Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1891 — SPEECH BY WM M’EINLEY. [ARTICLE]

SPEECH BY WM M’EINLEY.

He Opens the Campaign in Ohio in Good Form. n*oroai Dfffenaa of thr Tin Tat and the HeKlnlj BUI. la General—Ci»an»weraM» Argnmentt—America for Amerlean Workingmen and American latereste—Opposed to _ UIiZA Free Coinage. ..' Hon. Wm. McKinley. Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio,spoke to 3000 people at Niles, 0., on the 22d. Among other things be said:

The platforms of the two parties are singularly free from ambiguity and confusion. I would not change or avoid them if I could, and my competitor cannot change or avoid them if he would. They are general and national. The Democratic platform declares 1 for the free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world. The platform of the Republican party stands in opposition to anything short of a full and complete dollar. No one has spoken on the silver question with greater ability on the Democratic side than ex-President of the United States Grover Cleveland. and in his judgment nothing could be more disastrous to the business Interests of the country and to the best welfare of all the people than the. free aud unlimited coinage of silver.

In a letter upon the subject he says: "Such a financial crisis as these events would certainly precipitate would certainly involve the people. of ever}' city and every State in <the Union in a prolonged and disastrous trouble. Saddest of all, in e-ery workshop, mill, factory, store and.on every railroad and farm the wages of labor, already depressed, would suffer still further depi ession. ” Mr. Harter, a Democratic Representative in the Fifty-second Congress, is also accredited with saying with reference to the free coinage of silver: “The adoption of this wild idea will not bring into the Democratic columu a solitary State iu the Union. It will be political suicide.” What Mr. Harter thought so unjust and unwise has occurred. Governor Campbell declared that while he had his doubts about it he was willing to chance free and unlimited coinage of silver. I am not willing to chance it. Under present conditions the country cannot afford to chance it. I can imagine nothing which would be more disturbing to our credit and more deranging to our commercial aud financial affairs than to make this the dumping ground of the world’s silver. Tne silver producer -might be benefited, but the silver user never.

A 100-eent dollar will go out of circulation alongside au 80-cent dollar which is a legal tender by the fiat of the Government. And no class of people will suffer so much as the wage earlier and agriculturist. If it is the farmer you would benefit, there is one way to do it. Make the bushel measure with which he measures his wheat for the buyer, three pecks instead of four. I am in favor of the double standard, but I am not in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States until the nations of the world shall join us in guaranteeing to silver a status which their laws now accord to gold. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the concurrent law of nations. j No man knows what the future may be,but in our present condition, and with our present light, every consideration of safety requires us to hold our present status until the other great shall agree to au international ratio. Besides being against a depreciation of our currency on principle, and for the reasons stated, I still have another reason, which, if it stood alone, would be conclusive to my mind and would put me in opposition to the Democratic scheme of putting in circulation a short dollar. The money creditors of the government, which include the bondholders and those who loaned their money to the government in time of war, have been largely paid off. and in every instance paid off in the best money of the country. The principal creditors of the government to-day are not the bondnor the men of capital and large means, but the soldiers who fought the battles of the Union in the most sacred and stainless cause in which mankiud has ever engaged. In 1867 the government owed to its creditors, whose evidence of indebtedness was* in the form of bonds, ’nearly $3,000,000,000. upon which it annually paid,in interest a10ne.5143,731,000. The pension roll of the country was then but $30,935,000. The positions are now reversed. 'The chief money creditors of the Government are how the soldiers; they are in every State and Territory ■of the Union North and in many of the States of the South. The interest on the public debt to the bondholder is only $27,000,000 annually as ;against $143,000,000 in 1867, and the pension roll of the soldiers in 1891 is $137,000,000 against $20,000,000 in 1867.

