The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-06

4 OONeNAAACa
convention? The platform then goes
on to say that these alterations can
not be safely committed to any other
hands than the Republican party"
what has been the matter with the
hands of the Republican party since
1897, or for the past four years? Even
If 1T were admitted that tariff changes
ought to be made by the friends of the
iniquitous Determinations and extor-
lions of the present law, rather than by
the friends of the general interests and
| commonwealth (Which is the same
thing as admitting that the changes
ought to be made by the Republican
partly why has not that party already
made any of them? 1t has been in full
power in the senate, overwhelmingly
in power in the house, and unanimous
~ and strenuously in power in the
White House. Who is there that does
not know that this verbiage was in
serted into the Republican platform
with the view of enabling the Iowa
idea men and the wisconsin idea
men to go back home and say they
have gotten something" and thereby
save their faces" as the Chinese say.
Who believes for a minute that the
party which has refused every tariff
alteration thus far proposed intends 10
recognize any sort of conditions or
any sort of demand" or any sort of
public interest" in connection with the
question? Who does not know that the
only way public interest can make any
demand for any alteration effective is
by putting the Democratic party ia
power.
OF course this platform had to con-
tain the usual historical untruth, to-
wit, that "A Democratic tariff has al
ways been followed by business ad-
versity, Republican tariff by bust
ness prosperity" Designing and
ignorant men have repeated that so
often that am afraid there really are
a good many people who believe it.
and yet it is bad history again. The
great panic of 1873, if it was caused
by any tariff law at all, was neces-
sarily caused by the then existing
tariff law, which is the first one ever
passed by the Republican party. 1t
was passed as war measure. Speak
er Cannon. in his address to the Re-
publican convention. said that when
the Republican party came into pow
er 1t REQUIRED to the tariff policy OF
George Washington" This is a short
sentence and in it there are only two
mistakes, one of which consists in
the innuendo that George Washington
was high tariff man. The tariff in
vogue in Washington's day would be
denounced as rampant free trade"
today. The second mistake consists in
the assertion that the Republican
party had REQUIRED" to that policy.
The platform upon which it went into
power in 1851. contained not one hint
of an intention to raise the tariff du-
ties: Even the Wings had become
perfectly satisfied with the Walker
tariff of 1916 and the amendments to
it passed in 1857, and the Republicans
as we'll as the Wings recognized that
the country heretofore had unprece-
denied prosperity under that law,
which was a Democratic tariff law,
being tariff for revenue only. AS
eminent a Republican historian as
James G. Blaine has recorded this
historical fact in black and white.
Democratic Tariffs.
From 1901 down to the outbreak of
the Civil war the country was nine
tenths of the time under Democratic
ascendancy, with Democratic tariff
legislation and nine-tenths of that
time our people were prosperous be-
yond all precedent, as compared with
other people upon the surface of the
earth contemporaneous with them or
publican platform calls "a Democratic
tariff law based on free trade prtn-
ciples,'' referring to the tariff of 1894
the so-called Wilson German bill
was the farthest removed from free
trade of any tariff law that has ever
existed in this country, except the one
which bore the name of Mckinley and
the one which afterward bore the
a tariff law which followed adversely
instead of preceding it. Beside all
that, statistics show that our imports
were not increased under that act
hence its operation did not hurt us
by inducing undue foreign competi- |
ton.
Mr.. Williams read an editorial from |
the New York Times of June %, enti- |
tied "a question of fact" giving sta
tistics to disprove the Republican plat
forms statement that Democratic
tariff has always been followed by
business adversely, Republican tariff
by business prosperity.
Mr.. Williams continued:
Remember that the author of the |
platform is or pretenGs TO
be historian. This is true, no matter |
- ~. Tod toe h0
guilty of it, the president or Senator |
Lodge. The voice was undoubtedly the |
voice of the Massachusetts Jacob, but |
the hand may have been the hand of /
knew the facts. We are called upon /
in the Republican platform, mot to
falter," in our allegiance to protection
ism when the only only free trade
trade country in the world is agitating
a return to protection This has refer
ence to Characterization in Great Brit
ain. The author forgot to say that
what is really being agitated in Great
Britain is retaliation against protec-
ZIONIST countries, by proposed system
Of legislation to contain as little protec-
-ionism as is possible. He also neglect
I'd to state, that the movement has sig
aally failed, and that it would have not
had a leg to stand on, but for the en-
nifty created in the minds of many
British subjects by our trade legisla-
ion. He also neglected to say that
he supreme evil of protectionism is the
excitation of this spirit of enmity and
war. Perhaps the richest
piece of humor in the Republican plat
orm is where it is said:
I'VE have extended widely our for
,ign market" and in another place:
We conquered new markets and crea-
ed a volume of exports which far sur
pass imag ination.'
That Humorous eve"
The I'VE in each sentence Is the
cornerstone of the humor of it. They
night just as we'll say that man had
right to boast that he had increased
he current of a river by putting a dam
n it because the current had not stop
Jed, but gone on over the dam. The
nan who would attribute the current
o the fact that the dam was in the
liver, to the fact that he had placed