People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — THE TARIFF BILL. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF BILL.

Merit* of the Measure Discussed by the Senators. On the 18th Senator Morrill (rep., Vt J expressed his regret that the financial and industrial crisis had to be continued by a vainglorious and clumsy attempt to carry out the democratic platform. He made some rather biting references to the trouble in which the democrats found themselves over the bill, and pointed out some of the items in which he thought they had compromised with their principles and provided for a protective tariff on such articles as would win votes for the bill “Concerning the rates of duties reported in the tariff bill,” he said, “it is no violation of the confidential relations of the senate commit tee on finance to state how they were all fixed and determined without the votes of the republican members and against even the votes of any hesitating or divergent minority of the democratic members. Thus many of the most important questions may have been determined by the small fraction of three or four of a committee of eleven. But while the process of evolution was a great novelty it will not be controverted that all the rates of duty are of the purest democratic origin Tariffs ‘for revenue only’ prove to be only political tariffs, valid only after the next election. ” He pointed out in detail what he considered the special evils of the bill, the first being the obsolete ad valorem system The purpose of the bill, he thought, was especially destructive toward the production of the farmer. Reciprocity arrangements which benefit the farmer are to be abrogated. The income tax he called an unusual blunder for even a democratic ad ministration to make. Senator Turpie (dem., Ind.) spoke in support of the tariff bill. He discussed the effect of a high tariff bill on the agricultural interests, introducing the topic by the assertion that agriculture was America's natural monopoly from the cheapness of the laud, and it was from those engaged in agriculture that the demand for the repeal of the existing law was loudest "The opponents of the pending bill opposed the putting of wool on the free list on the pleat that it would check the development of high grades of sheep, but prefer that the people of the country should have cheap blankets and cheap clothing than that they should have fine Southdown mutton to eat It is not to be forgotten that the bill now before the senate is the official act and deed of the democratic party, and as such is entitled to the support of every member of the party. Justice may be delayed, baffled, even betrayed and wounded by the way, but it will arrive at last" Senator Cameron (rep, Pa.) took the floor In opposition to the bill. Following Senator Cameron, his colleague, Senator Quay, delivered a second installment of his speech, discussing the production of iron. On the 19tb Senator Perkins (rep., Cal.) made a speech against the pending tariff bill, mainly devoted to a discussion of the articles which directly affected California wool, fruits, quicksilver. beet sugar, etc., although he considered other features in the bill in which his state was not interested, but which were opposed to re publican principles and which he accordingly arraigned. On the 20th Senator Galllnger (rep., N. IL) said the anomaly is presented to the senate of a bill that it is asked to enact into law which nobody thus far has ventured to unqualifiedly indorse or approve with the exception of the senator from Mississippi (Mr. McLaurin) and the junior senator from Indiana (Mr. Turpie). Even Its distinguished author in the other house ®dr. Wilson) felt called upon to enter an apology for the measure. He pointed out the likelihood of a future invasion of American markets by foreign cotton. The proposed legislation, he said, threatened the transfer of the lumber trade to Canada; it would drive farmers from the soil of the state of New Hampshire; It would close up the woolen mills. He pointed out the importation of hosiery factories into Rhode Island as a result of the McKinley law, and asserted that the industry was doomed if the Wilson bill is passed. Senator Galllnger took up In turn cotton manufactures, cutlery, granite, and other New England industries, and pointed out the harm that would come to them if the bill passes. Tne increased tax on spirits would benefit the whisky trust alone. Free wool, he said, would ruin sheep husbandry in this country, and the income tax proposition he denounced as sectional, inequitable and unjust The laboring masses of the industrial north have set their seal of condemnation upon the Wilson bill. Factories are idle, homes comfortless. and wives and children suffering for the necessaries of life. Senator Gallinger was followed by Senator McMillan (rep, Mich.), who said: "A comparison between the Wilson bill as it comes from the house and the new Canadian tariff shows how close an understanding must have existed between the framers of the two measures. No American can doubt that the ultimate destination of Canada is to become a part of the United States That day will be a welcome one to the people of Michigan, who are now hemmed in on the east by a territory with which there are fair exchanges. To the people of the dominion also a union with the United States would be advantageous in the highest degree. To the tories in their ■extremity the Wilson bill comes—as it comes to every foreign nation —bringing joy in the of larger markets and greater pioflts; while to our own people its portion is smaller wages and restricted activities.”

