Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1888 — REDUCE THE TAXES. [ARTICLE]

REDUCE THE TAXES.

Editor Watterson Enthusiastically Indorses the President’s Message, And Deals Some Sledge - Hammer Blows at the Fainted Harlot of Protection. Four hundred and fifty members of the Tariff Refoim Club of New York attended a dinner given by the club in that city a few days ago. After the banquet Anson Phelps Stokes gave the toast- “The President of the United States.” “President Cleveland needs no eulogy among reformers,” said President Stokes. “I regret that official duties prevent his presence here tonight.”' After tremendous cheering the patriotic sentiment was washed down in the best, the banqueters standing. YV. C. P. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, spoke effectively on the “Best Tariff Reform." Several other speakers followed, but the event of the evening was the speech of Henry Watterson, who responded to the toast of “The Star-Eyed Goddess.” Mr. Watterson, on rising in his place of honor near the presiding officer’s chair was greeted with an ovation second only to that which greeted the first mention of the President’s name. Mr. Watterson said: I rise with diffidence and trepidation. Somehow the impression has been conveyed to me tnat I am expected to stir your enthusiasm by a great array of statistical information, and to amuse you with a facetious and llorid burst of figures, not of speech, but of schedules and classifications. In those lines of the rhetoric art, believe me, lam powerless. My mission is to deal with matters of fact, and to tackle truth. “The platform and the outlook.” The platform is the message—the President’s message. The outlook is most encouraging. Considering how the painted harlot of protection is whistling to keep her courage up as she stalks across the graveyard of false vows and broken promises sue has made, mainly to the work-people, I should call it assured. For more than a year my fear has been that we might not be able in advance of our national convention to close ranks and move in solid column against the enemy on distinct lines of our own deliberate choosing, and as I believe that nothing clears the political atmosphere like plain speaking out in meeting, I have given the administration and the country the best the shop has afforded in the way of disagreeable persistency and the sincerest candor. It was obvious to my mind that unless we could agree in Congress we should not agree in convention. The tariff plank in the last National Democratic platform was not intended to be a straddle, because, although the platiorm committee had been adroitly packed in the interest of protection, the revenue-reformers were still strong enough to hold their ground and to carry all their points. But it was made to seem a straddle. Hence nothing short of a declaration which might not bear two constructions would satisfy the demand of reform in the next national platform, and any one could see that this could not be obtained without a fight, and possibly a split. Just in tne nick of time the President came to the resene, with the wisdom of an impetuous courage and the craft of a common sense deriving its strength from its integrity. This brave and honest mau—this puzzle to the politicians and contradiction of all experience—with a single stroke of his pen did what might for years have baffled the efforts of the greatest statesmen and philosophers. By that act he has reversed the situation from one of cowardly indecision to one of enthusiasm and confidence. He has forced the enemy back behind his earthworks, and warned strugglers to come into camp. Upon the lines of that message I would rather be beaten than win upon those of a lying substitute. But we shall not be beaten. The Presidents words are presages of victory. They remove all obstruction from our march of progress and reform. They lead us out of the bushes and into the highway. An honest Democrat may now hold up his head, look the world in the face, and call his soul his own without a furtive side glance at the Republicans. ******

The period of agitation has passed. Thanks to the President, we have the ear of the nation. The period ot affirmation and construction is upon us, and its vocal organs are not those of exclamation, but of practical business. When we seek to arrest the attention of a friend across the street we the voice; when we have him face to face we proceed in a lower tone to tell him why we stopped him and what we want. So it is with the movement for revenue reform. Its friends have for years sought by agitation to direct the interest of thinking men to the evils of the tax system, full of inequality and false pretension. They have succeeded, and now they are prepared to apply definite measures and methods of reform to the disorder. But these are nowise precipitate or extreme. They contemplate no revolution. They propose at one and the same time to reduce both taxation and revenue, and to effect this on the lines laid down so admirably by the President in his message. And how are we met in this patriotic purpose by the protectionists? With every manner of misrepresentation and jeer. All along the Republican line the word has gone forth that we are a band of incendiaries, bent updn blowing up the custom-houses and burning down the factories, and generally destroying the business of the country. This is as if, having awakened your neighbor to tell him his house is on fire, he should denounce you for a burglar, and call the police. Every day we are assured that the President does not know his own mind; that the message means nothing at all; that it was thrown out merely as a “feeler,” and that there is something back of it which will presently appear and surprise everybody. In snort, all the devices of ingenious perversion are put forth to confuse our counsels and mislead voters, aud I wish I could say that these devices are employed only by professed enemiep. Unfortunately there are those who, masquerading as Democrats, make it the business of their lives to play into the hands of the enemy. They are protectionists first, Democrats afterward. In the end, when the process of the redistribution and readjustment of party forces now going forward is completed, they will find a final and fitting abode where they properly belong, in the castles of those robber barons whose men-at-arms are at this moment out in every direction collecting, through the tariff, tribute of the people. Then, indeed, shall we know who is who and what is what, and the star-eyed goddess of reform shall carry in the circlet of truth which graces her fair young brow no false jewels to dim its luster. Meanwhile, my friends, we have nothing to fear in the immediate future. That is full of most genial, most gratifying assurances. The party of reform in Congress will be found to unite upon a irneasure of reform in harmony with the President's message. Wait a little aud you shall see how they carry themselves upon the floor of the House, under the leadership of Carlisle and Mills, and of my brilliant and eloquent friend, the latest successor of Henry Clay, who, if he were now living, would scorn to break the promise he repeatedly made to the people that protection should not outlast the maturity of “infants” now 50 to 10J years of age. With our host at Washington, it shall be as it was with the Irish at Eontenoy: Stea iy they march adown the slope, Steady they mount the hill; Steady they load, steady they fire, Moving right onward still. And onward, and onward, until all the mudworks of fraud aro carried, and every job is Cred out of its lurking-place, and that abomination of all abominations, the high protective tariff, limited by the Constitution exclusively to public purposes and proclaimed by its authors a temporary war expedient, is reduced to a revenue basis and the needs of honest government economically administered. Befogging the Question. For “free trade” in high protectionist publications read “tariff reform” or “tax reduction,” and observe how induriously they are engaged in knocking down a man of straw of their own construction. They recognize the futility of arguing against tariff reform and throw themselves heavily against free trade.— New Haven News.