Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1892 — Harrison as an Importer. [ARTICLE]

Harrison as an Importer.

A dispatch giving an account of a recent reception and luncheon at the White House contained the following statement: “The new service of cut glass was used for the first time, and it was the intention to use the ‘new china also,’ but the formalities of the custom house could not be complied with in time to make this possible.” Hew is this? Doe 6 President Harrison import china, made by the pauper labor of Europe, for use in the White House? The alluaion to custom-house formalities forbids any other conclusion. And yet this is the same Mr. Harrison who in his late message remarks that, “in view of the somewhat overcrowded condition of the labor market, every patriotic citizen should rejoice” at the result of the McKinley policy, which has given employment to labor by excluding foreign products. It is the same Mr. Harrison who, in the course of his journeyings last spring, repeatedly described the "ideal condition” as one in which the farmer would swap his corn and potatoes over the tailboard of Ids wagon for manufactures (china included, of course) made by his near neighbor in the same county. Such is the difference between Harrison in theory and Harrison in practice. In theory his heart overflows with sympathy for the American workman standing all the cheerless day in the overcrowded labor market. In practice he buys his china abroad and leaves tbe American to stand unemployed. As the official head of the party of "homeindustry”and“idealcondition,” Mr. Harrison should be more consistent. In his next and last annual message he will have an opportunity to explain why he does not conform his practice to his theory. In the. meantime the “pror tected" workman in the overcrowded labor market may think that American china is good enough for a patriotic protectionist in the White House. At the same time Mr. Harrison may improve the opportunity to state whether It was he or the foreign manufacturer who, in complying with the formalities of the custom house, paid the til) per cent, tax on that china; or, if the china was paid for out of the contingent fund, whether it was the foreigner that paid the tax to the Government, or the Government that paid the tax to itself, as provided by the McKinley act.—Chicago Herald.