Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1892 — TARIFF IS ROBBERY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TARIFF IS ROBBERY.

STIRRING SPEECH BY CONGRESSMAN SPRINGER. He Exposes the Fraudulent Pretense Surrounding; High Tariff, and Traces Responsibility for Low Wages and Open Revolt of Oppressed Labor. An Answer to McKinley. Congressman William M. Springer of Illinois received a flattering reception when he arose to speak on the grounds of the International Fair and Exposition Company at Detroit. Mr. Springer having made a brief introductory statement, proceeded to discuss national politics, and especially the tariff. He said: One of the stock arguments of the protectionists is that under the system of protection which has prevailed in this country for more than a quarter of a century our country has been brought to the front rank In agriculture, In mining, and In manufactures. If protection has accomplished so much for our country and people It must also be held responsible for the evils which have sprung np under it, and which it seems rather to foster than to abate. Turning to the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department I find that during the last twenty-live years, while protection has prevailed In all its vigor, just as Its friends would have It, a vast army of individuals, firms, and corporations In the United States, amounting in number to nearly two hundred thousand, nave succumbed to the pressure of hard times and have gone Into bankruptcy. Their aggregate liabilities have exceeded $3,t 00 ,000,010. But this is not all. It appears that the number of commercial failures Increased In 1891, as compared with the year 1889, the year before the passing of the McKinley bill, 12 per cent, and the liabilities Increased 27 per cent. The McKinley law did not improve the financial situation. On the contrary, It seems to have added fuel to the flame. The census bu-

reau was requested by act of Congrees to collect and make report upon the number and amount of mortgages upon real estate in the United States In 1000. Reports as to only six States have, up to this time, been published by the oenaus office, namely: Alabama, Illinois, Kansas. Nebraska, lowa, and Tennessee. In these six States It was found that there was an average of $91.60 per oapita of the whole population of these States of private indebtedness, •eeured by mortgage upon real estate. If this average is maintained throughout the Union the whole of such Indebtedness In the United States will be found to exoeed $8,600,000,000. In the State of lowa it appears that there was $21,000,000 more of mortgage Indebtedness rcoorded in 1890 than In 1880—an Inorease of $2,000,060 a year In that State, The percentage of Inorease of mortgage indebtedness in that State In ten years was 75, In Illinois it was 168, In Kansas It was over 200, In Alabama it was 413, In Tennessee It was 310. In the whole oountry the Interest charge on mortgage Indebtedness, at an avbrage of 0 per cent, amounted to over $345,000,000 a year. The people who are struggling under this mountain of debt are the victims of high protective tariffs. We are a debtor people and our oountry is a debtor country. The wealth U gradually but surely falling Into the hands of the favored few, while the poor are getting poorer. Even In the State of Ohio, Gov. MoKlnley's own State, the oensuß statistics for 1890 show that the number of families owning their homes Is only 30 per cent., and that 70 per cent, rent the houses and homes in which they live. And In Hamilton County, In whloh Cincinnati Is situated, less than 22 per oent. of the families own their homes. It also appears that in ten counties of that State, seleoted by the oensus office as samples, the inorease between 1880 and 1890 of the number of families who rented farms amounted to 49 per oent. And this ratio will donbtless be maintained throughout the State. Even In Ohio it aeema that under this glorions system of protection the people are rapidly passing from a condition Of home ownership to that of tenants. Protection Makes Millionaires. Protection means that all the people, all the consumers of the oountry, are to be taxed incidentally by Increasing the cost of consumable commodities, in order that the few who manufacture such articles may get more for them than they otherwise could get In the open markets of the world. It means the taxing of the tolling millions In order to make (nlUonalres of the favored few. But how muoh does this Incidental tax amount to? What, In other words, does protection oost the American people? If it Is worth anything it must cost something, and somebody or some persons must create the values whloh this cost involves. The amount which protection secures to the beneflolarles of the tariff must be very great, or there would not be suoh a contention for It. I have given muoh thought and study to the subject, and It Is my candid opinion, baaed upon carefully prepared data ana official statistics, that within the last thirty years, during which the protective system has prevailed, the people of the United States have paid. In the Inoreased coat of domestlo commodities, by reason of the tariff on'foreign products of like Oharacter,a sum exceeding $16,(K0,C0 i,O'JO. This Is In addition to the $5,000,000,000 acttuallv received by the Government on foreign produots. Every dollar of this vast sum was wrung from the hands of toil and bestowed or wasted on unprofitable Industries. It Is the prioe the people have been required to pay for so-called protection to American Industries. It does not seem that the lives of onr workingmen have been made sweeter and brighter during this era of high protection. There has been great contention in labor clroles. Strikes have Deen frequent, lookouts the order of the day, and In many Instances private detectives —the Pinkertons—have been hired to guard the mills and factories, and the militia of the States and sometimes the regular army have been called out lo suppress alleged riotous demonstrations by organized labor. Strikes and lockouts are the Inevitable results of high tariff. The tariff-protected monopolists, stimulated by greed, enabled to procure labor from all parts of the world and secured against competition by practically prohibitory tariff, are In a condition to provoke strikes, to dictate terms to their employes and fix the hours of labor.

