Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 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.

[Continued from last week ] LABOR. The monopolists appeal for protective duties to pay for labor. Their solicitude for labor is touching. No man desires to hurt American labor, and no one does so but the monopolists themselves. They employ 5 per c«nt of the labor of the United States. They do nob speak for all the other labor in the country. They do not sneak for Agricultural labor. What does protection offer for all the labor of the country outside of the country? Nothing. The laborers in the factories and mills of New England are not paid more wages than is paid in Eng land, all things considered. There is no inducement for the skilled labor of other countries to seek this country for employment. ihe English cottonweavers are paid from $4 to $8.60 per week; New England weavers get *4.82 to $8.37 per** week. English spinners get $7.20 to §10.30 per week; American get »7.07 to $10,30 per week In 1881 the Lancashire mills paid average wages of §8 per week to men and $5.65 to women. In England clothing is 50 to 100 per cent, cheaper, while house rent is 50 per cent, less than in this country. English labor is as well paid as American labor, ihe price of l<>bor is governed by competition. Labor is not protected by any law. The monopolist lias high protection on his goods, but, free trade inTabov. 1 have heard enough of the protection cant on this floor about, labor. I am disgusted with such hypocrisy. The wages of labor m all industries in all countries are fixed by supply and demand. What solicitude have the rich corporate industries for labor? They have been able to gather un natural fortunes through the class legislation of Congress, and yet they did not increase

1 lie wages of their workmen, their unnatural gains represent in part the dues of laboring men. When large profits can not be made any other way they begin to cut down the moderate wages of the workingman until tttej are below the living point, when labor ‘ srikes become necessary to enforce the demand for better wages to buy bread. 2alk to me about well-paid labor under protection. There is not a protected industry in the United States having wellpaid labor. It is hired as cheaply as it can be had. /rhey do not ask, “What can this or that Laboring man live for and educate himself and family?” No, that is not considered. — 1 hey say, “What can it be had for m the labor market?” ihe protective system has made la bor an auction block Strong men, with weeping dependents appealing for bread and clothing, charged With 65 to 80 per cent, over the actual value, mount the labor auction-block with competition for the auctioned". He can make no demand for living rates. He can not name the price for daily toil, chains of monopoly around his brawny arms tell him lie is a slave, "lie monopolists gal her around the auction block '■’hen the auctioneer er.es: •;(. dig,going,at 1,ou Per diuj. Pie owners of bursting bags of gold, wrung from all the people by a law of Congress —orofits never earned-—make no bid, and witness the scene with the cold indifference of the black; master of the Aus trian dungeon. “Going, going at $1,25 per day,” cries the auctioneer, and still the monop - list is as silent aft'the hour before final doom. “Going, go-

ing, going, at c 1, per day,” cries tiie auctioneer, and monopoly bids him in, counting the profit saved, while the brawny arms implore the mercy of Pro vidence for him and his in this land of overflowing plenty. I turn my head from sickening nausea when I hear it again and again repeated on this floor that labor is well paid under the p otective system. France and Germany have protection and their laborers are not near as well paid as the wagemen of free-trade England, while England employs more men and manufao litres more than all the projected countries excepting the United States. 3ie laboring tile protected industniss has no liberty, no rights which the employer dare not invade. His labor is not only bought and sold in the market but the highest and most sovereign right of American freemen is demanded and held in the hand of the monopolist.— When he buys his labor he says, *1 have bought his vote I own his labor and I own his vote ” Is this freedom or human slavery 2 Does this elevate the laboring man? Does it make Jiim a man? Where is his citizenship? I shall hail the day as one of glad tidings when laboring men can be free, independent, and able to dictate terms equally with the employer, and have the full and free enjoyment of American citizenship. I shall labor for him to bring this grand result while I have a voice on this floor or elsewhere. The workingman has no protection for his own capital—his labor—this side of the throne of grace. Look at the great industries employing 04 per cent, of so reign labor at low wages, and yet the gilded tongiif of hypocrisy talks blandly for American labor. The essence, the oil of this hated hypocrisy burns brightly in all the lost regions below—the far hidden sepulcher for “man’s inhuman ity to man.” Hear, oh, ye protectionists, what the laboring men of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, say in their just and righteous petition to the American Congress*

