Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1888 — A STRONG ARGUMENT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A STRONG ARGUMENT.

Hon. J. D. Caton Explains Why He Favors a Revision: and Reduction of the Tariff. An Excess of Protection That Does Not Benefit Labor but Is Instead a Bor* den Upon Industry. The Veteran Jurist Approves the Mild Measure ofßjform Recommended by President Cleveland. Hon. J. D. Caton, whom a former generation 4new as the Chief Justice of Illinois, and who -enjoys in an honored old age a degree of confidence and respect rarely accorded to any man, has been moved to make himself plainly understood on the tariff question because he had been misreported in an interview by a Chicago newspaper and was being quoted abroad from that false basis. He writes with all the sturdy vigor of his younger years. The letter is addressed to and published in the Burlington Hawkeye. The venerable Judge says: “The reporter of that interview unfortunately misunderstood me in several particulars. I feel ■constrained to set myself right on the subject. He was correct, however, in stating that I did approve the President's last annual message to Congress in recommending a reduction of the tariff to so reduce the income as to meet the requirements of an economical administration of •the Government, but in doing this a due regard should be had to our domestic industries. But for political party strifes I believe that the great body of the American people would cordially approve of this wise and conservative recommendation. As it is, there are not wanting those in the ordinary walks of life who would scorn to utter a falsehood for the deliberate purpose of deceiving, who with brazen effrontery call tnis a free-trade measure and those who approve of it free-traders, which means, and iB so intended to he understood, the abolition of all tariff duties and the free admission of all foreign goods. This was not recommended by the President and is advocated by no party. There is then no free trade in the country. The President recommends a moderate reduction. Do his opponents oppose l his and insist that the present tariff shall be maintained? If so, why? “The reason assigned by the advocates for a high tariff is that it enables- manufacturers to pay higher wages to their operatives than they could afford to (jo were they obliged to sell their products in competition with free foreign goods, that American laoorers must be protected from the effects of the pauper labor of Europe. This is the happy catchword by which the advocates of a high tariff seek to catch the votes of the laboring men of this country. The tariff does not tend to increase the wages of those skilled workmen whoso labor cannot be performed by the ordinary laborers who are engaged in the Cluction of goods the price of which is enced by the amount of the tariff laid upon the Imported goods. It is only these skilled workmen, employed In special branches of work, whose wages are enhanced by the tariff, while the wages of the common laborers, and other mechanics, as blacksmiths, masons, or the like, are not increased a penny by reason of the tariff, above that they can command when employed by others not engaged In the manufacture of these protected goods. The tariff does not protect them in any way from the pauper labor of Europe. The wages of these paupers are held up and shook in the faces of all wage-workers in America to frighten them into the high-tariff ranks. It is pertinent to inquire what ratio tne skilled workmen engaged in the special manufactures, whose wages are actually enhanced by the tariff, bears to the great maBS of laboring men on our farms, in building all of the great and small structures in all of our cities and towns and in the country, and in all the thousand vocations in which both ■common and skilled labor are employed. Not one of all these men does the tariff protect from the pauper labor of Europe by a single cent increase of their wages. The protected laborers are not one in a thousand, and I think I may say not one in ten thousand, to those who live by their daily toil in all the other walks of life. How false is the cry, then, that the tariff is to protect the Amei ican laborer by enhancing his wages, when not one in a thousand can possibly receive any benefit from it. “We can hardly believe that those who advocate this high tariff to protect American labor (?) really appreciate upon how few they are expending all their gushing sympathy, while they have no sympathy to spare for the great mass of laborers who quietly toil on and prosper without their sympathy or protection. This cry that the tariff is to protect the American laborers from the competition of foreign labor by increasing their wages for the labor which they perform, is but feeding them with taffy of the weakest kind. It is diluted more than a thousand fold, for not one In a thousand, nay, not one in many thousands, has one cent added to his wages. You have but to look around and on every side you see the truth of this verified. Look at the laborers you everywhere meet. Your blacksmiths, your carpenters, your masons, your hod-carriers, your harntss-makers, your teamsters, and indeed everyone you see who is busily employed In building up your city or carrying on its commerce, and point out a single one whose wages are increased by a single cent by reason of the tariff, and if you say there is a farthing’s increase point out how, in what way, is it increased. “If yon find one in five thousand of all these laborers who can point to the tariff as in any possible way increasing his daily wages, then yan will find that one engaged in some single branch of a protected manu actory, and you will find that those specially protected workmen are receiving two or three times the wages which the great multitude of laborers around them receive and with which they are prosperous and contented.

