Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1888 — OUR OPPRESSIVE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

OUR OPPRESSIVE TARIFF.

The Burdens It Unjustly Imposes Upon the Working Classes. -A Shoe Manufacturers Plain, Business-Like Talk to His Employes. "Why the So-Called Protective System Is an Injury to American TVorking People. by Tariff Taxe3 on the Necessaries of Life—Bobbing Peter to Pay Paul. “Oppressive Tariff Taxation” is the title of a terse, well-written pamphlet just issued by the Massachusetts Tariff Be--form Club, whose headquarters are at No. 66 State street, Boston. The officers of the club are Henry L. Pierce, President; ■James Bussell Lowell, First Vice President: Will am Lloyd Garrison, Treasurer; Emerson W. Judd, Secretary. The main portion of the pamphlet is •written by James Means, the woll-known shoe manufacturer, is addressed to his employes, and is as follows: Among all the shoe-factories tn the country, ours is one of the very few where there has never been a strke or any strife between those who buy labor and those who sell it. The reason :tor this we well know. It is that we talk things • over carefully, and we find out what is best for us all. Some of you were asking me the other day why it was that X thought the system which is called “protection" an injury to the working people of the United States. I told you that as soon as possible X would give you my reasons. Here they are : When “hard times” come all the consequent suffering has to be borne by the people who are dependeut upon their own exertions for a living. Those who live on the interest of their money xnay be inconvenienced by the lessening of their incomes ; but while they have their capital to fall back upon, suffering is out of the question. At no time in the history of the world has there ■ ever been a country where the producing classes were prosperous unless that prosperity extended itself to the non-producing classes also; hut there have been many countries where the nonproducing classes were prosperous while the producing classes were barely able to keep body and soul together. This being the case, it follows beyond the possibility of doubt that if our -Government is to promote the “greatest good of the greatest number," the first object of our ■legislation must be to promote the welfare of the producing classes. If their interests are guarded, their prosperity can not fail to be shared by the whole people Bearing this in mind, it is clearly evident that labor and capital are allies, not enemies ; that each is dependent upon the other—that is, when labor is prosperous then is capital also. “Good times“ and “hard times” alternate; mow, that we have the former, we want to stave off the latter as long as we can. Hard timer are not the result of any one cause, but of a number of different causes acting together. Some of these are more important than others, but if we can surely discover any one of them we are aided in keeping ourselves out of the difficulty. What we wish to ascertain now is, whether what certain people are pleased to call a “protective tariff” is a blessing and a help to the people of this country, or whether it is a curse and a hindrance. It is either one thing or the other; there is no half-way about it. The time for straddling this question has passed try, and the people are beginning to divide already.

From what has already been said, it is clear that in deciding the question the only thing ■which it is important for us to find out is. What is the effect of a protective tariff upon the industrial classes of our country? The intention of theße pages is to make clear to you the following points : 1 hat the system which has been named “protection for American industry” has been falsely named, and that the true name for the system is “oppressive tariff taxation.” That this system, which taxes the many for the sake of a few, is a system founded upon a mistake. That the movement in favor of tariff reform is a patriotic movement. That the movement against tariff reform is a thoroughly selfish movement. That the attempt of the protectionists to oppose tariff reform by calling it a “British movement" is based upon nothing. That the remedy for oppressive tariff taxation lies in the hands of the voters of this country. That if they remain victims of this oppression it is their own fault. That it is the duty of oveiy voter in this country to look into this subject, and'then to tahe hold and do what he can to help the cause of tariff reform. Let us now consider the matter. The tariff is a tax placed upon imported merchandise. When goods from any foreign country are brought to this country they must pass through the custom house of the port where they are landed. A United States official takes possession of them ; and, in most cases, the man who has bought them cannot get them into his possession until he has paid a tax on them—a -duty, as it is called. For example, if you had some friend in Canada who should write you that he could Buy you a suit of clothes in Montreal for $lO which would be better than you could buy here for sls, perhaps you would like to have him buy t.;e clothes for you and send them to you, but the United States Government steps in here and says, “No; you shall not save anything in that way; we must protect home industry.” So, when your suit of clothes reaches the custom house, a United States official takes charge of it, and you have to pay about $5 to the Government before you can have your clothes. This makes vour suit cost you about $1 -, w r hen otherwise it would have cost you only $lO. The Government says to you, "It you try to buy where you can buy the cheapest we will tax you so dearly that you shall not save a cent by it.” Now, there is what is called a “free list”— that is, there are some kinds of merchandise that can come in free of tariff taxes—but the list is comparatively small, and what has been said about the duty on your clothes applies to nearly all the necessaries of life. They are almost all taxed by the tariff. The trouble about this tariff tax is that the people are taxed without knowing it. That is the reason why they have quietly borne the oppression so long. In the same way that you are taxed on your Clothes you are paying thousands of taxes without being aware of it. Your iron and steel implements, your cotton goods, your woolen goods, your carpets, your stoves, your tools, your blankets, your crockeryware, your nails, your glassware, your soap, your molasses, and ■thousands of others of your necessaries of life are taxed; and while you pay the taxes you ■oftentimes do not realize that you are being taxed, borne one may say that your goods are not taxed, because they are, some of them, made in this country; but look at it for a moment. If the Government says you shall not buy a $lO suit in Canada without paying a tax which makes it cost you sls, and if, on that account, you buy a suit of clothes here at home, and pay the full price of sls, do you not see that you are taxed $5 in either case, because the United States law makes you pay sls for what you might have bought for about $lO ? Now, before Igo any further, let me say one word about the illustration I have just given. There are certain people who are very anxious tO'piok flaws in the arguments of those who are in favor of tariff reform, and it is sometimes well to answer them in advance. The suit of clothes is only one illustration which shows how you are taxed on thousands of commodities, But some one may say that 1 have not been correct in my statement about the cost of clothes in Canada. Well, perhaps my figures are all wrong, what then? I have only supposed the case. The point is this; If, between this country and any other country, there is a difference in price of any goods on which there is a protective duty, then that duty is a tax upon the home article, which you have to pay when you purchase the goods. But if, on the •other hand, the price of that kind of goods is