Senator Dolph (rep, Ore.) followed in a speech against the bill. Mr. Dolph went over the history of progress under protection for the last thirty years. The free list of the Wilson bill was the object of sarcastic remarks by the senator. He argued at length also to show' the superiority of specific over ad valorem duties. Various provisions of the bill he oeclared would be disastrous to the Pacific coast, among others hops, prunes, lead, lumber and coal. Mr. Dolph quoted from President Cleveland’s tariff message of 1887 estimating the loss to the wool grower on a flock of fifty sheep to be only 530 a year and on 100 sheep 172, and said that the president, living in a mansion provided by the government, surrounded by servants and by all that wealth could purchase for his comfort and enjoyment and drawing a salary of 150,000 a year, forgot that 136 or 872 a year might represent all that many families could afford to expend for cloth ing. Mr. Dolph pointed to the rejoicing in England over President Cleveland’s free-trade message. the Mills bill and the Wilson bill. He said the question to be determined by this congress is whether it shall legislate in the interest of the people of England, Europe and Asia, or for those of this country.

On the 21st Senator Dolph (rep.. Ore.) took up the question of paper making and wood pulp making in the state of Oregon, and appealed to the senate not to destroy this industry of his state. Senator Gray (dem.. Del) asked whether he wanted to levy tribute on the state of Delaware in order that Oregon might have a monopoly of the paper business? “I did not say I wanted a monopoly of any industry for my state,” replied Mr. Dolph. He went on to say that Oregon used a great quantity of goods from Delaware, and he paid a high tribute to the industry of that state Senator Gray thanked him for his complimentary words about Delaware The present depressed condition of affairs in Delaware and other states, he said, was due to the cultivation of thirty years of high protection. We were living under the highest protective laws the coun try had ever known. There had not been a single Industry of Delaware benefited by the McKinley bill, and be predicted that upon the passage of the pending bill prospects all over the country would brighten. The senator from Delaware might preach that doctrine, said Mr. Dolph, but there were thousands of workingmen out of employment in his state who would convince him of the fal lacy of that doctrine. Senator Gray closed the incident by declaring that they were out of employment because the McKinley law was in force, and Senator Dolph resumed his speech In considering the income tax question a difference of opinion was discovered among the republicans Mr. Dolph had given his ex peri- nee in the collecting of the income tax in Oregon when it was in force, when not more th m one-tenth of the tax was collected. Mr. Teller (rep., Col) said that his experience had been very different from that of Mr. Dolph. He did not think it was evaded anymore than the personal property tax. In Colorado, where an income tax was in force, there was not as

much difficulty in collecting it as there was in collecting the personal property tax. He did not think it was a go id argument against a bill to say that the people were too dishonest to have the tax collected. In his opinion it was the most just and equitable tax that coujd be collected. It might be unprofitable, however. •‘Mr. President,” he continued, earnestly, “I want to say to the senator from New Hampshire” (Mr. Chandler, who had just expressed the same views as Mr. Dolph) "and to the senator from Oregon, and to any other senator who makes the claim that an income tax cannot be collected because the people are dishonest that it is slanderous to the American people It is an assumption that the American people for a mere pittance will commit perjury. ' On the 23d Senator Washburn (rep., Mine) discussed briefly the various tariff acts since 1848. The present bill, he declared, would be disastrous to the manufacturing interests of the east Speaking for his own state he said the people ot Minn esota were only to a limited extentdfrect beneficiaries of the protective system, although they had learned that the well paid laborers of the east were better consumers qf their products than the poorly paid laborers of Europe. . "But," said Mr. Washburn, "there is another provision in this bill which will affect the farmers of the northwest more disastrously than even the reduction of duties to which I have referred, and that is the repeal of the reciprocity provisions in the law of 1890. There is probably no section of the country where the effect of reciprocity treaties with foreign nations consummated by the wisdom and persistent efforts of Mr. Blaine under the late administration have been so marked and favorable as the states of the northwest. “You can, therefore, Mr. President, well imagine that the people of Minnesota, as well as the other northwestern states, look with more alarm upon the repeal of this reciprocity legislation than any other of its provisions. 1 am not only opposed to termination of the reciprocity arrangements already existing between the United States and other countries but I am in favor of applying the same principle is all our foreign trade." Senator Dolph then followed with a second installment of his speech.