Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1888 — CHAIRMAN MILLS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHAIRMAN MILLS.

In an Eloquent Address He Defines the Position of the Democratic Party. It Has Always Been a Friend of the Laboring Man and the Enemy of Monopoly. The Great Issues of the Present Campaign Presented in a Masterly Manner. Speech of Hon. Boger Q, Mills, Delivered at Chicago on the 25th of August. We present l>elow the salient ]»o:nts ot the very able speech delivered at Chicago by Chairman Mills, ot the Ways and Means Committee : “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow-Democrats, and citizens of the State of Illinois, no words can express my gratification as I stand among the uncounted legions of the unsurrenderad Dem c*acy of the Northwest. I stand Irefore you to ■discuss the great question now submittal to the arbitration of the ballot-box, the great arbit t of American freemen. I will accept the definiti >n of the issue given by the great chief of the Republican i>arty, Mr. Blaine, when he first landed from his foreign voyage at New York ; it is an issue of labor from skin to core and from care back to skin again. On this question the Democratic party to-day stands wli re its grandsires stood a hundred years a-jo. It stands where our ■ sires stood before; it stands the real not the sham friend of labor. We bav’e before us the same condition of things that our Republican friends had when the war ceased, when on the field of Appomattox God bad declared that this country should remain forever united, one end indivisible. When our armies were disbanded ■ and when the taxes imposed upon the people were bringing into the Federal Treasury more ■money than was needed for its administration, our Republican friends felt the responsibility upon them to reduce taxation and to restore the surplus of the money to channels of business circulation. How did they do if? The professed friends of the laborer increased the taxation on toil and decreased it on wealth. They found a tax imposed upon the pro iucts of domestic manufacture of 3or 4 per cent. They in reused that to 40 per cent, for his protection, taking ■out of Ills pocket $127,00 ’,00) lor the benefit of the Government, while it was taking ten times that amount out of the po Aeta of the people. They repealed the tax that was taking 8127,v0 > 00) out of the pockets of the m: nufacturer, but they in.leased the tax on tbe clothing of the people. Yes, my friends, is is a question of labor from skin to core ind irom ctr j hack to skin again. They found a tax upon railro ids. this vast system that is spanning the whole countiywith millions inveffed in it, bringing millions of income to the packets ot the capita ists who own them, and they repealed all of •that tax on the railroads, bo great is t e r friendship and sympathy for the poor toiling man that they reduced ail the tax on the railroads and increased the tax on the loJd of the pt ople. "They found a tax on income, and out of 50,001',000 people in the United States only 460,170 men hod incomes over the allowance left for home support, bringing into the Treasury of the United States government $72,000,(MX) out of a net annual income of 8800,000,000; but it was so hard ■to pay; it was resting so heavily upon these laborers that were cutting coupons from their b nds and putting them in their pockets, they ■could not stand it any longer, and in one short year—yea, as the flags of the Confederate battalions were falling and the victorious battalions of •the Union armies were coming home to their wives and their children—they swept the income tax away. And what did they do for the laborer'? 'They took all the bank tax away ; they took off all the taxes from the express companies ; they took till the tux off the telegraph companies. They removed every burden ot taxation that rested upon wealth; but they have piled it mountain high upon labor and toil, and they organized strikes in this country, something that ■was never heard of until the Republican party came into power. Now, my friends, the old Democratic reliable is on deck again. She is doing business at the old stand and in the old way. It is the party of the people. It Is the party that Thomas Jefferson organized in the year 1800 to fight the grandfathers of the Republican party, who were the old Federal party, Who believed in paternal government, who believed that the people were incapable of selfgovernment, who believed that they ought to be cared for by the Government as a father cares for his little children to keep them from falling in the fire. Mr. Jefferson and our old fathers eaid that the people were capable of self-govem-tnent, and that the Government was not the father of the people but the servant of the people. And so when the Federal administration, in order to take charge of the mouths' of the people, to keep them from criticising it when it •was wrong, passed a law authorizing the President of the United States to send ail foreigners ■that were inimical in his judgment to the best •Interests of the country, beyond it; banish them; •end them into exile; and as for the American ■ citizen, to cast him into prison and turn the • treacherous hinges of th > dungeon upon him if he dared to believe that he was a free-boru American citizen and to discuss the administration of th ' Government that he had created ; but Mr. Jefferson threw upon the breezes for the first < time the flag of the Democratic party, which he

