Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1894 — GEN. HARRISON’S SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

GEN. HARRISON’S SPEECH.

His Address to the Republicans of Evansville; Kx-Prtulrient Compare, the Financial and Tariff Pottotca of the Two Partie* Democratic Method.. Evansville Special, October 13. Mr. Harrison's speech here last night was as follows: “About two years ago the country endowed the Democratic party with full power in the United States. That period of time has been one of unusual commercial depression and of extraordinary distress. It is quite a living question to-day what has brought about this condition. “I ask youy attention for a few moments to the condition of the country as evidenced by the Government finances and by the condition of business as it prevailed in 1892. Ido this with freedom, because whatever was contributed by the Government to the prosperity we once enjoyed was the result of policy, of legislation and of administration, and not the fruit of any man’s labor, and from the further fact that what has resulted in the wav of disaster may not be imputed to any man. but may properly be imputed to the legislative policies which have been threatened and which have been pursued. When I say the couutry in 1892 was highly prosperous I can appeal to the experience of those who hear me. Ido not need to consult authorities.

“I want to call your attention just to a few figures, and I shall not much indulge in them, to show the situation in which the country then was. The total wealth of this country has inci eased in thirty years of protection, from 1860 to 1890, 237 per cent. The total wealth of the country in 1860 was $16,159,000,000; in 1890, it was $62,610,000,000, an increase of 287 percent. In the ten years ending in 1890, we have doubled the capital in manufactures in this country, the number of employes, the wages earned by them and the value ms the product. Wages had increased 41.71 percent. The value of imports for the last fiscal year, 1892, were $829,000,000, and the value of exports for the same year, $1,030,000.000. The excess of our exports of 1892 over the year 1891 was $146.000,000, and the excess in the year 1892 over the average of our exports for the preceding ten years was $265,000,000. Our total foreign trade for 1892 was $1,857,000,000, an increase over the previous year of an increase over the~ average preceding years of $400,000,000. Our foreign trade in that year, 1892, being the sum ot our exports and imports, was larger than in any previous year in the history of the country. And from 3890 to 1892, according to the statistics of the manufacturing journals, there haveGeen in those years 345 new industrial plants built in this country. There have been extensions and enlargements of 108 more. There has been new capital invested in manufactures to the extent of $40,000,000. “Now, let us look a little at the condition of the government at that time. There had beeu a large surplus in the treasury. We hear a great deal now that the Secretary of the treasury who preceded Mr. Carlisle dissipated that surplus and left him without any. Now, I recall to mind that in previous campaigns, especially in the campaign of 1884, our Democratic friends were bitterly complaining that there was a surplus in the treasury. I very well remember the forcible appeals of our lamented friend, ex-G over nor Hendricks, who went about the State telling the people that there was $400,000,000 surplus in the treasury, and that it was an outrage - that it was taken out of the hands and pockets of the people and locked up in government vaults. Now our Democratic friends complain that there is no surplus, and it is a characteristic of the party that they are not happy under any conditions. “But now, my countrymen, when we hear any complaint of that surplus or the absence of it, let us stop for one moment to see what was done with it. A number of our Democratic friends have been prguing through many campaigns that it ought not to be kept in the National vaults, but it ought to be out circulating among the people, and there was great force in the argument. Money locked up in the vaults of the United States was withdrawn from among the people, and the tendency of it was to create a money stringency. Many of the people were complaining of our per capita of money circulation as being too large, as it was, and it was reduced by us, as there was an unusual surplus locked up in the treasury. That surplus was made the foundation of Democratic argument ttien for the reduction of tariff duties. They said, there is this great surplus. Taxation is too high.

