Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1884 — HON. FRANK HURD'S SPEECH [ARTICLE]

HON. FRANK HURD'S SPEECH

Against Restoringthe Duty on Wool— I The Question as Decisively Discussed in the House of Representatives— His Remarks in Full. The following is the complete report of Mr. Frank Hurd’s able and comprehensive speech that settled the fortunes of the wool question in the House: Mr. Speaker—d oppose this motion because it proposes to restore the duty on wool, and thereby increase the price of that commodity. It does this directly by. increasing the price of foreign wool required m domestic manufacturing The question thus plainly presented is: Ought the price of wool to be increased by legislation? There are three classed interested in the answer to this question—first, those who consume articles made of wool; secondly, those who manufacture woolen goods; and, thirdly, those who produce the raw material itself. The manifest effect upon the first class—the consumer—is to increase the price of his woolen goods, for you can not add to the price of the raw material of which the article is made without increasing the price of the article itself Ought, then, to the consumers of this country, the price of woolen goods to be increased? To this question, Mr. Speaker, there can be but one answer. At all times and under all circumstances in our Northern climate wool is an indispensable article of daily consumption. It is shelter to the housjj less, covering to the shiverinjl and fuel when the light of til fire is extingushed. The ljJe of the workingman, the amsan and. the mechanic without the protection of woolen clothing would be insupportable while they toil, and tlieir fate without it would be miserable indeed, after their daily toil is ended.

If these remarks be true, ordinarily, how painfully true are they now. This has been a winter of unexampled severity. More than half a million men are out of employment. In debt, without wages, strong men everywhere are seeing their families suffer because thefy can not get the work they are anxious to do. Has this House of Representatives to these. sufferers nothing more to say than this, that the necessaries of life to them shall be increased in expense? The very proposition is,a mockery of their misfortune. The passage of this bill wouldbean unforgivable wrong to millions. It is not an auspicious time to make clothing dearer to the poor.— If bounties are needed for any industry, in God’s name take them out of yoUr overflowing treasury, not out of your suffering poor. (Apj plause.) ! Secondly. What is the effect upon the manufacturer of the proposed legislation? Jhat interest everywhere is in a state of depression. Many have reduced the hours of labor. Many have shut up for a time. Few are ruifning all the time and to the full extent of their capacity. In the midst of this embarrassment among the wool .manufacturers does this House propose to add t4> their burden by increasing the price of the raw tnaterial. One of the chief causes of j the presei l depression is the high prkx oi ioreign wool. — The duty, even as it stands now under the present tariff, with the cost of importation added, increases the price of foreign wool to the American manufacturer nearly 60 per cent, above what it is at the port of shipment. In 1880 the American mills consumed 300,000,00( pounds of wool. Of tliese*7s,ooo,ooo were imported. Nearly one-fourth of their con-

sumption was of foreign production. They have the power in these mills to consume nearly twic3 as much as they do. io be able to manufacture to the extent < f half of their capacity they have been obliged to import 75,000.000 pounds of foreign wool with the increase of price which the tariff makes ihe mills of America can manufacture 600,000,000 nounds annually, 'lhe wool growers of America produce 300,000,000 pounds annually.— Your high duty disables your manufacturer from getting the wool he is required to have in order to supply deficiencies of heme production. And by this very tariff, too, you have robbed these men of the markets of the world. England, with free wool, sells abroad $120,000,000 worth of woolen goods annually. America, with high duties on wool, sells abroad scarcely *400,000 worth. . Pass this bill and increase the price of foreign wool and you add to the embarrassment of every woolen manufacturer: you compel a further reduction of the wages of their operatives and lock still more ’tightly against them the doors of the markets of the world.

Mr. Speaker, this wrong to the consumer, this wrong te the manufacturer is attempted to be justified on the ground that the American farmer will get a better price for his wool. This is a delusion. Who makes the market for the American farmer? No man buys wool and takes it to his own home to spin and woave it into clothes. It is the American manufactui er who makes the market for the American farmer. And just as he is prosperous or depressed is the price of wool high or low.— [Applause.] It is natural that # man in prosperity w* 11 pay a better price than the man whb m adversity has overtaken. And right here to-day you find this astonishing situation —a high duty on foreign wool, and a low price for American wool. And I charge here now, that this low price of American wool is largely attributa** ble to the high price of foreign wool.

