Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1888 — FARMERS AND THE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

FARMERS AND THE TARIFF.

SENATOR WHITING’S GREAT SPEEGH. Tracing Clearly the Depression In the Agricultural Interests to Trusts, Pools, and Other Monopolies Fostered by Extortionate Custom House Taxation. The following address on the tariff was made by Senator L. D. Whiting, a veteran republican of Illinois, before a farmers’ institute at Dixon. HI., last February: “As farmers perform their share of bard work and practice their portion of economy, it will be conceded that they ought to enjoy their portion of prosperity. Add to this the fact that for the last twenty years agricultural products turned the balance of trade to our country and poured over the land golden showers, enriching all interests except the one which produced it, the prosperity of the farmer may well be an obiect of national concern. Great cities have arisen like magic; great corporations have sprung into existence with imperial wealth and power; great manufacturing enterprises capable of supplying a continent, if run on full time; great individual fortunes giving us a class of American lords—except alone the title. Amid all this, our class, which mainly produced it, enjoy but a scanty share. Agriculture is suffering a blight. The lands of Bureau county have declined more than $lO per acre, aggregating a loss to land owners in that county of over $5,000,000. It is within bounds to saythat within the state at large the loss has been over $200,000,000. New England agriculture, except in special lines, is in ruin. The fine farming regions of Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio are marked by dilapidation. In that vast sweep from Kansas to Minnesota half the farms are under mortgage, drawing high rates of interest; and the time is near when these families struggling to save their homes will be outcasts, driven to despair. This picture is corroborated by the census. During the last two census decades the wealth of the nation increased from $16,000,000,000 to $44,000,000, being a net gain of $28,000,000,000. Of this great gain that half of the people who live on the farms received a little less than $5,000,000,000, while the other half secured $23,000,000,000. The $5,000,000,000 gained by the farmers was in the new farms on the public domain. The established farms declined in average value from $3,200 to $2,400. Gov. Oglesby noticed this tendency in his inaugural -address in 1873 as follows: “It is a pleasure to congratulate you that in that general sense in which all the interests of the people are considered it may be correctly said our affairs are in a satisfactory condition. In a more limited, and yet largely in a general sense, it is hardly so. All the products of the farm are ranging at prices scarcely remunerative; the productions of other branches of industry are nearer the prices of more recent years. Corresponding changes have not, for some cause, affected other industries.” The governor saw that agriculture was suffering a blight, while other pursuits were prosEerous. The causes of the decline, wnich e did not discuss, I propose here to consider to some extent. 1. A world-wide competition with the cheapest of all cheap labor in Europe and Asia depresses prices. I know of no remedy for this, except, as we are compelled to sell cheap, we must buy cheap. 2. The combinations known as pools and trusts are extending to all pursuits to subvert the laws of trade. “Competition” and “supply and demand” are now nearly obsolete. Lumber, sugar, coal, barbed wire, iron and steel, plows and oil may be mentioned as a few of a multitude. 3. The extortion in charges of transportation companies, to pay large dividends on watered stock, and certain practices of stock-yards and grain elevators to unduly increase their enormous profits. 4. The adulterations, false weights, shams and shoddies in things we buy, at rates which should procure the genuine and full weights and measures. 5. The high and exceptional rates of interest which farmers pay on their loans. 6. The unjust provisions and workings of the state revenue laws, permitting large evasions, to be made good by doubly loading the land. 7. The protective tariff system which gives bounties to certain classes at the expense of others—the burden resting finally mostly on producers. These are some of the suction-pumps, but probably not all. The operators of these suction-pumps comfort us by stating that goods are now cheaper than formerly. No donbt this is true. There are now steam engines enough to more than double the power of every human being, and four-fifths of these have come into use during the past twenty-five years. During this period there have been such marvelous discoveries in iron and steel as to make them substitute for wood. Gas, coal and inventions innumerable have ushered in a new era of manufacturing. These powers and processes of nature are not to be monopolized by one class of men. Like the air and the sunlight they are for all mankind. The suction-pump operators further tell us that farmers are better off than formerly—that we have painted houses in place of log cabins; that we wear overcoats, ride in carriages, and on gala days can scarcely be distinguished from villagers! It may be well to give notice that farmers intend to duly share in the blessings and duties of civilization. One-half of the value of Illinois is in land, the other half in railroads and other corporations, moneys and credits, and other personals. But land pays 79 per cent of the taxes, and the other half 21 per cent. Encumbered real estate pays double. The debtor pays high interest on his mortgage, and then pays taxes on all, as though no mortgage existed. If the holder of the mortgage does not forget, he also pays taxes on his mortgage. Massachusetts has done away with this robbery by ■ dividing this tax ratably between debtor and creditor. Tax evaders will not permit this just law to be enacted in Illinois. The overburdened debtor must continue to pay double, that they may wholly escape. So crushing burdens are borne till strength fails and the home is lost. The aggregate valuation in Illinois has declined since 1873 about $500,000,000. The strange part is, that the chief decline was where property had most advanced. Railroads were assessed in 1873 8123,928,479 Railroads were assessed in 1886 62,972,101 Corporations other than railroads were assessed in 1873 21,898,451 Since then our secretary of state has ground out about three corporations a day, and these claimed a capital of more than $2,000,000,000; yet new and old were assessed in 1886 $3,756,577, a decline of five-sixths. Cook county was assessed, just after Chicago emerged from the fire with 300,000 inhabitants, $306,208,660. Much of the time since she has got off on one-half this amount; but now, with her great city doubled in wealth and population, and with many suburbans town, her assessment is $203,625,833, or two-thirds as much as it was assessed fifteen years ago. It is believed that $400,000,000 of moneys and credits and other values evade all taxes. The raise of the rate of state taxation from 27 cents on the SIOO to 53, comes in part from this decline in valuation, and part from large appropriations to new subjects. Lands must bear the chief brunt. National taxes have grown since 1860 more than five-fold. Npw $100,000,000 annually and more can be dropped from this vast sum. This should be a boon to