as low here as anywhere, then the dutv is not protective, because no one will send abroad for what can be bought as cheaply at home. Now we are coming directly* to the question we have to consider. I have said you were burdened by tariff taxes on moat of the necessaries of life. The American people will never complain of a just tax; but when they are once made to see that they are taxed unjustly, thev rebel against it. The conflict between protectionists and tariff-reformers is jnst here: Ft r what purpose shall tbe people be taxed ? Protectionists claim that the taxes we are talking about should he levied for the purpose of protecting individual industries, and that people shall be made to pay these taxes, no matter whether the Government needs the money or not. Tariff reformers, on the other hand, believe that it is inexpedient to impoee upon the people any taxes, direct or indirect, except to meet the expenses of an ecomically administered government. Ho you see tUe difference clearly? The protectionist says: “Throw up a barrier around our country and do not let the people buy their necessaries of life in the cheapest market; tax them so heavily that they xx ill have to buy at home, no matter whether the money raised by taxation is needed by the Government or not, no matter whether the tax is just or unjust, no matter if we do have millions of surplus dollars in the Treasury tempting our politicians to dishonesty almost beyond the limit of human power to withstand temptation; no matter about anything except to prevent foreign goods from coming to our shores." On the other hand, the tariff reformer says that it is inexpedient tor the Government to impose a tax upon the people unless to raise money needed for a revenue ; that it is inexpedient for the Government to take money out of the pockets of one class for the purpose of putting it into the pockets of another class. The Government must ha,ve a revenue. That revenue must be raised by taxing the people in some way or another. Probably for years to come the best way to raise that revenue will be, in part, by means of the tariff. So let it be. But what shall we say of the protectionists? They have taxed the people of the country by their high tariff so that they have filched from their p >ckets an enormous surplus which is a constant danger. It is evident to any sane man that we must either have a tariff for revenue only, or else we must have a surplus. It is equally plain to any man who has not the hightariff madaess in his brain that the surplus must either be a thief-tempting hoard, or else it must be squandered, ho protectionist dares to squarely face those self-evident truths. On the tariff question the voters of this country are divided into three classes. The first class is composed of protectionists. It is a veiy small class. The second claBS is composed of the tariff reformers. This also is a small class, although it is probably larger in number than the protectionist class. The third class is the largest. It is oomposed of the people who are undecided either way, but who are looking for the light, and are open to conviction to the truth. These people are anxious to get all the information that they can ; they are willing to consider the matter fairly and candidly, in order that they may have intelligent opinions of their own. It is to this class that lam writing. lam not addressing protectionists—it is useless to waste words upon them. Part of them know the falsity of tneir pretenses, and the other part have been brougnt up to believe that what is false is true. When you argue with them they dodge every point; when you drive them into a corner they talk about irrelevant matters.