Ttyat .the present issue on the tariff question more than any other hilt tiow before'Oitugress; that no matter whether there is a protective or a revenuetariff.it makes no difference to us, as we receive no proportionate benes fit from it. We have already submitted to a horizontal reduction of our wages of from 10 to 20 per cent.,forced upon us by our employe s on the plea that they co’d not afford to pav us our previous wages, while no change had been made in the tariff t iat conlcl affect them. They re* ceive II the benefits from the tariff, and we have to submit to all the reductions they impose upon us Therefore, we are in favor of the 20 per cent horizortal reduction in the present tariff We demand that our rights shall be ac* knowledged, and that we shall receive our proportionate share of any tariff that may be levied for the protection of the American workingmen against competition wtth the pauper labor of Europe; that we are not to submit to any reduction in our wages below the amount guaranteed by our proportionate share of tiie tariff, and that the 'ocfd competition between the manufacturers shall act be tisrd by them to lower our wages at their pleasure unless the tariff has been reduced a corresponding amount The Washington Star comments: The protected manufacturers ot Pennsylvania hart better look out Their employes are rapidly arriving at the conclusion that the tariff protects the manulacturrr, uot the woi kingman: capital, and not labor Laboring men are largely interested in extended markets for the products of their labor. If their labor products will not sell, then labor must go i unemployed. Labor products mus f sell m* «,» ni; ;kr sos the ! world to keep laboring men | well employed., i There is nothing to hinder the labor of Europe from com- ! ing here to compete with our I labor. They frighten laboring i men by the cry of pauper la- ■ bor of Europe. Paup'»* labor is worth nothing any j It is of no value to iu- ' try. It is nan per la bo f-n om-fM, .'' • xk/ v'i.t • K i i V wxt kj - - ’ ■'l • «

my conditions whatever. 1 -peak by the official reports vhen I declare that skilled laoor in Europe is paid as well is American labor, all things )onsidered;and when the manlfacturer says that he wants i tariff to pay labor and that le can not manufacture in his country as cheaply as in England on account of the ligh price of labor, mark it lown that he is untruthful. — 3ut I would give him the cost )f his labor in the tariff. J hat s more than the farmer gets. The average cost of labor is .71 per cent. of the manufactured article. The average ariff now is 42 per cent. Cut lown the tariff tax to 30 per ;ent. for the present. That jives him a large per centage )ver the cost of labor, and with hat he should be satisfied.— Any industry failing with the •ost )f labor donated to it night not survive. The promotion ists, when talking to aboring people, hold up the )oorly paid and pau >er labor ff Europe. \ v hen speaking to farmers they say: “Let us done now; we will soon com)ete among ourselves (which s not probable), then prices vill come down.” If prices lecrease by the promised com>etition among “ourselves,” hen what will they do about he wages ot the poor laborer, or whomflthey have appealed or protection to keep up pri;es so that they could payhim jood wages? The defense of protection is 'ounded upon deception of the People, and any cause that can lot exist without deceit to up10M it ought to go down. -Our Forking people are told that he laboring people of other ountries do not live so well as he American workmen. I hink that is true, but wliat is he , cause of it? The only •ountries in Europe whose inlabibints and resources are nougli like ours for comparion are Belgium, Denmark, Trance, Germany, Great Brit lin, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Their average populaion is two hundred and twen-y-seven to the square mile.— >ur population is fourteen to he square mile by the census f 1880. Making due allo\&nce for uninhabitable regions ixteen .to two hundred and wenty five is a fair compari-

