Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1884 — THE MORRISON BILL. [ARTICLE]

THE MORRISON BILL.

Consideration of the Tariff Measure Secured in the House. Arguments Pro and Con by Messrs. Morrison and Kelley. On the motion of Mr. Morrison, of mmols, and by a vote of 140 yeas to 138 nays, the House of Representatives, on the 15th of April, agreed to go Into committee of the whole for the consideration of the tariff bill. Mr. Morrison immediately opened the debate in support of the measure. Mr. Morrison’s Speech. He described the financial condition of the country, stated the estimated surplus of'revenue over expenditures, and dwelt upon the necessity of reducing taxation. To fall to reduce taxation and relieve the people would be a flagrant disregard of public duty. The pending bill might not be all that was required, bnt It was ,ah advance toward the promise of more complete tariff reform. Such reform and adjustment of the tariff were not believed to be attainable at the present session. It would create no surprise that in the opinion of the minority of the Ways and Means Committee the measure was not sufficiently harmonious to secure their approval. They found in It no merit, because It proposed to reduce ail duties at ke. A horizontal reduction might not be the best, but none other was now practicable. The protectionists opposed it, not because it was horizontal reduction, but because it was reduction at aIL The year 1860 was' a time of plenty. The laborer tor wages was at least as well and the grower of grain better paid than they are in this year, 1684, and in that year, 1800, of bounteous plenty our importations of foreign goods were less to the person, or in proportion to the population, than in the years iBBO-’B2. To the list Of articles now imported free of duty, amounting to nearly one-third of all our importations, it is proposed to add salt, ooal, wood, and lumber. Salt is already freed from tax for the fishermen, also for the exporter of meats, to lessen the cost of food to the people of other countries, not for our own. Coal is untaxed for use on vessels having by law the exclusive right to the coasting traine or engaged in the foreign carrying trade—a privilege denied to persons engaged in other pursuits. The revenue from wood and lumber imported and hereafter to be admitted free of duty has in ten years last past not much exceeded $10,000,600. The census returns show that domestic wooden products exceed $600,000,00j per annum. If the average duty of 20 per cent, on imported wood adds but 10 per cent, to the price of that produced here,its increased cost to the people has been $500,000,(too in. ten years. In these ten years, under pretense of taxing this article to secure $10,000,000 revenue, we have compelled the people to pay $500,000,000 in bounty to encourage the destruction of forests and felling of trees, and in the same time we have given more than 18,000.000 acres of land under the timber culture act as a bounty to encourage the planting of other trees and other forests. In the estimates made by a clerk of experience in the Bureau of Statistics, which the actual payments on importations show to be butestimates, though based on official data, the bill would leave, it appears, in cottons but two articles, cotton yarns, not the finest, dutia Die above 40 per cent.; in woolens, but one, coarse carpet wool, which we do not produce,, above 60 per cent., and in iron and steel but a few above 50 per cent. These rates have been fixed as the limit, above which on these articles no duty shall be collected. The present rate on the finest cotton is 40 per cent.., and yet it is an unquestioned fact, as shown by the invoices and payments made, that duties exceeding 100 per cent, (exceeding first cost) are exacted and paid on cotton goods, the duty upon which is, in the estimates referred to, stated to be less than 23 per cent. The same is true of iron and steel in a different degree. In the woolen schedule these abuses are most glaring. In all they result from enormities hidden and concealed both in the classification of articles and the rates of duty. The limit of 40, 50, and 60 per cent, on the cotton, metal, and woolen schedules is intended to expose and remedy these hidden enormities. Those really desirous of affording some relief from existing abuses will not fail to find their opportunity in remov ing taxes yielding $8,000,000 on sugar, as much on cotton and woolen goods, and $14,000,000 on other articles used in every home. The insufficient, not to say deceptive, character of the late revision, the manner of making it, and the circumstances attending its adoption alike forbid it should be permanent The only security from agitation and change is to confine the taxing power to its rightful purpose of obtaining a revenue limited to the necessities of Government. When no more revenue is needed by the Government of a people it has attained the limit of its power to tax