Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1888 — A TARIFF FOR REVENUE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A TARIFF FOR REVENUE.

•CONGRESSMAN SPRINGER TELLS OF ITS MANY BENEFITS. Sharp Criticism of Candidate Harrison’s Plan to Reduce the Surplus—Advantages of the Free List—Sand Thrown Into the Laborer’s Eyes. {Speech of Hon. Wm. M. Springer, of Illinoisdelivered in Philadelphia.] What is the condition of affairs that confronts you at this time? The peop% of the United States are paying into the Treasury from Federal taxation more than SIOO,OO ,000 a year in excess of the necessities of the Government honestly and economically administered. The condition of things that confronts ns is one requiring a reduction of taxation. How shall that be accomplished ? It seems to me that the problem of reduction is one which onght to be understood and comprehended by every citizen in the land, and I was surprised, nay, amazed, when I read in the letter of acceptance of General Harrison that his plan of reducing the surplus was to buy United States bonds. Yon all remember when these bonds were negotiated. The Government got from 40 to t> > cents on the dollar for them ; and now, when the time comes to pay them, General Harrison recommends that we buy them from the bondholders and pay them a premium of *2i to $2/on every SIOO worth. Do you propose, then, to dispose of your surplus by giving the bondholders an additional premium of one-fourth the face of the bonds? Or will you stop the collection of taxes and leave this money in the pockets of the people, where it belongs ? The Democratic party is in favor of reducing ■ -the taxes ; and this brings us to consider the -question as to how and where the reduction shall lake place. We are collecting at this time, as

Internal revenue, $70,000,000 from distilled spirits —wlrisky; $30,000,00 from tobacco; $16,000.0J0 -or $18,030,000 from beer ; and another small item from oleomargarine, no., necessary to mention. The remainder of the taxes of the Federal Government are collected by duties upon goods brought into this country from other countries, and the payment of these taxes at the custom houses of the country causes an increased cost to be added to th 9 imported article equal to the amount of the taxes paid upon them. I know that this proposition is disputed ; but it seems to me that whoever could dispute a fact so plain and palpable as this is beyond the reach of reason. In cas: sos some other customs duties the taxes paid exceed the value of the imported article, and will any one tell me how the importer can afford to pay SIOO on the importation of the SIOO worth of products and then sell the article for SIOO which has cost him $201? If some Protectionist will explain that he will have less -difficulty in wrestling with some of the other problems of economic science. This amount added on the imported articles permits a like amount to be add'■a to the cost of articles of similar character manufactured in this countrv, but. that additional amount is not always added, in many instances nothing is added at all, but in the majority of the manufacturing industries of the country alarge portion of the percentage of tariff taxation is added to the cost of the domestic article as well as to the foreign. Therefore, in reducing the customs revenues we not only reduce the amount of taxes that is paid upon the imported article, but we also relieve the people from paying the increased value or cose that may have been added to the domestic article, and hence this -offers a field for reduction of taxation which will afford substantial relief to the consumers of the country. But how is this problem met by our Republican friends? They are teaching a strange doctrine for statesmen at least. They are trying to make people believe that, the more they are taxed the richer they will get. They are advocating a theory, and sometimes they violate all the proprieties and* conditions by calling it a principle—which is based upon the idea that the more labor, is taxed the more wages workingmen will get. The Democratic party, in reducing these taxes proposes to take them off all cusiopArtsvenues and to make the reduction upon articles that enter into the universal consumption of the people. The necessaries of life ought to be relieved from taxation, such as woolen goods, cotton goods, boots and shoes, sugar, and those articles which are most consumed for preserving their existence. But our Republican friends, in the platform which they have laid down in Chicago, declare that rather than give up any part of the protective system—rather than make a reduction upon the customs duties—they would abolish the "entire internal revenue laws of tlw country,

