The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-23
FRIEND OF TlDEN
ALSO A FRIEND or MAaTrNS vAx
 huREN AND AHRAEAla IrNCOnN.. {
urKes In Fnsriotic Letter thr k:i~ctt,u # of Ntiifan JsnnfnKs Bfymh.- The Two Great Iasues
 viyidly Set Forth. ~

| Bpren and Abraham Lincoln. and ur. der the latter's administration served as American Minister to France. had accepted the Invitation to preside at
 the great Bryan meeting In. New York
 put his physician, in view of MT. Big.
 elow's advanced age 192 years) for,
 Ssasa esde. .anas instead Instead he sent to Natione Snairmau Norman E. Mack a lettel
 which was reaa to the meeting by Mayor Oeorge B. Mcclellan. Mir. Big. eiowywas anSIntffnate friend Of samue J. Tilden. and wrote the iatter,s hi. ography. Following is his letter:s | The Squirrels. Highland Falls on Hudson. N. Y, October IS. 'oS. My age Is sufficient. excuse fors de.
 clining your invitation to preside ali the Democratic meeting proposed tc De. held at Carnegie Hall during the | iast week in October. I cannot urge
 that, however, as an excuse for de. clining your invitation to send a naes- sage in writing for the assembly that wlll-be gathered on that occasion. II there is any who still cares for3 my opinion about impending political .is-
 sues. here 1t Is: '3a,ss. s..ys-,. - s-z.lr
 In my, opinion there are two Issues to be tried at the approaching Prest- dential election which In my mind take precedence of ali others. ft
 The first is the paramount import ance of organizing the Democratic Party so that 1t shall become as effect i've an opposition party as 1t was un- der Tilden. The second is to secure the speediest possible deliverance of our country from demoralizing tariff ups on imports. '*
 No man has been born. who ever be- came fit to be treated with absolute power. Neither can any party or body of men be trusted long If at all. with The Republican Party has now been practically the controlling political party in this country for fifty years less one. need not say how much It has abused that power because with. the absence of an opposition party it. was impossible not to abuse 1t: and there are. few If any Republicans not beneficiaries of its patronage. who will pretend that they would not have been much better satisfied with it's achieve merts had. 1t always enjoyed the ad- vantage of such adverse criticism as could have been expected from a we'll organized opposition party.
 The most disastrous fruit of the pro- Ionged power of the Republican dy-. nasty unquestionably is it's deliberate and persistent war. upon our foreign commerce; it's constant increase of tar If restrictions upon imports.
 Foreign commerce has dwtndled un- til our exports exceed our Imports by many millions. and they largely con- sist of money or merchandise shipped to pay the interest onso our foreign. deht ,t ...ssel,.s.,..- :.
 Why is this? We have the largest continuousr ceast-IIne of any nation in the world, with the most abundant supply in the world of iron, coal, cop- per, zinc, wood-articles which con- stitute the principal and most costly clements of shfp-building and have thus been designated by Providence as the natural mistress of the seas. yet. If any one of our ninety millions of DaonIe wishes. to visit any of the other. continents of the world or to ship a uackaRe of merchandise. he must hire a foreign ship-owner to be his com. mon carrier. We. build no. vessels Tor international commerce., while we are spending millions upon millions upon our navy under. the pretext Of protects ing our commerce. while we practi-' caiIy have no commerce Of our. own4to nrotect. We seem to have copied our maritime policy from the frog that. according to the proverb. without shirt cIamored for drawers, or. as the Germans say, "Du willst andern Kat zen fangen und kannst afr selbst keine maus fangen."
 There was never a time in our his. tory when our prospect of a commer" ciai and marine adapted to our re- sources was so bad as 1t is today. Why is this. It was not always thus. So recently as 1861. and before we began systematically to plunder the people. of our country under the pretext4 of protecting them but actually to enrich a privileged class, we owned about one-third of the entire tonnage of the world. As, early as 1856 the total value of our imports and exports car ried in American. vessels exceeded. S4sO:000;000 while the amount carried in foreign vessels was less than ESQ., 0Oo,000.
 The tariff alone. can explain the. shameful, fact thatvwe have not at this very time a larger commercial marine than any other nation in the world.
 Two candidates for the Presidency have received the nominations of the Democratic, and Republican parties, re- spectively, one or the other of which is likely to be chosen have never enjoyed the acquaintance Qs either. MT. Taft. the candidate whom President Roosevelt has imposed upon the Re- publican Party, Is personally, am told, a very worthy and engaging per- son. He is aFgraduate a of Yale Col- lege. whatever, that may be worth, he has been. a judge of a high court of tudicature in Ohio, whatever that may be worth, he has been the nomtnais though only. the nominal. chief of. the War Department at Washington for the last four years. and as such charg@s ed with the direction of the work on the Panama Canal, where he has spent some fifty millions more than his own engineers estimated for the total cost of the canal. and has left the work in a condition which threatens to cost nearly twice as much again to com. plete. f., expressing the opinion that he would probably never have been thought of as a candidate for the Presidency but for his equipment with some qualities which were never the outht of any distinguished statesman. He can hard Iv he, said to have beer nominated by, the people of the UI.ited Sta.es. or even by the Republican party. He is be- sides one of @ class of benighted pub lie men who believe that our prosper ity as q nation has been due to nothing SO much as, eff not entirely) to our tariff on imports. He proposes If cleo ted to call an extra session of Con- gress and ask for the appointment of a committee to revise 1t. assuming as he says he does that some duties are too high and others aIe not high enough. He naturally thinks that the revision should be conducted by the made by he Republican 7htry since Its
 made y bthe Republican party since its one, no one Is. either fearful or hope full on any substantial re )uction; while those who know how Republican tar ifs haVeabeen made and revised will