Tirey L. Ford

“ Once only has the arbitrament of war been necessary to the determination of any question relating to the internal affairs of the nation, —a method not likely to be again employed until the lesson of the Rebellion shall have been forgotten and reason shall have yielded to the uncontrolled passions of prejudiced men. To say that political differences have existed, do exist, and will continue to exist, among our people, is but to say that our government is the work of human hands. ”

“ There is no desire upon the part of Republicans to reflect upon the sincerity of Democratic leaders. Buchanan was doubtless honest in his hostility to a protective tariff, and it is not believed that Cleveland was lacking in sincerity in his advocacy of a free trade system. The failure of the Democratic revenue policy is not chargeable to any lack of Democratic confidence in its results or of honest effort upon the part of those who urged its adoption, but lies wholly in its utter inapplicability to a progressive age and to the industrial development of a great country. ”

“ The success of the United States in material development is the most illustrious of modern times. The American Nation has not only successfully borne and suppressed the most gigantic and expensive warof all history, but immediately after disbanded its army, found work for all its soldiers and marines, paid off most of its debt, gave labor and homes to all the unemployed of Europe as fast as they could arrive within the territory, and still by a system of taxation so indirect as not to be perceived, much less felt. ”

“ By a system of revenue and finance that has challenged the admiration of the world, the Republican party redeemed our country from the wretched condition into which it had fallen, restored the integrity of the Union, brought prosperity to the nation, and finally, after thirty two years of unexampled progress, redelivered the country to the mistaken policies of a misguided Democracy. ”

“ The Republican party, while favorable to the use of both gold and silver in our monetary affairs, and further favoring, as it has always favored, the universal use of both metals by all nations, hesitates to lead our country into a financial experiment where success cannot with certainty be predicted, and where even a partial failure, in our present deplorable condition, would plunge the country into universal bankruptcy. ”

“ For the better presentation of the many grave and complicated questions that continually arise in our public affairs, political parties are organized, each composed of those citizens who are in general accord with the principles and policies of the party to which they have given their political adherence. ”

“ A protective tariff, the fundamental principle of Republican faith, is distinctively an American policy, the wisdom of which has attracted the favorable attention of the leading statesmen of France and Germany and other progressive nations. ”

“ Thus, from 1860 to 1892 the tide of prosperity rolled unceasingly on. impelled by the vital principle of a protective tariff, until in the latter year. a forgetful people, led away by the false, but alluring promises of the leaders of Democracy, adopted a policy which, in three short years has produced more poverty and distress among our people than were ever before known during the history of our country in a time of peace. The policy of free trade is doomed in America. ”

“ This may be a good policy for England, but is scarcely applicable to the wholly different conditions existing in America. England consumes but thirty-seven per cent of her productions and exports sixty-three per cent, while the United States finds a home market for ninety-three per cent of the productions of this country and exports but seven per cent. in England labor receives a comparatively small part of the cost of production, while in the United States a greater percentage of the cost of production goes to labor than in any other country in the world. ”

“ In a government such as ours, where the people make and enforce their own laws and where every citizen has a voice in governmental affairs, the ballot box must ever be the peaceful arbiter of conflicting opinions respecting public measures and policies. ”

“ There is one claim set forth by the Bryan Democracy that it is particularly difficult for the laboring man to understand. He fails to see just how a continuation of the present Democratic revenue system which has wrought such havoc throughout the country, coupled with the adoption, as proposed, of the financial system prevailing in Mexico, Central and South America, China, Russia,and Japan, is going to give him more steady employment or an increase in wages. ”

“ That these differences have for a hundred years, with a single exception, been peacefully adjusted by lawful and intelligent methods, is the highest encomium that could be pronounced upon the wisdom and patriotism of a liberty-loving and self-governing people. ”

“ A comparison of the existing conditions with those of the most favored period in the history of the country will, believe, show that so high a degree of prosperity and so general a diffusion of the comforts of life were never before enjoyed by our people. ”

“ With this admitted element of uncertainty in the proposed Bryan experiment, with the stern logic of history against the probabilities of success, and with the certainty of national disaster in the event of even a partial failure, the Republicans decline to leave the broad highway of honor, wisdom, and experience, to wander off into the realm of untried theories amid the dangers of experimental politics. ”

“ The Republican party has ever been friendly to silver and has maintained its equal circulation in the United States side by side with gold, each having precisely the same purchasing and debt paying power. Second. As compared with other nations the United States has far more than her proportionate share both of silver and of gold. ”

“ The Republicans, therefore, claim, and with much show of reason, it must be admitted, that it is not lack of money but lack of confidence, together with a false system of revenue, that has caused the withdrawal of money from business enterprises and brought ruin and poverty to the people. ”