The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1908-06-12
NON a slick nronositon as 10 the need

reYisiOnist, has no small task to force
concessions in the least worth while
from the powerful high tariff wing of
the party. At the very best, he is not
likely to obtain plank that will make
the oldest living stand-patter choke
with indignation over the betrayal of
his most sacred principles. Here, then,
will arise a Democratic opportunity.
In the limelight at present is the at
torney general of Ohio, Wade H. Ellis,
who is advertised as the man who is
writing the rough draft of the plat
form to be adopted at Chicago. Mr..
Ellis was credited with the authorship
of the tariff plank adopted by the
Ohio state Republican convention in
the spring, which may form the basis
of the declaration soon to be offered
to the country. AS tarff revisionist,
Mr. Ellis has had experience in both
the Democratic and Republican par
ties, for he was a delegate to the Dem
ocratic convention of 1892, which nom
mated Mr.. Cleveland for president
on the most radical tariff platform
struck off in many years. 1t will be
singular, even in politics. if the framer
of the Republican declaration of 1908
should be person who had supported
Mr. Cleveland in 1892 on a platform
which made the land reverberate with
the denuncation of Republican pro-
lection" as "a fraud, robbery of the
great majority of the American peo-
pie for the benefit of the few" The
stand-patters may be trusted to watch
Wade Ellis. Mr. Taft's reputed plat
forI9 writer, with sleepless vigilance
in order that the abominable heresies
of the Cleveland platform of 1892 may
not be subtly injected into the Repub-
lican creed. AS for the Democrats,
who are to meet in Denver two weeks
later, they need not necessarily go
back to the declaration of 1892, which
denounced the comparatively modest
and shrinking schedules of those days
as fraud and robbery and proclaimed
that the only constitutional tariff was
one for revenue only; they will have
10 difficulty in framing an indictment
on the basis of the later experience
with soaring schedules which the Re
publican convention could not possi-
bly, match, and which would place the
party in power on the defensive from
the beginning of the campaign.
,v, +u,, ,F
to the Democrats on the tariff issue
which were not so inviting in 1892 as
they are today, and these concern the
creation and encouragement of mono
polistic combinations and the too
rapid exploitation of the countTy's
natural resources. If the people are
now alarmed over the destruction of
their forests, the wasteful consump-
ton of minerals and the general prod
igality with which the national inher
itance has been developed during the
past generation, let them be instructed
as to the tremendous stimulus, largely
artificial, which the high tariff has
given to that spendthrift and waste
fWI era. And whatever may be the di-
rect delatiOn between the tariff and
the trusts, there can be no doubt that
the tariff, if not their mother, has
acted as their wet nurse.
That a Taft administration could
force a reduction of the tariff which
would be anything but a mockery
seems exceedingly doubtful, in view
of the fact that the stand-patters
would largely control the ways and
means committee of the house and the
through such stalwart high tariff vet
Grams as Speaker Cannon and Senator
Aldrich. Knowing the difficulties
which would inevitably attend the
work of obtaining genuine tariff re-
ductiOn from a Republican congress,
President Roosevelt has left the ques-
ton entirely alone, and Mr. Tafts
prospects in attempting to do what
Mr.. Roosevelt dared not undertake
cannot be described as being very
opportunity to force a contrast be-
tween the parties and the candidates
in the campaign, and the work will be
far less dangerous politically owing to
the recent panic and business depres-
sion, than before since Mr.. Cleve-
lands last administration. In 1896,
| 1900 and 1904, to press the tariff issue
meant facing the charge that tariff re-
vision under Democratic auspices in
yOlved business disaster, but no Re-
publican can now taunt a Democrat
with responsibility for the panic Of
1893 without being confronted with
the fact that the worst panic in the
country's history came when the high
est tariff in our history was in opera
tiOn.
If he chose, Mr.. Bryan could make a
very aggressive campaign with the
tariff as one of his leading issues. In
1904 Judge Parker turned to it in des-
peration in the closing weeks of his
canvass, but the staggering prosperity
Of the country made his efforts futile.
Conditions are different in 1908. 1t is
year in which a Democrat can use
the issue not without advantage, and
Mr.. Bryan's personal record at this
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