which include not only tobacco and oleomargarine but whisky also. fA voice: “Whisky is cheap enough. ”] You are right, my friend, and I know of no Democrat in my acquaintance that desires to reduce the price. We prefer to let whisky remain taxed and get $70,000,000 revenue from that source rather than submit to a high tax upon woolen goods and the necessaries of life. We must have a reduction of taxes. Will you take them off the necessaries of life, or will you take them off whisky, tobacco, and cigars? [A voice: “Whisky.”] There is another Protectionist. The Democratic party proposes and has p oposed to take off the internal revenue upon manufactured tobacco but to leave it upon cigars and cigarettes. Our Rspubl can friends insist that these cigarettes which the dudes of the country are smoking at every corner shall be put on the free list. Mr. Blaine said that tobacco in all its forms is one of the necessaries of life. We propose to leave the tax upon cigars and cigarettes and upon wnisky, and to make some reduction if possible upon the necessaries of life. The Democratic policy in this respect has been formulated in a bill. We have placed a limit to our intentions in what is known as the Mills bill. We will select certain ar.icles used in all the manufacturing establishments in the country Known as raw material, and will place them upon the free list in order to encourage production, encourage manufacturers and enable the workingmen in the country to obtain the necessaries of life for less than they now do. The first article in the list to which 1 have referred is : hat of lumber. During the last year the people of the United States paid the lumbar monopolies over $75,000,000 on the increased price of the lumber consumed in this country in order to enable the lumber lords of Maine and Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin to pay 299,000 Canadians eighty-two cents a day. Lumber enters into every household. It is a part of the outfit of every family. We cannot get along without it. It never ought to have been taxed. It was an outrage upon the people of this country to have ever put lumber upon a tax schedule.

Another article which we have selected and placed upon the free list is that of salt —an article necessary to human existence, as necessary almost as light, as air, as water—an article that never ought to havs been selected to pay taxes upon. We place this upon the free list, and offer free salt to the toiling millions of the country. We have also selected a vast number of articles known as chemicals—articles used in the woolen and cotton mills of tho country, raw material coming into every establishment and assisting in building up the manufacturing interest of the oountry. We prefer that thes3 materials should be free, so that the manufacturers can secure them at the lowest possible cost, and thus have a larger in a’ gin of profits to divide with the workingmen of the country. This bill also puts upon the free list what is known as tin plates. There are none of tfiom made .in this country. About $17,000,000 worth were imported last year, upon which the Government received revenue amounting to $0,730,000. We propose to place this article upon the free list. It goss into universal consumption; it furnishes a tin roof upon your houses and the tin buckets for carrying the dinner of the workiugman. We place this upon the free list and let the people have the benefit of the luxury. We think that an article of this kind entering into universal consumption should by the universal acclaim be placed upon the free list in view of the fact that it does not enter into competition with any establishment in this country. Our Republican friends have opposed this reduction, and still oppose it. They are not In favor of retaining tho present rate, however, which is 1 cent a pound. They propose to double that rate, or make it 2. 1-10 cents a pound. What would be the effect of this? Instead of collecting $0,700,0-0 as revenue upon that article and putting it in the Treasury we would collect sli,003,000 for the first year, thus increasing the surplus rather than reducing it. But they promise us that after one year they will be enabled to build up a plant in this country that will produce all the tin plate that the people of this country can consume. Wbat then will be the effect? The people would be taxed about $12,000,000 instead of $6,700,000, and instead of $6,700,000 going into the Treasury the whole $12,000,000 would be turned over to tho National Tin-Plate Association. And they endeavor to make the workingmen of this country believe that if they pay 33 per cent, more tfie 70 per cent, upon the tinware, in a idition to its cost, would inure te the benefit of the workingmen of this country 1 Or, in other words, they tell you, with a brazen effrontery, that if you are taxed twice as much upon that article you will be twice as well off. But they deplore in this connection the fact that any goods come into this country from abroad. They say that that will never do, and that is where their lamentations come in; that $700,003,000 worth of manufactured articles were brought into this "ountry from a

