The Two Programmes of 1892

EVERY choice of a President by the American people depends upon their opinion or their feeling about four matters. First is the practical behavior of the party in power, with the results which it has brought, or is supposed to have brought, to public and private interests ; next is the practical behavior of the rival party when it was last in power, with a like reference to its effects upon public and private interests; thirdly, the personal merit of each of the candidates for the presidency ; and last, the preponderance of merit of the rival promises which the two parties have formally made to the country. The collection of promises of each party, called by a telling and useful American metaphor the “ platform,” upon which its candidate stands, ought to be a programme of performance on which the country may surely count. If platforms were really such programmes, they would, in weight of influence, be the first, rather than, as in recent American history they have probably been, the last and least consideration with citizens at election time. No doubt other things affect most individual voters, such as the like or dislike of one party or the other for traditional or family or interested reasons, or local prejudices at the voter’s home, or a preference of one party because of its general or historic trend or policy. But these are relatively permanent motives rather than motives belonging particularly to one election ; or they are motives determined by the “personal equation” of the voter rather than by special and current party policy. The operation of these motives is nearly the same through a series of presidential campaigns. Taking the whole of the country together, they help or hurt the two great parties with substantial equality; and in dealing with the politics of 1892, great as are those forces, we may, because of their equilibrium, ignore them, and confine our attention to the four classes of lesser considerations which we have mentioned. We shall do this, not indeed with absolute safety, but with as much safety as we may, in forecasting the November result, ignore the Prohibition and People’s parties. If those small bodies of voters shall, by drawing more largely from one of the great parties, throw victory to the other, it will be because no great popular preponderance belongs to either the Democratic or the Republican party over the other ; or, to express it otherwise, because, so far as concerns any lasting determination of the political policy of the country, the election is to be indecisive.

The American people ought to consider whether, hereafter, they shall not, both before and after the presidential election, deal more rigorously with party platforms. Shall we not make our politics more responsible, shall we not make dangerous to the politicians some of the demagogy and insincerity which are practiced in both parties, if we treat their platforms with serious and persistent criticism ? Will not such a treatment elevate and sober the discussions during national conventions, —not only, or indeed so much, the formal open speeches made for the public, but the multifarious and strenuous discussions carried on, and often decisively closed, during the few days before the convention is organized, in heated and far-off upstairs rooms at the hotels of Chicago or Minneapolis ? Will not each convention be a more useful body, if it be made to realize that its promises are to be conspicuously remembered during the canvass, and that the party, if successful, is doomed to defeat the next time, unless it shall at Washington do what it promises in order to gain power ? The present canvass presents a convenient time for beginning, or rather returning to, this treatment. For there is in 1892 at least one, and an important, note of genuine and responsible sincerity in each of the two platforms. Even if the emphasis of their promises exaggerate the assurance of future action, they at least represent a true and great difference on one subject, that of protective duties, — a difference which we shall find, actually and in the near future, between the administration of the victorious party and the administration which we should have had if the defeated party had succeeded.

Let us therefore examine, as respectfully as we can, and with every effort to find sincerity, the platforms upon which either Mr. Harrison or Mr. Cleveland is to be reelected President in November next. As we write, we are aided by Mr. Harrison’s letter of acceptance and Mr. Blaine’s terse accompaniment; but Mr. Cleveland’s belated reply is still locked in his desk at Gray Gables.

