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A Despairing Wail

A Despairing Wail image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
August
Year
1893
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The ínter Ocean is stek. The ínter Ocean is sad. The ínter Ocean no longer puts its trust in the Republican party. Thus and thus and thus: "There are Democrats, and many of them, who do not believe in a policy that will cheapen American labor, and there are a few Republicans who are not thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of protection. Democrats who believe in protection should have the courage to express their belief, and to vote as they believe in regard to fiscal matters. Protection has been the American policy, and under it America has passed from the state of poorest to that of richest among civilized nations. The mere shadow of free trade has produced alarm; the mere possibility of tariff for revenue only has weakened confidence in the continued prosperity of the country. It is for the patriotic elements of both of the great parties to bid the shadow flee, to dispel the alarm, and to restore confidence by requiring Congress and the President to make an early and plain declaration of their intentions in regard to tariff." The ínter Ocean reaches out in the dark. It cries aloud in the wilderness. It reads the riddle of the stars a-wrong. There are no Democrats of the kind it imagines and describes to answer its cali. Wherever you find a fellow of that ilk, who pretends to be Democrat, he is a prevaricator, a prevaricating Republican, a coward, who is afraid to claim his soul as his own, ahypocrite, who is ashamed of his opinions, and who, if tempted, would sell his Maker for half what Judas got and take his pay in Mexican 'dollars. But what has come over the spirit of the ínter Ocean's dream? Why should it so soon despair of Republican adequacy? Why should it appeal to Democrats to save its one great, pivotal Republican principie? Is it not a little late in the day for this High Priest of the Robber Barons to seek a parley with Democrats, and to appeal for a non-partisan consideration of the Robber Tariff? "He cither fears Free Trade too much, Or his belief falls ilat, Who starts back at Protection's toucli, Ánü woulU not stand it pat." - the saying may be somewhat musty, as our little friend Hamlet would observe, but all the same it is a sign of the times that out of the Chapel of the Robber Castle - the Western Holy of Holys of Pennsylvania's Supreme Being - a voice should issue, as from the tombs, beseeching Democrats to come to the rescue of that Thieving Tariff! Well, they won't come. They won't come worth a cent. Thanks to a campaign of education, extending over fifteen years, the Democratie party is at peace with itself as to Free Trade. It is at war with the Republicans, and only with the Republicans, who in their turn are now at war with themselves, touching that execrable andexposed fraud, High Tariff. It is worse than a fraud. It is a variegated assortment of frauds. It was a beggar-on-horseback. It is a beggar on crutches. It was a bullyin-the-saddle. It is a poor devil by the wayside. It pretended to be a statesman. It has been proven a mountebank. It has been set up for a patriot. It has been shown to i be a highwayman. It posed as a philanthropist. It turned out an impostor. It put on heaven's livery to serve the devil of Mammon. It plucked the wage-earners. It pil - laged the poor-box. It stole the communion service and robbed the Treasury, and took out a post-obit on the national credit. And now? O Belisarius, Belisarius, thou dire oíd brigand, hath it come to this? HATH IT COME TO THIS? No matter. Naught will avail - nor plaints, nor prayers, not even those of the ínter Ocean. The old sinner must go- e'en in his rags and dirt - with one eye bandaged and both legs on wooden pins. He has had his say and his day. The plea of "infancy," the subterfuge about "the business of the country," the cant as to his love for the American workingman, all to no purpose. He has broken every promise to reform. He has kept nó single pledge either to himself or to anybody else. There he stands - or rather totters - Old High Tariff - the veriest red-nosed vagrant - the toughest, blear-eyed tramp, rotten from head to heels! Presently he will be carted ofï, like any other catrion, and dumped into the nearest ditch; and then all the highpriests and low-priests of the Robber Baron persuasión, finding their business "busted," can go down to the grocery ond swear at the court! And what then? Why, the ínter Ocean will get it a new song, end sing it just as lustily as it sang the old. The rose in Mr. Nixon's button-hole will smell as sweet, and Mr. Kohlsaat's smile will be just as sunny, and, after a while - after a great while - when the people of the United States have ceased to wonder how it was that they came to tolérate so long a cheat so obvious - may be, mind, we say may be - some one will put up a shingle over a little, lonely ash-pile in the boneyard, and on this shingle shall be inscribed "Sacred to the Memory of that Thieving Tariff"- "WhiUt he lived, he lived in clover; When he died, he died all over!" - Henry Watterson in the Louisville Courier Journal.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News