on. Now, no man wants toffie told hat sixteen persons can live >etter off of a square mile of and than -two hundred and wenty-live can. Protection ate try to scare the farmers by tating that their 700,000 workaen will turn farmers and hen farm products will be , r orth nothing on account of verproduction. In the first lace, the industries are not - oing to stop. "Their workien will not leave them Our idustries are able to compete dth any others on the earth, will discuss this hereafter !ut if the workmen did turn irpiers the agricultural interit- would not be .effected Iveiy two or three years sev:al thousand emirant farmers come, scatter all 7er the land, and the farmlg interest is noi disturbed. The wages of the 700,000 optatives in the factories at a > >und figure, $lO per week,lsoo ir yean amounts to $350,000,X) per annum. I said the iople pay over *500,000,000 as * tribute by reason of proteoon. If the people paid these leratives to remain idle, they ",'ould save one or two hu.iii?ed millions annually. A large proportion of the iriff is taken out of the wagjof the workman. That may 3 strange but it is true. Many dustries manufacture notliig but cotton warp and yarn, nother industry manufact;es coloring-matter. There <e high duties upon warp and aril and coloring-matter here are many industries anufacturing cotton cloth .id other forms of cotton iods, and their owners buy e cotton warp and yarn or read am pay the duty thereu The uuty paid, or a prortion of it, if not all, comes tof the wages of the operives who make the cloth.— hy? Ii this instance (he irp ar.d yarn are equivalent raw material, and. the wag•of 1 abor are a! ways gauged i

by the cost of raw material If . the raw material is enhanced in price by high duties, then labor must be cut down, for the manufacturer will not cut down his profits. Again, one industry makes pig-iron, another buys the pig-iron, and pays the price with the duty added, and manufactures iron and steel blooms, on which high duties are also levied. — These blooms are purchased by the owner of another industry at Indianapolis, and he pays high duties on the price of the goods, and by the labor of his m3n manufactures from these biooms iron and steel goods of every description.— Here the iron and steel blooms are equivalent to raw material, and it is made expensive by high tariff duties, ihe increased cost of the raw material or its equivalents by high protective duties is taken out of the wages of the men. Our workman may get a small percentage more wages than is paid in England, but he works faster and more hours than the Englishman; so, in fact, he is no better paid than they are. Then protection takes a part of his wages back when he buys his groceries and his clothing, which the Englishman does not pay. I fail to see what advantage the English manufacturer has over the American. The chief

import from England is cotton and woolen goods. The English manufacturer buys our cotton and wool and imports them free of duty, and pays no more for them than our domestic manufactures pay. In other words, the American manufacturer buys wool and cotton at home tor the same price as the Englishman, and these home raw materials are chiefly used in the domestic manufacture of cotton and woolen goods. It is safe to say that our class and quality of -wool and cotton can not be purchased any cheaper in any other counti y, or the English manufacturer would not buy them here, but buy them cheaper els where,|if he could; so these gi it home raw materials cost tl American manufacturer i mor-e than they cost the Er ishman And here again the h ne market fails to consume our cot ton. The disadvantage is on the side of the Englishman.— He pays ,the charges of shipment to England and again pays the charges of shipment to New York of the manufact-

ured article. The American manufacturer has the advantage of the English manufacturer in the cost of these raw materials, when you include as part of the cost of them the expense of shipment to England and back again to our ports in manufactured form. I have shown there is no material increased cost of labor in the American industries; the only difference in the rate of wages arises from the fact that the American works more hours and does more work, and therefore earns the slight difference. American capital is abundant and offers as cheaply as English capital. Our manufacturing machinery is modern and better than any in Europe. Our labor is as skilled and better than that of any other country. Our home markets are equally as good. The per capita tax in England is *14.53. In the United States it is *12.8f. Our manufacturers have the advantage of the Englishman in the amount of taxation. If we had free trade our manufacturers could more than hold their own, and they kn it very well. Clearly, a moderate tariff will amply protect them. We want no tree trade, but reform in the tariff. Jhe first protective tariff was enacted in 1789. It provided for an average duty of 8i percent., to continue only seven years, to give “infant industries a start.”