It is convenient first to clear away the worthless parts of the two platforms, their gimcrack ornaments. Every sensible citizen contemptuously perceives that they neither strengthen nor beautify the structures; and we may well doubt whether they attract, as they are insincerely intended to do, a support worth having from citizens who are not sensible. Apart from conventional praise of the Republican party and its record, the Republican platform contains twenty-one general " planks,” nearly every one of which is really a group of propositions. President Harrison was quite right, in his letter, to declare, with an accent of complaint, that it was impossible for him " to refer even in the briefest way to many of the topics presented in the resolutions.” Surely, the private citizen, knowing far less of political matters than the President, cannot, or at least will not consider, whether to approve or to disapprove them, propositions which he ignores. The Democratic platform is even worse in this respect. It includes twenty-five general propositions ; and they express or plainly imply perhaps seventy-five political assertions, every one of which might be fair matter for argument and difference. Mr. Blaine is probably right when, in his letter, he declares three questions to be enough for a presidential campaign. We Americans may wisely require our parties to observe the rule frankly stated and followed by the present premier of England, the ablest as he is the most interesting of living politicians. Gladstone has steadfastly refused to permit his party to deal with any political question for whose consideration public sentiment has not become ripe. The number of those questions, he has rightly believed, could not exceed three or four at a time; and of the three or four, one, and only one, has usually been accorded a position of conspicuous superiority. How silly and unconstitutional were the Democratic declarations at Chicago, “ in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract convict labor, and for prohibiting the employment in factories of children under fifteen years of age,” and in favor of legislation by the States for the protection of railway employees ! Neither the President, nor any member of the federal government who is to be chosen, nor the Democratic party as a national party, can touch or affect in the slightest degree domestic legislation of the States on such subjects. Indeed, the Democratic party has considered, or affected to consider, itself the guardian of the “ sovereign ” rights of the States. Equally silly and irrelevant were the Democratic recommendations “ to the several States " of “ most liberal appropriations for the public schools,” and against “ state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children.” The electoral vote of Wisconsin is no doubt worth having ; but the Democrats of that State will not be helped by bringing to the aid of legitimate and relevant declarations of their state convention on a strictly state question the approval of a national body having no concern with the question, and whose candidates will be powerless, if they shall succeed at the election, to deal with it. The comparative brevity of the Republican platform tempted the committee on resolutions at Minneapolis to fewer irrelevances of this sort than were committed by their brethren at Chicago ; although in the general trend of Republican doctrine there would have been more excuse for such utterances at Minneapolis than at Chicago. Still, the Republican convention, thinking of the prohibitionist, said that it “ sympathized ” with “ efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of intemperance and promote morality,” and, thinking of the “ beer and liquor vote,” declared that its sympathy was confined to such efforts only as were “ wise and legitimate.” One must have a low estimate of American intelligence if he believe that such resolutions will bring many votes.

Both conventions know perfectly well that the American federal government, with whose affairs alone they had legitimate concern, could not act, or even pronounce, in favor of Home Rule in Ireland or against the persecution of Jews in Russia. But the Republican party fancied votes were to be gained by declaring itself “ the champion of the oppressed ” and a believer in “the dignity of manhood, irrespective of color or faith or nationality,” the Chinese for the moment being out of mind. The Democrats followed, and both conventions, loudly and cheaply, and without appearance of real respect for Irish and Jewish voters, appealed to those special classes. If the Primrose League or the next Conservative Conference at Birmingham should declare its sympathy with the struggles of American consumers to be freed from the burdens of a protective tariff, or if the next National Liberal gathering at Newcastle or the Czar of Russia should lament the brutal suppression of the negro vote in our Southern States, we should no doubt hear a valiant and angry, and it may be added a just condemnation by the Republican and Democratic conventions of foreign meddling with our political affairs.

There is, perhaps, a larger quantity of buncombe in the Democratic than in the Republican platform. But the latter clearly reaches loftier pitches of the art, when the Republicans pronounce for “ the maintenance of freedom among men: ” when they pledge anew their “ devotion to liberty of thought and conscience, of speech and press; ” when they “ reaffirm ” their approval of the Monroe Doctrine, as if even the swinging arms of a Quixotic windmill threatened that article of national faith ; and when, most glorious of all, and fit cause for the inextinguishable laughter of the gods, they declare their belief “ in the achievement of the manifest destiny of the repnhlic in its broadest sense.” No chart or identification of “ manifest destiny,” that political château en Espagne, was attempted ; and the draughtsman, it is considerate to believe, had forgotten, if he ever knew, the grim and sinister significance in polities which “ manifest destiny ” carried to the last generation of Americans, when the Republican party or its predecessor was ardently condemning territorial aggression practiced by Democratic administrations at the bidding of the slave power, the shameless Ostend Circular of Buchanan and his associates, and the raids of Southern filibusters. We have never yet met a competent or successful politician who seriously contended that these platitudes were worth a single vote.

