressman
and the president. All other questions
as to the tariff are foreclosed by posi-
tive declarations On these two questions
in the tariff plank of the platform only
can there be disagreement among advo-
Gates of protection. When therefore the
platform has expressly left these mat
tiers open for discussion and determine
ton by the people, can it be political
heresy for a republican to express his
views upon them? Do expressions of hon.
est opinion on such questions justify one
republican in charging another with be-
ing political outcast? Moreover, is it
not the duty of candidate for congress
to state his views expressly on these
matters which congress must finally de-
termine, and the platform contempates
that it shall determine?
With reference to the first of these
questions l made this statement in my
announcement:
First / stand squarely upon the plat
form adopted by the last republican ma
tional convention.
Second. l believe in the Roosevelt