From 1846 to 1860, a period of fifteen years of low tariff—a Democratic tariff, If you please—for revenue only, there were only seventy-fonr strikes or lockouts of whloh anv official report has been made. There were quite a number of strikes during this period reported, but they were of little or no importance. Altogether, there were not two hundred strikes ana lockouts during this whole period of fifteen years. During the last fifteen years there have been over six thousand strikes and lockonts in the United States. From 1876 to 1880 there are no statistics as to the number of persons Involved, but from 1881 to 1890, inclusive, there were a million persons involved in such strikes and lockouts. An effort is being made by the Carnegie Steel Company, a gigantic monopoly, created and fostered by our protective tariff laws, to reduoe the wages of their 3,000 employes 10 to to per cent. The rates heretofore paid were not unreasonably high, as is sometimes asserted. Only a few of the employes and those most highly skilled were reoelving good wages. Nearly half of them were getting only 14 cents an hour or $1.12 for eight hours' work. Less than 10 per oent. of the employes owned the houses in whloh they lived, and those living in the company’s houses have been summarily evicted since the strike began. If there was ever a labor contest where the laborers were dearly in the right, it is the one now being carried on at Homestead. The mills are surrounded by the State militia, and the barbarous treatment shown to one of the soldiers by one of his superior officers for an offense which did not reach the gravity of a misdemeanor under the laws of the State Bhows that they (the militia officers) are fit Instruments for the work in which they are engaged. This oontest has attracted universal attention from the fact that early in the strike or lockout a band of private detectives, employed by the Carnegie Steel Company, armed with revolvers and repeating rifles, invaded the State of Pennsylvania, fired upon the orowd of striking workingmen and provoked a battle in which ten or twelve persons lost their lives and a large number were more or less seriously wounded. This important lnoldent calls to mind the contest for Governor of Illinois in 1888, in which the Democratic party denounced the employment in that State of private detectives to perform official functions, in behalf of and at the instance of private individuals and corporations. The Democratic candidate for Governor in that contest, General John M. Palmer, now United States Senator from that State, was especially pronounced in his opposition to such employment. He said he was “in favor of government as strong as the law and no stronger, as weak as the law and no weaker." This is the doctrine of the Democratic pagty. We hold that the officers of the law are competent to enforce the law, and that the employment of private individuals to perform official functions, except as law directs, is revolutionary and no better than mob vlolenoe itself. “Senator Palmer’s defeat for Governor of Blinds in 1888 doubtless emboldened the Pinkertons and their employers to oontlnuc their nefarious methods and practices, but the election in November next. I trust will