The two platforms agree upon three points of federal legislation. With some differences of phrase, they both declare the Nicaragua Canal a work of national importance, and its protection and even control, though in a foreign country, a fit care of the federal government. They both commend federal appropriations to the Chicago exhibition. They both favor federal legislation to protect the lives and limbs of the servants of railway and other transportation companies. It is safe to say that not one of these three questions belonged to politics at all. They were not, and are not likely to be, subjects of party division. They are fair administrative or legislative questions, which should be decided by Congress and Presidents when in office, upon thorough examination and proper consideration free from party pressure. No such examination or consideration can possibly be had at a national political convention. Such topics are not in the thoughts of more than one out of ten of the delegates. It happens that somebody (usually an adroit committee is present) suggests to the committee on resolutions that a certain section of voters will be pleased at such and such an expression. If nobody, during the high pressure of a night session, can make it doubtful whether some other equally large section of voters will be displeased, the plank is adopted. But the plank represents no real and responsible conclusion. The more planks of this kind a party adopts, the larger ought to be the distrust with which a prudent citizen will regard its sincere sense of responsibility in its move important utterances. It is neither fit nor safe that the agreement of both conventions on measures not political should constrain congressional or executive action, as if such an agreement represented the unanimous wish of the people. But that is the very purpose which animates the small interest or lobby which attends the conventions. After the lab ter adjourn, and even before the election, the Congressman or the President is told that the resolution thus adopted for both the great parties authoritatively expresses the mandate of the country. Whatever of this kind his party’s convention may have said, the utterance imposes no obligation, political or moral, more than the obiter dictum of a judge. As much weight should be given to it as belongs to an opinion expressed by so many of the committee on resolutions as intelligently, deliberately, and conscientiously voted for it, but no more. This sound rule for estimating the obligation of such resolutions was recently illustrated by the Republican party in the matter of letter postage. In its national platform adopted at Chicago in 1888 it said, “We demand the reduction of letter postage to one cent per ounce.”Upon the platform it carried the election so as to control the entire federal law-making power. President, Senate, and House. But it did not so reduce or attempt to reduce letter postage. Letter postage remains where it was on July 1, 1885.

Before reaching the real substance of the platforms, — that is to say, the programmes they present, — we must at least read the resolutions, which, though touching really federal and political subjects, are so vague, and so intentionally vague, as to present to the voter no question for consideration. They do no more than say : “ Dear fellow-citizens, believe in us. Our party is more interested in this great subject than our rivals ; we are more likely than they to do what you wish, though indeed we don’t know, and perhaps you don’t know, what it is you wish.” Thus the Democrats, at Chicago, declare their " relentless opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditures.” But the declaration (apart from the records of the parties) deserves no respect; for those who made it refrained from pointing out a single matter in which they would themselves economize, if power were given them. They seem to have feared to incur the ill will even of the recipients of subsidies or of bounties upon production, to which in theory their party has claimed to be opposed, and indeed has been opposed. The Democrats approved “all legitimate efforts” (it would seem that there were illegitimate efforts which they did not approve) “ to prevent the United States from being used as the dumping-ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe.” This means just as much as another declaration, in which the Democrats say they oppose restricting the immigration of “ the industrious and worthy of foreign lands,” — as if, indeed, any such effort were being made, unless in the case of the Chinese, whose exclusion they themselves elsewhere approve. The Republicans were opposed, so they said, to trust combinations “ to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens,” — whatever that may mean; and the Democrats, following suit, and with as little use or meaning, demanded against trusts “such further legislation in restraint of their abuses as experience may show to be necessary.” The idea here is that the resolution is strong enough to attract the voters who hate trusts, but not explicit enough to frighten away such monopolists as may incline to support the party. The plank is a shaft aimed in a friendly and seductive fashion at the voter, so as “ to hit him if a deer, but miss him if a cow.” The Republicans meant, of course, simply nothing as to what in fact they would do if they had power, when they declared for the admission as States of the remaining Territories “at the earliest possible date, having due regard to the interests of the people of the Territories and of the United States.” So the citizen anxious to vote aright may safely ignore, as irrelevant to present national politics, the more or less vague Democratic talk about public lands, pensions. federal care and improvement of the Mississippi River, and the Republican talk about “ the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens, for political reasons, in certain Southern States of the Union,” and about arid public lands and pensions.