“Here, then, you may find an infinitesimal proportion of the laboring men of your city whose wages are enhanced by reason of the tariff. And these are the laborers you have been telling all the time that the tariff is enacted for their benefit, to protect them from the pauper laborers of Europe, and who shall blame them if they take you at your word and by combinations enforce their claims for all the benefits which the tariff secures to American labor. Not only this, but they monopolize all of this class of labor by forbidding their employers to take apprentices to learn the business, except by their consent, which will only be granted in case of a son, a "brother, or a cousin, or possibly an aunt in some special callings. “This may truly be called the aristocracy of labor, to which is applied the strictest laws of primogeniture, in which the common laborers of the country are admitted to no part or interest. Here you have illustrated the influence of the tariff, so far as its effect upon American labor is concerned. It enhances the wages of a very, -very few to an extravagant extent. While to the great multitude it is a palpable and positive burden without in the least increasing the pay for their labor. What is this tariff tax ? It is a subsidy paid to the home producer of goods, the price of which is enhanced by the amount -of the tariff laid upon like goods imported from abroad. Who pays.this subsidy? Every consumer of these protected goods. Every man who buys a hatchet,’ or a hammer, a pound of nails; everything made of iron or steel, or even of lumber, pays higher prices for it by the amount of the tariff paid upon the material, or on the manufactured article. Inquire of any of your merchants who are the final purchasers of tflese goods, and they will tell you that more than 90 per cent, of these tariff goods are purchased by laboring men, either farmers or laborers in towns, men who earn their living by their om hands, and the price of nearly everything tb * buy is increased by reason of the tariff. T„e manufacturer of agricultural implements has to pay a tariff on the iron and steel, and even fine timber which he uses, and this of necessity he must add to the price of the implements, so that the entire burden must fall upon the farmer, who must have it to cultivate and harvest his crops. If the cost of his harvester or cultivator is enh need but 20 per cent, by reason of the tariff on the stock entering into its structure, the saving of that 20 per cent, on the cost of his implements would be a boon which he would appreciate, and it would be worth an effort on election day to secure it. But it is said that the tariff is an indirect tax and is not felt by him who pays it as the burden of a direct tax is felt; that the consumer will pay $lO to the dealer in the increased price of what he buys and feel it less than he would to take $1 fmra his pocket and give it to a tax collector. I think this is so, for in this way alone can we . explain why we have paid these millions of sub-

sidles every year to protect oar domestic manufactories from foreign competition—oar home labor against foreign pauper labor. If but 10 per eent. oc this subsidy thus indirectly paid by consumers had to pass through the Treasury on its way from the pockets of the payers to the pockets of the recipients of the subsidy not, one man in Congress would dare to vote for the subsidy. All past history shows that the average Congressman has such a horror of the very name of subsidy that he dare not admit it to his lips exoept with anathemas, when it is called by its plain, simple name, but give it another name, a sweet-sounding name, and 'he will vote for it with avidity, though it be ten times a subsidy. This tariff by any other name would not smell 6o sweet, especially if that name be subsidy. “I have here Btated facts which I invite any candid and truthful man to controvert, and upon these facts alone the President would seem to have been justified in recommending a total abolition of the tariff and the establishment of free trade. But he did not do so, and I cordially agree with him. He did not th rik it would be wise or just to suddenly withdraw all protection from our manufactories, which, under the stimulating influence of the war tariff, had been encouraged and invited to make large in vest-

