The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-16
WHERE THE SHOE PINcHEs

WHERE THE SHOE PlNCHES
 Some Republican apologists have com- plained that the Democratic spokesmen have harped too much on the scandals in the Republican party, and try to make out as plea that an attack upon those scandals is somehow neither appropriate nor of basic importance. Such apologists fail to perceive that the record of the Republican administration can no more be detached from the party than mans shadow can be taken away from him while he stands in the full sunlight. Even if, in spirit of uncalled-for gen. srosity, the Democrats should tacitly re- frain from mentioning the party record, it would still stand there a silent warning against confidence in the Republican party as at present led. This rule the people properly apply to Iany political party seeking continuance in popular favor: By their fruits ye shall know them.
 Either the Republicans have honored their stewardship of the nations affairs by a record of acts we'll done; or they have failed their stewardship by a record barren of good and besmirched with un- worthy acts. In either case it is the record at which the people must look. Do the Republicans, therefore, fear to stand on their record, or do they desire that their pledges of future conduct only be considered and that their record shall be forgiven? It is apparent that they would pass lightly over the scandals, refusing to admit that they are scandals confined to the Republican administration and that no such development has been >evi- denced with respect to the Democratic record, even though scores of Republican committees for more than three years have searched hopefully for proof of Democratic corruption. They did not find it because it was not in the record.
 Tn the Republican record, however, the corruption lay so near the surface that the most agonized effort was unable to keep it under cover. That such effort to protect the guilty public servants and to keep their evil deeds hidden was made by Republicans is also in the record. If the corruption in the beginning was in- dividual, in the end it attached to the entire party leadership when those lead CTS made themselves privy to the evil deeds by attempts to hide them. Had it not been for the courageous and per sistent determination of certain Demo- cratic members of investigating commit tees to discover the facts, the Republicans would have compromised the betrayals of high public trust and would have sought to come before the people without purg- ing high administrative offices of those who have been guilty of the worst possible administrative crimes.
 The Republicans emphasize their new platform pledges as sufficient earnest of their sincerity. The Democrats point to- the Republican neglect of their old plat form pledges, and tell the people con- vincingly that there is no more confi- dence to be put in the irresponsible au- thors of such pledges. The tariff is a case in point. Both parties believe in tariff. While the Democrats believe in a tariff scientifically adjusted to our national needs, the Republicans have shown that their conception is of a tariff for plunder only. There may in some cases be defense of tariff that is truly protective where protection is needed, and certainly for revenue a tariff is sound policy. But the Republican schedules are so high and so ill-adjusted that the result is a tax upon the Ameri- can people greater than combined mu- nicipal, state and federal taxes, tax that goes not into public coffers, but into the private pockets of predatory in- terests. It may be inaccurate to say that these high schedules are ill-adjusted- they are most ingeniously adjusted to produce the very result against which there is 50 wide and just protest.
 High tariff is but one of the means whereby the party of privilege has sought and contrived to extend privilege to the favored bulwarks of invisible govern ment. Cabinet officers have sold na- tional reserves for personal gain; cab inet officers have trafficked in the very powers of justice itself for private gain; i; cabinet officers have been purblind while the very sinews of government have been withdrawn from their grasp and control; high appointive officials charged with the most sacred trust of promoting the welfare of our disabled veterans have squandered their hun dreds of millions while the veterans per ished. And to top it all, complaisant president sought to halt the forces of reform and to charge them with political