Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1884 — EXTRACT FROM THE TARIFF SPEECH OF HON. T. J. WOOD, OF IND. [ARTICLE]

EXTRACT FROM THE TARIFF SPEECH OF HON. T. J. WOOD, OF IND.

Mr. Wood said: Mr. Chairman, I regret any contest between the great industries of the country, and I am not here to strike one of them, but to bring them into harmonious relations by pointing out the abuses of our protective system. Their differences are business questions arising from the changing conditions of a new and growing country and from the present unjust and unequal tariff act. The protectionists can not through partisan warfare silence the reasonable demands of great industries like agriculture and transportation, which have so generously supported them over a quarter of a century.— The people have the right to insist upon a fair distribution of burdens and the s radual repeal of class legislation. There is common ground for adjustment and harmony It is wisdom for the industry possessing the greatest advantages through a law of Con* gross to divide them with others of equal importance and insure the business stability of both. The proposition before the House is reduction of tariff taxation. The public reasury is overflowing with an idle surplus. Shall Congress ; permit high taxation to continue without necessity? Duties upon imports should be evied to raise revenue sufficient to support the Government, pay its just debts and obligations. No higher duties are necessary for any interest of the country at the present time. This kind of tariff makes sufficient revenue the object of the law and protection to home industries the incident. This is tlie fcDemocratic doctrine. A protective tariff makes protect on to home industries from foreign competition the law, and sufficient revenue the incident, which is Republican doctrine. Which one.is best for the people of the whole country? Not which is best for New England or Pennsylvania, Indiana or California. We are aided in choosing one of these doctrines by an examination of the present tariff act, enacted in 1861 as a* war measure. It has been amended several times since,and may now be called a high protective and partially prohibitory law. The Democratic platforms of all the States condemn this law in unmeasured terms, and no Republican platform ever written indorses it. They are for nrotection, they say. Then why do not their platforms indorse the present tariff act as the work of the party? No, they skillfully avoid that by advocating a protective tariff. If the present law is right, let it alone: but if it is wrong, we should try to correct the wrong. Party integrity forbids concealment ot our intentions on this great public question until we have the power to enact a law. The cause of tariff reform needs no evasion now for future advantage. GROSS INEQUALITIES. The present law contains gross inequalities, which impose the greatest burdens upon labor and men of moderate means, while those able to stand the i ..; lens of taxation bear the lea.-t of all. The law provides that all low-priced goods, such as poor people must buy, shall pay nearly double the duty that fine grades of goods pay, which are purchased only by men of ample means. The purpose of this law was to levy the highest tax upon all goods that laboring people must buy. Why? It is fair to say that forty mib lions of our population are

poor people and persons of small estates. They buy large quantities of low-priced goods of all kinds, and a high tariff upon them brings enoi mous profits to the manufacturer. — This was wrong, for labor should be lightly burdened, because poorest paid. In another way the law is unjust. All agree that the citizen should pay taxes 011 his property values only. If he. pays more tax than his neighbor who owns many times his property, it is an unjust and partial exaction, and he is deprived of one right of American citizenship—e qu a l taxation by the law. It is impossible to compel the rich men and corporations in this country to pay their share of indirect tax under this unequal law, and it is quite as impossible for the poor to escape a greater tax than they slio’d pay. This objection should be enough among fair-minded men. There are many thousands of men in this country worth from fifty thousand to hundreds of millions of dollars, not considering vast corporal e wealth. A poor man buys SIOO in woolen or mixed woolen goods per year, on which the average duty is 65 per cent. Here lie {jays '65 as an indirect tax while his property will not inventory SI,OOO. .The millionaire pays this indirect tax also when he buys protected goods, but his most extravagant consumption will not beam to make Ins indirect taxation as high as that paid by the man owning SI,OOO. If the man worth SI,OOO pays $65 indirect tax upon <IOO of woolen goods, his annual purchase, how much tax must the millionaire pay fp be equal with him? He must pay ten hundred times $65, or < 65,(XX). The millionaire must pay $65,000 on this one article to make his indirect tax equal to the indirect tax of - 65 paid by the man owning 1,000. rt requires one thousand people to pay >65 each to be eqiuil to the 65,000 which the millionaire never pays, but which he should do on the basis of equal taxation. This he does not begin to do. This calculation applies to the purchase of all other imported goods. In proportion to property values the rich man pays comparatively nothing, while the poor man pays an extravagant tax. Ihe indirect tax, under the protective system does not touch the wealth of the country, but falls upon the person, and very hard upon the laboring man, for he sho’d not be burdened more than his wealthy neighbor. It is a high tax upon property purchas3d, not upon property owned, which unavoidably bears hard upon poor People. It beingja tax paid by the person when he buys protected goods, it follows that over 40,000,000 of our population, old and young, pays nearly all the indirect tariff tax, while the wealth of the country pays comparatively nothing. If this system of taxation is necessary then it should be as low as can be with a view to sufficient revenue. ihis system overrules the whole theory of American taxation. All bankable wealth, all corporate wealth, all other wealth escapes undei the present tariff law. If we must have a high indirect tax to protect home industries it ought to be based upon property values; then wealth could not go comparatively free. If there can not be an approximate equality of the burdens of taxation, then we should abandon the system rather than burden the Poor of our country. I regret £0 say that a Republican Congress made this unjust and unequal law and maintained it ever since 1861, tho’ its wrongs upon the consumer were frequently pointed out. In 1882 a reform of this iniquitous law was attempted, but the w rk then done was not reform at all. The Tariff