Our fathers were not strong protectionists >he present tariff duties average nearly 48 per cent., and we" are nearly one hundred years from the economic times of the old “founders.” They had just passed through the baleful experience of the class favoritism of the English crown and were not wiling- to establish this hated principle in American institutions. They saw, as we will s<Je, that protection i is the worst foe to American i bor. There must be a market for the products of labor, or

it will suffer. Labor is of no value if its products can not be sold. Therefore laboring men are directly concerned in large markets for the sale of labor’s products. In this respect their interest is identi cal with that of the American farmer. England, France and Germany send the products of their laboring men all over the world for sale. When labor’s product sells the laboring man is kept employed. Soourmanufact rers should, like the farmer, seek the markets of the world. Protection will not allow them to do 1 his. Other nations say to America, “Take off the high charges you put upon our products and we will trade with you. We are not going to trade with you unless you will trade with us.” This situation is perfectly natural. In another way the interest of the laboring man is identical with that of the farmer. If our protective policy is continued we will lose the foreign markets for our surplus farm products, and as a consequence the farmer will stop producing any surplus.— The result will be dearer bread and meat at home, the life food for the laboring man. Protectionists advise less farmers and no surplus for foreign markets. Agriculture is the dominant business in America- Limit the great surplus, and you cannot avoid dear bread and meat to the non-producer, and this result would strike hard, very hard, at the wood, iron, and steel industries, for this business chiefly consumes the wood manufactures and the iron and steel goods. No surplus would also cut off the flow of millions of dollars of foreign gold and commodities to this country, and our channels of trade would lose a potent pow • er, and all business would recede into nairower circles. A full foreign trade is an element of national strength. 11 i s large and rapid exchanges of the world’s commodities, large consignments ooming in and equally large ones going out, ever enlivening the channels of trade to the invaluable benefit of labor and the producer.

A PROTECTIVE TARIFF IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Mr. fTiaiiiiiau, I oppose protection upon tlie ground th.U. it is class legislation. The Federal Constitution gives no power to Congress to favor one class of our people over all otuers. The only power it confers upon congress is to make laws to raise revenue. A greater power has been assumed, it is true, for the purpose of protection. This oflensive doctrine, carried to its legitimate end, transforms this government into a Darental institution scarcely less abhorrent than the repulsive governments of Eu» rope. The best minds tlmro are drawn to th» side of the prevailing government by official favoritism, which is the act of the government itself. Class favoritism is universal in all the old governments of the East, and it nas always been so. The founders of our government knew this well, and they put a limitation upon it in the constitution. The limitations are that duties shall be levied for revenue, not tor protection; and that the States of the Union shall not levy duties upon trade and commerce Tlye articles of confederation left the power to the States to leyy duties for any purpose, be it protection or revenue.— When the constitution was formed this general newer was tra isferred to the general government and limited to duties to raise sufficient revenue. A duty is essentially a tax. It is fixed aud levied by the law itself At least it is analogous or equivalent to a tax, and the legal rules governing taxation would apply to duties levied aud collected. It is settled by judicial decisions that a tax can not be levied and collected for any other than a public purpose. The principles discuss-.d in the tax cases leave the judicial mind little doubt that they would be applied to the question of duties levied aud collected if it should ever come bes fore the courts.s {ln the case of Loan Association vs. Topeka (20 Wallace, 663, 661, an 2 605) chief-justice Miller said:

