The daily sentinel., 1912-06-26
Associated Press.

Baltimore, Md, June 26.-In max
ing his keynote speech before the
democratic national convention last
night Judge Alton b. Parker, the
temporary chairman, said in part:
I'VE meet while the hills yet echo
to wild cries of Liarl' Theft and
Traitor and furious walls of
Fraud, Bribery, 'Treachery' and
Corruption; and our ears are weary
with the din of the articulate Shrek
ing and passionate yilification of the
most shameful brawl of our political
history.
Our candidates, however, are,
without exception, men of such lofty
mien that We meet immune from the
distemper which seized the Chicago
convention, and privileged to dis
charge solemn public duty calmly,
deliberately, seriously
''The cause OF government by the
people the world over has been ma
terially checked by the disgraceful
brawl which terminated in the bed
lam OF Chicago. Every good citizen
has been put to shame by the bru-
tality and the abuse which charac-
terized this wrangle between a pres
ident and an ex-president. Graft
tude, friendship, party loyalty. patri-
ottsm and common decency were for
gotten in the tussle.
The assault upon the unwritten
prohibition against a third term,
made in the wild scramble for the
republican nomination, warns us of
the vital necessity of Incorporating
in our constitution safeguard
against repeated terms.
In this great country. which
boasts of a wealth of S13O,OOO, ,OOO,-
goo as against $4,000, 900, 900 for
Great Britain and Ireland, sos, ,OO0,-
100000 for France and S60,00O,-
100000 for Germany, all are con-
scious that too large part of our
wealth has been secured by small
percentage of our population, and
that the cost of living rises faster
than the average income.
The principal cause of all this is
to be found in the tariff statutes and
in the combinations restraining trade
and competition created for the pur-
pose OF wringing from the public ev-
cry dollar which the tariff statutes
make possible.
The average of duties under the
tariff of 1888 was Y per cent. Now
In 1912 the average was 80 per
cent. In 1916 it was reduced to 20
per cent, which worked so well that
a reduction to an average of 20 per
cent followed in 1851
Probably il would never again
have been increased, but for the war;
for the census of 1860 disclosed
higher percentage OF increase of the
national wealth during the preced-
ing ten years than for any other de-
cade before or since, and the per-
centage of increase in capital invest
ed in manufacturing was greater
than during any similar period in
our history.
Protected interests benefited by
two increases during the war-the
first TO an average of 81 Y per cent,
the second to AZ per cent. That high
average then excused only by the eX-
igencies of the war, is exceeded now,
as the average is nearly so per cent.
The republican party thus has
gathered the machinery of govern
ment to enrich the few at the ex-
pense of the many That increase of
80 per cent in the average has taken
thousands of millions from the gem
eral public and devoted it to the Gre
alton of swollen fortunes.
An awakening of the people led
the republican national convention
of 1908 by its platform to promise a
revision. True, it did not, in terms.
promise a revision of the tariff down
ward: but its assurance of revision
of the tariff by special session of
congress, to be called Immediately
after the inauguration of the next
president, was intended to hold the
tariff-reduction republicans in line,
while the trick in the phaseology was
to be made clear to the tariff bene-
| ticiaries.
''ln vain did the people demand of
congress the fulfillment of the re-
publican pledge for the masters of
that party-protected interests-in-
sisted upon the pound of flesh NOM
mated in the bond And it was
yielded. Congress passed and the
president signed the Payne-Aldrich
| bill
| 'One outcome of this breach of