Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1888 — VERY SEVERE ON RANDALL. [ARTICLE]

VERY SEVERE ON RANDALL.

Representative William L. Scott’s Compliments to His Protectionist Colleague. The Mills Bill Is Intended to Benefit th) Whole People and Is a Blow at the Trusts. How the Farmer anti the Mechanic Are Robbed Under the Protective System. One of the strongest speeches of the many delivered in the House on the tariff, was that by Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the following report of which is telegraphed from Washington: Mr. Scott began his speech with a defense of the science of political economy and the correctness of its conclusions. He asked whether this great country, sixty millions strong, with inventive genius keener, with labor more skilled than any other people on the globe, should decline to compete for supremacy in the marts of mankind, and continue forever to trade among ourselves, under the insane delusion that we were growing rich by the process. Our friends, the enemy, said: “Yes, let us build a Chinese wall around this young and vigorous people, whose eager enterprise already chafes under the bounds of nature, and if we cannot make it wholly impervious let us make it as nearly so as we can ” They were Bourbons, Bourbons all, and of the densest kind. Their faces were turned backward, not forward ; they were looking through the dismal shades of the dead past, not through the glowing day of tho living present. The bill was framed in the interest of the people—of the whole people. It was intended in the first instance to stay the mounting surplus in the Treasury, threatening overwhelming and possibly immediate disaster, even now vividly impending; and, second, to relievo, as far as prudence would permit at this time, the over-burdened industries of the country from excessive taxation, the proceeds of which do not pass into the Treasury, but go directly to the support of grasping monopolies which were, for the most part, combined in utterly indefensible and atrociously oppressive trusts. If the bill did not measurably accomplish these purposes it was because the majority of the Ways and Means Committee was incompetent to frame such a law; and of that the country would be the judge. A bill has been introduced by a member of this House (the Randall bill) and referred to the committee, which provided for a large reduction of internal taxes and dealt very curiously indeed with customs duties. At the time of its introduction the Republican press, though opIK>sed to tariff reform, was loud in praise of it as a bill on which all could unite—not only gentlemen on the other side of tho House but gentlemen on this sido also, who were supposed to differ with the majority. It is fair to presume that those who had inconsiderately approved this remarkable bill did not understand its provisions. Covering 127 pages, itwas» too voluminous to be analyzed without groat labor. But taking the iron and steel schedule as a fair index of the genius of the proposed bill, and the one with which the member introducing it was supposed to be most familiar, one which he would naturally' desire to conform most nearly to the demands of his immediate constituents or advisors, and passing judgment on the whole from this, it was sate to say that it was not in line with revenue reform. Takiug it item by item it gave tho astounding result, that for every dollar of reduction of duties in tho iron schedule, s2l was added to the burdens of the public, already too onerous to be borne. Instead of reducing taxation as advised by the administration; instead of chocking tho flow of tho people’s money into a Treasury already dangerously full; instead of relieving a tax-ridden people clamorous for relief ; instead of following in line with the declarations of every public officer this Government has ever had, that when we wore collecting more money than was needed taxes ought to bo reduced, this bill actually proposed to increase them. He said that tho measure, from whatever point it was looked at, was a misbegotten, ili-shapon, portentous, unjustifiable monster, with no excuse for existence, and no purpose in its life but to obstruct the Democratic party and delay the justice which the country demanded. The majority of the Committee on Ways and Means realized and appreciated tne condition of affairs existing in the country to-day; and, however desirous they might be to extend that full measure of relief to the wageworkers and the agricultural classes of the country, to which they are so justly entited, invested capital had its claims upon them. Keeping these objects in view it is sought, first, to relieve these manufacturing industries by placing on the free list, as far as it possibly could, such articles as were essentially necessary to them to enable them to compete, not only in their home markets, but in the markets of the world. Secondly, in the revision and readjustment of the various echedules under the existing tariff, to leave ample duties on all merchandise that could possibly be imported from abroad from competition with our homo products and to protect our home manufactures and the labor employed in them. Since the Secretary of the Treasury hud resumed tho purchase of bonds this month (May), the amount offered and purchased would not equal even the surplus of tho daily taxes collected from the people, after paying therefrom the daily expenses of tho Government. Tho bill now under consideration has beon formed for the double purpose of reducing tho surplus and relieving the country of needless taxation. The changes made, tho majority of tho com-mittee-beloved, would accomplish these objects, but. he wished it to be clearly understood ■ that tho interest of labor had been In view at every stage of tho proceo :in*?jMKi4 that this bill furnished that protection“WMsHK which his opponents professed to give, btiWM which their policy had beon directly oppos jj* Tho effect of tins bill would bo, not to rediretr his wages, but to lessen to him tho cost/ of necessaries of life, and to decrease his /dependence upon tho employer Extreme poverty and liberty never existed together. Starving men and women could not be free. J ° Protection, so-called, would add no patanv to the wageworker's pay or give him one ddy’s" additional labor in tho year, but it would rAb him of an unduo proportion of his earnings io purchase tho necessaries of life and keg/ him a trembling dependent, since the recent history if this country showed that the tendency of the protected industries was toward combination in the form of trusts, under which production was arbitrarily suspended, raising prices to the consumer, and throwing tho workman out of his job. Monopoly more terrible, more dangerous to the liberties of a country, more oppressive to the laborer, could not be imagined. Upon no class of our people did tho present fiscal burdens of our country boar so heavily as upon the farming class. One of tho strong trguments that tho protectionist made to the farmer was the home market that protection was alleged to insure for his produce. It was a fallacy and a fraud, and intelligent farmers would not longer be deceived by it. Turning his attention to the metal schedule St the bill Mr. Scott cited the case of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works as exhibiting the operations of a monopoly duty, swelling the profits of the manufacturer into most unreasonable and even appalling figures, while adding nothing to wages of labor, either common or skilled, and at the same time restricting the market of she farmer for his produce, through simply pillaging him upon his purchases of implements ind apparel. Contrasting the coal industry which, as he srfid, protection did not protect, with iron and steel, he said that from a practical experience »f over one-third of a century in the coal mines )f his State, both anthracite and bituminous, ae was justified in stating that the wageworkfer received for his labor, directly and indirectly, from seventy per cent, to eighty-five per of tho selling price of tho coal at tho armies, as against the eight per cent, that labor receives at the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, on ;he selling price of a ton of steel beams. The iariff did not protect the coal miner, but robbed lim in just so far as it increased the cost of what he consumed by the imposition of duties .he Government did not need to meet its rofuirements. He next turned to another vexed question—rool. When he culled it \cxod he did not mean