the people. Estimates based on census statistics show that as many as 18,000,060 of our people do some work or are occupied in some business* and that the average annual earnings of at least 16,000,000 Of these do not much exceed S3OO, and are wholly consumed iu the means of daily substance. These, too, are millions who, in shop and field, strike the blows of all production. AU the accumulations of and boasted additions to our national and individual wealth go to one-tenth of those who earn it; and of these a few appropriate the great mass of the savings of tne people, and are enriched by the profits of the labor of other men. Like estimates will show that the few who profit most from the labor df all contribute little under this system of unequal taxation—not more than 2 7:r cent, of their savings—while the great mass of workers, including the dependent poor, pay the bulk of the taxes, all of which is subtracted from their too scanty means of comfortable living. Ours is a very free country of very free men, both very freely taxed. In the same sense that we are free men in a iiee country, freely taxed, we may be correctly named free traders when we insist that the trade and the commerce of the country and th; necessities of comfortable living shall be freed from all taxes not essential to a Government for public ijses. The amount required from the customs is dependent upon what may be received from internal revenues. The ab jlition of internal revenue means free and cheap liquors, but with heavier taxed and higher-priced sugar and other articles essential in every household. I am not called upon to defend a system which has many abuses. Of the two systems, however, it is cheaper in the administration, immensely cheaper in its results. The repeal of the internal revenue means more than the additional cost of living and privation to the poor. It means a permanent public debt, which the few owe and the many pay, and wuich corrupts the administration. While we cannot doubt the existence of great wrongs in the execution of the internal revenue laws, especially in the Houth Atlantic S.ates, many of these may be cured. Neither is it because of these abuses of administration that the abolition of liquor and tobacco taxes is demanded in those States, for the North is substantially free from these flagrant abuses. Mr. Morrison said that during more than half of the last ten years wages had been as low or lower than before the adoption of the taxing policy as a pretended means of making wages higher. And, he continued, there is but one horizontal reduction for which our opponents are Trilling to legislate, the reduction of wages, and this their favorites, with or without regard to legislation, are now executing day by day with cruel regularity. In the ojiinion of the minority members of the committee, representing as they do the friends of the prevailing policy, the cure for whatever national ills exist, so far as they result from taxation, is to be found in higherpriced clothing and other articles useful in the fields, mines, and homes; for that is what is meant by higher-taxed wool, fence-rods, cottonbands, and tin-plates. Some of our friends here would cure the ills of overtaxation with the declaration of a purpose the execution of which they would carefully avoid. And hero is the declaration. It Is called the Ohio platform: “We favor a tariff for revenue limited to the necessities of the Government economically administered and so adjusted in application as to prevent unequal burden, encourage productive industries at home, and afford just compensation to labor, but not to create or foster monopoly." A tariff for revenue limited to the necessities of the Government is demanded by this plan of relief. Is the tariff so limited? It not, then why refuse to limit it? Who among the representatives of the goodly people of that State who made this declaration believes it is so limited? Who among them believes the pending bill will reduce the revenue below the necessities of the Government? These are questions to which the plain people of the country want an answer. They will demand to know why the tariff taxes were not removed in the past, if they are beyond the revenue limit. Do gentlemen expect to escape responsibility because the rates are not rightly adjusted? The adjustment will be the same when the reduction io made, but whatever monopoly belongs to it will be fostered by 20 per cent, less than it now is. ) f this platform lias an honest meaning it is that the tariff shall be lowered to a revenue basis. And gentlemen bnt deceive themselves who expect the people will be deoeived by a refusal to legislate in accordance with this declared purpose. If the protection policy is to be the continuing policy of the Government it wUI be,