“What use to make of that surplus; how it was to be gotten out of the treasury, was the problem. At the beginning we had no bonds that were due, and the people who held our bonds that were not due woiild not give them up unless the Government paid the current market rate There were two ways of getting the money into circulation. One was to deposit it in a National bank, taking the bonds of the Government as security from the bank, and letting the bank lend it out to the people. This policy was adbpted by Fairchild as Secretary of the Treasury. Very many millions of dollars —t can not *tate the exact amount now— were deposited in the banks all over the corn try. Tlje effect of that policv .was 'this: The Government continued to pay interest on these

bonds which it held as security and had actually paid into the hands of the banks that owned the bonds the full face value of the bonds in money, and the bank was lending that money out and getting interest on it. “The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Windom, did not think that was a good way. He thought it would De a good deal better for the Government to take that money to buy its bonds at ojgce at the current rates in the market at just what the bankers and other financiers were paying for them, and buying them at the rate he got them into circulation and saved an enormous amount of interest that the people would be compelled to pay if the bonds had run to maturity," and we Had paid interest on them semiannually. Which of these policies do you think was the best? “You are also to remember when we come to consider the state of the government’s finances that, under the McKinley bill, the duty had been taken off of sugar, and in that item alone there was aD enormous reduction of the expenses of the Government—perhaps upon that item fifty or sixty million dollars annually. There was this pension increase; there was this revenue reduction; I have no apologies to make for them. I believe that the policy of setting free from taxation that prime necessity of every household, and thus diminishing the annual family expenses, was well worth while to make. There is a fact here that I think is too often overlooked. The McKinley bill, which has been so much talked of as a bill increasing duties, put upon the free list 55 per cent, of the annual importations into this country, a larger per cent, of free importations than under any other tariff bill.

“You recollect also about that time there was an enormous and threatening outflow of gold from this country to Europe. It was extraordinary in view of the fact that the balance of merchandise trade was in our favor over $202,000,000 in 1892. Yet gold was going abroad. Naturally we would have supposed this large merchandise balance in our favor would have brought gold this way, and it would have done so but for the phenomenal financial conditions in Ehrope. You recall the failure of the Baring Brothers —that gigantic concern that stretched out its operations and its agencies throughout the whole world. You recall how the stability of the English financial institutions was threatened; how the Bank of England—that great money corporation—called about it other great money powers in England to bolster up the Baring Brothers, taking their securities in order to avert the general crash that would have come without such step. You remember it was a time that England, pinched by this great failure, was liquidating; and in order to get money she was sending home in enormous volume the American securities she held for sale. This demand upon us, this return of our securities, wiped out our balance of trade, and caused the flow of gold to foreign ports. Another influence tending in the saipe direction was the fact that about that time Austria was resuming gold payments. She was putting out a gold loan for one hundred millions, gathering it up about the world wherever she could get it. But in spite of all that the gold reserve of one hundred millions had not been touched when Secre - tary Foster surrendered his portfolio as Secretary o fthe Treasury. “Some one has said that Mr. Windom had to help out his balance by getting Congress to give him the bank redemption fund of $54,000,000. That fund was money deposited with the Government by national banks closing up and retiring from business in order to redeem outstanding circulation. It was a trust fund. The Government could not use it except for the specific purpose. “What was done? Did Mr. Windom, when this fifty-four millions was transferred from the trust fund to the general fund of the treasury, keep it there to pay current expenses? Not at all. Did he want it for any such purpose? Not at all. It was not for any such purpose that Congress passed the law. I want to call your attention to what Mr, Windom said about it in 1890, in his report of that year. He says: ‘The surplus revenue was largely increased last summer by the pending changes in tariff legislation and the available balance in the treasury was

greatly angumented by* the aot of July 14, 1890, which tranferred over $54,000,000 from the bank note redemption fund to the available cash. This sudden and abnormal increase was the cause of much concern and some embarrassment to the department. To prevent an undue accumulation of money in the treasury and consequent commercial stringency, only two methods were open to the Secretary, namely: To deposit the public money in national banks or to continue the purchase of United States bonds on such terms as they could be obtained. For reasons heretofore stated, the former method was deemed unwise and inexpedient, and the policy of bond purchase was continued.’ “I want now to turn for a little while to the consideration of the methods which our Democratic friends have used in dealing with the public business. Their cry was tariff reform, and there were three reasons why they wanted the tariff reformed. One was that there was an exf M ~- °* revenue and it way Injurious and I unwholesome to have such a another was that the tariff was a) tax. They told us that the people Were oppressed by this taxation. The other was that the tariff was a

