The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-08
CHAMP CLARK DELIVERS
 VERY VIGOROUS ADDRESS

l that we must shut up our thinkers, close our mouths and chloroform our conscien- | ces in order to be considered patriots? | It avails nothing to clatm-as some do-- | that Colonel Roosevelt is better than his party. It Is to be hoped most fervently that he is great deal better, but truth to tell a president cannot be better than his party. Eveneif he tries to be he Is ruined politically. Johnston, Hayes, Ar thur and the younger Harrison all tried | that experiment and all of them were | refused second terms either in convention or at the polls So it will be with Colonel Roosevelt. His particular friends may deem him better than his party, He may think so himself but nevertheless the party will drag him down to it's level. No man ever found himself in worse political company than does President Roosevelt in this year of grace. He is in the hands of the republican philistines, and they will bind him with their withes. l In every state in the union 1t Is a , felony to get property of any sort-or to attempt to getsit by false pretenses.
 Could Be Sent to Penltentlary.
 If the game rule applied to the getting of office 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 false-a lie made out of whole cloth. There are individual democrats who are free traders just as there are individual republicans who are atheists, but 1t would be precisely as true and fair to denounce the republican party as the party of athe- ism as to denominate the democratic party as the party Of free trace.
 It never was free trade party and Is rot now. The man who charges that it Is does so because of his ignorance or of his mendacity.
 Democrats favor the cutting down of exorbitant tariff rates to a reasonable basis. They believe that in many sched- u1es of the present law the rates are too high; those that are too high we are in favor of cutting down.
 "We favor any modification of the tariff schedules that may be required to pre- vent them becoming a shelter for mo- nopoly."
 I wonder if MT. Secretary Shaw ever heard those words before? They are taken verbatim from the Iowa republican plat form of 1901. The secretary whooped 1t up at great rate for governor A. B. Cummins and others nominated on that platform. He scornfully denounces 1t now as the "dead Iowa idea," but 1t was
  democrats and Is not dead-not even dy- | ing.
 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 they ought to be reduced.
 Is 1t treason? If so, make the most or it. Let republican spellbinders and edi- tors explain why an American farmer should pay from a third to one-half more for an American blow than his competi- tor in farming pays for It In Australia or South America, or the ends of the earth. Democrats say 1t Is wrong and they stand by the American farmer. Re- ptiblicans say it is right and they stand by the Australian and South American farmers.
 Choose ye between us in November. Not quite all republican statesmen believe 1t right. Once in a while d ray of light breaks in upon the benighted intellect of a republican. For example. year or two ago Hon. J. w BabcocS, of Wis consin, chairman of the republican con- gressional committee. had lucid inter- val 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 are enabled the manufacturer to sell his wares cheaper abroad than at home. He went further ana lDtfO1uCeu Dli1S 10 that effect. but the republican leaders got hold of Babcock and by coaxing. bully or other means checked his ardor as a tariff re- former. since when he has been as dumb as an oyster.
 Citing Babcocks Performance.
 I am citing Babcock's performance in this moment of lucidity to show that to Advocate the cutting down of outrageous tariff rates in the foregoing cases does not prove that a man is the enemy of his country as the sandpatters would have you believe.
 The stand pat organs and speakers claim that only antiquated sorts of our manufactured articles are sold abroad cheaper than to Americans at home. That theory is very ingenious, but unfortunate ly it is not true. for steel rails are sold abroad at eight dollars per ton less than they are sold at home and the fashions in steel rails remain the same or sub stantially so.
 Will ne. or some stand batter 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 MT. Represen- tative Olmstead of Pennsylvania. that railway companies pay for the steel rails and that ig the business of nobody else