and ought to be, intrusted to its friends —the Republican party. Every argument in support of a protective policy is based on the assumption that any considerable tariff modification, especially a modification to a revenue basis, will destroy the manufacturing industries, compel the abandonment of the shops and mills, and force those now engaged in them into other employments. This is the old, old story. It was told of the manufacturing industries in their infancy. It wUI be told when protection brings them to decay. It is insisted that wages are so much higher here than in the oo on tries seeking our markets that the revenue duties will not equalize the difference in the cost of production. Conceding the truth of what is not true —that the foreign rival must pay for the privilege of selling in our markets a sum equal to the difference in wages to enable the home producer to sell with a reasonable profit—let ns see if the revenue rates will compensate for that difference. The census value of the manufactures for 188 a was $5,369,579,191. The wages paid in making them were $947,953,795. The differencein the cost of the goods is said tobe the difference in the cost of wages. But suppose the diffAence between the cost here and the cost abroad amounts to all the wages paid here, then these manufactures would cost abroad $4,421,625,896. Suppose the average rate of duty which the bUI before the House leaves at 33 per cent, was reduced to 22 per cent., and at that, rate this $4,421,625,3%1n value of goods was imported. It would cost the Importer at that rate of 22 per cent. $872,767,687, which not only makes up for the diflerenoe in wages, but exceeds all the wages paid for making all of the goods. If those who claim special friendship for the manufacturing industries will insist on their going into decay and theix dying, some other apology must be found for their taking off than the removal of unnecessary taxes. Mr. Kelley’s Reply. Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, made the opening speech in opposition to the bill. He did not believe any cheapening goods could relieve any American industries. The evil was not that goods were not cheap enough or that America eould not produce them. 'The tiuth. to be considered of all men, was that the power of production the world over had outran the power of consumption, and that) the markets were overstocked, and in every land skilled and industrious people had been idle for a large portion of all recent years. Nihilism in Russia, Socialism in Germany, Socialism and Nihilism in the border regions of Austria, Communism in France, told the story in those great countries, of idleness, want, and misery in every industrial center. He then proceeded to give chapters from the terrible lives of the industrial classes of England as learned by him during a three months’ visit to “Merry England," prosperous, free-trade England, in order to show the fearful condition of the laboring people of that country, and said the proposition now made was that theUnited States should enter the race with the world for cheapness, which had led to such terrible results ia England. Then was nothing of fio little value in England as a working man or woman with a reasonably good appetite. In one* town he had seen women making trace-chains-and yet the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Turner, was returned to Congress every year because he advocated placing trace-chains on the-free-list. Mr. Turner said that that was a good proposition, which he hoped would be adopted. Mr. Kelley replied that women could realize* 55 or 60 cents a week for making traoe-chains. God forbid tTuat any Kentucky woman must ever work at such masculine employment forsuch starvation wages. He secalled the reply of Emery Storrs to an Englishman who, at adinner given by Minister Lowell, was badgering him about free trade: "I will admit free traders the best for you—at least for those of you who can afford to consume anything that is produced; but I claim that protection is best for us. You think more a great deal of cheap shoes than you do of a prosperous shoemaker, while in America we think more of the artisan than his* work. After describing the wretched condition of thelaborers in Birmingham and surrounding towns, he said: "God forbid that American labor should ever be embodied in any production thatshould be cheap enough to be sold to the industrial towns that surround Birmingham. Much was heard about iree raw material. He* denied that the free-trade Democracy of the country, as represented on this floor, was in favor of free raw material. Under the present, tariff every element of raw material which could be discovered was already on the free list-. The pending bill put twenty or thir.y articles on. the Tree list, but not one of i hem was raw material. The raw material for salt was the brine rvhich was pumped out. Coal in earth, selling at certain rates per ton “unsight unseen,” wasraw material; but when thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars had been expended in making it accessible to man’s use, it. was not. Alcohol was raw material, and