Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1887 — A REPUBLICAN ON THE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

A REPUBLICAN ON THE TARIFF.

Opposed to Protection and Not in Favor of Free Whisky. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette prints a communication from Hon. William Dickson and accompanies it with the following remarks: “And now it comes that Judge Dickson is opposed in the first place t& a protective tariff, and in the same line to the abolition of the internal revenue system. Bight here we join issue with him and with all the Republicans that he represents, whether the number he represents be small or large. It is our opinion that his following is small, but whatever it may be, Judge Dickson is entitled to his opinions, and we do not hesitate to give him credit for sincerity.” The communication is as follows: To the Editor of the Commercial Gazette : The internal revenue system should be wiped out absolutely. It was justifiable only as a war necessity. But for the war it would not have been adopted. The war being over and the revenues being in excess of the wants of the Government, it should be abolished. There is a sentiment in favor of maintaining the tax because it is imposed upon liquors and tobacco, but sentiment is not business. The internal revenue system has served to cause more perjury and dishonesty than any scheme that ever was or ever could be devised for the collection of revenue. It has demoralized hundreds of thousands of people. It has converted an army of honest men into thieves and perjurers. Will you permit me to express my deep regret that these words have found a place in your columns? The Democratic platform denounces free whisky—the Republican is silent. Now you supply this omission and cry out for free whisky. You are disturbed at the perjury that you assume the whisky tax causes. But did you neyer hear of perjury in our custom houses?— Smuggling? Do you, therefore, ask that the custom houses shall be abolished? Not at all. Indeed this clamor for free whisky is for the very purpose of keeping up the custom houses, of piling up taxes on the necessaries of life. This is the motive. The issue you would make in Ohio is this: Shall we tax food and clothing or whisky? Shall we have cheap food and clothing and dear whisky, or cheap whisky and dear food and clothing? And your voice is for cheap whisky and dear food and clothing? Do you think this a winning card? Remember, it is not a mere question of protection to our manufactories. We have got beyond that. Clay and Webster pleaded for protection to infant manufactories and for free raw material. But now the tariff is on everything. The Republican platform demands a tax on wool? Does that help the manufacturer? Our Cincinnati builders pay a tax on lumber to enable the lumbermen of Michigan to cut down their forests; we had better give them a premium to let them stand. Do you prefer dear wool and lumber in Cincinnati and cheap whisky? Everywhere else in the world whisky and tobacco pay heavy taxes. They are luxuries and hurtful. Dear food and dear clothing are oppressive, but cheap whisky is a curse. The dearer we can make it the better. Why, then, does the Republican party seek free whisky? It is, as we have said, because it wants to reduce the surplus revenue without reducing taxes on the necessaries of life.

Mr. Editor, the Republican party was not originally a protection or free trade party. Free-trade Democrats joined hands with protection Whigs and formed this party in the interest of the Union and freedom. To make the party a protection party is to give it a new direction. No one seeks free trade now. But when the revenue must be reduced, let it be so done ae to reduce the burdens upon the necessaries of life. Let the tariff be pruned of its excrescence. All this may be done without interfering with any just protection to our industries. It is true that the taxation of whisky and tobacco was a war measure. But if it is a good thing in itself in peace, why not continue it? The national banks were a war measure, must we therefore abolish them? We may have war again, or other need of money. The present flush times of the Treasury may not last, and the present machinery had better be kept up. Some people seem to think that protection is a good thing in itself. It is a soothing word which conceals its real meaning. It is a tax, and a tax, except on whisky, is in itself an evil. The consumer pays this tax. The poor man who buys a coat made of wool, under the Ohio Republican platform, pays the tax imposed upon it. This is not a blessing to him. Let us not forget, then, that protection is in itself an evil. It may have compensations—it may do good in other respects which will compensate its evil—but in itself it is an evil. We should, then, be quite sure that in inflicting this evil we shall have some compensating benefit.

Now, what benefit is it to the manufacturer or the laborer to put a tax on wool? What good is it to anybody to put a tax on lumber? It is, then, clear that our tariff needs revision—that special interests are robbing the general public. Why, then, does not the Republican party undertake this revision, and in this way reduce the revenue and relieve the burden of the people? Twice have the American people voted on the tariff question and twice have they condemned it—in 1814 and Both times was the tariff championed by such leaders as Clay and Blaine. Is this, then, a time to press the tariff, to increase it? Is it good policy to drive out of the Republican party those members of it who do not believe in increasing the tariff’, but who do believe in pruning it, in removing its monopolies, in cutting it down, while in no way crippling our industries? Mr. Editor, I would like to remain in the Republican party; but if it is to become a ono-man party, if it is to be subordinated to one scheming politician of unsavory record, if it is to tax the poor man’s coat and to make whisky free, it may be better

to take Cleveland again.

W. M. D.