teach them a lesson, at least, If li toes not put a quietus upon their operations. No Protection far Labor. It is said to be an ill wind which blows good to no one. Some good m»y vet oorne out of the Homestead affair. It will doubtless teach workingmen everywhere that they must not depend on the HcKlnlev law or tariff laws to secure for them good wages or constant employment; that a so-called protection is a delusion and a fraud; or, as the great Daniel O’Connell said In 1843 when fighting high tariffs in England and Ireland, “the meaning of protection Is robbery—robbery of the poor by the rioh!” Gov. McKinley said in one of his speeches in Nebraska recently: “Substantially everything which protection directly affeots has been reduced m price exoept labor.’ In his next public address will the Governor plesae tell the oountry how the tariff affeots labor, except Indirectly to rob It of Its rightful rewards and to force It to organize for Its own protection? There Is no tariff on foreign laborers—they come In free and at once enter Into competition with American workingmen. The products of foreigners only are taxed. There is no protection m the law for labor. The law fumlßhes protection for monopoly only. Let the laboring men learn this great truth and in November next at the ballot-box let them strike off the political shackles that have bound them to the party of the Carnegies and other monopolists, and'strike for the right to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. If any evidence were needed to prove conclusively that the tariff does not Increase wages It Is furnished by the report of the Senate Committee on Finance, submitted by Senator Aldrich, at the olose of the last session of Congress. Let me read a portion of that report under the heading of “wages": “It appears from the report of the statistician employed by the committee that In fifteen general occupations selected by the committee wages were threefourths of 1 per cent, higher In September, 1891, than In the three months (June, July, and August) selected as a basis In 1889, and that the wages In the special Industries selected were thirty one - hundredths of 1 per oent. higher than at the beginning of the period." The McKinley law Inoreaßed the tariff on protected articles 26 per cent., on a general average, but its friends now olalm that wages have Inoreased in these fifteen Industries slnoe Its passage less than one-third of X per oent. In other words, the laborer in these seleoted industries who received $1.60 per day before the MoKlnley act passed may now receive U oent a day more. If this statement of alleged Inorease In wages after the passage of the McKinley bill and by inference as a result of Its passage were not made by able and distinguished Senators, leaders of their party, It would be reoeived with soom and contempt and denounced as a campaign lie Invented by wicked Democrats. Do Foreigner* Ray the Tax ! One of the favorite arguments of proteotlonlsts, if I may dignify suoh nonsense as an argument, Is that “by the Republican policy the foreign producers wholly or largely pay the expenses of our government.” This doctrine Is often proclaimed by Gov. MoKlnley, and Is iterated and reiterated by the lesser lights Of the party, by their newspapers and their pnbllo speakers everywhere. Before an Intelligent audience like this It seems like a waste of time to give any consideration to so absurd a proposition. Suppose it were true that we In America had Invented a system of taxation by which we conld Impose upon the people of other countries the expenses of our own country. How many of you would be willing to aooept suoh a policy? Would you be willing to impose the expenses of our government upon foreigners with the understanding that they might impose the exSenses of their governments upon us? Gov. ioKlnley and his friends olalm that they have already adopted this policy so far as our oountry is concerned. He is welcome to the delusion, for It Is merely a delusion. But in making this claim he concedes too muoh for his theories. He conoedes that the tariff is a tax, bnt claims that foreign producers pay it. It Is Indeed a tax, bnt foreigners do not pay It. Nine-tenths of the persons who import foreign-made goods Into this country are American citizens, who purchase suoh products abroad, pay for them abroad, ship them to this oountry, pay the freights and the tariffs, the lnsuranoe and all commissions and charges of every kind, and sell them to American consumers with all these tariffs, freights, and charges added to their price. Foreign producers, as a rule, know as little about our tariffs and care as little about them as the producers of American products know or care about the tariffs Imposed upon their products by the countries into which they are Imported. But a very slight knowledge of the solenoe of polltloal economy will teach us that the tariff Is a tax, whether we realize the foot or not. It Is a tax upon consumable commodities, and those who consume the taxed articles pay the amount levied upon them. The Democratic party Insists that this tax shall bear heaviest upon articles of luxury and lightest upon artloles of necessity; that It shall bear heaviest upon artloles consumed by the rich and lightest npon those who are poor. It farther Insists that whatever is paid ou account of the tariff shall go Into the pnbllo , treasury to support the government, and that no more shall be levied than Is necessary for the purposes of government honestly and economically administered—in other words, that It shall be a tariff for revenue and not to enrloh one olass of people, the favored few, at the expense of the tolling millions. The Democratic party favors a tariff for the support of the government, and not to bnild up and foster monopolies. The question Is submitted to the American people. It will be decided at the ballot-box In November. Let the verdict be In favor of Cleveland and Stevenson, a Democratic Congress In both branches, and a tariff for revenue only.

CONOR ESSMAN STRINGER.