Here let me say that we all know men of high charaoter who sincerely believe that “protection” iB necessary to our national prosperity. These men are generally either directly or indiectly interested in the manufacture of certain protected goods, and they think that any lowering of the tariff would bring ruin to the business in which they are interested, and to the operatives engaged in it. They are men who nave studied the interests of one class of labor so long tbat they do not realize how much smaller that class is than the mass of unprotected people who are burdened by tariff taxes. Moreover, tariff reformers do not admit that in reducing taxes any widespread distress would come even to those engaged in protected industries. These protectionists do not realize that war taxes are unnecessary in time of peace. If they would give up thinking always of the past, and would consider the present and the future, I believe that many of them would come to favor tariff reform. But among protectionists such men are in the minority. Most me* who talk vehemently in favor of what they call “protection,” are men who wish to see a Republican President in the White House again, and who, knowing that the bloody shirt has ceased to be a potent nolitical factor, can find nothing to talk about except this beneficent scheme which they have to enrich the workingman by taxing him. Now let ns see what excuses tl protectionists have to offer for advocating the levying of a tax to raise money which the Government does not need. The principal argument—or rather statement, for it is not an argument—which they bring forward is this : They sav tnat a high tariff protects the workingman from competition with the pauper labor of Europe; they say that the high tariff has made the wages of the American workman higher than those of the foreign workman, and that the protective tariff is the cause of a large measure of the prosperity which this country has seen. This, as 1 Bay, is not argument; it is merely assertion. We ask them to bring proofs that their assertions are true, and they make no attempt to prove the truth of them ; but they simply roiterato their original assertions again and again, putting them first in one form, then into another, mixing in with them false statements and all kinds of misrepresentations in order to deceive the working Deople into thinking that the oppressive tax is a good thing.

Now, wo tariff reformers are thankful to say that wages are higher in this country than in foreign countries ; but that the tariff has made them so, we deny, and we are prepared to disprove the truth of tho protectionists’ assertions. Think of it for one moment. I think I can make the matter perfectly plain. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that trade between countries bad always been absolutely free. What would be the condition of this country now? Would they be no better off than in other countries? You know that they would. You know that with the millions of acres of marvelously fertile soil the people must be richer than in countries that are not blest as our own is. You know that with our bountiful supplies of iron, of copper, of coal, of precious metals, and thousands of others of Nature’s best gifts to man, such as no other country has ever had, it always must be easier to get a living iu this country than in others. You know that the geographical position of our country virtually gives us a whole hemisphere to ourselves. and makes it unnecessary to support an immense standing army to keep ourselves out of trouble with neighboring countries; and you know that the working-people must always be richer in this country, where they are not taxed to support a large standing array which produces nothing. And when you consider our tree Government, the education of our masses, the superior productiveness of American labor, and all the natural wealth which has been giv n us, it becomes quite evident to you that in these things lies the secret of our prosperity as a nation. Butthe protectionists ignore these things; they are trying to throw dust in your eyes, and they are trying to delude you into thinking that this prosperity, which has come to us from Nature’s gifts ani an enterprising population, has come from tiri-j taxation! When it becomes possible to make people richer by needlessly taking away a part of their earnings, then it will also become possible for a man to lift hims?lf oyer a fence by pulling op the straps of his boot 3. To hiring down the question of protection to its simplest terms, “It is robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

There are in our country about 17,030,033 of. people engaged in gainful industries. An analysis of the statistics shows that the reallv protected working people in this country number less than one-Aiteenth of ull the workers in the country. The other fourteen-fifteenths—-that is, over 15,030,033—are taxed to benefit this one-fifteenth. The tariff is of no benefit to the thousands of operatives engaged in making machine-made shoes, or to nineteen twentieth! of our farmers and agricultural laborers, or to railroad employes, or to sailors, or to commercial neople, or to carpenters, masons, jointers, glaziers, gas-fitters, paper-hangers, teamsters, drivers, machinists, blaeksmiths, printers, clerks, or thousands of others that 1 might mention; and yet you are all craftily and outrageously taxed to protect a few manufacturing monopolists Those very monopolists who clamor most loudly for protection are the ones who discharge their workmen by hundreds, and who, before the law l reventert them, imported cheap labor from foreign countries to fill the vacant places. Who believes that the people of this country can be benefited by needlessly taking away from them apart of their earnings? Do you? When people are taxed it takes away from their

