The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-07-28

the TaScalS out anu ID heep NnSlAA uUlB and it has the merit of sincerity. Moreover the betrayals of trust in the last seven years have been insignificant in number when compared with the ex- tent of the public service. Never has the administration of the government been on a cleaner and higher level: never has the public work of the nation been done more honestly and efficiently.
 Assuredly it is unwise to change the policies which have worked so well and which are now working so well. Pros perity has come at home. The national honor and interest have been upheld abroad. We have placed the finances of the nation upon a sound gold basis. We have done this with the aid of many who were formerly our opponents, but who would neither openly support nor silently acquiesce in the heresy of unsound finance; and we have done it against the convinced and violent oppo- sition of the mass of our present oppo- nents who still refuse to recant the un- sound opinions which for the moment they think it inexpedient to assert. We know what we mean when we speak of an honest and stable currency. We mean the same thing from year to year. We do not have to avoid a defi- nite and conclusive commital on the most important issue which has recent ly been before the people. and which may at any time in the near future be before them again. Upon the princi- pies which underlie this issue the con victions of half of our number do not clash with those of the other half So long as the republican party is in pow CT the gold standard is settled, not as a matter of temporary political expedi- ency, not because of shifting conditions in the production of gold in certain mining centers, but in accordance with what we regard as the fundamental principles of national morality and wis dom.
 Under the financial legislation which we have enacted there is now ample circulation for every business need; and every dollar of this circulation is worth a dollar in gold. We have reduced the interest bearing debt and in still larger measure the interest on that debt. All of the war taxes imposed during the Spanish war have been removed with a view to relieve the people and to pre- vent the accumulation of an unnecessa- ry surplus The result is that hardly ever before have the expenditures and income Of the government so closely corresponded. In the fiscal year that has just closed the excess of income over the ordinary expenditures was l 1,,iy take account of the fifty millions ex- pended out of the accumulated surplus for the purchase of the Isthmian canal. It is an extraordinary proof of the sound financial condition of the nation that instead of following the usual course in such matters and throwing ! the burden upon posterity by an issue lof bonds, we were able to make the payment outright and yet after it to have in the treasury a surplus of one hundred and sixty-one millions. More over, we were able to pay this fifty mill lions of dollars out of hand without causing the slightest disturbance to business conditions.
 We have enacted tariff law under which during the past few years the country has attained a height of mate Trial Well-being never before reached. | Wages are higher than ever before, That whenever the need arises there should be a readjustment of the tariff schedules is undoubted;; but such changes can with safety be made only by those whose devotion to the princi- pie of protective tariff is beyond ques- l tion; for otherwise the changes would amount not to readjustment, but to re- peal. The readjustment when made must maintain and not destroy the pro- ltectiye principle. To the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, this is vi I tai; but perhaps no other man is so much interested as the wage-worker in the maintenance of our present econom- ic system, both as regards the finances and the tariff. The standard of living of our wage workers is higher than that of any other country and it can not so remain unless we have a protec- tive tariff which shall always keep as a minimum a rate of duty sufficient to cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad Those who, like our opponents, "denounce protection as l a robbery" thereby explicitly commit themselves to the proposition that If l they were to revise the tariff no heed would be paid to the necessity of meet ing this difference between the stand, ards of living for wage-workers here and in other countries: and therefore on this point their antagonism to our position is Fundamental. Here again we ask that their promises and ours be judged by what has been done in the immediate past. We ask that sober and sensible men compare the workings of the present tariff law, and the condi- tions which obtain under it, with the workings of the preceding tariff law of 1893 and the conditions which that tariff ot 1893 helped to bring about.
 We believe in reciprocity with foreign nations on the terms outlined in Presi- dent McKinley's last speech, which urged the extension of our foreign markets by reciprocal agreements whenever they could be made without l injury to American industry and labor. It is a singular fact; that the only great reciprocity treaty recently adopted that with Cuba-wsls finally opposed al- most alone by the representatives of the very party which now states that it fa- I vers reciprocity. And here again we ask that the worth of our words be