onlytwo Democrat —Messrs. Hewitt and Randall — were in favor of putting it on the free list. What was charged tor tho use of Nature’ssolvent, for which the wit of man had yet discovered no substitute? Before the American, farmer could advance his raw material—corn — one stage in the manufacture, he had to pay 90 cents a peck. The same was true of tobacco—it was a tax on. the producing and trading classes. In the race for cheapness production, left prosperous countries and found its way to the most oppressed, and those whose peoplewould work for the smallest modicum of food and clothing. The United States had entered on the work of banishing manufactures, and heasked that the tariff rates be reinstated, as hehad hoped they would have been by the majority of the last Congress. By abolishing the* duty on quinine and salts of quinine thelargest manufacturer in the country had been obliged to send all his stock abroad, anti to employ cheap German labor and cheap raw material in its manufacture. By putting adutyof 2 1-10 cents per pound on tin plates the United Stateß had succeeded in establishingmanufactories; but, by the misplacement of a comma, it has been held that only a duty of 1 1-10 cents had been. imposed. The* effect of this had been to strike down the industry. The sapient Secretary of the Treasury had held tbat the word “highest” in the last', tariff law meant “lowest,” and on account of that ruling the wire-rod makers were importing wire-rods pretty well made from the other side of the water. Mr. Hewitt, of New York, suggested that the Republican and not the Democratic tariff had done that. Mr. Kelley replied that if 20 per cent, of the Democrats in the last Congress had united with the Republicans the tariff on wire-rods would, have been placed at such a rate as to enable Americans to manufacture them. Mr. Hewitt —Would you have allowed us to fix the thing in conference committee? Mr. Kelley—Yes, sir. No Democrat would serve on that commit ee save Mr. Carlisle, who served quietly in order to observe what was done. Nary one dared. Mr. Hesvitt—Then the whole performance -was a Republican performance? Mr. Kelley—The conference had to deal with, the materials you sent us. Are they Republicans in this House who propose to reduce the dutyon wire rods 20 per cent. ? Who voted for it today, Republicans or Democrats? Don’t let us talk about what occurred a year ago. Let us go back only two hours. Mr. Kelley then repeated the assertion he had made that the production had outrun consumption. Every reduction of wages diminished the power of the masses to consume and magnified the evil from which the people of the -whole industrial world were now suffering. This evil could not be mitigated by a2O per cent, reduction in the tariff, now too light on a good many articles which should be produced ha the United States, nor by a blow at the agricultural interests. The south of Russia was now engaging Americans to erect elevators, to build factories fpr American agricultural machinery, and to aid in the construction of railroads to the seaports;- and if the farmers of America did not care for their interests and did not strive by tne proper legislation to diversify their agricultural products their markets would be gone; and in comparison with the price they now received for wheat they would receive a price little more than nominal. He could see but two means by which the markets could be increased, with a third means glimmering in the future. Stop all importation of cheap labor. Send back .to whatever country they came from the men or women who had signed the contracts in foreign lands or on shipboard to work at lower wages than the wages of American labor. See that the wages were kept so high that the public schools might he well sustained and the children reasonably well educated. Let not the American women become degraded. Protectthe American motherhood against the degradation of becoming the drudges of men in gla‘s-works, iron-forges, and rolling-mills, if necessary, by declaring eight hours the longest period in the twenty-four that men or machinery may run. He advocated the production Of sorghum in the West, and especially in the Southwest, as a means of diversifying the labor of the American farmer and enhancing the sale of his production. Let the country be isolated. It was unlike any other, It was not a monarchy or an empire; it was a free republic, every human being belonging to which was a citizen with the rights of freemen, and with the duty before him of helping maintain the Government, which could only live as long as virtue, intelligence, and independence characterized its citizens. And this it could not do If it was to begin in an unholy race for the "cheap and nasty” underteachings of dismal science. A fancy bloodhound attacked Mrs. Eckert, at Rockasvay Beach, tore off one of bor ears, and stripped off the flesh from her shoulder to her wrist. Charleston, S. 0., has a 600-pound turtle