Having thus cleared away, with no little difficulty, the greater part of each of the platforms, we have left all that is properly programme, all that is promise of performance. We leave the preliminary work we have now done with a sincere wish that each party may realize that, on the whole and in the long run, there results to it a net loss of votes for every bit of irrelevant demagogy it utters, and indeed for every utterance it makes on a subject not really in the field of practical and present popular consideration.

When the conventions met in June, there were before the country for decision, involved more or less in the rivalry of the two parties, perhaps six questions, — certainly not more,—upon the consideration of which votes important in number were to go to one of the two presidential candidates as against the other. In the order of popular importance, that is, in the order of numbers of votes depending upon them, the topics should probably be thus arranged : (1) Tariff, (2) Silver Coinage, (3) Federal Election Bill, (4) Civil Service Reform, (5) Subsidies, and (6) Foreign Policy. The later of the conventions, the Democratic, added a seventh, the question of freeing state banks from a tax on their issue of bills. We reserve the first and greatest of the seven topics until the last, and shall deal with the other six in the order we have given.

Until the conventions met, silver coinage, without a doubt, held the place of second importance among current political questions. With honeyed words addressed to Colorado and other silver States about the traditional bimetallism of the United States and the love of its party for silver, each convention explicitly declared against tree coinage: the Democrats saying, with an emphasis perhaps tautological, but useful, that the dollar unit of coinage of both metals " must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value ; ” and the Republicans, though their expression, tolerably plain as it was, was enfeebled for its larger constituency in the Mountain and Pacific States, declaring for " the use of both gold and silver as standard money with restrictions, and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal.” Whichever party succeed, we shall not therefore have free coinage of silver. The Democrats declared for the repeal of the Sherman Act of 1890, — that dangerous and extraordinary surrender to a small, selfish interest, — under which the government is now practically buying the entire silver product of the United States; but what limitation, if any, they would, if in power, put upon silver coinage at the false ratio lixed by present law, they seem carefully to have left unsaid. The voter will, on the whole, not give decisive preference to either party upon its silver programme. So far as his vote depends on this question, he will be influenced by the past behavior of the two parties when responsibly in power, and by his comparative estimates of the intelligence and resolution of Mr. Harrison and of Mr. Cleveland.

The President tore out of his party platform one of its principal planks. He has finally withdrawn the Federal Election Bill issue. Indeed, the Republican party, after its platform was adopted on June 9, and before the President’s letter was published, had substantially surrendered this issue. Its orators ceased to speak of it; its state conventions ignored it; und the only earnest reference to it came from statesmen, like Senator Hoar, who were in foreign lands, or who were plainly not in the current of party opinion. The surrender was no slight one. When the Republican platform demanded “ that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black,” the “ sovereign right ” of casting “ one free and unrestrained ballot,”and of having that ballot “ counted and returned as cast,” it plainly referred to the Lodge Bill, which had been supported by nearly all the Republicans in the Senate and House of the last Congress. It plainly referred to President Harrison’s message of December, 1890, earnestly approving the Lodge Bill, its constitutionality and its necessity to the welfare of the country. He then said in rather stinging words that the probable effectiveness ” of the bill was “ evidenced by the character of the opposition that is made to it.” That message urged the passage of the bill upon a Senate and House both controlled by the Republicans. The softer suggestion which the letter quotes from his message of December, 1891, was addressed to a Congress in which the House was Democratic by a two-thirds majority.

The Democrats were perfectly warranted when they made their platform treat the Election Bill as a great and living issue ; and, passing by their rhetorical exaggerations, they rightly declared that the Republican party, “ in its latest authoritative utterance” (but a fortnight before), had said that its success meant the enactment of such a bill. But the inroads of the Farmers’ Alliance upon the Democratic vote in the South, and the real doubt of the result in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and perhaps in Alabama (for it seems that the Alliance was defeated at the August election in that State only by negro votes, which naturally would not, in November, come again to the Democratic ticket), had, in view of the bitter hostility to the bill in those States, made it discreet for the Republicans to take this plank, precious no doubt as the plank was to a large section of the party, from their platform. It brought grief and alarm to the Democrats that the President ruthlessly did this. He now, he says, sees reason, in “ new political movements ” and the attitude of men differing from Republicans " widely in opinion, to hope that arbitrary and partisan election laws and practices . . . may be corrected by the States.” The only step which, as a candidate, he proposes towards so unfederal and even un-Republican a remedy is a “ non-partisan commission ” to consider the question. A safe enough limbo for a troublesome issue. The Democrats take hardly this spiking of a pretty loud if not effective gun of theirs ; but they must, nolens volens, now turn to other artillery, or impeach Mr. Harrison’s sincerity,

