Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1912 — MAKES NO FORCEFUL APPEAL [ARTICLE]

MAKES NO FORCEFUL APPEAL

Republican Platform, Made Up of Sophistries, Will Be Condemned by the Voters. The Republican platform raises but one issue between the Republican party and the Democratic party. It raises another between the followers of Mr. Taft and those of Mr. Roosevelt. The really national issue is, of course, the tariff. On this the Republican platform is timid, qhifty, and indefinite. It declares the party’s continued belief in protection, “based on the American standard of wages;” flings a sop to agriculture and mining by advocating protective duties for their products; It puts forward the long-exploded notion about the need of defense against the cheap-labor products of foreign lands. Then, having committed the party to the underlying fallacies of protection, it admits that some duties are too high, and that they should be reduced in accordance with the conclusions of an expert board. With the committal to the broad principle and the broad sophistries of protection, the Democratic party takes prompt and complete issue. admission that duties are too high, the Democrats take much more definite and practical ground than the bewildered Republicans have dared to take. In substance the declaration of the Republicans is a promise to the favored Interests that the party will do as little as possible to reduce their ill-gotten profits, and will take as long as possible in doing it. The position of the party is one of sullen obstruction modified by fear of popular disapproval. None but hidebound protectionists and the pampered beneficiaries of the oppressive tariff will support the Republican candidate solely because of this part of his platform.

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