Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1888 — Protection Insanity. [ARTICLE]

Protection Insanity.

The “tariff lino” is the line up to which combinations of speculators may raise prices without fear of competition with their corner, The Chicago platform promises to so raise this line as to absolutely prevent competition, by absolutely preventing imports, thus diverting the import tax now paid the Government to the combination of speculators, who operate under the great Government “corner” and establish corners of their own, In its operations on the individual citizen, the embargo theory would deprive him of his right to buy, except from the class selected as his merchants by the Government, and would prevent him from using other goods than goods of that class. It would not leave the priee a matter of barguin, but would establish it by the operation of law, giving the regulation of priee to one class andforcing all other classy to jt. This is the sumptuary principle operating through a tariff levied for purposes of embargo, Except in Russia and China, no civilized country has ever adopted or seriously considered such a theory of finance as a peace measure. The embargo has always been held as an odidus measure among free peoples, and free peoples have resisted it not less strongly than they have all attempts of government to deprive them of the right of bargain, and to fix prices for them to pay. The twin heresies of the Chicago platform are abominable when considered separately. Together they challenge the determined opposition of all who have not yielded to the insanity of a theory— St, Louis Republic.