The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1910-09-22
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- A CRITICISM OF ,>
e THE TARIFF LAW. -
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Mr.. Harding said at Kenton.

|
Mr. Harding said at Kenton.
MY party does not claim to have
made a perfect tariff law"
| True, no one, not even Democracy
claims that. That is not the issue
on the tariff. That Is evasion Of the
issue. The issue is what the @. O. p.
agrees in its platform 10 do and
whether II carries out its platform
| declarations as to the revision of the
| tariff Did II agree 20 revise upward
| or downward or on n level? Did II
| revise upward or downward or on
| level? 1t was the understanding
OF the people that it was agreed that
1t was to be revised downward. And
everybody who knows or believes
anything about IT, that 1t was re.
vision upward. Mr.. Taft claims that
1t Is the best tariff law that has ever
been enacted. Mr.. Harding thinks
that IL is not perfect and still 1t is
Republican product that that party
has been tinkering with for half a
century and If il wasn't so dumb, IL
would have been to IL, at least. per-
feet. Don't you think we would bet
ter give II over into the hands of an
other party, so 1t can be made per-
feet? It's friends admit they can't
make 1t perfect, now let it's so called
enemies "have a whack at it." They
will stralghten it out.
but we do claim" continued Mr..
Harding, that Republican protection
enactments have blest the nation
BY giving special privileges to few
tradesmen and manufacturers and
equality to none? In no other way,
for this has been the effect upon the
people. Did 1t pay the great war
debt? You say II did. Is Il not true,
II 1t did, the consumer paid 1t and
he paid the bondholder, also. SO the
bondholder did not pay any of the
war debt, but got rich out of the debt;
that the consumer not only paid the
debt but the tariff besides? 1t would
have been more just and equitable
to have let all the people paid the
war debt, directly, the rich as well
as the poor, according to the value
of their holdings, rather than through
an unjust tariff that takes more in
proportion out Of the poor, than out
OF the rich consumer. Democratic
revision has caused a blight has It?
When did the Democrats revise the
tariff, Mr.. Harding? When did we
have n blight? When Democracy
was in power in the government?
Democracy was never In power In
the government not even in the PALM
lest days of Grover Cleveland. Then
there was no power in Democracy.
no more than there Is now in Repub-
licanism. No more power in any ad-
ministration, either Republican or
Democratic for blessing or blighting,
since the tariff from civil war times
to the present. The power was not
in the Republican or Democratic
party, as a party, but the power that
blighted the masses and blessed the
classes. came from these made
wealthy by the special privilege tariff
from the leading special privilege
members of the Republican and Dem
ocratlc parties protected by the
tariff, favored the tariff and blessed
themselves and blighted the people.
II is a fact that a greater number
of Republicans have favored the
tariff than Democrats, hence the pros
perity of the classes has been greater
through Republican administrations
than Democratic. And the blighting
influences have occurred to the mass
es when We have had Democratic ad-
ministration, because the wealthy
power of the Republican tariff classes
aided by the Democratic C?) tariff
classes prevailing against true Dem
ccratic administration, opposed to the
unjust principle of the tariff,
This combination of the Republi-
can and so called Democratic tariff