Speech #510065745

Here we have seen them day after day rising in their places and voting in favor of every amendment to hits billIooking to reduction of the revenue below the protection point and voting for every proposition. by whomsoever offered. to put every article on the freelist. Upon no section. schedule. or paragraph of this bill has the voice of any Democrat upon this floorbeen heard in favor of protecting any article produced or manufactured in this country. If the votes of the representatives of the Democratic party upon this floor had been potent to enact laws. every manufacturing interest in this country would have been left without the least protection and our labor left to compete with the pauper labor of Europe. I say if the Democratic party had the power to enact laws and should enact them in accordance with the way they have voted upon amendments offered to this bill and the way they will vote on the bill itself when it comes up before the House for final passage. not the least protection would have been left to any industry in this country. The issue in the campaign in 1888 was plainly and unmistakably an issue between protection and free trade practically. though the Democrats sought to dodge it by the very thin disguise of crying revenue reform.