To the advocates of the abolition of the detestable spoils system neither platform can seem highly promising. The Republican utterance on civil service reform is weaker than the Democratic. The Republicans express entire satisfaction with the past, and refuse to promise improvement in the future. They “ commend,” they say, the “spirit and evidence of reform in the civil service, and the wise and consistent enforcement by the Republican party of the laws regulating the same.” That is, the Republican party is content with what it has done; it will enforce the present statutes as it has enforced them since Mr. Harrison s inauguration ; but it will do no more. The Democrats, beginning their utterance on this subject with the Cleveland legend, “Public office is a public trust,”proceed to “ reaffirm ” the civil service declaration made by the party at St. Louis in 1876. Nothing could be more admirable than that inspiration of Mr. Tilden. “ Efficient, economical conduct of the governmental business,” it said, “ is not possible, if its civil service be subject to change at every election, be a prize fought for at the ballot-box, be a brief reward of party zeal, instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ.” We must thank the Democrats for again making this sound doctrine a tenet of party faith ; but our confidence and hope would be larger if the words of 1876 had been expressly and courageously quoted for the better education and deeper impression of such of the faithful as, in case of success, are to administer the reform. The Democratic condemnation of the participation of federal office-holders in party conventions is really excellent, followed as it is by an express “ pledge " that the party will not join in such “abuses.” Democrats may not unreasonably claim some sincerity for this utterance of theirs, in view of the exclusion of their own federal officeholders from the convention which, in 1888 and during Mr. Cleveland’s presidency, renominated him. Although in this matter the Democratic programme is far better than the Republican, it is, perhaps, open to doubt whether the civil service question be not, of all questions, the one upon which a political programme carries the least assurance of performance. The number of the citizens who give it the first place in politics has of late, especially in the Eastern States, greatly increased. Though not numerous in comparison with either of the two great parties, they probably hold, if they act together, the balance of power in several States. They will be obliged, in deciding their course in November, not indeed to ignore the platforms, but to rest their conclusions upon their estimate of the actual performance of Mr. Cleveland from 1885 to 1889, under the difficulties and with the advantages which met him on his inauguration, as compared with Mr. Harrison’s performance since 1889, likewise judged in view of his special difficulties and advantages, and upon the estimates they place upon the strength, resolution, intelligence, and sincerity of these two distinguished men.

While, in his letter, President Harrison has removed from the canvass the issue of federal elections, he has added in its place to his platform a Subsidies plank. When the two conventions adjourned, this issue had, so far as the conventions could determine, been eliminated. Neither of them said a word about subsidies, important a part as the question had lately played at Washington, and substantially arrayed against one another on the question as the two parties had long been. The Republican convention wished votes from those who did not believe in subsidies. The Democrats, more foolishly, thought some of the American citizens who asked for subsidies would forget Democratic opposition if the Democratic platform should, ostrich-like, say nothing on the subject. The President deserves respect for his explicit and eloquent statement of his position on the question. He gives it the second place in his letter. He truly says that “ few subjects have elicited more discussion or excited more general interest.” He declares it to be an " undisputed fact” that the great European steamship lines have been built up by subsidies. It is, he says, a question which, in this election, is to be decided by “ patriotic people, the workmen in our shops, the capitalists seeking new enterprises.” He condemns Democratic hostility to the general policy, shown by the refusal even to expend appropriations already made. “ The Democratic party,” he quite truly but rather surprisingly declares, “ has found no place in its platform for any reference to this subject; ” for, had he looked, he would have found as complete an absence of reference to the subject in the Republican platform. Its plank in favor of a " restoration of our mercantile marine by home-built ships" neither expresses nor implies a belief in subsidies, and is quite consistent with the policy long advocated by the Democrats, of freeing the materials of ship-building from tariff taxes, under which the Democrats have said that ships would be built at home, and the American marine would be restored to the supremacy it enjoyed before the civil war.

