MONOPOLY OF TRADE THE TARIFF. 619 



one side and the labor organizations on the other, the poli- 

 ticians are in a "peck of trouble. n The Democrats in 

 Congress adopted the aggressive, and now they wish they 

 had not done it. The ominous mutterings in their own 

 party over the Mills bill, and the wrangling of the com- 

 mittee on platform at the St. Louis convention, had given 

 them the * ' weak trembles. ' ' The echoes of the voices of 

 the delegates from the u far west," pledging to the conven- 

 tion the solid support of the Pacific States, had hardly died 

 away, when the news "Oregon's Republican 4,000," 

 flashed over the wires and threw them into a confusion. 

 From the east, from plain, matter-of-fact Joe Pulitzer, of 

 the New York World, comes the consoling remark, "the 

 first gun of the campaign signalizes a Republican pro- 

 tectionist gain. ' ' 



I^ook at the situation! Henry Watterson and Senator 

 Gorman wrangling in the committee rooms in S.t I^ouis 

 about the policy of endorsing the President's message 

 the message of a man who had been nominated without a 

 dissenting voice, and amid an uproar that is without a par- 

 allel in Dante's Inferno. Watterson fighting for free trade 

 and Gorman and a majority of the committee for Demo- 

 cratic success. New York, Connecticut and New Jersey 

 must be appeased or defeat is certain; on matter for prin- 

 ciple, success is the great desideratum. An army of men 

 afraid to move! But a truce is agreed upon. Watterson 

 and all his associates are "to tell the people of the South 

 and Southwest that the Democratic party is in favor of 

 free trade, and Gorman is to tell the manufacturers of the 

 East that it is in favor of protection. The people do not 

 know what the platform of 1884 was, and the President's 

 message is interpreted to suit the locality and demands of 

 the people. They will vote for protection and Cleveland 

 in the East and for free trade in the South and Southwest 

 The trap is set and it will "catch 'em gwine and cominV 