Commission made tariff schedules reducing the rate of taxation 25 per cent., hut the For-ty-seventh Congress ref used to j adopt them. It made and j adopted independent schedules winch reduced taxation Less than 2 per cent, I call attention of the House to the President’s message to Con- i >ress. He Said (the Clerk will read): “To make a start in the pro-! posed reduction of revenue :rom imports, the Tariff Commission had been created. In good faith it undertook the .vork. In its report to Congress it said: “Early in its deliberations the commission became convinced that a substan- j tial reduction of 'tariff duties , s demanded, not by a mere popular clamor, out by the best conservative opinion of the country. * * * Such a reduction of the existing tariff the commission regards not only as a due recognition of public sentiment ,ind a measure of .justice to consumers, but one conducive ;o the general industrial proslerity, and which, though it nay be temporarily inconvenent, will be ultimately benefi;ial to the special interests af'ected by such a reduction. — Entertaining these views, the commission has sought to present a scheme of tariff duties n which substantial reduction should be the distinguishing nature. The average reduc:ion in rates, including that rom the enlargement of the tee-list and the abolition of lie duties on charges and comnissions, at which the commis;ion has aimed, is not less on lie average than 20 per cent., nid it is the opinion of the ommission that the reduction will reach 25 percent.” * * * * # The chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, in-ex-planation of the bill before he Senate last year, which ifter various amendments beame a law, estimated at $45,>OO,OOO the* reduction of the evenue which would follow iie changes in the tariff proposed thereby. These intentions and calcuations have not been verified. * * * * So the question still presses, what legislation is necessary o relieve the people of unneessary taxes?” The President said, “so the «question still presses what leislation is necessary to relieve he people of unnecessary tax's?” Unnecessary taxes existed to such an extent as to call special reference to it by a Republican President. It exits to-day as strong as ever, nd will this House refuse an xonest reduction? This bill . iduces taxation thirty mili ons. Will my Republican Tends take the good advice £ their President and aid us ‘ > make this moderate reducon? I appeal to them to do >, for the people demand it. — 3 is a reasonable demand, beluse their tax burdens are ancessary. The average duty under the 3W law is about 42 per cent. ; gainst 44 per cent, under the d law, and the gross inequalies of the old law were cared into the new one without r Lange. Under the system of gh taxation of the old law «.e surplus revenue exceeded le hundred millions, ihe ;w act does not materially - >wer this, as you see by the light reduction of the duties, h ue people are not blind to e conduct of Congress, and -' iis pretentious reform will i> >t deceive them. I want to be fair with the ’ i anufactuier, but he sho’d act 1 irly with consumers of manu cactured goods. Ihe manucturer who has a practical pnopoly by high protection w ill not say his monopoly is r ght. I want the Clerk to read v. hat two or three manufactu;rs sav on this subject: Mr. Barnett Whorff, a Skowi *gan manufacturer, says: “I was brought up a Whig id in favor of a protective riff, but it is not so clear to / mind at the present time it a high protective tariff for the best interest of the ontry and majority of the ople thereof. *he iron an d

woolen industries are the most | highly protected of any and are suffering the most to-day. I have used iron to some extent for forty years, but think that my business was never more depressed than now, not by competition with foreign manufacturers, for there is no importation of axes into this State or country of any ain’t; a few may be brought from New Brunswick and a tew from Canada; but the trouble seems to be overproduction or general stagnation in business, so that is difficult for me to form an opinion on the tariff question satisfactory to myself. I think that coal and salt should be on the free-list. It is not so clear to my mind as to lumber. lam in fav~u of a revision of the tariff and think that all the necessaries of life used by the laboring class should be on the freelist, or nearly so.” Two Republican manufacturers of Belfast, Sherman and * hompson by name, step out boldly with these sentiments:

