Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1891 — THE FUTURE OF REFORM [ARTICLE]

THE FUTURE OF REFORM

♦VIEWS OF CONGRESSMAN WM. M. SPRINGER. 'The Democrat! Will Keep Tariff Reform to the Front—lt Will Be the Winning Issue in ’9B—'The Hopeless Situation of > the Republicans—They Cannot Shift the Issue, and Can Neither Go Forward Nor Backward. Congressman Wm. M. Springer will be t» prominent figure in the new Democratic House. He is already a candidate for Hoeaker, with a show of being elected; ( but whether he is elected or not, his long -and conspicuous service in the Democratic party lends great interest to his views of the outlook for tariff reform at 'this time. He talked recently to a memiber of the New York Reform Club as ■follows: “The Republican politicians of Washington are now trying to divert public .-attention from the principal issue upon which they were repudiated at the November election. They seem to be of the opinion that there is but oneway - open through which success is possible in 1892. Upon the tariff question they have ?beenthoroughly repudiated. They now hope by reviving sectional issues, through .and by means of the force bill and appeals to sectional prejudice, to re-form political issues upon other lines than ♦tariff and taxation! In this they will be as much disappointed as they were over- ■ whelmed by the result of the recent election. The people of the country i have pronounced against taxation of the many for the benefit of the few. They will not give up this issue until it has eventuated in practical legislation in accordance with their demands. > If we were now living under the form of government which prevails in monarchial England, the new Congress would at • once be convened, and the McKinley bill would be immediately repudiated; but under our more conservative we must abide the constitutionaF forms -*required for securing results. “On the tariff question the Republicans can neither go forward nor backward ■with any prospect of bettering their condition. To stand still is con aided defeat; rto move in the other direction offers scarcely less advantage. If they go for- • ward they must rely upon the fulfillment ■ of pledges made before the election, and pending the passage of the McKinley bill, to the effect that while prices of . articles affected by the tariff might be temporarily advanced, yet, ultimately and in the near future, by means of competition, such prices could be greatly ;reduced and articles would be sold ■ cheaper than before the passage of the <bill—thus placing their reliance in the future for a reversal of the popular judgment in November upon a claim »that competition is to come to their relief, and that by the time of the next Presidential election the people will be •in the full enjoyment qf cheap riecessas ries of life secured through competition. 'This hope is a flattering one; it can never be realized. “Competition has already done its perfect work in this country in the matter •of reducing prices. So perfectly has -competition been carried on that combination for the purpose of arresting -competition has been resorted to all .along the line. There is scarcely a manufacturing industry in the United States that is not more or less controlled by some kind of combination for the purpose of limiting the output and regulating tho prices. In some cases this «combination has taken the form of trusts or organized monopolies. These trusts have secured the concentration of :nearly all the capital engaged in a given industry, and by this combination a complete control of the output and prices • has been secured. In other cases a more mild type of combination has been re- : sorted to. In some cases the combination has been secured by means of cor-i-respondence between tho various interests and tacit agreement reached as ■to output and prices, year after year. But, through one form or another, scarcely an industry can be mentioned in which further competition is not prevented or made impossible by the mutual • concurrence of those engaged in the 'business.

•(Those, therefore, who look to competition for a reduction of prices will be deceived. Prices of manufactured articles can only be reduced, while the McKinley bill is in force, by the reduction of wages or by the adoption of improved processes. The latter will come without the tariff; it is 'entirely independent of it. In most lines of industry it would seem that the processes of manufacture were almost perfect at this time; but still we may hope for continued improvement in this direction, although such improvement will scarcely be perceptible in the brief space of ’two years. Lower prices secured by reduction of wages would be attended with greater disaster than if present prices should be maintained and \£ages increased; so that, wherever cheapness :is secured by reduction of wages, the remedy will be worse than the disease—speaking in a political sense, as it will • affect the interests of the Republican party. Hence, it seems conclusive that the Republican party cannot improve its position on the tariff or on taxation by .-adhering to the McKinley bill. “If, however, the leaders of the party should determine to reverse their position, overturn the leadership of Harrison, McKinley, and Reed, and put Mr. Blaine forward with the implied promise •of the repeal of the McKinley bill, the -enlargement of trade, through reciprocity and the bettering of thejr condition by repudiating all that the Republican party has done since it came into power, it will find this latter condition more -hopeless than the former. “President Harrison, in his message to •Congress ‘pointed with pride’ to the fact that there had been, recently, an increase in the prices of agricultural products, such as corn, wheat, etc.; and he •endeavored to convey the impression that such increased price of agricultural products was the result of the McKinley bill. Nothing could be further from the truth. If he had taken pains to examine the reports on the condition of crops, which issued from the Agricultural Department almost simultaneously with his message, he would have found that in Kansas the average yield of corn •per acre was only eleven bushels, whereas it ought to have been thirty. The very fact that there is almost a total failure of the the corn crop in Kansas was one of the reasons which produced ■the political revolution in that State. "The failure or shortness of the corn crop In the great corn belt of the oountry caused scarcity of this product, and -scarcity resulted in higher prices for corn, But the trouble with the fanners was that they had little or no corn to sell, and many of them who had stock to feed became buyer at Use higher rates

which scarcity had produced. The prices of agricultural products are determined entirely by the extent of production, and this is governed by natural causes, not by legislation. “A f|jjlure of crops in this country is regarded by the farmers as the greatest calamity that can befall them. But such failure inevitably results in higher prices of farm products, and therefore the President has cited as an evidence of prosperity that which the farmers themselves regard as a calamity, namely, higher prices resulting from crop failure. There can be no combination among farmers to reduce the output of agricultural products; such combinations are not even desirable. Farmers universally strive for bountiful harvests, the pious ones among them praying as well as laboring for them. They regard a bountiful harvest as essential to their prosperity, notwithstanding the fact that the greater the crop the less will be the price of the products. They are political economists who believe —who realize, in fact—that abundance is wealth, and that scarcity can never tend in that direction. If the next season should be favorable, and large crops of wheat, corn, oats and other products of the farm should be realized, there will be a corresponding depression of prices, and the larger the crop the lower the prices. If such should be the result a year from this time the President in his annual

message would—following the lines of his late one—deplore the unfortunate condition of the country brought about by the low prices for farm products caused by abundant harvests. “The Republican leaders cannot nope to divert the attention of the country from the tariff Question whatever they may do, whether they go forward or go backward. The Democratic party has a plain, unmistakable duty to perform; that duty consists in moving steadily onward and pressing the advantage which it has already obtained. It will keep this question before the public until the fruits of victory have been realized, until the McKinley bill has been repealed, and until materials which make profitable manufacture impossible have been relieved from unnecessary burdens, and so cheapened as to not only aid manufacturing but increase profitable production. It will demand larger markets for American products; not only reciprocity with Cuba, South America, and Canada, but freer trade with all the world. “The late election was only tne expression of popular desire; that popular desire has not been accomplished. It may not be fully realized until after the next Presidential election, at which the final and complete victory will be achieved—namely, the election of a President and both branches of Congress, who will carry into effect the popular verdict of last November. During the Fifty-sec-ond Congress the large Democratic majority Will keep this question continually in view. It will not be turned to the right nor to the left; it will not permit side issues of any kind to interfere with this all-absorbing and all-important question. With the advantages already obtained it would be little less than criminal to permit anything to occur which would make impossible ultimate and complete tariff reform. ”

Mabkiage increases a man's modesty, so that after a year or two he can’t summon up enough courage to kiss the woman whose lips in the past were glued to his forhours on a stretch three times a week.