Wood County Reporter

Fifer on the Tariff.

Mr. Joseph Fifer, the Republican candidate for Governor of Illinois, in his speech at Springfield, paid his respects to the tariff question in these words:

"I do not say, and I do not believe that the present tariff act is perfect. The Republican party long ago set the example of revising the tariff and may be relied on to correct all its present and its future inequalities. But there is one matter in which I am fully persuaded that the good sense of the American people as a whole will constrain them to agree with Republican policy and principles, and that is that the doctrines of the English free-trade school, under which American manufactures would invariably be confined to such simple operations as sawing wood and mending shoes, should never be permitted to gain ascendency upon this continent. Men who can only view the tariff question through the free-trade goggles of Richard Cobden and from the standpoint occupied by the English manufacturer, whose desire in the matter is his own selfish gain, will never be permitted by the voters of this nation to lay their unwashed and ignorant hands upon the citadel of American industry."

"In order that the American laborer may have his hire," continued Mr. Fifer, "the American manufacturer must have his reasonable profit, and home competition will not be trusted in vain, as all experience proves, to prevent his profit from becoming exorbitant. We can not have depression in one branch of industry or class of industries and prosperity in the rest, and that party which falsely and dishonestly, through appeals to prejudice, attempts to incite one class of American producers against another class should be treated by the voters of the nation as the enemy of this Republic and cast again into outer darkness."

It is very evident that our candidate for Governor fully understands the philosophy of the free trade vs. the tariff controversy, and his convictions and views are eminently sound.