The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-08

patter'' explain why Americans
should be made to pay one-third more
| for American steel rails than the
citizens of other nations pay for them
He may answer as did Representa-
tive Olmstead, of Pennsylvania, that
the railroad companies 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 every
body with idea above q HottehIol'
knows that everybody that travels on
railroads. that everybody that SHIPS
anything on them, that everybody
that uses anything SO shipped nelps
pay for the steel rails. The rallroau
companies foots the bills in the llrst
instance and then make their Gus
toners repay them with intert at the
highest rate the traffic will bear
OF a piece with the foregoing raise
pretenses is that other one that says
we would destroy American IN j.
dustries. There is not a syllable OF
truth in it. why should tney ueSI.e
to destroy industries? They are vi
tallv interested in maintaining and
they would like to see them all pros
ner bv giving them al Ian equal chance
and not by fostering some at the ex-
pense of the others.
The true Democratic position on
tha tariff is this: Recognizing the
fact that a large portion of our rev.
enue has always been raised from
customs duties or taxes, Democrats
divide all imports into three classes
-necessaries, comforts and luxuries,
and contend that the tariff taxes
should be highest on luxuries, lower
on comforts 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 party's posi-
ton, when it will not be driven or
coaxed or bullied. No amount of mis-
representation 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 that we are
right and on them we confidently re-
ly in our appeal to the American peo-
pie in November.
Our Merchant Marine.
When Napoleon signed the title to
this vast country west of the Missis-
sppi he turned to the American Com
mlSSlOnerS ana SalQ.
Nov l have given England a
maritime rival" and so he had until
Unsuitable greed and criminal mall
administration banished the starry
banner of the Republic from the high
seas and abdicated the domain
Of the ocean. In 1890 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 sadly
this has changed after 35 years of
Republican misrule. Last year of ALL
the merchantmen that went through
the SueZ Canal, not a single vessel
great or small, except battleships, bore
the American flag at its masthead and
our flag is seen in foreign waters only
when flying over man of war.
Worse than this,-more humiliating
than thiS-a few years ago when Con-
greSs appropriated a large sum of
money to buy corn and wheat and
meat to send the ADMINISTRATOR
West Indies, we could not send it in
an American ship for the all sufficient
reason that there was none to send it
in, but to our great humiliation had
to hire a foreign ship in which TO
send over charity to our starving fell
loWmen
When an American goes abroad he
must sail under a foreign flag, on q
foreign ship, under a foreign officer
Why have things come to this
shameful. this pitiful, complexion in
a country that has the finest material
for ships and sailors in the world
Because our eXorbtant tariff system
has made it impossible for an Ameri
can to build a ship in competition
with the British shipbuilders on the
River Clyde.
Yet the Republican gang has the
infinite gall to pirate about it's patriot
ism.
Our boys are rushing off to face
death in search of gold in the Klon
dyke region, when the oceans of the
world contain million klondykeS, if
the Republican party would only per-
nit them to work the watery main
StPaWS.
Republicans claim in public to be
the great and only trust-busters, not
withstanding the fact that under Re-