“Now, I want to show you what the policy of •the Democratic party is on this great question of taxation. The Democratic party, as I told you, is a labor party. It believes that the people In this cduntry have certain inalienable rights, •s Thomas Jefferson declared in the Declaration of Independence, rights which were secured to ■them by constitutional interdiction against encroachments upon them on the part of the Government, and one of those rights is to labor and ito have all the proceeds of your toil, except such as may ba necessary to support an honest and •economical and efficient administration of the Government. Now, then, we find that with these exorbitant rates of t xation which our Republiean friends have placed upon the statute books, as my friend has told you so fully Mid so clearly, a vast sum of money is coming into the public treasury over and above all that is required for an honest administration of the Government. What is that doing for us, my friends ? This mone v Is taken out of the channels of trade and piled up and locked up in the vaults of the Treasury, lowering values, because anyone who knows anything about finance will tell you that the ■value of all property, the value of all labor, the value of all things in commerce, is governed •by the amount of money in circulation. If there •is a full amount in circulation prices are high, •and the price of labor is high, but if you extract '•from the channels of trade all the money there is in circulation there would be no sales ; there would be noth'ng but barter, and that would be eonfinelto little localities; business would be stopped and destitution and suffering would stalk through our ruined land. Now that mcney tias got to be taken out of the Treasury and given back to the people. We have not got any • more wealth in this country now to take the •taxes off. The Republicans took it all off years ago. All the burden of taxation to-day irests on consumpt on, on articles consumed by the masses, on articles produced bv labor eacn ■year and going from production to consumption nedessary to sustain human existence. There Is no tr- on the 150,001 miles of railway drawing $890,00i 10 a year in gross receipts ; that does not pay one dollar for its protection to the Government. All the tax is on consumption. We liave nassed a bill through our House in the line of the message of Grover Cleveland to take some part of the burdens of taxation off of the necessaries of life to the poor. We have ■ent it to the Republican Senate, and nt the last ■ accounts they did not know what to do with it. My friends, they are between the devil and the . deep sounding sea. Some one suggested ‘don’t make any bill as a substitute for the one sent • from the House, don’t say anything; don’t say what you believe in, because there is great > peril around you; just say you are opposed to the bill the House sent; stand on that.' They have been saying all the time that the Democratic i party had not got sense enough to administer this Government if the people were to give it to them. They said they could not pass a bill, and that the Southern party in the House of Representatives, as heretofore, had failed. My great •• friend, that noble soldier and true Democrat, William R. Morrison, of Illinois [applause], ♦hen I waa one of his lieutenants, and he never

had a more devoted lieutenant, nor did I ever have a captain more brave or d-votei to the people of tbe country, but unfortunately for my friend Morrison, he did not have a Democratic President behind him holding the flag of the l*ople in their sight and enabling them to come to their relief. I had the help of the great President who appealed to the people of the United States, and that appeal was answered by shaking the very ground which we stood upon, as you are shaking it to-day. Thm it was easy to pass it. Now, then, if they do not pass it the people will say you have not got the capacity to deal with this question. You admit that this Treasury has got to be unloaded; everybody admits that. The Democratic House has sent you a bill to reduce th s taxation to the amount of $75,000,000; now if you do not like that give us something that is better. No, they say that they can not do that, they can no: open their mouths. Mr. Blaine said : ’Don’t you say a word about it.’ They are like tbe little boy who was idiotic; his mother told him. ‘Don’t you open your mouth; if anybody says anything ,o you just koep your mouth shut and they will never find out you a*e a foil; idiots don’t know how to talk, you have been unfortunate, keep your mouth shut.’ One day somebody sa : d to him, ‘My little son, what is your name?* The boy said nothing. ’My little son. where do you Jive’?’ He did not say.anything. ‘My little son, what i» the name of y<Mir father?’ He didn’t sav anything. ’My little sou, what is the name of your mother ?’ He’did not say anything. This'disgusted the fellow, and he said: ‘Certainly vou must be a fool.' •Oh,’ he says, ‘mother, he has found it out, and I never opened mv mouth.’ "Now, some of the others said we must avoid