Shall the soldier have his great ;debt paid off in the same coin as the Ibondholder? Is it right to force upon .him a dollar worth 80 cents, when the other creditors of the Government were paid a dollar worth 100 -cents? Is it just to the pensioner who receives sl2 n month to be paid Hit a silver dollar worth 80 cents, and 4bus receive $9.60 as his monthly {pension rather than the sl2 which

the Government has contracted to pay him? For one I shall never consent that the soldiers of the country shall be paid in any poorer coin than the most favored creditors of the Government.

It may be worth while to know the per capita of our circulation at different periods of our history. It may be necessary to increase the per capita circulation, but it cannot be done with silver dollars that are worth less than 100 cents each in value. And the per capita circuluation is greater in this country than at any other period before. The amount of money in circulation was about $435,000,000 in 1860, and the amount per capita was $13.85. In 1865 there was in circulation $723,000,000, and the per capita was $20.82. In 1885 the circulation was $1,292,000,000, and the per capita was $23.02. On. Jan. 5, 1891, the circulation was $1,329’000 > 000, or $24.10 per capita. The Democratic platform declares for a purely revenue tariff. A revenue tariff, pure and simple, can benefit and build up and encourage no domestic industry. It is tor the foreign shop and against the American shop. ” A revenue tariff has not, in our experience. been a success, even as an agency for raising the money required for public purposes. A pro- ’ tectivc tariff has proven an unfailing agent in raising public revenues. It serves the Treasury, and while doing so serves our own people in their industries and employments. We have been living under protection for thirty years. There were,, never so many inen in this country who owned their own homes as there are to-day. In twenty years we have reduced the per capita debt to 10 per cent. Free trade England has increased hers over 24 per cent, in the same period of time.

The per capita debt of this country is less than that of any other country of the world. Here is the record: Belgium $ 72 18 Prance 313 27 Germany............. Great Britain....... 100 09 Italy 74 25 Peru ;... 140 06 Portugal Ru55ia........ ~. j..*. 35 4i 5pain....... .;... 73 34 United States gs 00 Measured by its usefulness in the development of the country the protective tariff is again unfailing. No nation in the world has reached such a degree of development as we have attained in the last thirty years. In overy department of industry, in every avenue of human endeavor, we have illustrated the most marvellous advancement, and in those years wo have risen in industrial development to the very first rank in manufacturing, agriculture and mining, leading every other nation in the world. It is said by our opponents that the system enriches the few and impoverishes the many. Wealth in England has been concentrated in the hands of the few to a far greater extent than in the United States. It is also said that protective tariffs have increased the mortgages of the country. This is an idle and absurd statement. Let me remind you that mortgages are not always an evidence of poVertj. They are much oftener the best evidences of prosperity. Take the farmer having 160 acres of land who wants to add 160 more acres to his farm. He has sufficient accumulations to enable him to make the first payment and purchases the adjoining land, giving a mortgage for the remaining payments. That does not mean that he is distressed and in poverty, lit means that he is getting on —that he has faith in himself and the future. You may try this system of protection by any test you will, I care not whatit Is, and it meets every emergency and answers every demand.

- More than that, it has never been against this government, either in peace or in war. It is the patriotic system. It is for the country. It believes in America for Americans, native and naturalized. It legislates for them and nobody else. It has never sustained any flag in the United States but the American flag. And that can not be said of the other revenue tariff system, for it was the ally of our enemies in open war. Cov. Campbell, in his speech accepting the nomination of the Democratic State Convention, speaking of the earlier tariffs, said “that the tariffs of Washington, of' Hamilton, and of Jefferson averaged only 7* per com.." These laws he commends and would have us return to them. I fear he is not familiar with those early tariffs. In the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's Administration the average ad valorem rate on all imports, free and dutiable, was 19. £5, In 1804, in the midst of Jefferson’S Administration, the average rate was 23.40, not 71 per cent., as Mr. age rate was 22.29; in 1830, 45.31; in 1340. 15.45; in 1850, 23.16; in 1860, 16.6 T; in 1870, 42.23; in 1880, 29.7, and in 1890, 29.12. These are the average rates on all articles, both free and dutiable. Under the act 3! 1789 —“the tariff of Washington”—the duty on common salt was 10 cents a bushel, and later in Washington’s time salt was increased to 20 cents a busheL Under the law of 1890 it was less than live cents per bushel This enormous duty on salt would the Governor have us reimpose. There was muoh said by Governor Campbell in his speech at Cleveland about the low price of wool. The inference from his speech would be that the increased duty on wool is the cause of depressed prices. If this J be,so then the tariff is not a tax. This was not the Democratic doctrine

