The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1909-07-09
AS AN AUTHORITY
ON THE TARIFF


Josephus Daniels, editor of the Ra-
leigh On. c. News and Observer,
prints in his paper this editorial:
Two of the ablest amen in Amer
lea are Colonel Henry Watterson Of
Kentucky, and Senator Bailey of Tex
as. Mr.. Bailey is easily the first con-
stitutional lawyer in the senate, and
Mr. Watterson is easily the foremost
American editor.
Upon a question of constitutional
law, Mr.. Bailey's opinion would be en-
titled to first place but upon the ques-
ton of the democratic principle of
the tariff, since the retirement of Jno.
G. Carlisle and William R. Morrison,
no man IS to be regarded as being so
capable of stating the true democrat
ic principle upon the tariff as Colonel
Watterson. He wrote the platform
upon which Mr.. Tilden was elected to
the presidency and if he did not
write the platform on which Mr..
Cleveland was elected in 1892, he in
spired it and was instrumental il Sc
curing its adoption, when Mr.. Whit
ney and others of Mr.. Cleveland's
friends were trying to get 'straddle"
plank in the 1892 platform.
A few days ago after Senator Bailey
had voted in the senate against free
lumber and free iron ore and cast 9TH
er votes that pleased Mr.. Aldrich and
the other high priests of protection,
Colonel Watterson wrote the follow
ing brief paragraph il his paper:
Senator Bailey, demanding that
the magnates of the steel trust be put
in Jail, votes to put them in palaces
by voting for a tariff on iron ore and
against the old democratic doctrine
of free raw materials"
The next day Mr. Bailey, in the
senate, quoted the above statement by
Mr.. Watterson, and said:
THE old democratic doctrine of
free raw materials! How old? Old
enough, thank God, to have persisted
before this day; and yet not so old as
that it ever received the endorsement
of the democratic fathers. 1t was in
a season of madness and folly pro-
claimed as a democratic doctrine; but
it has long since been rejected as a
democratic heresy."
And to this reply Colonel Waiter
sons CoUrier-Journal answers as fol-
lows:
1T is old enough to have been for
mally enunciated by the democrats in
the days when they made the tariff
a dominant issue, when they made
tariff for revenue only cardinal par
~ doctrine and when they won vic
tories on their platforms thus pro-
claimed. Just when il was rejected
as a democratic heresy,' Senator Bal
ley did not enlighten us, and nobody
else seems to know, or seems even to
have heard that it was ever rejected.
No one. on this occasion, appeared
sufficiently interested in Mr.. Bailey's
revelations to ask his authority for
declaring that the doctrine of free
raw materials has long since been re-
jected as a democratic heresy,' but
when a week later he required to the
subject, Mr.. Aldrich was curious
enough to inquire of him: Since when
has the doctrine of free raw materials
ceased to be a democratic doctrine?'
To which Mr.. Bailey is quoted by the
Associated Press as replying; "Since
men like l have come into power in
the democratic party
This, we presume, is adequately il
luminative The authority that has
pronounced the doctrine democratic
heresy, and rejected as such is Sena-
tor Bailey himself-nos the democrat
ic party in representative convention
assembled, but merely the democratic
party as it exists in Senator Bailey,
and men like L. And when Mr.. AL
drich reminded him that every other
conspicuous democratic leader except
Senator Bailey had advocated the
doctrine, the Texan did not so much
as hint of the identity of the men like
L. who with him had overruled dem
ocratic conventions and democratic
platforms, though in the same speech
he reiterated the announcement that
he repudiated so recent a democratic
platform as that declared at Denver
last year And, by the way, the Cou-
rier-Journal fears it is so obtuse as to
fail to understand the mental pro-
cesses by which the senator takes it
to himself as a virtue to reject plat
forms of the democratic party, while
discrediting the Courier-JOurnal for
having rejected candidates of the
democratic party, as he would dis
credit it when he says that these
things would be more persuasive TO