(earnings and from their purchasing power. Tariff reformers, or those who believe in a tariff for revenue only, hold that a tax is an unfortaI nate thing at best; and yet the Government 1 must have a revenue to carry it on, and the : tariff reformers acknowledge that the tuiff ! should pay a part of that revenue. But bore ; your protectionists stand up and actually have ; the hardihood to claim that a tax is a good thing; tuat it is a good thing to take away from ; the earnings of the people; and that they will not only take from your earnings what the j Government needs, but they will take more | they will take what the Government does not . need, and what they themselves acknowledge j it does not need, knowing all the time that the money must be squandered or else remain in the Treasury as a thief-tempting hoard. And wbat reason do they give tor this? They say that if we tax the whole people that taxation will enable a part of the people to earn more wages than they wou'd otnerwise—that is, they acknowledge that th-?y are robbing Peter to pay Paul, Rnd they defend themselves by saying that Peter has his loss mode up to him. Who is Peter and who is Paul? I will tell you first who Paul is. He is the man who is, as they say, “protected"—that is, ho is engaged in making some kind of goods that con be made cheaper in some other country than tney can be made here. Protectionists say to him: “Paul, the British lion is after us, and if the duty is reduced on the goods that you are making he will swallow up our industry with one gulp; he will flood our market with goods so mucii cheaper than you can make them that you will be thrown out of employment, and perhaps starve to death. By the way. Paul, when yon vote remember the British lion, and see that you vote for & protectionist." And who is Peter? There are about fifteen million Peters in this country. They are the people who are engaged in pursuits which are not benefited by protection, and yet are obliged by tariff taxation to pay higher prices for their necessaries of life in order that one million or so of Pauls may, as they say, get higher wages. That is why protection does not protect; because it robs Peter to pay Paul; because it taxes the many for the sake of the few; because it puts its thieving hand into tbe pockets of a large class of people and takes from their hard earnings to give to a small class of people. Protectionists say that the tax money Peter is Eaying is more than made up to him again; ut the man to prove that assertion has not come along yet, and he never will. Protectionists say that the object of a high tariff is to protact home industries, and so benefit “the poor workingman. ” Have you ever noticed that when a man has a political ax to griha he always becomes a philanthropist, and sets himself up as the “workingman’s friend?” What protectionists are trying to do is to continue a system of war taxation whioh taxes the whole people : to keep alive a few industries that will not pay unless they are “protected.” If any industry will pay In this country, it needs no protection. If it will not pav, can you see any reason why the people should be taxed to make it pay? A high tariff is a stimulant. It is artificial; consequently it may keep a certain portion of the community engaged in industries which are less profitable to all concerned than some other industries would be. To admit that any industry needs protection,' after it is once well established, is an tadmission that for natural reasons some other country is better fitted to carry on that industry. Protectionists claim that there are many important industries now protected whioh would decline under a revenue tariff. Tariff reformers do not believe that. But granting this to be true, for the sake of argument: then the protectionists hold to the shameful idea that It is wise and just to tax the people in order that certain members of the community may be kent at industries which they can follow only at a disadvantage rather than that the decline of those industries should cause them to engage in some others for which their nature, circumstances, and surroundings better lit thenar. If any important industry should decline under a revenue tariff—whioh is to be doubted—then labor and capital would be forced into some other channel, where they could be more profitably employed. If protectionists are right in thinking that certain industries would decline under iree trade, theh the process of changing labor into new channels would be temporarily painful to an exceedingly small fraction of the people. Upon this conclusion, drawn from a false premise, rests the whole flimsy argument by whioh the protectionists attempt to justify themselves in oppressing the people by taxes to raise money which the Government does not need. There are some few things which can be made better abroad than at home. We have some few unimportant industries here that might as well be given up. If the few people engaged in them cannot make a living in them without having the whole nation taxed in their behalf it is high time they looked about for some other work. This may sound like harsh doctrine, but any one can see that it simply means that we must always consider the greatest good of the greatest number. A protective tariff causes depression in business by interfering with the laws which govern trade and throwing things out of-balance. Much of the suffering among the opermives engaged in the iron industry in various parts of the country is directly traceable to the evil influence of the tariff. It will not be difficult to show why this is so. It is evident to any thinking man that any industry will run with fewer “ups and downs” when the productive capacity is gauged to supply an average demand. It Is impossible, of course, to avoid fluctuations in the state of the market; but still, the more nearly the supply and demand counterbalance each other the healthier the state of trade. A short supply encourages overproduction. One reason why iron operatives suffer at times is beoause the tariff has encouraged more men to go into iron mills than can earn a living at that industry unless business is abnormally brisk. A few years ago there was a period of great activity in railroad building. This caused an excitement in the iron market, and an enormous increase in the demand for iron. Had it not been lor the high tariff, foreign countries would have helped to supply tne demand for iron in this country: but the influence of greedy iron corporations kept the tariff np, and shut out foreign iron, thus turning a large amount of labor into a channel where it could only hope for employment while the boom lasted, and leaving it to starve when the boom was over. If it had not been for the high tariff labor would have gone into other channels. This is only one instance of hundreds which may be cited to show how the proteotiye tariff helps to cause depression Dy throwing things out of balance, and by interfering with the nat iral laws which tend to keep trade in a healthy condition

