Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-07-07


in the tariff, unless they can thereby
purchase the support of additional
special interests by yet closer bonds?
Are there no conditions" demand
ing changes in any of the schedules of
the present tariff law, when dozens of
highly protected steel and iron prod
ucts, including rails, locomotives,
barbed wire and agricultural nipple
ments of American make are being
| sold daily in competition with the So
| called pauper labor of the world. in
the home of this same paupeT labor?
And when they are sold. after freight
has been paid and profit obtained, at
! less price than the same goods are
sold to Americans in American mar
kets five miles from the factory?
Record of Four Years.
The platform then goes on to say
that these alterations cannot be safe
ly committed to any other hands than
the republican party" What has been
the matter with the hands of the re-
publican party for the last four years?
Who believes for a minute that the par
ty which has refused every tariff al
iteration thus far proposed intends to
|
or any sort of demand" or any pub
lie interest in connection with the
question?
OF course. this platform had to con-
tain the usual historical untruths-tO-
wit: That "a democratic tariff has
! always been followed by business adj
versity-a republican tariff by bust
ness prosperity.
There is cunningly concealed in the
| republican platform the hydra head Of
a yet worse form of special legislation.
namely, special legislation by direct
| subsidy. taking money out of the treas
ury and handing il over bodily to a
| special class-in this case the class
of shipbuiiders and shipowners.
| Things have almost reached the old
dccadent days of the Roman republic
! when government consisted chiefly in
| distributing bread and giving circuses.
The worst of all this is that it is
sought to be justified. like protection
| ism, upon the pretext that it is done
for the benefit of american labor"
It would be far more justiGable TO
pass a law to give to every sailor and
to every man and woman in the
| day an increase of 80 per cent than
it would be by protectionism or ship
subsidy to pretend to have that end
| in view.
The republican platform. to sum it
| all up, obeys the preCept to stand
pat" in every respect except one.
That is the plank in which this Ian
guage is used: 1--WE favor such con-
Gressional action as shall determine
whether by special discrimination the
elective franchise in any state has
been uncOn stitutionally limited" fol-
lowed by the promise made, in that
event, to reduce the southern repreSen-
| tation in the house of representatives
and in the electoral college.
Whether or not the suffrage has
been unconstitutiOnally limited is a
matter for the courts to determine.
| The real object of the republican par
| ty. however, specious the phraseology
in which it is clothed, is to reduce
southern representation, without re-
| IucinS that of Massachusetts and 9th
er republican states
Disfrauchisement of negro in Mis-
| sissippi for ignorance is Il horrible
thing: Acknowledgement of n white
| man for ignorance in massachusetts
or Connecticut is a part of New Eng
| lang higher civilization
| Means Race War.
Let not the business interest of the
country deceive itself: let those con-
| trolling it prepare, if Roosevelt is
elected on this platform, for another
| period of uncertainty, unrest business
disturbances. and race war-in ther
| southern states. -s...- 49,
Let the south not deceive itself
| either. If the republican party were
| sincere in its proposition TO reduce
southern representation on the ground
of the disfranchisement of the negro
race in the south. thereby condoninS
the disfranchisement of pretended
unconstitutional limitation" itself, it
would accompany that proposition
with another. to-wit: the proposition
20 repeal the fifteenth amendment.
Commercially and industrially the
white men of the south will not be
much more injured by this sort of
agitation than northern people will
| be
| This is bat the entering wedge to n
new period Of southern reconstruc-
| ton" 1t is the beginning over of
the old scheme. revived for political
advantage. TO retain, as a republican
asset. the solid negro vote in Indiana,
| Illinois. New Jersey and like condi-
| tional states.
| Enough about the other party.
Something about ourselves-one the
/ country can rely on.
| The democracy will nominate for
president n man who will not usuTp
| legislative or judicial functions; who
| will not recklessly violate information
q usages. who Will not keep people
| guessing about what he is going to
| do or say next.
II will nominate him upon n plat
! form ignoring dead issues and dealing
with every present live Issue in tones
! uncertain and unmistakable: favor