that; that wen’t do. We must frame a bill and frame a policy upon which we are to stand, and we must go to the people ou that. Now, then, they are sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, and there is a whirlpool ou one side and an arch pelago of rocks on the o'her. and a Democratic s to rm is sweeping over the sea. Democratic opinion bum ng with indie nation is attempting tl at this money shall be restored to the ch muels of commerce and the employment of labor. Now what are you going to do?'lf they do not stand on the platform and repeal the whisky tax the moral sentiment and the outraged public opinion of the country will sweep them into the abyss of oblivion; they can not stenl that, that cannot do. They put that in their platform right here in Chicag j that they will repeal ad the internal revenue before they will give any part, even the sug ir part of the infant industries, but when that was promulgated a storm of indignation was heard from all over the country against taking the tax off of whisky and leaving it on the implements of labor and food. They had been traveling on the cars considerably, and they had seen signs on the door, ‘Do not stand ou the platform when the cars are in motion,’ and they got off the platform. Now, then, some of them said yes vou hod better take the tax off sugar and we can raise the devil on sugar. There is but little of it down in Louisiana and nine-tenths of it is imported into the United States, but the people do not know that and let us go now for a large cut on sugar, let us sacrifice this poor little infant that has got no friends in this country. We can not get any votes in that section anyway, and we will get a heap of votes up here if we will make a sectional fight. “McKinley and the other leaders who belonged to the combination said: ‘lf you give up sugar you confess that the protective principle is wrong, you confess you may select one infant and slaughter it, you give the whole question up and it won’t do,’ and so they are in that darklantern committee-room fixing up things, swearing one Way to-day and another way to-mor-row, and the door still closed and God only, if He does know, knows what they are going to do. [Laugr ter.] Now, let me tell you what the bill is that we have introduced.' We proposed to claim a reduction of $78,000,000. The House during the progress of that bill cut that down to $75,009,0J i. We put some things on the free list that we should put back on the dutiable list. We reduced the dutiable list in some respects where they put it back a little further, and so they took off $3,000,000 and left our bill for $75,000,000. Now,

the main feature of that biU is the following sections ot that tariff: Our tariff is divided into eight or nine —one embraces all articles of chemicals; on the article of chemicals we reduce t e tariff 81.70 on every »1(D imported. and they tell us th it is free trade ; they cannit stand that; we are going right square over to Great Britain, while we leave them 82H, and more than S2B of taxation for protection, as they call it, upm all the minufaitured chemicals in the United State- after having taken off that $1.70. "What do they say thev wint that protection for? They say to protect American labor against foreign pauper labor. Taey do! Tney are awfully afraid of that patip-r labor over there, they want to protect our pavple against it. If you will 1 ok at the census rsporc on wages, taken by Mr. Porter, the reporter of a Republican organ in New York to-<ia.', you will see that the manufacturers’ statements of what thjy pay for wages show over their own signatures that the labor cost is from $9 to Sil on every 810) worth of chemicals manufactured ia the United St ites, an 1 yet when wa give them $lB, nearly three times the enfire cost of their chemicals. they siy that we are going to break down the laboring man. All they want is the difference between labor there an! here. The labor charges make about 19 ]>er cent., and m mon that 1 have ever seen savs that the labor cost here is more than 100 per cent, higher than over beyond, and in a great number of cases it is not 1 per cent., and in a great number of them it is cheaper than it is over here. In mare than a majority of the labor products of this country the labor item of production is less here than it is over bevond. But now let us give them ID per cent, difference, so that if chemicals cost $lO

on SIOO worth in this country they cost $5 over there, double $5 and it is $lO, that is IJO percent. So all you would want to make our labor on equal terms with labor over beyond would be $5 added to the $5 over beyond, and we give them $2 > and they say it is free trade. On earthen and stone ware the labor cost is about $lO on the SIOO, and over beyond it is about $45 on the $10.); ours is cheaper than theirs, but let us stick to the rule that our labor cost is twice as great as theirs; now all that we waut is 20 per cent. Twenty per cent., doubled makes S4O in the cost of labor in SIOO worth of earthen and stone ware in this country. But what do we leave then ?—about 5J per cent, more than enough to pay all the labor cost of their earthen and stone ware. Give it to them as a present by the Government and give them $lO besides, and ye. because we want to reduce the tax on these necessaries of life they say it is free trade and you shall not do it. “Now take iron and steel; we consume about $800,00J,000 worth of iron and steel. It was $170,090,000 by the census eight years ago and it has increased considerably since then, but let us call it $700,000,00.1. The labor cost in iron and steel is between sl7 and $lB a ton. and it is more than that in Great Britain. Our labor is cheaper than theirs, but let us take it on the hnndred-per-cent. basis again. We will say that ours is 20 per cent, and that the'rs is $lO on the hundred, or 10 per cent. Then $lO on tne hundred, or 10 per cent., would be sufficient to cover the difference in labor cost between Great Britain and the United States, and we give them 40, and they say that is free trade, too, and they do not intend that we shall reduce the tariff on a single implement of labor, a plow, a hoe, a shovel, an ax, an auger, or upon anything with which the people of this country make their living and their support. “Now we come to sugar. We found iron about 42 per cent.; we leave it at 40. We reduce their chemicals $4.70, earthen and stone ware $7.34, metals $2.30, wood and wooden ware 6) cents on SIOO. That is not much. We reduced the provisions 90 cents on SIOO. We reduced cotton goods 92 cents on SIOO. We reduced books and papers 7 cents on SIOO. We reduce 1 sundries $1.83 on $10). Now they say that is a terribly destructive bill, and not only that but you have made it a sectional bill; yon do not touch this Southern produce as you do our Northern industries. What did we reduce the tax on sugar? Of the $30,000,000 of reduction of dutiable articles over $11,000,000 was taken off on the article of sugar alone, more than one-third on one article and that article is sugar. They say you did