“We do not object to the Morrison bill. Lumber, salt and coal free will benefit more than injure. We are manufacturers and wish to have our manufactures protected, but too much protection is morally wrong and injurious. According to our observations Rep blicans as well as Democrats favor low tariff in this vicinity on necessaries. Rum, tobacco, and such like we wo’d place on the high-list.” The abuses and inequalities of the present tariff mainly arise from the specific duties imposed, and I cite a case in point: In Schedule I a specific duty of 3| cents per square yd. of bleached cotton under 100 threads to the square inch, and a duty of 4i cents to the square yard of the same grade of unbleached or colored goods is charged to the importer, and the specific duty is increasec on the same kind of goods over 100 threads to the square inch. There are more fliar a dozen classes of these good* . low paying similar specific d Lies; but to illustrate the eu .-mityof this tariff, take on< ilass of cotton goods 36 inclie .. i width which costs li cents , or yard to manufacture in Glasgow; the custom, house valuation at New York is 3.4 cento per yard. This makes a duty equal to an ad valorem duty of 148 per cent.

If you calculate Scottish money worth nearly double our own, it would make the duty over 80 per cent, ad valorem. Out of twelve kinds of cotton goods imported the tariff is more than 112 per cent, on seven, and one class in the dozen is as low as 71 per cent The specific duties on these articles average 111 per cent ad valorem according to the value of American money. This enormous tariff is levied upon a class of goods c instantly needed and chiefly used by the poor classes of our people, while silk, broadcloth and velvets do not pay an average of half as much duty. The manufacturers in Glasgow buy our cotton, which is raised, gathered, ginned, and prepared for the market by thousands of laboring people, and manufacture it into all kinds of cotton fabrics, send them to American markets, and compel the thousands of laboring people to pay this enormous duty, as it is charged to them in the price of the article, though it is directly paid by the importer. Does tnis tariff benefit labor? England buys our wool in large quanties,and imports it free ot duty. Her manufacturers pay no Government tax on this raw material. This wool is commingled with finer grades of wool produced in other countries and manufactured into woolen and part woolen fabrics of all kinds, and shipped to the American ports, where a duty ol 65 per cent, is paid, and then it enters the American markets, and the laboring people who guarded, fed and sheared the sheep, washed the wool, and prepared it for the market, as well as those who raised the grain, buy their clothing with 65 percent, bounty added, *6,50 for every $lO paid for woolen or part woolen clothing.— Does this tariff benefit labor? England and other countries buy our raw materials, import them free of duty. They are

manufactured into goods of all kinds and shippea to the American markets, and our Government collects high duties upon the goods made from the raw materials our people have sold, and compels the very producers of them and their workmen to pay these high duties when they purchase the goods. Does this benefit labor? This high bounty comes out of the wages of labor and out of the pockets of the producer. svery person in this land uses cotton goods; and whom does this tariff benefit? 'i he manufacturer of New England only. Why? ‘lie duty is so high as to partially prohibit the import of this class c f cotton goods. During the war the duty on these grades of cotton goods was 35 per cent, ad valorem. Then one half of all that our people consumed was imported.

Under Ihe present hig.i specific J duty only one-fifth of ali we consume is imported, vet the import fixes the price for the home manufacturer and the consumer pays it. Why should this enormous duty of 111 per cent, be levied upon this class of goods, when the labor cost in Scotland is only 15 per cent, and in the United States only 25 percent, of the cost of the manufactured article? To build u - home mono oly. That is the answer. In tnis Instance there is just enough of the imported article to establish the price of this class of goods manufactured in the United States. The mills of iNew England manufacture foui-fifths of the entire amount consumer! in this country, aud pocket 111 per cent., the average duty, lor every yard sold to our people The nome manufacturer will not undersell the importer because he wants ihe benefit of 'he duty which the importer pays to the Government. if he did undersell the importer, then there would be no imports at ah of tnis class of cotton goods, glint there is imported ouefifth of the entire, amount consumed by the people, on which the average duly of 111 percent, is paid. This duty is added to the celling p.lce, far the importer must have the duty paitl back when he sells the article. This, then, fixes the price of j one-fifth of the cotion goods cons * sumed. Will the other four-fifths manufactured here sell for a less price than the one fUth? Certainly not. The home manufacturer sells the our fifths, his owu manufacture, at the same price as the imported eue fifth is sold, and tuk 8 the benefit of the Siiatneful duty. Can my publican friend3give an excuse for their vote in the Fortyseventh Congress In favor of this shameful nufv? Did they not know that vote maintained a home monop oly that unjustly lakes money from t'. e s'-ant wage-, of labor aud extorts unwilling tribute from the consumers ail over this country?