There was really much material for a plank in each platform on our foreign policy, not only in the matter of reciprocity, which both parties rightly deal with as a part of the tariff question, but in other respects. The Pan-American Conference, the New Orleans, Barrundia, Chilean, and Bering Sea episodes, and others too, are elements of current politics which will in some measure determine the party action of a body of citizens, not large, indeed, but very intelligent and influential. The Republicans, however, beyond the irrelevant and quite untimely and meaningless talk about the Monroe Doctrine and “ manifest destiny of the republic in its broadest sense,” to which we have already referred, are content with what, nearly a century after the Farewell Address, must, in polities, be considered platitudes. They say they favor “ the maintenance of the most friendly relations with all foreign powers, entangling alliances with none, and the protection of the rights of our fishermen.”The praise of the President’s administration as maintaining “ the dignity and honor of the nation at home and abroad " is the only significant reference to foreign policy. This perhaps presents a programme of performance, especially if it be assumed that Mr. Blaine’s personality was not really an important factor in the foreign administration from 1889 to 1892. The Democrats also mouthed phrases about “ friendly relations ” and “ entangling alliances.”Their condemnation of “ a policy of irritation and bluster, which is liable at any time to confront us with the alternative of humiliation or war,” might really have raised fair political discussion, had there been any specification. But when they forgot, or were afraid to mention, Chile or Bering Sea or the Barrundia episode, the programme, as programme, amounted to little. The voter to whom our foreign relations are of first moment will have to ignore the platforms, and examine the records of Messrs. Cleveland and Bayard, of Messrs. Harrison, Blaine, and Foster.

Whether the single line of the eighth resolution adopted by the Democrats raised of itself an issue which, though not before existing in our politics, is now to play ail important practical part in the canvass, is very doubtful. Mr. Harrison and Mr. Blaine have, quite naturally and cleverly, sought to give great prominence to this Democratic proposal to repeal the federal taxes on the note issue of state banks. But in politics, as in most important and lengthy business, considerations which are discovered for the first time long after a reasonable period for study and reflection has passed rarely secure or deserve deep and enduring hold. People will probably think that if, as Mr. Blaine declares, “the palpable effect of this policy ” of the Democrats would really “ cheat the poor man out of his daily bread,” and would be “deadly for the deception and despoilment of all the commercial and laboring classes,” so stupendous an issue would not have lurked unperceived by the country at large from June 22 until September. It is pretty difficult to see how the freeing of state banks from this tax would tend to undermine the national bank and certificate currency. As such notes could not be legal tender, it is hard to believe that, even if they were issued, people would accept them in lieu of a vastly Letter paper currency at hand, which they may have if they insist upon it. The vast change in the financial condition of the country, and its business unification resulting from cheap and rapid communication, will, quite as much as the tax, prevent return to the provincial system of bank issues in vogue before the civil war. If Mr. Harrison or Mr. Blaine had defended the tax as a check, artificial but wholesome, upon an increase in the amount of our money circulation, rather than rested upon the supposititious hardship which citizens accepting the notes of state banks would experience, perhaps a question of real interest might have been presented. But neither the Republicans nor the Democrats condemn an increase in the currency.

Such are the six features of the two party programmes other than the tariff. There is no real issue as to silver coinage; the Federal Election Bill is out of the way, and there is not in the platforms any issue which the country will deem important in respect of foreign policy or the abolition of taxes on slate banks. Of the six issues, there remain, therefore, as real parts of the programme of performance, only civil service reform and subsidies. On the former, the Democrats, with the confidence of a party out of power, take the higher and more definite position. On the latter, the traditions of the parties, their recent behaviors when in power, and the President’s firm and plain utterance give a fairly distinct affirmative to the Republicans and negative to the Democrats, enabling voters themselves to take definite position.

We are left, besides these, the second and third issues of the campaign, the first of the issues, the tariff. And that is really a great issue, an ideal political issue of enormous practical importance, of the deepest theoretical interest; an issue connected with almost the entire history of the country; an issue that had, long before the present contest, enrolled, on one side and the other, a famous array of men distinguished in philosophy, science, philanthropy, and practical success in life. When the Democrats rejected a large part of the lumbering resolution about the tariff presented by their committee, and declared any protective tariff to be “ unconstitutional,” when they said that government had no right to tax except for “ revenue only,” an even louder and clearer call to battle was sounded than Mr. Cleveland’s message of 1887. Mr. Harrison, in his letter, with admirable recognition of the value of an issue, ascribed the change of the platform to what he called the “ new and more courageous leadership ” of the Democratic party. The Republican leaders have welcomed it with confident enthusiasm. The issue is distinctly made on a practical and living principle. The Republicans declare for “ the American doctrine of protection,” to whose application by their party they assert “ the prosperous condition of our country ” to be “ largely due.” They define the doctrine to mean that " on all imports coining into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.”

