Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1888 — Does the Present Tariff Protect [ARTICLE]

Does the Present Tariff Protect

AMERICANLABOR? Speech of Hon. David Turpie, of Indiana, in the U. S. Senate, Jm/Y 2, 1883. Mr. Prfsident: The Federal Constitution forbids the States to levy taxes upon imports. Congress alone is authorized “'to lay and collect” such duties. Our earliest statesmen, illustrious by their labors in the camp and in the Cabinet, worthy to l e not only the founders of a nation, but the authors of its form of Government, devised a fiscal policy of characteristic sim - plicity. Itis|thatof absolute free trade between the States, fair trade with all the world besides.

To direct a levy of ta .es without collection would seem an idle ordinance in so grave an instrument. In their regulation of foreign commerce our fathers avoided both free trade and prohibition. They wisely chose the middle ground of safety. Their method so established is like the Union they made, in contemplation of law perpetual. The first acts of Congress on this subject show no trace of mere inhibition. That io’ea, the growth of d, later _ period, appears most distinctly in 1861. The overwhelming exigencies of the civil war may have excused or justified a departure so radical, but the legislators of 1883, in virtually re-enacting the rates of the war tariff, designed, not a temporary use of this novel expedient; rather a permanent change of policy. There is some what, very mueb, in our present condition which may give us pause, may induce us to retrace our steps, to stand once more within constitutional bounds and limitations.

Congress some years ago provided what was deemed to be, if not a generous, at least a reasonable supply of money for the use of the people. The volume or quantity of currency thus furnished was carefully guarded against diminution —so much in Treasury notes, fixed at an amount not to be lessened; so much in coined silver to be regularly enlarged by a monthly increment; so much ;n other forms, that the country might not again be embarrassed for want of a circulating medium. Sorely vexed by this, the influential and therefore governing classes who had profited so largely by a different policy, cast about for means to thwart this legislation and to defeat its purpose. Beaten in the open contest for monetary freedom, they yet sought by indiiection to deprive the people of the use of tba+ currency so provided for them. They cast about for some such means; they found it 1 close at hand, They fourd thw leaders of the party then in power with full knowledge of their ulterior design, ready to aid them therein; they found all parties at that time willing and ready to help them in their apparent purpose. The revision of the tariff had become a part of the text of all political platforms and associations —a household word, expressive of a household want in every section of the country. This they eagerly seized upon, not with a view of correcting the injustice of the existing law, but with an elaborate pretension of so doing, to effect the contrary. The numerous sections, clauses, and lines of the tariff act of 1883, the tediously hypocritical parentheses of pseudoreduction and revision held in solution a single design, the forced accumulation of a surplus—a dead surplus —buried in the vaults of the Treasury, which should drive the c ountry once more to the verge f a money famine. The whole of the effective operative provisions of that law of 1883 are subordinated to a paragraph of a few lines obscurely placed in the section of an appropriation act concerning the surplus. By textual arrangement

this paragraph is remote, distant from the statute to which it relates; it might have actually served asa preamble to their bill. But this would have been a dangerous juxtaposition. The terms of this paragraph are not subjunctive nor conditional; they contemplate no contingency. Expenditure of the surplus is spoken of as an assured and certain requirement, well known and foreseen. That this accumulation was deliberately prepared and intended is evident from tho language of the clause author izingnot only the redemption but the purchase of United States bonds; the perfected plan and completed project being to tax the products of laud and labor in such degree as without doubt to induce m the volume of the currency a scarcity only to be relieved by paying large premiums to the public credtor, offering him such a generous and liberal largess as might tempt him to transmute his bonds into mouey.

The power to buy bonds was doubtless intended to create a sort of waste-weir for the overflow or or excess of moneys taken from the people by taxation; yet even this may not return to the regular course and channel of circulation without being tolled by the holder of our public securities. A \ :e----cise analysis of the whole system is this: to tax all the people for the benefit of a few protected classes up to the danger-line of monetary restriction; then to tax all again for the sake of another class still less numerous and highly favored. It might indeed have been said, “The public creditor can wait until his debt is due—he has his interest, and is satisfied; his bond, and he is content.” But such a course would have afforded no excuse for this needless accumulation The excess must in some way be disposed of; it would be dangerously in the way; it would create a lernand for less taxation. Let the bon holders have it —it will thus disappear. Then it is asked, “Bo you not wish to pay off the national debt?” Certainly, but we did not expect to pay for the privilege of paying it; to pay larg • amounts above the principal and interest — premiums unearned, for which there is no return. The exorbitant tariff now laid upon imports thus subserves the double purpose, first, of releasing our protected classes from their just share of the public burdens, then of depriving the people of the money pr by law for circulation.

The supply of currency to-day —upon what does it depend ? Upon the action or inaction of a single person, the Secretary of the Treasury; or upon the whim, caprice, or rapacity of the holder of national bonds. Is that a wise, efficient, or patriotic financial policy which has reduced the country to the very narrow straits of such a monetary dilemma? Then we have manifold schemes for expending the surplus, endloss diatribes against an invisible phantom, as if the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Carlisle, or any other charged with the duties of administration of affairs had proposed free trade —mere pretexts prevent the reduction of taxes. We hear criticisms of the President and of the p rty which supports him concerning the power to buy bonds and the use of it as if either the President, or the Democratic party had enacted the giving that power, or had imposed the necessity of its exercise. These things have come down to us as legislative heirlooms from a former regime. It is true the President was chosen by the people to administer upon the estate of that famous partisan called Republican, lately deceased. He is as yet, much embarrassed by the will, codicils, eontracts, and especially by the profuse bequests and legacies left by the decedent in) his li etime to his various f iends and allies, by statute or strict entail, yet in force. These pressing necessities, originating from former evils, will be removed.