foreign land. They forget the fact that 10,000,000 of our people are furnished with daily bread and employment for the whole year by those who live beyond the jurisdiction of the United States, and notwithstanding this fact our Kepublican friends tell you that it is a great outrage upon the workingmen of this country to take $16,090,000 worth of tin plate in return. Why. the theory would carry you to tho con- ! elusion that ins .ead of bringing anything back 1 to this country to pay for these *700,000,000 | worth of products we should give them away, or i that, if perchance we should buy something ! with these articles and they should be loaded on ships and start to this country, no greater boon could happen to the workingmen of this country i than that a storm or a cyclone would sweep the , ocean and send these boats to the bottom of the sea That is the political economy that the protectionists teach, and they ask laboring men to believe it. Why, who create.! these products ? Whose are they ? They were not created by Jay Gould or by tho Vanderbilts ; they are not the producers of wealth. They were produced by the laboring men of the country. It is this condition of trade that is beneficial to all persons engaged in it, but these protectionists would have you believe that trade must be like the haudle of a jug. all on one side—and a very small jug it would be. You cannot sell *700,000,000 worth of yonr products abroad unless you take an equal amount of the products of those countries in exchange for them, and this is what is accomplished now, even under a high protective system which requires the workingmen who created these products and for whose benefit they are shipped abroad to pay *l7 on every SIOO worth of these goods which come back to you for your comfort and as a reward for your toil. That is the system that has been encouraged, and you are told by those who have devised this cunning scheme to rob the workingmen of the country that the more taxes of this kind yon pay the richer you will get. But we are met by our opponents with the assertion that if you reduce the tariff taxation you will reduce the wages of the workingmen of this

country. Mr. Blaine, when ho arrived in this country from Europe, asserted that the great and only question involved in this con,eat was the reduction of wages, and he congratulated himself and the workingmen of the couui ry upon the fact that there would be no reduction unless they voted for it. He said if you vote for Cleveland you vote to reduce your wages; if you vote for Harrison you vote to keep your wuges up. Mr. Blaine said that he regretted that the workingmen had not been with hi in to observe the condition of workingmen in Europe. Now, I will ask you to come with me across the water, and lor a few moments to forget that there is such a place as America. We And fn England, where a comparative free-trade system prevails, the wages amount from 50 to 75 per cent, more than those paid in all protective countries exoept the United States. Compare the wages with those paid in protective France, protective Russia, or that wretched country, Mexico, and if you are not satisfied with this and the time hold out we will sail around the world and come to China. There is a protective country where for 2,000 years they have had a system of China for the 'Chinese. In that protective country you will find that the Chinamen work for .•31 a week and board themselves, and of all he people in the world these are the only persons that ar j excluded from coming to the United States, for recently we have passed a law excluding any Chinaman, whether a skilled or unskilled workman, coming into this country for any purpose, and we are all in favor of that. These are the victims of a protective system. Now, Mr. Blaine, we have visited the countries of the world; we have seen that in free-trade England better wages are paid than in any protective government of the world except the United Btates. That Is what the workingmen will find if they will cross the water and investigate this problem Instead of riding with Carnegie on top of a tally-ho coach. But why are things different in the United States? What causes tne payment of a better rate of wages on the average than is paid in England or the rest of the world? These differences are to be accounted for by natural causes. Where there are many persons and there is little to do wages will be low, and where there is much to do and few to do it wages will be high. Take that proposition in connection with the superior skill of the workingmen of this country as compared with those of other countries, our superior machinery, inventive genins, the salubrity of our climate, the richness of our soil and of our endless resources, in the earth beneath and the heavens above, and! you will find a condition that insures good wages to the workingmen if they can have th*> fruits of their earning. Albert Durer gave the world a prsphecyi of totare wood engraving in 1527.

A TRUST—Y GUARDIAN.