fence, hedging us in and preventing us from entering into successful competition with other nations in the commerce of the world. These were the three reasons our Democratic friends urged for reforming the tariff. I have shown you that .protection in thirty years has pushed this country forward, at a ratio of increase in wealth and production, and had resulted in a general diffusion of prosperity that set this Nation on a pinnacle that was unapproached by any nation in the world. “How did they enter upon the work of tariff reform? Why, my friends, in August last, one year ago, the Democratic Congress was organized—The committee on ways and means was constituted and set to work to prepare a tariff bill which we were given to understand would be at once rushed through anti become a law. In spite of that proclamation a whole year went by from the organization ofothat committee until any result was reached in the way of tariff legislation. What course did it take? The old Democratic doctrine used to be —the doctrine I have heard Mr. Hendrieks and Mr. McDouald and that class of leaders of the Democratic party in Indiana talk about —was a tariff that should raise revenue enough to maintain the Government, pay its ordinary expenses, and the duties should be so levied as to give incidental protection to our American manufacturers and our American workingmen. That was the old Democratic doctrine. “What was the result? They passed in the House of Representatives a tariff bill that would have created a deficiency in the government revenues of seventy-five millions the first year, and probably permanently forty or fifty millions a year. They put sugar up to No. 16 on the free list and then put in an income tax, abandoning the idea of giving the workingman and our manufacturer the natural benefit of such duties as were necessary to raise a revenue. They revived an old war tax that every Democratic orator in Indiana, when it was imposed in order to help sustain the government in wartimes, denounced as inquisitorial and offensive. Even with the help of that war tax and with the help of an increased duty on spirits they still were unwilling to give American industries the benefit of duties that would raise enough revenue to pay the expenses of the government, and left a deficiency of $50,000,000 a year, “I want to ask you business men if any board of directors of any financial institution had brought about a result like that, whether they would not, at the first stockholders’ meeting, have put them out of office, but that is not all; the Senate itself was about to adopt free sugar, which would have brought about the result I have spoken of, and was apparently only saved from it by the appeal of the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Carlisle, in a letter read in the Senate by Mr. Harris, in which he warned them if they did th,is an appalling deficiency would result,yet we are told that at the next session of Congress this free sugar bill is to pass. If this deficiency is created, how is it to be made up? Are we to have the old internal revenue taxes of the war revived in order to gratify these gentlemen, who seem to be bent on destroying American industries and unwilling to lav upon the foreigner who brings goods into our markets such duties as will pay the expenses of oar government. “We are told again—told by Mr. Cleveland—that a tax on su/ar is a Democratic principle, thaf it is in line with Democratic thought, because it is a fair subject of revenue taxation. Ido not knowi what the Senate may do about free sugar next winter. I do not knov whether they will continue this c'uty which Mr. Cleveland thinks is il line with Democratic policy or pit- sugar on the free list. “Again, my friends, the Democratic party owed to thfc country to settle the question of tie tariff just as speedily as possible.and to settle it upon a basis that that party would accept as a permanert settlement. Every business man who hears me knows that the most powerful influence in bringing aboit that state of business stagnation and paralysis which has existed far more than a year was the uncertainty that attended our tariff legislation. “What have they done? They have passed a bill that no Democrat approves. I have heard some Demo

crats say that it was better than something else, but I have never heard one say that it was good. Everyone -its ipologists who are now talking to the people, the leaders who framed it in the House and Senate—all are saying that it needs changing. The House had no sooner by that extraordinary procedure by which they saved the bill from entire defeat in the Senate, taking it in their custody when it was really in the custody *6f the Senate and jessing it under theblress of a special rule, thau they went to work to pass a lot of other bills chartfintf the tariff bill they had just jgreed to — little bills in the fact they dealt with particular subje**s, but great bills as they effected’ the revenues of the country. Thy said this bill is not satisfactory. pass it, but we do not stand p it. Several such billß aro pendiv , “4a I said V e other day, it would *ave had a g-eat effect if our Demo--1 cratic frierii* had only told us that this was tH bottom of the well. It was dark and dismal, but if we had been assured that there was no other depths yawning for us below we J*ou!d have turned our eyes upward o see if there was not some visible