There are three grades or classes of wool in the market: (1) The superfine or the Silesian wool. (2) The intermediary or combing wool, and, (3) The coarse carpet'wool. Of these America does not. produce the superfine wool or the carpet wool, and it can not produce them, 'therefore no duty on them can be of any benefit to the farmer of this country. He does not grow them. * As to 1 he intermediary grade this is the situation: ‘he wools of the foreign countries have a fiber and texture which our wools do not possess, and the American manufacturer needs them to mix with American wool to produce the best results. No man can make a good suit of clothes from American goods alone. From England, from France, and othet&parts of the world, we want the wool with their fiber to make the best product for our manufacturer in his work of supplying the home demand. You see to-day, Mr. Speaker, that the whole supply of foreign wool which is imported is because of the necessity of manufacture. Let foreign wool come in free, or let the duty be further reduced, and you will bring in more foreign wool to commingle with tne American wool to enable our manufacturers to make the best cloths. I believe every pound of foreign wool of intermediary grade that comes into this country will make more valuable every pound of wool raised hei e. *he basis of my proposition on this point is that the foreign wool does not come into America in competition with American wool, but to supplement its deficiencies.

This is no idle theory of mine: During the low duties on wool, from 1847 to 1861, the farmers got five cents per pound more for their wool than they have received from 1867 until now under the high protective tariff adopted in the year last named. In England when a proposition was made to take the duties off wool altogether, it was antagonized, as calculated to be destructive to the wool interests; but the result is that from that time until now the price of wool has steadily advanced, subject only to those fluctuations which alcect all occupations. In France we have the same result, for when the duty on wool was reduced from 33 to 22 per cent wool immediately advanced 6 per ceDt., and continued at that rate. One of the principal statisticians of France ieported to the French Government that “high duties on wool made low prices at home,while low duties on wool, or free wool, made good prices at home.” In that report M. Baudrillard said: “The home” (France) “production is not sufficient for the daily wants of our industry. Every check thrown in the way of the latter affects its activity. As soon as our manufacturers can not procure foreign wool they decrease their production, because they can not find at h une the required qualities, and the French wool, which they wo’d have used to mix in, lies about in the markets/’ Mr. Speaker, I believe if wool were put on the free list today, with a corresponding reduction of tariff on woolen goods, the result would a large increase in manufacturing, a

targe addition to the number of operatives employed, an increase of at least 10 per cent, in the price of wool on the farm, and a reduction of 25 per cent, in price to the people who have to purchase woolen clothes. I know I have been requested by the Democratic Legislature of the State of Ohio to rote to restore the duty on wool.* I have a great respect :or it as a body; I have a great resdect for its individual mem here, so many of whom I know well and favorably. Butj I would not vote in this House to make woolen clothing dearer to the laboring population of this country if every Democrat in the State of Ohio should ask me to do it. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Woe to the party that prognoses to obtain power by makng the expenses of living heavier and the struggle for existence still harder tor those who can scarcely carry it now. The path to victory to such a iarty is through the misfortunes and sufferings of their “‘ellewmen. If lifted into powu it will he on the v shoulders )f taxation and monopoly, and he leaves of its laurel will be mtwined wfth a «sbison vine vhich will cause them to wither, even as they are being gathred. For one, I do not caj-e that he party to which f. belong hall come into powerhnless t shall be to give freer trade o odr people, better investnents to its capital, larger zages to its laborers and reater glory to the American ‘.ame on the high seas and mong the nations of the arth. [Here the hammer .fell, and he gentleman resumed his eat amid great applause.] In discussing ft e Mofrison >ill Mr Hurd cLenfai the right f the Grovemnwmto surrenler the taxing power and al--3W an individual to exercise t. When he eamad wages hey were his own, afid he had he right to expend them mere he pleased. If he co’d lake a better contract with a ■ renchman, a Mexican, a Caiadian,or an Englishman than dth an American he had the ight to do it, and the Governlent had no right to interns©, except in so far as the .eeds of its revenue were conerned. He rested his whole ise on this proposition. That, lbject to the needs of the ‘ tovernment, every man had le right to sell where he co’d *et the best price for what he tad produced and to buy