ments In enterprises, the business of which they had yet to learn. These enterprise have been largely sustained by the Government subsidies, which had reUeved them from the necessity of self-reliance. To withdraw at once this Government prop would let many of them fall to the ground overwhelmed in ruin, which would indeed be a national calamity. Becognizing this fact, the President did not propose to withdraw from them altogether their Government subsidy upon which they had so long relied, or even the greater part of it, but only so much as they could bear; indeed, just enough to stimulate them to efforts of self-reliance; to invent or adopt improved machinery, and greater economies in their business. These enterprises had been fostered by subsidies as infant industries, many of them from a fifth to a quarter of a century, until now they have becomo rather aged infants to rely so much upon parental sustenance. His policy was to feed them something. Yes, largely yet, but not so much as formerly, but to make them help them-elves more. He knew and the world knew that the American people possess genius and resources when conditions require their exercise excelling all other peoples. “Onr inventions of machinery to supersede the use of manual labor have long been the surprise of the world, and when circumstances stimulate them to full activity they wiH laugh at foreign competition. Let me refer to our agricultural implements and our sewing machines, for instance, which need no protection, although oppressed by the duties on materials which they use. These we now export to every civilized country. It is only a question of time, and I trnst not a very long time, when this will be true of all other manufactures. But this will never be until they are taught in the school of necessity the lesson of self-reliance. “For what should we be striving? Shall we be content to supply only our domestic wants? Are we to be forever forbidden to look over the border for a market ? So long as our manufactories can not compete wi,.h foreign producers so long are we absolutely forbidden foreign markets. So long as any industry requires a tariff to keep it alive so long as to that industry is our country surrounded by an impassable wall. Is such to be the settled policy of our government? To that extent it is the policy of old Japan. Our agricultural products constitute almost our only exports. We shall never be completely emancipated till the products of our shops can vie with the products of the farm in supplying foreign countries with what they want. We are great in war and we are great in agriculture, .and in what else are we great? Where is the true American who does not aspire to be great in something else, to be great in all things possible for our country? That can never be as to any industry which requires a subsidy to support it. But, as I have before said, it would be very unwise to withdraw this subsidy altogether or so much as to cripple industries which are not yet able to stand alone, but the lessons taught by necessity will in time enable them to not only do this but to compete successfully with the outside world. This should be our ambition and the ambition of all who have the prosperity and glory of our country at heart, and upon this theory and this hope was the President’s message founded, and not upon free trade, as gross falsifiers pretend. ’ “What shall be placed upon the free list and upon what the reduction shall be made he does not even suggest, but leaves that to the wisdom of Congress, save only that he recommends that wool be placed on the free list for the benefit of woolen manufacturers and consum-rs, and to the scarcely appreciable injury of the fafmers who have small flocks mostly lor their own use,

while It may materially lessen tne profits oi the great flock-masters who own their hundreds of thousands of sheep, which they graze without rent upon the public domain. It is also recommended that the tax on whisky and tobacco be retained. There are, no (doubt, some who consider these necessaries of life, an I especially the whisky, hot fortunately th ire is agrowing sentiment that they are worse than a luxury, only serving to gratify a depraved taste, the effect of which is injurious. Do you object to this reoomuiendation ? If so, I think that a large majority of the people hardly agree with you. “Upon the breaking out of the civil war ons of the greatest needs of the Government was a revenue to maintain it, and every form of tax which couldproduce a revenue was devised and cheerfully and gladly submitted to by the people. It was to maintain institutions upon which we be--1 eved not only the future prosperity of the whole oouutrv depended, but upon wnich'eooh individual thought his private fortune and well-being depended. The war tariff, as well as all of the other of the war taxes, was framed with the idea of revenue alone. Money was the great object, while the encouragement to manufactories, so far as that could be done consistently with the main object of the law, was incidentally