Our own industry (boot and shoe manufacturing) has suffered less than some others by the recent depression in business. One reason lor this is that we are blessed by having hides come in duty free. It is indeed fortunate for us that hides have escaped tariff taxation, in spite of the advocates of protection. Hides bear the same relation to our business that pig-iron does to the iron manufacturing business, and that wool does to the woolen manufacturing industry. There is just as much reason why pigiron and wool should come in duty free as that hides should be untaxed. Your clotheß are taxed, and everything that you use containing iron is taxed. For what; To “protect home labor. ” Are the protectionists honest in stating that that is the object of the high tariff? If they are honest, they are ignorant; if they are not ignorant, they are deceitful. These ore strong statements; let us see if they can be supported. Consider the case of pig-iron. The advocates of the tariff on that*’ commodity claim to be anxious about the condition of the iron miners. The pig-iron protectionists have had their own way, and it protection is good for anything you naturally would expect to find the miners living in a comfortable way. Hurely a "protected iron-miner” .ought to be an object to which the grotectionist could point with pride. Look at im in the Hocking Valley—a poor, starving specimen ot humanity, with rags on his back, and hardly a crust of bread for his famished children I Look at li'in in Pennsylvania—a miserable wretch, working for a protectionist employer, who, as has been said, until stopped by law, used to Import the cheap foreign labor from which he pretends to want to see his employe protected I Where is the protectionist who will tell us why it is that the most miserable wretches in our country are those who are “protected,” while the most prosperous ones are tho3o who are not protected ? It is pitiable to think that there are American citizens holding high offices who presume to say that these United States, constituting the greatest nation the world has ever known, blessed with inexhaustible natural wealth, peopled with enlightened and industrious men and women, living at peace with themselves and their neighbors, are yet not able to preserve their prosperity without putting a trade obstruction fell round their borders. The working people of this country must expect to be poor and wretched if they are willing

to be led by the nose by the protectionist hypocrites who pretend to befriend them. This “protection* is all a sham to the very core. It has never done any good to the people of this country, and no aonud argument in its favor has ever been brought forward by its advocates. It is made up o i nothing but hypocrisy and ignorance—moetly of the former. In these last few pages I have fallen into the habit of protectionists, and have given vou assertions instead of arguments. There are certain times when argument becomes unnecessary. It is not well to trust to assertions entirely, as protectienists do: but sometimes they are not out of place. One more assertion: Protectionists say that tariff reformers are favoriug a British policy, and tuat thev are working to favor England at the expense of America. This assertion can properly be met by a counter assert on. When protectionists say that tariff reformers are working for British interests they sav what is false and what they know to be false. Tne reason they resort to this fal-ideation is because thov think that they will thereby gain votes. The truth about tbe matter is th s- Our nation, being the greatest on the face of the oartff, is able to take care of herself, and has no need to fear Kngl&nd or any other nation. England would undoubtedly be glad to have mere opportunities to exchange commodities with us; and, as we shall gain by itrit maaes no di. erence to us whether England is pleased or diaS leased. When one man sells another a good orae he wants the money mure than he wants the horse, and the man who buys wants the horse more than he wants the money. Both are better oft ti an they were before the trade. So it is between nations; when they trade it is better for each But proiectionists are trying to make you think that just because England is glad to exchange commodities with us it must be a bad thing for America If protectionists are not falsifying wben they say that tariff-reformers advo ate a “British policy," then they must hold the opinion that, as a rule, in everv transaction some one gets a bad bargain But even protectionists are not so foolish as to think tlxis.