the same way with rice. I tell you. frankly, rice ought to have been put on the free Liat; that bill Is not perfection, I never contended it was perfect, and I never heard anybody or any of my friends say that it was. If we had had some more good Democrats there we would have made a heap better bill, but we had to make just such a bill as we could. It reduced rice sl2 on the hundred, and sugar and rice together are out more severely tian anr other article on the whole tariff list with tbe exception of wool, and that is cut more for the simple reason that we took wool out of it and made wool free. After having taken wool off and given wool free the woolen manu-factor.-r had by existing law 35 per cent, of duties to protect him agatns: foreign competition. To show yon how moderate and how reasonable we w re we not only left him the whole of this 35 per eent., but gave him 5 percent, mqye; he has now got 4) per cent, duty on woolen goods where he before had 35 per cant., and be complains that this is free trade. It is all free trade running backward and down hill with tbe throttle valve thrown wid? open. The best part or this bill is the free list. I want to tell you ths theory unon which we propose to reduce taxation. We' find that we are importing $(5,0 0,000 worth of woolen goods in this country made by foreign labor. Why is it? Because'we have a duty so high on the raw wool that you will not permit the wools of any other country to be imported and worked up by our people. They have kept a great deal 'of the woolen roods away, and they have only made a class of goods that the wealthiest and well-to-do part of our people can afford to wear. Now, they are proposing to increase the duty on

“Our offense, as you will please to understand it, is not against your royal Majesty at all or your Government; it is againsf Grover Cleveland lie want to give him a wipe as we go along, and a very serious one, and having done that by denouncing him as a presumptuous negotiator of a treaty, in the face of our resolution and in the face of our law giving him the privilege of deciding it and making it his duty to decide whether the United States has reason or not for retaliation, we have flattened’ him out, and now we turn to your Majesty to assure you very humbly that we did not mean any offense toward you ! That is the meaning of it. I should like to see an Irishman with a mouth big enough to gulp that down ' P oH ttcalfines3e, this attempt to cast odium and slur upon the President of the United States, and then to turn around to the Queen of Great Bntaimand beg of her to escape the consequences, is one of the most humiliating attitudes that a great committee ever took: it is regular todyism to the British power. Ido not think a record of that sort was ever made before, and 1 challenge the gentlemen who follow me to explain what they meant about it, and why they put that address to the British Crown in the conclusion of their report. ” from speech of Senator Morgan. r

woolen goods so high that you can not import any woolen goods, and increase the duty on wool so high that you can not import any wool into the country. And we raise 565,000,000 pounds ofwool in our own country, while we consume 600,000,000 pounds. Now, then, what are you going to do? The Republican party will not let you bring in wool and it will not let you bring in woolen • goods. I would like to know what you are going to do for clothes ? This is a rigorous climate here; it is not always summer; there are times when we want all the woolen gooas we can get; there are times when the Democratic party looks out for the people. We think a great deal more of a poor man’s back thau a poor sheep’s back. We are looking after the people. We say that this wool shall be manufactured by our own laborers, and employ ment shall be given to them instead of having them wandering about the streets and driven out of employment by trusts and all these things. “If you would let the raw wool come into this country it would give employment to all these men, who would make this $44,000,000 worth of woolen goods that are imported into this country now. That would make a great demand for labor. When you have got to have 100,000 more men to do the work it is going to increase largely the demand for labpr. What does a great demand for labor mean? It means an increase in wages. Now, there is the Democratic line. We say that our manufacturers have got to this point in this country that by working about eight months in the year they can supply the whole of our population with all the manufactured goods that they want. Then what do they do ? Then when they come to that point they find that what further goods they make can not be sold ; that they have got beyond the capacity of the people to buy and consume. Then what do they do? They throw'their manufacturing business' into trusts, and then if they want to fool somebody they simply say now, my men, tim?s are dull, there is under-consumption, there is no use forme to go on and make these goods when I can not sell them. I have got to cut down your wages 15 or 20 per cent-., if 10 won’t do, and if that won’t do 30 per cent. Tney want to make you strike; the workman will say, I cannot live on those wages ; I con hardly live now, and if you cut me down I can n t live at all, and you have your unions for protection, and you strike ; that is just what they want you to do. A young lady in Philadelphia is said to have had five lovers named Samuel.

FISHERIES COMMITTEE BEFORE THE QUEEN.