a tax-ridden people; but strange doctrines are preached from high sources. Instead, of cheaper sugar, lumber, clothing and other necessaries of life, relief is to b« offered in cheap whisky and tobacco! This ludicrous proposition proves to b« made in earnest, and unless vigorously opposed it may succeed. Manufacturers da not wish to pander to evil, but they seek to find some excuse and necessity to keep the high tariff intact throughout. Tha breaking of one link in the grand tariff chain is feared, lest it may dissolve the tariff confederacy. The new pretensions set up may best be seen by a brief historical reference. The first notable move for a protective tariff was alter the war of 1812. That war had forced into existence manufacturing enterprises with small capital and less skill. Henry Clay led the move to give them temporary protection. His own words are given in his late biography written by Carl Schurz. Mr. Clay made a series of speeches throughout the country just previous to his nomination for the presidency in 1844. Of these utterances Mr. Schurz writes: “He expressed himself sonorously upon all the old whig principles ana measures, repeating his views of the protective tariff as a temporary arrangement which the infant industries, rapidly growing up to manhood, would not much longer require.” The present high protective tariff had a patriotic beginning. The great demands of the treasury during the late war led to imposing direct taxes on goods of our own manufacturers. Simultaneously the present high tariff was imposed as a compensation. After the close of the war tha direct taxes on manufactures were repealed, but the manufacturers were fortunate enough to retain the war tariff. This gives the treasury more money than is needed. The lowering of national taxes should be a blessing. The removal of the extra w r ar tariff is a natural sequence, and would greatly relieve consumers. But the original doctrine of protection to infant industries is now to be superceded. Perpetual protection, and the higher the better, is the new dogma. The iron and steel interests are the center of a vast tariff confederacy seeking the indorsement of the country to this doctrine. Its effect upon agriculture is already seen in the census statistics now given. I will here give one more, bringing the fact nearer home. Before the enactment of the present high tariff the state of Illinois was fast gaining upon Massachusetts in wealth, as may well be supposed, from natural causes. Since the war tariff enactment the case is reversed. 1860 the per capita wealth of Massachusetts was $662. That of Illinois was $509. In 1880 Massachusetts had increased her per capita to $1,668, while Illinois had reached but $1,005. While Illinois, with her great natural advantages, had doubled, Massachusetts, with her sterile soil and rocks, advanced 150 per cent. Massachu- i setts claims that Illinois shall pay for her j goods a price sufficiently high to make up s the difference of wages between this coun- j try and Europe. Let me inquire who is ‘ to pay to Illinois farmers the difference | between farm wages here and farm wages in the old world ? If we should grant the | claim of Massachusetts to help her pay| her laborers, 20 per cent tariff will amply i cover the case, as that is about the amount: that the cost of labor bears to the price of. the manufactured goods. The other 20 j and more per cent exacted by the presenftj tariff is, perhaps, to furnish the moneys they send West and invest on mortgages] on our farms. Our manufacturing friends are in theories to persuade us to continue tha’ system. Their politeness is most remarkable. It is said that “uniform politeness is a species of godliness. It may not make a jpan a saint, hut it will make himfc a lovely sinner.” “Protection is for our good,” they telL us. “We Want it also for the good of out workmen.” “It makes goods higher, but then we pay it in better wages.” “It makes goods lower, so the farmer gets a benefit. “The foreigner pays the duty.” “If you do not wish to pay the duty, buy! goods made at home.” This jumble, when seen together, needs no reply. One matter may be ventilated. Let it be illustrated on lumber. • But a few tens of thousands go into the national treasury on imported lumber, hut millions go into the pockets of the lumber lords by being pro- | tected from Canadian competition. The power of the lumber lords was seen in j the rebuilding of Chicago after the fire. Though Chicago politics was “protection” in practice she became a “free trader” for a year. Congress granted their request on all things except lumber the thing, of all others, most needed and most just to be placed on the free list. The lumber kings were too much for Chicago, and so their tariff exactions with their trust combinations remain to tax the West millions and hurry the destruction of our forests. The shivering pioneers of Dakota and Minnesota, struggling with small mearis to shelter their wives and children from the fierce storms, must continue to pay tha bounty. Who knows how maty of” that thousand or more who sunk in the snow for a winding sheet were lost for want o< supply of lumber, coal, blankets and clothing? Farmers must study public matters from their own standpoint. They must make them paramount to all other questions, long enough at least to arrest the downward slide. Duty, public interest, patriotism and Christianity demand it. Let agitation, education and organization proceed. Since the Chicago convention made its free-whisky-monopolv tax platform Senator Whiting has declared for Cleveland and Thubman, and will take the stump for them.