The Crime of Caste in Our CountryDavenport, Benjamin Rush
History
The Crime of Caste in Our Country
Davenport, Benjamin Rush
Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
There is not a shadow of doubt, and even the most prejudiced slave of
political “bossism” will be forced to admit, that President Harrison
has filled his high office with dignity; that he is an honest,
patriotic, representative American. He has kept faith with the American
public, as far as was possible for him to do so, in the execution
of the laws enacted by the legislative bodies of the nation. His
renomination was but the natural consequence of his administration.
The Republican party certainly entered the campaign of 1892 opposed
by a divided Democratic press, a divided Democratic party, upon the
supposed and alleged great issue of the campaign--that is, Protection
and Free Trade.
To illustrate that point, compare the New York _Sun_, believing in
Protection, with the New York _World_, believing in Free Trade.
The American people for intelligence will average as highly as the
people of any other nation, but they are not all political economists.
They had not, even during the four years and with all “the campaign of
education,” become sufficiently instructed to form a decided opinion
upon the information acquired by them with regard to the questions of
political economy involved in the discussion of Protection and Free
Trade.
It is perfectly ridiculous to hear it asserted that the people of the
United States voted against the Republican party in sufficient numbers
to create a political revolution by reason of the fact that they had
learned sufficient to become convinced, founding their conviction upon
information and reason, that Free Trade was preferable to Protection.
The average American voter would be as lost in an argument upon the
subject of political economy as would a disputant regarding a legal
proposition who had never heard of Blackstone or Kent, because the
average American citizen has never read one line of Adam Smith, John
Stewart Mill, or, in fact, any of the hand-books of political economy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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