Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-07-08

refused second terms either In oar ".e
ton or at the polls. So It will he w,
! Col. Roosevelt. His particular fr,ans.
may qeem him better than his mart.
| he may think so himself; but nevertha
less the party will drag him down =,
us level. No man ever found himseIf
IN worse political company than doc.
| PRESIDENT Roosevelt in this wear ~
| grace. He is in the hands of the Pc
publican Ph!listines and they will hind
him with their withes.
IN every state in the union, it is fol-.
ony to get property Of any sort. or to
attempt to get it. by false pretenses.
| II the same rule applied to the GET
ing OF offices or to attempts to get
them. the whole Republican party
could be sent to the penitentiary.
| One of their false pretenses, the one
on which they harp the most this year
is that the Democratic party is in
favor of free trade. The charge is utter
| ly false-a lie made of whole cloth.
| There are individual Democrats who
are free traders just as there are in
dividual Republicans who are atheists.
but it would be precisely as true and
fair to denounce the Republican party
as the party of atheism as to denomi-
nate the Democratic party as the par
| ty of free trade.
1t never was a free trade party and
Is not now. The man who charges that
it is does so because of his ignorance
or because of his mendacity
| Democrats favor the cutting down of
! exorbitant tariff rates to a reasonable
basis. They believe that in many sched-
ules of the present law the rates are
too high: those that are too high we
are in favor of cutting down.
I'VE favor any modification of the
tariff schedule that may be required
| to prevent them becoming 4 shelter
for monopoly"
| I wonder if Mr.. Secretary Shaw ever
heard those words before? They arc
taken verbatim from the Iowa Repub-
lican platform of 1901. The secretary
A. 3. Cummins and others nominated
on the platform. He scornfully de-
nounces it now as 1.-The dead Iowa
| idea" But it was a righteous declara :
ton borrowed from Democrats and is
not dead-not even dying.
Where tariff rates are so high that
they enable American manufacturers
to sell their wares abroad cheaper than
they do to Americans here at home, we
say that they ought to be reduced. Is
this anarchy or treason? If so make
the most of it.
| Let Republican spellbinders and edi-
tors explain why an American farmer
should pay from a third to one halt
more for an American plow than his
competitor in farming pays for it in
Australia or South America or the ends
of the earth. Democrats say it is wrong
and they stand by the American farm
err. Republicans say it is right and
they stand by the Australian or South
American farmers. Choose we between
us in November!
Not quite all Republican statesmen
believe it right. Once in a while a ray
of light breaks in on the benighted in
tellect Of Republican. For example a
year or two ago, the Hon. ]. w. Bah
cock of Wisconsin, chairman Of the
Republican congressional committee,
had a lucid interval and advocated in
several Interviews the cutting down of
tariff rates when they are so high as
to encourage the formation of trusts
and when they enabled the manu-
facturer to sell his wares cheaper
abroad than at home. He went farther
and introduced bills to that effect but
the Republican leaders got hold of
Bah and by cOaXinS, bullying or
other means checked his ardor as a
tariff reformer. since when he has
been as dumb as an oyster.
am citing Babcock's performance
in his moment of lucidty to show that
to advocate the cutting down of out
rageous tariff rates in the foregoing
cases does not prove that man is
the enemy of his country as the "stand
patters'' would have you believe.
The "stand pat organs and speak
ers claim that only antiquated sorts
of our manufactured articles are sold
abroad cheaper than to Americans at
home. That theory is very ingenious,
but, but unfortunately it is not true;
for steel rails are sold abroad at IS a
ton less than they are sold at home,
and the fashions in steel rails remain
the same or substantially So
| Will he or some other "stand patter"
explain why Americans should be made
to pay one-third more for American
|
nations pay for them? He may answer
as did Mr.. Representative Olmstead of
Pennsylvania. that the railroad COM
panies pay for the steel rails and that
it is the business of nobody else how
much they pay for them; but Olmstead
had more courage than information for
| everybody with two ideas above a
| Hottcntot knows that everybody that
| travels on Il railroad, everybody that
ships anything on one; everybody that
uses anything so 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 interest at the highest rate the
| traffic will bear.
| OF a piece of the foregoing false pre-
| lenses is that other one that Demo-
Gratis would destroy American indus
tries. There is not syllable of truth
in it. Why should they desire to de-
stroy industries? They arc vitality in
terested in maintaining them and they
wish to see them all prosper by giving
to them all an equal chance and no.
by fostering some at the expense of