where he could buy most cheaply. This was an approved doctrine of political economy, and the plainest teaching of justice. It individualized men; it in them a spirit of ’independence; it turned | their eyes from the Government to themselves; it fixed the boundary line between governmental power and personal rights; it limited the authority of public administration; it taught men there was no arm so strong for their support as their own, and no business so successful as that which their ability and skill had built up. It limited the Government within its proper sphere and left individuals free* to choose their own careers, develop thejr own resources and build up their own fortunes. The present American tariff was an embarrassment to commerce and injurious to the carrying trade, and it was a qnestfon of only a bttle time when, under this policy, the American flag would entirely disappear from the high seas. The oceans were free to all; any person might sail whithersoever he pleased, but in this tree for all where was America? The skill of the sailor? Every nation was there asserting itself except ours, and yet this was an oceanbound Republic. Every ripple of the waters on the seashore was an invitation to injure the wealth of foreign nations, and every stormy wave that beat on the crags spoke in thundering- denunciation of the policy that would lock America out of the market. 4 (Loud applause.) God speed the day when* the divine tho’t that man’s brotherhood to manhood would succeed the degrading and humiliating one of nationalization and for eign exclusion. W hat was the effect of this ruinous system on the farmer? It increased the price of all the articles which entered into his daily consumption, and this increase amounted to the annual sum of $45,000,000; for this there was absolutely no ( mipensationinthe protective system. The system operato to increase the price of i.e transportation of grain om the West to the seabo.. d, and from the seaboard to Europe. When the grain of the American farmer reached Liverpool it came in competition with the grain of every other farmer in the world. The protective tariff of America was unable to help him there, and every dollar of increase in the price which transportation occasioned to him diminished his profits and his sales. But the protective tariff* did more injury to the farmer than in the injury it occasioned to his foreign market. It had already robbed America of onehalf of the markets of the world, and India now furnished England with wheat.— The effect of this >n the markets of the United States for the last nine months had been a decrease in .the export of American cereals of more than 848,000,000,‘and wheat had gone down in Chicago to less than eighty cents, and the development of the wheat production of India was entirely the result of the protective policy in America. I say, continued he, to the farmers of America, the prospect before you is not encouraging now, with the elevators and granaries and warehouses all full, the old crop unsold; with vast fields greening to the coming harvests with crops unexcelled in Ina ia; with splendid promise among all the wheat-growing nations, and with the price of Sheat at less than eighty cts., Le result, which will be inevitable, is that the price of wheat before January next will not pay the cost of production, and the corn raised on the Western prairies will again be burned for fuel. In that day the farmers will be beggars in the midst of their own plenty. There is abs > lutely no relief except making a foreign market for agriculture. He went on to argue that the effect of the system was not beneficial to manufacturing interests, but, on the contrary, was detrimental to them, in that it prevented them from securing free raw material. “Oh! that I cbuld inject into the brain of the manufacturers of America one sentence,” he burst forth, it would be this: Turn from

j this constant introspection to the nations of the world. Down with the walls and to sea! There are 2,000,000 people whe want to buy waat I you make. Rise u;. to the truth of j the great thought tha*. these iui* | tn- nae copies can be supplied by you with all the Instruments of hus?bandrv and the tools of artisanship; I but they will not take your goods unless y u take theirs- Let your tarift disappear, and then. O manufacturers! your attention will be diverted from the ho.ue markets to the generous rivalries of foreign trade, in which a wcaltji will come to you of which you do riotdr"am to-day. (Applause.) He then discussed the tariff question as effecting the rates of wages for laborers, declaring that so far as labor was concerned tne Iruits of protection were want, penury and Btai vation- These were the jewels in its crown. He wished worklngmeu would cease to believe in the delusion that protection was a nelp to them. It came in 'the guise es a friend, but was really a mortal foe; its hand was lifted iu aa attitude of be. edictioD, but it was really raised to curse. It never would permit labor to have the full share te which it was entitled of the profits of capital. If employes had not the wisdom to leara *he truth, he hoped this agitation would enlighten the workers and that tnereby their votes would relegate the business to the natural laws of trade. Mr. Hurd went on to give hie reasons way he supported the pending bill, aid ia the course of his remarks, asked if there was anything tn the Morrison bill inconsistent with the Ohio platform? “I will answer yes," interjeoted Mr. Warner, of Ohio. Mr. Hurd—l had hoped ne Democrat on the floor of the House would ever say there was a Democrat!? platform which would not enable the people to tate off the war taxes of twenty-fire years ago [Loud ana contiDuedfapplause on the Democratic side], sad if that be the meaning of the gentlem-iu, then I say, here and now, I shall up eal to the gallant De** mooracy of my native State to repu» diate Jtha heresy of that platform, and I have no fear of the result that it whl place itsel where it ought to be, close to the great National heart of the Democrats of this Nation.— [Renewed applause.] In the glorious result of the struggl • to come, I am sure tbis protective grant robbery and extortion will disappear from the land, never agaiu to offend America, or darken her fair field with its shads ow. [Applause.]