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Show M BEVERIDGE AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. The Herald-Republican of Salt Lake, under its new editorship, proceeds to read Senator Beveridge out of the Republican party, in the following paragraph: Taking the tariff law as a test of Republicanism, and it must be regarded as such since it was pas3cd by a Republican Republi-can Congress and approved by a Republican President, Senator Sen-ator Beveridge is outside the pale of the party, and the quicker quick-er he realizes it the better for all concerned. The tariff will be the dominant issue of the next campaign almost to a certainty. cer-tainty. Mr. Beveridge should join the free trade Democrats at once, instead of claiming to be a Republican and at the same time attempting to set a fire in the rear of the party to which he professes to belong. The worst enemy to the Republican party is the fellow, claiming a be a Republican, who is intolerant of those within the party who assert their individuality and attempt to correct wrongs, real or imaginary, with which they believe the party to be afflicted. Senator Sen-ator Beveridge favors a more liberal reduction of the tariff schedules sched-ules on those trust-controlled articles, the prices of wiiich can be arbitrarily fixed by virtue of the fact that they are highly protected. By reason of that position, he does not lose his identity as a Republican, but stands out prominently as a leader within the party who dares defend the right as he sees it and who labors to guide the Republican voyagers away from the breakers just ahead. Sen. Beveridge has taken no more radical or progressive position than did James G. Blaine, when the plumed knight declared for reciprocity, which is nothing but, limited free trade under a more pleasing name. Since the tremendous growth in our export trade, in which nearly every article of manufacture has been represented, the fear of foreign competition has passed and today the tariff stands, not so much as the instrument for spanning the difference between the cost of labor in foreign lands and in America, as an equitable method of raising revenue for the government. President Taft was a good Republican when he advocated a revision re-vision downward of the Dingley bill, although that measure had the stamp of the Republican party, and Roosevelt, ahead of Taft, was a good Republican when he declared for a reduction of the tariff on trust-monopolized articles. That the Republican party within its organization voices a protest pro-test against an extreme partisan view on tariff should be accepted as conducive to that nice balance which, when it leads to compromise, stands for that gradual progressive evolution which even nature marks as having the sanction of an all wise Intelligence. If the Insurgents were to be stifled, the Republican party would lose a mighty stimulus in the direction of progress. The party is not obligated to concede all the Insurgents demand, but the protest within with-in the party which calls for advancement in response to the requirements require-ments of the times and which tends to prevent narrowness of view, should be received in a spirit of tolerance, for by so doing the party will be strengthened and made more responsive to the will of the people. |