["opy of Supreme gjourt decision.]; Of ail the powers conferred upon Gov erument that of taxation is most liable to abuse. Given a purpose or object for which taxa'ion may be lawfully tisid and the extent of its exercise is in its very nature unlimited. It is true that express limitations on the amount of tax to bp levied or the tilings to be taxed muy be imposed by constitution or statute, but iu most instances for which tax*' es are levied, as the support of the government, tli% prosecution of war, the national defeuso, any limitation Js unsafe, she entire resources of the people slic'd m some instances be at the disposal of Hie govern nivtii. Vi e p.., V er t-> tax is therefore the str,.V .„ ;t ]»ei adtug ol ail Ha* ;n.■. i-,i, goveiiituent, reaching directly or iaUireotiy to all classes of the people. . & was said by chief justice Marshall, in the case of Mc-ulloch vs. The Slate ol Maryland, that the power tc tax is the power to destroy. A striking instance of the truth the proposition is seen in the fact that the tax of 10 per) cent, imposed by the United Stateg on the circulation of all other banks th.au the national banks drove out of existence every fatafe hank of circulation within a year ! or two after its passage. Phis power can as readily he employed ugainst one class of individuals ns in favor of another, ! 80 as to ruin the one class and give mis ]invited wealth and prosperity to (he oth cif>u (iisie ao implied ot <

the uses for which the power may bo exercised. To lay with oue hand the power of the Ooveanment on tne property of the citizen, ani with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is uot legislation. Tt is a decre under legis'ative form . * * * We have established, we think beyond cavil, that there can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a pub-ie purpose. It is undoubtedly the duty ot the Legislature which imposes or authorizes municipalities to impose a tax to that it is uot to be used tor purposes of private interest instead of a public Use, and the courts can only be justified in interposing when a violation of this principle is clear and the reason for its interference cogent. And io deciding whelier in the given case the object for which Ihe taxes are assessed falls upon the one side or the other of this line, they must be governed mainly by the course and usage of the Government, the objects for which taxes have been customarily and by long course of legislation levied, what objects or purposes have been considered necessary to the support and for the proper use of the Government, whether State or mus nicipal. hateyer lawfully p ruins to this and is Sanctioned by time and the acquiesence of the people may well be held to belong to the public use and proper lor the maintenancejgot good government, though this may not be the only criterion of rightful taxation. But in tbe case before us, in which the towns are authorized to contribute aid by war ot taxation to any class of inauu facturers, there is no difficulty in holding that this is not such a public purpose as we have been comidering. If it,;be said . that a benefit results to tlie local public of a tofrn by establishing manufactures, the same may be aid oi any other busi ess or pursuit which employs capital' or labor. Ihe merchant, the mechanic, the inn-keeper, the banker, the builder, the steamboat owner are equally promoters o tbe public good, and equally deserving tbe aid of the citizens by forced contributions. No line can be drawn in favor of the manufac.urer which would rot open the coffers of the public treasury to the importunities of two-thirds of the business men of the city or town. This position is supported by other courts of the highest character. in the case of the inhabitants of Jay. 60 Maine. 124,fjis declared the same doctrine. In the case ot Lowell vs. city of Boston the supreme court of Massachusetts asserts the same rule. In the case of Jenkins vs. Anderson, 103 Massachusetts, 74, the same doctrine is fully recognized. The same principles are stated in Curtis vs. Whipple by supreme court of Wisconsin,

24 Wisconsin, 350, and in the subsequent case of Whitney vs. Fond du Lac the same principle is considered and reaffirmed. The s e cases declare the doctrine to be that taxation can be imposed for public purposes only.fcjProtection means taxation for Individual purposes. It means taxation of all the people for favored classes. If this power exists in the constitution, then I submit It can not be withheld in any instance. If this power exists con gress has no discretion whatever | n the premises but to obey the constitu iopjami what is the logical result’ Ail that is necessary is for some person to start some business that does not pay, and of Itself never wilt pay, then come to congrass, command it t<> obey the constitution, get high protective duties imposed equivalent to a high lie-.r tn stop the world’s competition, and compel his t.eighb.es to pay him tribu'e. If the power to deal out protection exists it most De dealt out to all who may ask for it in any kind <>f business. 8 icli a enuslr-n-fiou' of the constitution destroys ihe verv object of t ii 3 G -verbment—equality of the citizen before the law. No reasonable being will hardly take this view of the Constitution.