in Ohio in 1883 and 1884. They then believed that the tariff did help the wool-grower and that a great outrage had been committed upon him when the duty was reduced 11 per cent, by the tariff law of 1883. They so declared in Si document issued by the Democratic State Committee of that year, and demanded of the woolgrowers of the State that the party that committed that great outrage should be defeated at the polls. And I may say, in passing, that they were defeated. Their statement was that the Ohio wool-growers had been fleeced of $6,000,000 by the reduction of 11 per cent, of the duty. The Governor was one of those who believed it then. In 1884, when the Democratic party had the Legislature in Ohio, a leading Democrat, Mr. Bohl, introduced a resolution requesting that the tariff on wool be restored. The wrong of 1884 was righted the very first moment that the Republican party secured control of Congress. The new law gives the woolgrwer better protection than be ever had before.

The new tariff law went into effect Oct. 6 1890. It had been in operation therefore, a few days short of nine months on July 30 last. The last official report we have on the statement of foreign commerce, issued by the Bureau of Statistics ofthe Treasury Department, shows the total value of imports of merchandise during those nine months was $630,206,000. During the corresponding period of 1890 the total value of imports of merchandise was $598,769,305. There were, therefore, imported during the nine months of 1890, under the new tariff law $51,436,100 more than in the corresponding period of 1890 under the operation of the old law. As showing the effect of the operation Of the new law, it is important to know what proportion of these imports were free and what proportions were dutiable, both under the new and old laws. During the nine months ending July 30,1891, the foreign goods admitted free of duty were valued at $295,993,665. During the nine months ending June 30, 1890 the value of the free imports was $208,983,873 —an increase of free importations, in favor of the new law, of $86,979,792, The predictions made by Qthe 1 enemies of the new law nine months ago have not been verified, but on the contrary have been shown to be mere assumptions utterly without foundation. They served a political purpose and worked a positive injury to the merchant and the manufacturer and the consumer.

Prices to-day in staple goods are less than they were during the months of October, November and December of last year, and there is scarcely a manufactured article, which goes into the family and which is classed as a neoessity that has not fallen in pcioe and is less than it has been for many years. The Democratic party is now claiming that free trade in sugar is in the direct line of their economic theory and principal. They would have the country believe that they have always advocated free sugar, and that this is one of the items of the bill which they thoroughly approve. Such is most remote from the truth, as the listory and record of the party will show. r

First and foremost, every tariff bill which the Democratic party have formulated and passed has placed a duty upon sugar, raw and refined. Every tariff bill which they have proposed to pass placed a duty upon sugar. Every Democrat in the House voted against the < clause of the new law making sugar free, and voted for the retention of the duty of two and one-half cents a pound, in the Senate a united. Democratic vote opposed the free sugar clause, and jus-' tified their opposition because it was a revenue duty and in strict accord with the economic principle advocated by the Democratic party. So that we have free sugar under a protective tariff which has been impossible under free trade or a revenue tariff, because under the principel of protection we do not tax those foreign products which experience and a thorough trial have demonstrated we cannot produce in quantities sufficient for our own consumption. By this one section of the law $55,000,000 of taxes are removed from the shoulder of the people. Instead of collecting this sum, as it would be under a revenue tariff, it is left in the pockets of the people. There is contained in the now law a reciprocity provision by which the Administration has already made valuable treaties with Brazil, San Domingo and Spain. It is a provision which in no way encroaches upon the protective principle, nor can in any way destroy or undermine our defensive or protective tariffs.

