Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1892 — Effects of Tariff Agitation. [ARTICLE]

Effects of Tariff Agitation.

There is nothing ambiguous or twofaced in the tarlfT plank adopted by the Chicago convention. It says: < "We denounce Bepublican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue only, and demand that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of the Government honestly and economically administered.” In commenting upon the adoption o. this plank and the rejection qf the one reported by the Committee on Platform, in the Noith American Review for September, the Hon. William L. Wilson says: “There is need for little comment upon the paragraphs of the report of the committee which were stricken out in convention. They were no longer aids, but incumbrances in the fight. The

temper and the courage of the party are mightily different in 1892 from what they were in 1884; what was neoessary prudence then would bo cowardice now. The convention responded fully and heartily to the feeling of the party it represented. It showed its confidence in tariff reform as the great and winning issue by Its nomination of Mr. Cleveland in the face of warnings that would have driven It from a man who did not also stand for a cause. It meant that there should be nothing ambiguous about the party’s attitude to that oause, and that the statement of its fundamental principle should not be overlaid with cumulative limitations. And in all this the convention was right. We have passed that stage In the great tariff controversy where it is necessary or proper to cumber party platforms with limitations and promises and protests. After the Mills bill and the special bills passed by the present House, it is superfluous to assure the people that the Democratic party will prooeed carefully and conservatively in reducing the tariff. In dealing with this, as with every other long-standing abuse interwoven with our social or Industrial system. the statesman will always remember that in the beginning temperate reform is safest, having in it the principle of growth. ”