Hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1843-1845, 1844-05-02
BURLINGTON, IOWA, MAY 2, 1914.

Extracts from the late speech OF
Mr. STEWART Of Pa. in Congress
in defence of the Tariff and Distri.
button.
Effects on Farmers and Mechanics
But our present amount Of foreign
imports, viz: one hundred millions, i!
sufficient to supply the demand; how
then are you to make room for fifty
millions more! This can only be
done by destroying fifty millions O.
dollars of our own domestic produc-
tons, to make way for that amount Of
the productions of foreign industry
We must, according to this financial
scheme, not only destroy fifty millions
of dollars worth annually Of our pro.
ductive industry, but we must send fil.
tv millions of dollars hard cash to for.
eign countries, TO purchase what we now
do produce, can produce, and ought
TO produce at home; and for what? TO
raise FIVE millions of revenue by taxa
ton, which is not wanted! Now, sir,
| submit. is this wise, is il an Amer
lean policy Is it not rather Brit
ish policy, a plan to reduce the duties
and open our ports to the importation
Of British goods, TO the sacrifice and
destruction of our own mechanics,
farmers, and manufacturers! Yes, sir,
and this is to be done by an American
Congress, and by the representatives
of the American people! Can such
an an,i-Americar-such British sys-
TEN as this, stand for moment before
this free and enlightened people?-
Pass this bill, sir. take five dollars off
bar iron, aud still more off iron in all
its other forms, and, sir, you will go
far to ex,inguish the fires Of every
furnace and Of every forge in Penn
sylvania. By this bill you will strike
down your own mechanics-your hat
tiers, your shoemakers, your black
smiths, your tailors, your saddlers; in
short. all your mechanics; you will
paralyze and PROSTATE your glass
works, paper mills, tanneries, salt
works, colieries, lead mines--your
WOODEN and cotton factories; but above
all, you aim death blow at the Amer
lean Farmers, not only by destroying
their home markets, almost the only
markets they now have, bu: what is
still worse, you will CONVEX. the me-
chanics aud manufacturers thus thrown
out Of employment into agriculturis,s,
into prcducers instead Of consumers
of agric ultural productions. When you
double production and diminish con-
sumption one-half, DO you not ruin and
destroy the farmers of this country?
And, sir, allow me 10 say, that in a
country like this where seven-eighlhs
of the entire population is engaged in
agriculture, when agriculture is des-
troyed, the country itself is destroyed.
Agriculture is the great basis and foun.
dation OIL which every thing else de-
ponds, when the farmer prospers, all
prosper; when he sinks, all the rest,
professional men, mechanics, and all
go down with him. 1t is the great OBJ
lect therefore to take care of agricul-
ture, make this prosperous and the
whole country will prosper; and how
is agriculture to be made prosperous
bu, by building up and sustaining home
markets. It is therefore not for the
but for the mechanics
and farmers, yes, sir, for the farmers,
that | advocate the protective policy.
There is one important fact which lies
deep at the foundation OF the whole
subject, to which | am anxious to at
trac. the attention Of the farmers and
politicians Of this country. and it is
this, that half, and more than half, of
the entire price of the hundred millions
of dollars year Of foreign goods i'm
ported into this country is agricultural
produce raised on foreign soil, work.
ed up and manufactured into goods,
and then sent here for sale. and that
the farmers and people of this country
send in this way fifty millions of dol
lars year to purchase foreign agricul-
tural produce, in the shape OF goods,
while foreigners take little or nothing
from us; our whole agricultural exports
to all the world excepting cotton and
,obacco) do no. amount to ten millions
of dollars year; thus, sir. we purchase
FIVE dollars worth of foreign agricul.
,ural produce to every dollar S worth
we sell; this may seem strange, but It
is strictly true; defy contradiction
challenge investigation. Let gentle
men disposed to contest it select an ar
,icle offoreign goods, yard of cloth,
a ton Of iron, hat, a coat, pair OF
shoes, any thing, "from needle to
an anchor" examine its constituent
parts, the raw material, the clothing
and the subsistence OF the labor en-
ployed in its manufacture, and it would
be discovered that more than half, often
three. four,hs, of the whole price is