Wichita Eagle

Promise and "Performance."
"Long" on the Former and Short on the Latter.

The Democratic party has determined to narrow the coming campaign to a single issue. The platform at St. Louis follows the example of the President's message, and is limited, in reality, to a single plank. The other issues, real or pretended, which have done service for many a year are lost to sight. The currency question lies dormant. By the deliberate expression of a platform which it is announced was approved before its adoption in every word and letter by Mr. Cleveland, the Civil-Service reform issue, which gave him, through promises that he failed to keep, so strong support four years ago, is wholly abandoned. The civil service part of the platform commends, as if in so many words, the dispensation of public patronage for political reward. The tariff and the tariff only, is the point on which the Democracy will seek to win.

Now, it is not necessary, says the St. Paul Pioneer Press, to consider, for the present, how far the position of the party and the ill-concealed tendencies that are behind it lean toward "free trade." The expression is not a happy one, though the ultra tariff protestants do little to conceal the fact that this is the goal which they strive to reach as rapidly as possible. Nor need we even take the Mills bill, buffeted or berated by the representatives of every section and every State, as the measure of the Democratic idea of tariff reduction. It is true that a party whose best effort is the production of a bill which repels enemies and friends alike, and which is fashioned on principles so unfair and partial that even the man who will vote for it apologizes in so doing by saying that it is all he can get, is not a party that can command confidence when it proposes to remodel a great industrial system. But we may waive even this point, and suppose, for the sake of argument, that the issue is really tariff reduction, and that the Democratic party contains ability enough to reduce the tariff without injustice or injury to the American industries. On the basis of the hypothesis far more favorable to the party than fair-minded men will admit to be the fact, let us see what reason there is why an honest tariff reformer should persuade himself that he can or ought to vote the Democratic ticket.

It is a fact of history which can not be pondered too often or too thoughtfully, that the only reduction of the tariff made since the close of the war was the work of a Republican Congress. The profession of the Democratic party that it is for a low tariff is not a thing of recent date. The "tariff for revenue only" declaration goes back a great many years. It ought to be, as much as anything, a cardinal principle of the Democratic faith. It was a fundamental plank of the platform in 1876. And, while professing this opinion, the party has been in control of Congress several times. What has it done in performance of its pledges? Not to go too far back, we may note that the Democrats have been a majority in the lower House ever since 1882. It will be six years next March since the Republicans had a majority of the direct representatives of the people. Six years ought to be long enough to test the good faith of any profession. In those six years, the eye of the poorest politician could see that a reform of the tariff, independent of party considerations, was becoming more and more of principal importance. In all that time, the public debt was decreasing and the danger of a Treasury surplus was clearly apparent. There is not one item of the situation as it is to-day which was not foreseen and predicted half a dozen years ago. It was, then, the part of those in power to make an effort to provide for what they saw coming. To this they were bound not only by the logic of the situation, but by the promises which they had made over and over again of completing tariff changes.

And yet, in all these years, with all their platforms and party professions behind them, no Democratic measure for the reduction of duties has ever passed the House of Representatives. There have been bills, there has been agitation, there has been unlimited waste of time in general debate, but of action, nothing. It is not profitable to consider whether this is due to deliberate intention to deceive or to mere impotence. In the light of a promise made and abandoned, the question whether the promiser uttered a falsehood or only went beyond his ability to perform cuts no figure. For this experience of the past foreshadows the future. The elements of the party are unchanged. Barnum and Gorman and Randall are still in the party, and propose to resign no particle of their influence in shaping its course. There is no more reason to-day to believe that the Democratic party, if once more continued in power, would be faithful to its pledges of tariff reduction than there was six or four years ago, nay, there is infinitely less, because it has been tried and found wanting. It has been trusted and proved false. Comparing promise with performance, we ask any sincere advocate of tariff reform with what hope or grace or conscience he can vote the Democratic ticket this year.