The semi-weekly messenger., 1904-07-12


cutting down of tariff rates whez
| they are so high as to encourage the
formation Of trusts, and when they
| enabled the manufacturers to sell his
wares cheaper abroad than at home.
He went further and introduced bills
to that effect, but the Republican
leaders got hold of "Bab," and by
coaxing. bullying or other means
checked his ar1or as a tariff reform
er, since when he has been as dumb
as an oyster.
IT am citing Babcock-s performance
in his moment of lucidity to show
that to advocate the cutting down OF
outrageous tariff rates in the forego-
ing cases does not prove that a maaI
Is the enemy of his country, as the
'stand-patters' would have you believe.
The 'stand-pat' organs and speak
ers claim that only anuquated sorts
Of our manufactured articles are sold
abroad cheaper than to Americans at
home. That theory is very ingenius,
but, unfortunately, 1t is not true: for
steel rails are sold abroad at IS a ton
less than they are sold at home. and
the fashions i'm steel rails remain the
same, or substantially so. Will he OF
some other 'stand-patter' explain why
Americans should be made to pay
one-third more for American steel
rails than the citizens of other ma
tions pay for them? He may answer
as did Representative Olmstead, oy
Pennsylvania. that the railroad COM
panies pay for the steel rails, and
that Ii is the business of nobody else
how much they pay for them; but
Olmstead had more courage than in
formation, for everybody with idea
above a Hottentot knows that every
body travels on n railroad, that every
body that ships anything ON them,
that everybody that uses anything 50
shipped helps pay for the steel rails.
The railroad companies foot the bills
in the first instance, and then make
their customers repay them with in
terest-at the highest rate the traffic
will bear.
"Of a piece with the foregoing false
pretenses is that ether one that Dem
ocrats would destroy American indus
tries. There is not syllable of truth
in it. Why should they desire to de-
stroy industries? They are vitality fiI-
terested in maintaining them, and
they would like to see them all pros
per by giving them all an equal chance
and not by fostering some at the ex-
pense of the others.
The true Democratic position OH
the tariff is this: Recognizing the fact
that large portion of our revenue
has always been raised from customs
imports into three claSseS-neces-
saries, comforts and Iuxuries-and
contend that the tariff taxes should be
highest on luxuries. lower on COM
forts, and lowest or none at all on
the necessities. They furthermore
say that taxes should be uniform on
all articles belonging to one class.
That Is the Democratic partys posi-
ton, from which 1t will not be driven
or coaxed Or bullied. No amount of
Misrepresentation will cause them to
bulge from that position. We say
furthermore that not one dollar more
in the shape of tariff taxes, or any
other sort Of taxes, should be taken
from the people than is necessary to
pay the expenses of government,
economically administered. On these
propositions we believe We are righl,
and on them We confidently rely in
our appeal to the American people In
November.
Our Merchant Marine.
When Napoleon signed the title to
this vast country west of the Missis-
sippi, he turned to the american COM
misSionerS and said:
Nov 1 have given England ma
itime rival. and 50 he had until in
Satiable greed and criminal malad-
ministration banished the starry ban
ner of the Republic from the high
seas and abdicated the right domain
of the ocean. In 1860 we had the
second largest merchant marine in
| the world-our sails whitened every
harbor, and our flag floated in every
breeze under the heavens. How Sadlv
| all this has changed after thirty-fivc
years Of Republican misrule. Last
year, of all the merchantmen that
| went through the Suez canal, not a
q
| battleships, bore the American flag at
| its mast head, and our flag is seen in
| foreign waters only when flying over
| a man of war
( Worse than this-more humiliat-
| ing than this-a few years ago, when
Congress appropriated a large sum of
| money to buy corn and wheat and
meat to send to the famine stricken
West Indies, we could not send 1T IL,
an American ship. For an all sut-
icient reason that there was none to
| send it in, but to our great humilia-
ton, had to hire a foreign ship ill
which to send over charity to ou1
starving fellowmen.
| when an American goes abroad he
must sail under a foreign nag, on I,
| foreign ship, under a foreign officer
| Why have things come to this shame
full, this pitiful complexion, in a coun-
try that has the first material for
ships and sailors in the world? Be-
cause our exhorbitant tariff system
has made it impossible for an Amer
| ican to build a ship in competition
with the British shipbuilders on the
river Clyde.
| yet the Republican gang has the
infinite gall to prate about it's patriot
ism. Our boys are rushing off to fac~
death in search of gold in the KIon-
dyke region, when the oceans of the
world contain a million Klondykes, IL
| the Republican party would only per-
NIT them to work the watery main
StFawS.
Republicans claim in public to be
| the great and only trust-busters, not
withstanding the fact that, under Re-
publican misrule, trusts have spruns
up like mushrooms in damp cellar