considered. Under this encouragement, large amounts of money were invested in manufacturing establishmen's, which, without this encouragement, would not, at the time at least, have been undertaken, nor have they, as a rule, so learned the business as to be able to successfully compete with foreigners whoso longer experience and greater skill enabled them to prodnce goods at the lowest possible cost. But they have been all the time making progress in this direction. To suppose that they have not learned something, yes, very much, by the experience of the last twenty-five years would be too discreditable to the American people to be admitted. That some have made such progress in improvements and methods as to enable them to compete with anybody is undoubtedly true, an t that these are realizing great profits and piling up great fortunes is undoubtedly true. But this is true only in a few instances, and these should not be cited to the detriment of the far greater numbers who are not so fortunate, and who would go down without some support. It may be unfortunate that no discrimination in any given line of goods can be made in the granting of this subsidy. As it is, it must be bestowed alike upon the weak and upon the strong. Some will go down with any amount of subsidy, either from bad management or bad.conditions. As no subsidy could sustain

all, the question is what it is necessary to do to sustain those who select favorable locations and conduct their business upon economical and sound business methods. If our manufacturers are ever to learn anything they certainly must have learned something within the last twentyfive years, and they should begin to rely upon the knowledge and the experience thus acquired, and the burden upon . the consumers who bear the burden of the subsidy to pay them should begin to be lightened, at least. “It may be, and no doubt is, true that the Mills bill is not the best that could be devised to accomplisn the desired end. To do this would require supreme wisdom, and when done it would require infinite power to convince all that the bill thus dictated was the beet that could be devised. We must then be content with the best we can get. “In further illustration of a point which I have already considered, and which 1 believe to be of the greatest importance as connected with our tariff, I state that soon after the publication of the last annual message of the President I was in conversation with a personal frien l, Mr. Watson, of Glasgow, Scotland, who is an extensive manufacturer of goods, nearly all of which are sold in foreign countries. When I remarked to him that. I supposed that the message of Mr. Cleveland

recommending a redaction of the tariff would no pleasing to the foreign manufacturers hs replied that I was greatly mistaken if I thought so; that a prohibitory tariff would please them the best; that it was the inventive genius and enterprise which they most feared from America; that so long as American manufacturers were upheld and sustained by the tariff they ad nothing to fear from us in foreign markets ; that if we would leave to them the markets of the outside world r-s were quite welcome to our markets at home ; that what they most feared waß a condition of things which would bring into active operation the genius, the skill, the enterprise, and, in fine, the whole resources of the Americans, as applied to the production of the various classes of goods protected by the tariff. * ‘Look,’ he said, ‘at your iron mines in ahnost every State in the Union and of every variety of ore. Look at your copper mines, the richest in the world. These are the principal metals required by the manufacturer, and your timber forests furnish an abundance of every kind of timber and lumber required and of t e best quality. And for fuel look at your coal-fields, as exhaustless as the waters of your lakes ana rivers and of every quality desired. You alone

possess unlimited water-power so situated that it can readily be utilized to propel machinery. Look at your petroleum wells constantly spouting more oil than can be taken care of, and with which you are now lighting a large proportion of the world and which will continue to play a more and more important part in manufactures. And last, if not greatest of all, look at your natural gas, which as a fuel is unsurpassed for the reduction of ores and the generation of Steam, which flows right into your furnaces without cost, save only the conduits to convey it from the flowing wells. And now gas fields are being discovered with as much frequency as were the oil wells. Look, too, to your gold and silver mines. Now, these are but a few of the natural advantages which you have over all other peoples for manufacturing cheaply and of the best quality. Well may we fear you as manufacturers more than onr farmers fear you as agriculturists. But it is self-evident that so long as you. keep the tariff to subsidize your manufacturers so long we have nothing to soar from them. By all| means keep your tariff. By no means compel your people to rely upon their own resources, and bring into,active play those mighty powers which are now kept latent by the influence of the tariff. With such resources and with such genius to utilize them, when they shall be once aroused and you are compelled to act and compete in the markets of the world we do fear. Do not arouse the sleeping lion and remove the sedative which disposes mm to repose,’ “I was sileftt. Here were truths I could not gainsay, which would point to free trade as an immediate necessity, but there were other facts which Mr. Watson had overlooked which made protection, at least for a time, a necessity to avoid a greater calamity, and to these facts I have already referred. John Dean Caton.”

CHEAP WHISKY, HIGH-PRICED CLOTHING.

Benny—Ma, Ma, ma, I don’t like this log cabin, and Grover won't give me the white house.