prices. It was the foreigner who bore the customs tax, and who was relieved from it by the reduction and repeal of the duty, and the millions that had been coming into the treasury for the common benefit of all the people were thus turned to increase the profits of foreign coffee production. If this be true in respect of an article not produced in the United States at all, how much more must it be true in respect of articles of which there is, or may be, a great home production. In every case the foreign producer or dealer, relieved from the payment of customs duties here, will naturally keep up the price of his commodities in American markets just as far as he can; and all that he sells, under reduced or abolished duties, will thus give him a larger profit; and if he can, by a reduction of customs taxation that bears upon him, undersell the American producer or manufacturer he can still make a larger profit than before, and, by just so much as in the end he may undersell the home producer or manufacturer, he necessarily diminishes the price of the home production, and so diminishes the price that the home producer can pay for the labor he employs in the home production; and this, at the same time, diminishes the total amount of the consumption of the home-produced articles, and just so far throws out of employment the persons engaged in the home production.

As to the third pretension, concerning civil-service reform, upon which, perhaps, more than any other issue the present Democratic administration came into power, we have now lived long enough under it to know to a demonstration what its performance has been compared with its promises. It may be safely asserted that there has not been, since the foundation of the government, a more sweeping and persistent and political removal of citizens holding minor offices and employments than under the present administration. At first it was done, in some degree, under the representation that the officers in question had been guilty of undue political activity or misconduct in office or inefficiency, these accusations being supported by affidavits made in secret and kept secret in the possession of the President or the departments. In most instances they were grossly untrue and in some perjured, and the officers accused were denied all knowledge and inspection of the charges and all means of

defense. The authors of the misrepresentations and perjury, having accomplished their purpose, were screened from criminal prosecution and public contempt, while their helpless victims were expelled from office under a profession of reform in the civil service! And instead of the holders of public office being compelled to refrain from the work of "practical politics" and interference in nominations and elections, it has come to be notorious that Democratic office-holders are the controlling manipu lators of primaries and of conventions. The promised reform of the civil service, and the promised prevention of office-holders undertaking to run political parties, have been deliberately and systematically repudiated. Whether originally so intended or not, these promises have operated as a fraud, the disguises and cloaks of which have at last been thrown off.

All evils were to be corrected, all abuses reformed, and a sort of millennium brought in.

"And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
Some certain edicts and some strait decrees
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
Over his country's wrongs; and, by his face,
This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for."

But the power once obtained, the Democratic Party proceeds to say to its not reluctant chief, "Cut me off the heads of all."

Whatever I have now pointed out as some of the leading features of the history and present situation of parties is a very moderate statement of the case, whether it be agreeable or otherwise to those voters in our country who placed the present administration in power, and who, having the free and unrestricted and protected liberty of the ballot, have aided to create a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, and to elect State legislatures that have appointed some Democratic senators from States where, in general, elections are fairly pure and votes are fairly counted.

In respect of the repression of practical political rights in many of the States referred to, it has now come to be admitted that such repression does exist; and it is defended upon the

plea that the government of these States, and so their representation in Congress and their voice in the elections of Presidents, must, for the social welfare of all, be kept in the hands of those who assume themselves to be the intelligent and conservative class of the community. But this is the very essence of the plea of all tyrants everywhere. It is true enough that intelligence is better than ignorance, and that affairs can be better managed by those who are skillful and capable than by those who are not. But no just test has yet been found in human experience for determining the practical application of these principles, and liberty and real social security have always found their only refuge, in the long run, in the full and free participation by the whole body of citizens in the management of affairs. The evils flowing from the ignorance of voters are confessedly great, but those are infinitely greater which come from the assumption of authority and power by minorities in communities. If the practice in common use in some of the States referred to were applied to some of the old free States, with the same motives and with the same ends, their political character would be effectually changed. An ignorant voter is just as dangerous in New York or Massachusetts or New Jersey as he is in South Carolina or Louisiana or Texas; and if the notions that are put forward in defense of the practices which blot out the votes of a great class of the community in one State are defensible there, they are equally defensible in every other State.