About this issue there is no sham. The American people are interested in it. Politicians dare not cheat them about it. If the Democratic party succeed so as to control the Senate as well as the presidency and the House, they will, to a certainty, not rest upon the mere repeal of the McKinley law which they promise. They will, with further steps, — steps perhaps not as fast and peremptory as their present party bearing might indicate, but still real steps, — move toward a “ tariff for revenue only.” Such a tariff is plainly one which admits, and which, so far as possible in the absence of a federal land tax and the insufficiency of internal revenue taxes, applies, the dreaded theory of free trade. The Democrats timorously refuse to use the words, but they now mean the thing.

Nor does either party seek to limit the battle of principle to any special law or schedule. The Democrats condemn the McKinley tariff merely “ as the culminating atrocity of class legislation.” It is the principle they attack. They will attack, they say, any schedule which applies the principle. The Republicans do not plant themselves on the McKinley law nor on any special schedule. Their platform does not, surprising as the news will be to many, even mention the McKinley law. They do not say that the present tariff is right, nor that it should be maintained. Their platform distinctly contemplates further, if not immediate revision of the tariff. On competing foreign imports they say, not that there are levied, but that “ there should be levied,” duties equal to the difference of wages. The President fairly, and even bravely, accents this feature of the platform. After saying in his letter that he approves the declaration in favor of the “ doctrine of protection,” he adds that the convention did not adopt a schedule, but " a principle that is to control all tariff schedules.” There might, he says, “ be differences of opinion among protectionists as to the rate upon particular articles.” Neither in the Republican platform nor in the President’s letter is there a word of promise that the tariff is to remain in its present, or in substantially its present form. There is, in what they say, none of the protest against a disturbance of business by tariff agitation of which we heard much in more timid days. That a schedule of duties under the system of protection must, to effect the very end of beneficence to which it is directed, be in a state of unstable equilibrium is wisely and frankly admitted. The difference of wages between foreign lands and this country must, in the nature of things, perpetually fluctuate ; and, as the American system of protection means an adjustment of duties to those differences, new schedules must from time to time be enacted by Congress. Protection is not to bring business repose. It is to be a living principle, whose application by the law-makers must continually vary in the perpetual flux of human conditions. The subordinate part of the tariff issue arises out of the Democratic claim, earnestly disputed by the Republicans, that tariffs made by the latter are fraudulent; that they do not stop with the difference of wages, but go enormously beyond that limit, for the benefit, not of the working classes, but of small wealthy and powerful interests, and to the oppression of consumers who compose the masses of the people. And here we are brought face to face, in spite of what the President says, with the details of the schedules of the existing tariff law.

Under either party programme, therefore, it is clear that we are to have further tariff legislation as well as further tariff controversy. It is not left to us to choose between one fixed economic state and another, but to choose between two rival rules, upon one of which, rather than the other, we decide that the inevitable variation of that economic state ought to proceed. The great issue which the presidential election of 1892 involves is whether the changes of the tariff which are certain to be made in the future shall be in the direction of a " tariff for revenue only,”or be only a fluctuating adjustment of the measure of protection accorded to every American producer of something which foreigners also produce, and produce cheaply enough for exportation to this country.

The verdict in November, if it go heavily in either Mr. Harrison’s or Mr. Cleveland’s favor, will advise us on which side of the question of the tariff lies the popular preponderance of American belief. If the majorities in the critical States be small, then the presidency, unless the popular personal confidence in one candidate be materially greater than in the other, will have been awarded upon the preponderance of opinion among a relatively small number of citizens as to which party and candidate will do the more to limit the evils of the spoils system, or the preponderance of opinion of another relatively small body of citizens as to whether federal subsidies to steamship-owners be truly for the interest of the country at large. For these are the three questions practically and expressly presented by the two programmes of 1892.