Reciprocity is based upon our free list and practically upon noncompeting products. It provides that the United States, having made sugar, molasses, tea, coffee and hides free, if the country producing these articles and sending them to the United States shall impose duties or other exactions upon agricultural or other products of the United States reciprocally unequal and uhreasonable, the President has the power to suspend by proclamation the proviso relating to the free introduction of such articles, sugar, molasses, tea, coffee, hides, &o„ against such countries imposing these duties and exactions, and original duties shall be imposed. There is much criticism about the duty on tin-plate, and fully as much misrepresentation as there is criticism. It is generally supposed that under the new law tin ore or blocx tin is now dutiable. The duty on tin-plates went into effect on Jmj 1, of this year. There

is also a provision in the law that on and after Oct. 1,1897, unless it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the President, who shall thereupon make proclamation of the fact that the aggregate quantity of such tin plates produced in the United States during either of the years next preceding June 30, 1897, is equal to onethird the amount of such tin-plates imported and entered for consumption during any fiscal year after the passage of this act and prior to Oct. 1, 1897, then they shall become free. It is said we can not make tin plate. How absurd, for we are already making it, and it will not be long until we shall make the larger part of the consumption. We are making tin-plate to-day. It is to be made herein Niles. Democratic discouragement can not stop it; foreigD interference can not check American genius and resolution. The Britishers feel the deepest in terest and concern ill our elections which are to maintain or destroy th< protective policy. They do not conceal their feeling of bitterness again si the American policy. I wish I mighi read you the many thousands of extracts from the British press preceding and following the elections ol 1890. Their alliance with one wing of the Democratic party can nc longer be denied. They fairly huggec themselves over the defeat sustained by Republicans last year, and gave vent to expressions which every true American citizen should heed.

The tariff of 1890 will win its own way —it will achieve its own victor ies, and they will be victories for American labor, American enterprise and American genius, and for the whole American people. We neither take our patriotism nor political economy from other nations —if we bad we would yet be in our swaddling clothes, a dependency and province jpf Great Britain, instead of the first and best Government on the face ol the earth, a Government of equal opi. portunities and equal laws. The next House of Representatives which is Democratic by a two-thirds majority, will present to the country its plan and purpose of a tariff law. Possibly Governor Campbell could indicate to the people ol Ohio what it will be. lam impatient to know, Will the new plan be sash- j ioned after the ’Mills bill, which the! country so emphatically rejected in I 1888? or will it accept the horizontal j process invented by Mr. Morrison ! for revising the tariff? Will it bo fashioned by Cleveland after the Brit-! ish plan, or constructed by Hill after j the Randall model? When it comes the country can look’at it. It will be 1 a spectacle to behold. What will it do on the silver question? A vast majority of the party are in favor of a debased dollar. Will they register their will or that of Mr. Cleveland? We must wait. In the meantime let Ohio record her verdict against the degradation ofj American labor and the debasement ■ of the American dollar. | Much as the Republican party has done it has great things yet to do. It will be a mighty force in the future as it has been a mighty force in the past. Its glories will continue to blaze on the heights, a light to the world, pointing to a higher destiny to mankind aud the upholding and uplifting of a nation "approved of God. It will not pause it its march and achievements until the flag, the flag of the stars, shall be the unquestioned symbol of sovereignty at home and of American rights abroad; until 1 American labor shall be securely shielded from the degrading competition of the old world and our entire citizenship from the vicious and criminal classes who are crowding our shores; never while the advocates ol a debased dollar threaten the country with its financial heresies, and never until the free right to vote in every 1 corner of the country shall be protected under the law "and by the law and for the law, and the American ballot-box be held sacred as the American home.