It may be safely affirmed that the Republican Party still stands, and will continue to stand, so long as it is worthy of its name, upon the fundamental principles on which it was founded, namely, the fullest defense and promotion, at all times and in all places, of equal political and civil rights of citizens of the United States; and that it will devote itself to these ends for the essential welfare of all until they shall be fully accomplished, in spite of the false and ribald cry of those in possession of ill-gotten power, that it is "waving the bloody shirt," and reviving and keeping alive the bitterness of a long-past rebellion. It will do this, not on account of the past, but on account of the present and the future. If these enormous and menacing existing evils have arisen in consequence of the Rebellion, we cannot shut our

eyes to them for such a reason. If even the administrative and judicial power of the government, to say nothing of its legislative power, be in the hands of those who do not believe in the exist ence of such a state of things as has been referred to, or who hold that, if such a state of things does exist, it is not an evil, it is evident that the existing laws for the protection of equal political and civil rights will not be vigorously enforced, if they are enforced at all. However narrow may be the boundaries of the lawful national power in these respects, it is obvious that whatever power does exist should be in the hands of those who believe that the power ought to be exerted.

The Republican Party will try, as it has already done, by a bill that has passed the Senate and is now entombed in the House of Representatives, to aid in the increase of public educa tion by generous grants of money from the common treasury, in order that financially weak communities may be speedily assisted in promoting the education of their children, thus making them not only happier in their private relations, but better fitted for the responsibilities that will soon belong to them as citizens.

It will endeavor whenever it can get the opportunity, so long delayed by the presence of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, to revise the details and correct the inequalities that may exist in the customs laws upon the broad and fundamental basis, always, of the constant protection and encouragement of every American production, every American industry, and every American laborer; and with such purposes avowed it will not propose measures like that now pending in the House of Representatives, having the admitted effect vastly to increase the importation of foreign productions at the expense of a corresponding diminution in the consumption of those produced by the labor of our own people.

It will diminish exuberant revenues by the reduction or abolition of the internal taxation that all admit to be a taxation of our own people, and that all admit to have been, in its origin, as similar taxation had before been, a special and temporary war expedient, a system that necessarily involves the employment of a great army of officials, and much of espionage into matters of private business, and a system believed by a great body of the people to be injurious to social welfare in all the States.

It will endeavor to put the United States in that attitude, in respect of the trade and intercourse of the world, which its geographical position, its natural resources, its political character, and its power justly entitle it to; first, by co-operating with the Central American republics in the construction and control of the great inter-oceanic passage-way across those States; and secondly, by developing, through government encouragement, a closer intercourse of sympathy and commerce with the republics and other nations of the continent; and in so doing it will not look with mute and humble acquiescence upon the aggressive policies and enterprises of the rivals of the United States in the same direction.

It will endeavor to suppress and eradicate the debaucheries. in the civil service that have grown to such enormous proportions in the government as at present administered, so as to make the officers of the United States the servants and not the masters of the people.

These are some of the great and important topics of national concern that the Republican Party has occupied and still occupies a definite and positive attitude upon. There are otherssuch as the importation of the criminals and paupers and other unassimilable people of other countries, who are a constant menace to our welfare-that cannot now be discussed.

Candor and good faith are as essential in political parties as in the affairs of private life. Elections should not be won by evasive generalities, which never result in the ends the people had looked for in giving their votes, and it is hoped that the intelligent confidence of the people of the republic cannot be imposed upon twice successively. Underlying the organization of all parties there always are the personal independence and responsibility of the individual citizen, however enveloped they may be by party associations and party discipline; and to this independence and responsibility believers in true republican government may generally, if not always, appeal for the preservation of the liberties that must be common, and for equality of rights that must be real, in fact as well as in name, and for administrations that live up to their professions.

GEORGE F. EDMUNDS.