it was not clear or easily solved upon correct principles, but only that the Bourbon took his stand upon wool and howled the more lugubriously, albeit more unreasonably, than on anything else, because he hoped thereby to delude the farming Interest to his support.' This bill put wool on the free list. It aid so not only in the interest of the woolen manufacturer but in that of sheep husbandry Itself. To enable the manufacturer ot this country to compete in his home market and to export a surplus abroad, be must b > able to purchase his wool as |favorably not only as to price, but as to selection of qualities and kinds as does his foreign competitor. No better illustration of the results of moderate duties or free raw material could be pointed to than the carpet industries of this country. Russian carpet wools, grown in Southern Russia, bordering on the Black Sea, partially scoured, were largely imported into the United States tor the manufacture ot carpets. “To-day," sa d Mr. fcott, “ow.ng to this low duty on carpet wools, and the superior genius of our American workmen, and notwithstanding the higher wages p-.id in the United States, I am credibly informed that if five cents per pound is removed from Dongkoi and other carpet wools, we can compete with tho world and keep our home market." The aim of the majority of the committee had been to adjust the duties upon woolen and worsted goods, so as to enable the manufacturers not only to pay the same wages they are now paying, but to cheap-n goods, thus enabling them to command the home market, which they are largely deprived of, and to compete in the- foreign one. Eree raw wool and the duties proposed on the manufactures of wool would accomplish that object unless the committee was grievously mistaken. Immediately wool was free our manufacturers would begin to draw upon the markets ot the world for raw material to meet the American demand. The result would be an advance in wool in foreign markets, and an advance abroad would advance the price here, tariff or no tariff. In conclusion he said: “Wears here, sir—we. the majority of the Ways and Means Committee, and of this House—in defense of American industry. We alone offer it protection ; we seek alone the independence and aggrandizement of domestic labor by liberating it from unnatural restraints and allowing it the undisturbed possession and the complete enjoyment of its own earnings. The other side offer it—what? A monopolized market in which to buy the necessaries of life, on one hand, and on the other, a labor market subject to the caprices of trusts. Will laboring men accept that generous tender and vote v. ith tho monopoly partv under coercion of the employer? If they do, the hideous disaster, foreseen by Jefferson, as the natural result of the restrictive and subsidy policy, will rush down upon us, and the government of the Union will pass into the hands of those who openly propose to pervert its powers and employ them to plunder the people for their own enrichment, Ido not believe, sir, that American liberty is destined to be extinguished in this ignominious fashion. Surviving, as it has, armed assault, and every form of intrigue, it will not perish of the base corruption of subsidy, it will not be throttled by mere greeds or smothered by vile monopoly.” Mr. Scott spoke for more than two hours, and was loudly applauded as he concluded. During the delivery of the speech, Speaker Carlisle, Postmaster General Dickinson, and Assistant Postmaster General Stevenson were attentive listeners, while Mrs, Cleveland was in the gallery for a short time.