Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1912-12-27
Isaac Lobe Straus Announces Sena.
torial Candidacy For Long Term.

The main points of Mr., Straus' state.
ment are as follow:
81 am candidate for the United States
Senate to succeed Hon. John Walter Smith
and shall enter at once upon an active
canvass among the Democratic voters OF
the whole State for the position.
Il make this fight impersonally and as
the exponent of the cause which deem
as momentous and vital as any political
contest could present That cause is the
cause of true, genuine Democratic princi-
! pies, as they have been understood and
/ proclaimed by the Democratic party from
| the time of Thomas jefferson to this day.
1t is, furthermore, the cause of the Great
progressive movement for political indus
( trial and social reforms which has extended
all over the country, and, notably, in Mary
land during the administration of the late
Governor Crothers, and which is represented
in the nomination and election of Gov.
Woodrow Wilson as President of the United
States.
This contest for sound and true Demo-
cratic principles and for progressive poll
cies and reforms is made inevitable in
Maryland by the avowed candidacy of Sena-
tor Smith to succeed himself upon the rec
ord which he has made in the United
States Senate and in the politics of the
State of Maryland.
Those who may oppose Senator Smiths
reelection do not make this issue. His
recorded votes and utterances in the United
States Senate and his well-known attitude
with respect to progressive and popular
policies in the State of Maryland make the
issue which is to be met
Senator Smiths position, as illustrated
by his votes in the Senate of the United
STATES, on the cardinal and radical princi-
Piles of the Democratic party, is that of
an enemy and opponent of these principles
1t is the attitude of an out-and-out Repub-
lican. His position as q Federal Senator,
as exemplified by the votes he has cast in
that office, and also by his distinct antag-
onsm to all progressive legislation enacted
and passed during the administration of
Governor Crothers. shows him to be, beyond
all question, an absolute and unyielding
reacti0nary.
without alluding now to a number of
his votes in the Senate of comparatively
minor Importance, shall briefly specify
the more important and characteristic
votes and acts of the Senator, which, as
above stated, establish his course as that
of Republican and a reactiOnary in both
Federal and State affairs
ITO this end take up, in the first place.
one of his numerous votes in favor of pro-
lection which happened to be among the
early votes which he cast in the Senate
respecting the tariff. This vote of itself
and the circumstances under which il was
cast tell the story and, therefore, requires
something more than mere passing ref
erence.
THE Democratic party, from its founda-
ton, has been the avowed enemy of the
principle of protection. All of its great
apostles and statesmen, from Jefferson to
Wilson and Bryan, are on record against
the injustice and unwisdom and other evils
of the protective system
THE party has opposed it immemorially
upon the highest considerations on which
condemnation of any policy could be based
1t has declared protection unconstitutional.
1t has declared again and again that ii is
robbery, all the more grave and criminal
| because practiced upon the masses of the
| people. 1t has declared it unjust because
it despoils the many for a favored few.
ut has declared it violation of the
very essence of democratic civil liberty,
which consists in equal rights for all and
special privileges for none. 1t has de-
clared it the prolific and chief source Of
corruption in the government. which has
spread its contamination into private bust
ness
at has denounced it as the parent OF
monopoly and oppression. Stronger and
higher grounds of opposition to legislative
system cannot be conceived.
THE Democratic platform of 1908 de-
] aaI 81 ,rsH araA Nla Nrtn Nj
pie of protection in the strongest terms
upon these grounds. But it did not stop
even there. From hundreds of iniquitous
and outrageous protective schedules. by
which the people were robbed. it picked
out wood pulp, lumber, timber and logs. and
expressly and specifically declared that
those articles should be placed upon the
free list
by the voice of the national Democracy,
uttered through the Denver convention
the tariff on lumber was thus designated
and denounced as the chief offender of all
the infamous schedules which were des-
polling the people, and so insufferable did
the national Democracy conceive the op-
preston and eXtOrtiOn of any tariff tax
at all upon lumber to be that its conven-
ton unanimously promised in the clearest
and most peremptOry terms. that lumber.
timber, logs. wood pulp and print paper
should be put absolutely upon the free list.
in the very face of the Democratic doc
trine and the platform declaration against
protection, as unconstitutional, as robbery
as unjust, as unequal, as cOrrupting mo-
nopolistc and demOralizing, and in the
very teeth of the express denunciati0n Of
any tariff on lumber timber and logs, and
of the specific pledge that those articles
should be wholly free of customs taxation,
Senator Smith in the Senate in April. 1909,
advocated not what the platform Of his
party and its specific, solemn pledge called
for, not that those articles should be free
not even the heavy tax of one dollar, which
the sponsors of the Aldrich-Payne Tariff
bill were asking for, but n tax higher and
beyond that. The Senator took his place
at the side Of another protecti0nist Senator
and united with him in the advocacy of a
twO-dOllar rate. which was the high mark
attained by the extreme lumber schedules
Of the Mckinley and Dingley acts.
"ln this characteristic vote, however,
Senator Smith supported the EXTREMIST
protection. supported the Lumber Trust,
which was fighting the Democratic doc
trne Of free lumber; bolted the platform
Of his party, struck blow at its most vital
| principle. violated the most important
promise ii had made through its supreme
organ to the whole nation. and fastened
an indefensible tax, for the benefit of a
plunderin9 monopoly, upon every man,
woman and child in the Union.
This sort of a performance the Senator
repeated over and over again in favor Of
protection and against the principles Of
the Democratic party upon the tariff. This
is Republicanism, pure and simple 1t is
the ultima thule Of prOtectiOnism, beyond
which even our recently appointed Repub-
lican Senator would not and could not 90.
All these protectionist Republican votes Of
Senator Smith | shall take up in detail
during the canvass.
Senator Smith not only bolted the tariff
plank Of the platform Of the national De-
mocracy not only violated its particular
pledge Of free lumber, but he bolted and
violated another pledge Of high importance.
In this act Of antagonism to his party he
stands as a reactiOnary as well as Re
publican.
A large and prominent part OF the Demo-
cratic platform Of 1908 was devoted to a
III.