Protectionists say that the object of hightariff taxation is to protect the laboring man. Those who are most active in aivocating oppressive tariff taxes are either capitalists who have money invested in protected industries, or else politicians who think they can get more votes by pretending to protect the working people, or eke men who, while honest and sincere in tholr wish to befriend the workingman, have yet had their attention and experience so wholly confined to the interests of one class that they are unable to take a broad view of the subject. The majority of the protectionists have shown that thsy do not care a penny for the welfare of the laboring people, except for what they can get out of them. The only “protection" which the American workingman needs is “protection” from the Government which now grinds him down with needless taxes upon his necessaries of life. When our labor Is relieved of these taxeß its products will be so reduced in cost as to be salable in the markets of the world, and our unemployed labor will find work. But while the oppression remains thousands must be idle because our goods are shut out from foreign markets by the wall which protectionists have built around our country. Every thinking man must acknowledge that the following propositions are self-evident truths:

First—-A trade-obstruoting tax is either a bad thing or else it is a good thing. Second —If it is a bad thing the aconer wo get rid ot it the better. Third—ls it is a good thing we want more of it; we want all we can get. Fourth—ls it is a good thing, then it would be a blessing to us to have a wall miraculously built around our country a thousand miles high and a thousand miles thick, provided it could be done without injuring our climate. Fifth—lf it is a good thing for this nation to shut herself off from other nations by a tradeobstructing tax, then it would be a good thing for the most highly favored States of the Union to protect them selves against the less-favored States by the same kind of a trade-obstructing tax, if the Constitution of the United States did not prohibit it. To proposition number three, just stated, a protectionist might attempt to reply by saying that while the obstruction is a good thing, yet it Is possible to have too much of a good thing. However, most protectionists agree with Senator Frve, who recently said at the Home Market Club dinner: “If the tariff is to be revised, and Heaven forbid that the work be entered upon, I want to see the duties increased. [Applause.] I want to see a duty put on silk that will prevent 31,•4.10,000 ?ards of Bilk being imported into this country; want to see duties put on woolen goods that will prevent 444,900,001 worth of woolen goods being brought into this country; I want to see a duty put on the manufactures of iron aud steel that will prevent 5t0,2i0,000 of the manufactures of iron and steel being brought into this country." Do you not see that theso advocates of oppressive tariff taxation are peculiar men? They might at times be taken for humorists. For instance, Senator Dawes, in a recent letter to the Home Market Club, says : “We import annually about $7C0, 000, 0X) of goods manufactured abroad, every dollars’ worth of whioh, capable of being produced here, is spoliation of employment tor American labor and capital in the interest of foreign labor and capital. ”

To this we have the following neat reply, which was found in the address issued by the Massachusetts Tariff Reform League: “Mr. Dawes fails to allude to a fact which ought, in his view, to go far to mitigate this spoliation—that we are kindly permitted to send abroad $70),000,TOO of our own products, iu exchange for what we receive, and thus to despoil foreign labor and capital in return.” It is difficult to relieve in the sincerity of some of these protectionists. Three years ago many of their leaders acknowledged tho necessity of a revision of the tariff, and they have ever since been persistently engaged in blocking all attempts to revise it. What they really want is to be allowed to play with the tariff, and to put the clamorous public off by making sham revisions from time to time. 1 hey also want to reduce the surplus by taking off the taxes on whisky and tobacoo, so that they may have an excuse for keeping the grinding taxes on the real necessaries of life. Bear in mind that all over the world the taxation of tobaoco is considered ideal taxation, because it rests mere lightly on tho shoulders of the people than ulmest any other kind. . The question of removing the tux on whisky cannot be argued ; it is not an open' question. No man who cares for the welfare of his country can wish to see every man free to run his own private still. Well do these protectionists know that when we once make a breach in their walls their whole fabric will fall. The first opening is all we have to strive hard for; the rest will be easy. We do not want fr. e trade vet; we want free pig-iron, free wool, free coal, free lumber, and free crude materials of all kinds, and we will have them ; then, within a few years, all other tariff rates can bo brought to a revenue basis without harm to our country. Our fight is before us : the plan of our campaign is all laid. We shall elect tariff-reform Congressmen, and wo shall show the feeling of the voters by electing a tariff-reform President in a fight made on the taiirl-refomi issue. We shall win, because tho years which have passed since the last election have increased cur strength. The great uprising has begun, and we who are earnest In the right need fear no failure. James Means,