star of hope; we would have anointed our bruises and set about trying to climb out. Bnt we are told that they mean to march on with their victorious cohorts until they have wiped out all the protection idea from our tariff legislation. The bill has no sponsor; its paternity is denied by every leading Democratic statesman; nobody justifies it; nobody says it is to abide. “There is one particular which I want to call your attention to. The reciprocity feature of the McKinley bill has been destroyed bv the (4or-man-Brice- Wilson bill. In responding to the courtesies extended to him in London by the London Cham: ber of Commerce, Mir. Wilson) chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, said that! the Democratic party had set about destroying the fences in this country. He told his British brethren that we were not going to be content any longer with the pent-up markets we have enjoyed, but were going to enter into competition with England for the markets of the would. He warned his British hearers that they would have a smart competitor when we entered that field. The report I saw said: ‘At this point applause and laughter. ’ Those English gentlemen were not slow in getting the point of a joke “This thing of breaking down fences is a country figure of speech. Fences are for two uses. One to keep things out and the other to keep things in. We have fences to keep the cattle out of our corn field and fences to keep our own cattle in the pasture. Mr. Wilson’s idea is that our pasture is too narrow and too bare, and we ought to breal* down this fence and rush out on the range. There are a great many cattle on the range now. It is generally admitted, I think, that our cattle inside the fence are in better condition than anv that are out on the range—sleeker and fatter. It may be that the grass is not always knee'high in our fields, but we know there is often no grass at all on the range. To drop that figure for a moment, we know that our people behind this tariff barrier that he calls a fence have maintained and enjoyed a higher state of living, with more comforts in the home, a better chance for the people, more hope in the hearts of the workingmen than in any other country in the world. Perhaps in place of tearing our fences down and making jour fields common we had better use a gate or two to get out and let in who wo want to let in.

“This talk about the markets of the world implies that one would think that there is a market in excess of the supply already competing for it. Such is not the case. Giving to Germany, France, England, Italy and the manufacturing nations of the world all the markets of this side of America that they have been able to get in the scramble, and the fact remains that when they are shut out of the American market, the best market in the world, some of "the mills are closed or are run on part time. Why is it that we have these —hitter complaints from all these competing countries against our fences, as Mr, Wilson calls them, if they have ample pas turage on the range, if it is better than in our inclosed fields, if there is danger that we may overrun tho range if our fences are thrown down? If, as they pretend, these tariff barriers are to the advantage of England, France and Germany, and a disadvantage to us, in the name of common sense how does it come that these nations are not able to bear with more equanimity a policy that injures us and helps them? “Under the hew tariff law all the reciprocity agreements have been stricken down; and yet these gentlemen tell us that they are seeking the commerce of the world. What is tho result? Spain entered into a reciprocity agreement with us for Cuba by which she was to admit American flour, breadstuffs, provisions, and many articles of manufacture either free of duty or at favored rates in return ior the ad- ‘ mission of her sugar free of duty. In the sixteen years, up to 1891, our annual sales to Cuba averaged sll,793,91)1). In 1891 they were $12,000,000; in 1892 they were $18,000,000, and in ’.893 they were $24,000,000. “We had here a good thing and a sure thing, but we have thrown it away to follow the swamp lights of free trade theorists in the pursuit of their visionary ‘markets of the world.’ Germany complains because the new bill puts an increased duty on German sugar, by reason of the fact that that Government pays an export duty to encourage the production of beet sugar. She cannot well say to us that our pork is now unsanitary and unwholesome, because we have levied this duty on sugar; that would be nonsequiter; but she is irritated by this summary abrogation of our reciprocity treaty and this special discrimination against her, and I venture the prediction that if we continue this policy Germany will find trichina in American pork within the next six months, and that great market for one of our great products so hardly gained will be lost to us as a result of the chimerical attempt to seize a part of the markets of the world by the surrender of grea/ ! markets which wo had permanently secured for ourselves. “Now, my friends, we have *Ua stake here, little w large. If it is small, it is the important to us, and we ought, I think, to comt to the consideration of these great business auestions with calm mind* and with hearts set 1 upon *>ne purpose, to do that whieh will most generally diffuse prosperity, happiness