Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-07-08

our prostrated iron and steel industries.
The next tariff measure that came be-
fore Congress was the bill of Mr. Morri-
son, which was presented in the House
in 1876, but was so vigorously opposed
that 1t never reached tie dignity of a
square vote upon its merits. Two years
afterwards Mr.. Wood undertook the
preparation of tariff bill which great
Ily reduced duties on most articles of
foreign manufacture, and which he con-
tidently hoped might become law.
This bill possessed more vitality than
that of Mr.. Morrison, and it was with
great difficulty that the friends of Pro
lection were able to secure its defeat. In
the early as we'll as the later stages of
the struggle there was no uncertainty
about the position of General Garfield
he was against the bill. On the fourth
of June he delivered an elaborate speech
against it in Committee of the Whole,
in the course of which he said:
Il would have the duty so adjusted
that every great American industry can
fairly live and make their profits. The
chief charge 1 make against this bill is
that it seeks to cripple the Protective
features of the law"
He further said, in concluding his
speech:
"a bill so radical in its character, so
dangerous to our business prosperity,
would work infinite mischief at this
time, when the country is just recover
ing itself from long period of depres-
sion and getting again upon solid
ground, just coming up out of the wild
sea of panic and distress which has
tossed US so long.
LET it be remembered thai twenty
two per cent. of all the laboring people
of this country are artisans engaged in
manufactures. Their culture has been
fostered by our tariff laws. 1t is their
pursuits and the skill which they have
developed that produced the glory of our
Centennial Exhibition. To them the
country owes the splendOr of the posi-
ton it holds before the world more
than to any other equal number of our
citizens. If this bill becomes a law it
strikes down their occupation and
throws into the keenest distress the
brightest and best elements of our popu-
lation."
when the first paragraph has been
read l will propose to strike out the en-
acting clause If the committee will do
that we can kill the bill to-day"
On the day following the delivery of
General Garfields speech his suggestion
to strike out the enacting clause was
carried into effect, upon motion of Mr..
,Conger, and the bill was killed-yeas
l34, nays 121. The majority against the
bill was only IS.
During the recent speech of Congress
Il vigorous effort was made to break
down the tariff by piecemeal legislation.
divide and conquer" was the motto of
the Free Traders. They were defeated
in every effort to reduce duties, and in
every instance they encountered General
Garfield's opposition. Iron and steel
manufacturers have good cause to re-
member his vote in the Ways and
Means Committee last March on the
bill of Mr.. Covert to reduce the duty on
steel rails General Garfield voted with
Judge Kelley and Messrs. Conger, Frye,
FELTON,, Gibson and Phelps against any
any reduction, and that was the end of
Mr.. CoVert's bill-the vote being Z
against in favor of it. Had the bill
prevailed the entire line of duties on
iron and steel and other manufactures
would have been seriously endangered.
Such is General Garfield's tariff re-
cord, and, as we have already stated, it
is entirely satisfactory to Protection
lists. He has been charged with being
of the British Free Trade Cob
den Club, but he has repeatedly de-
clared over his own signature that the
use of his name by the Golden Club WIS
wholly unauthorized by him, and that
it's Free Trade doctrines did not meet
with his approval. If the Club thought,
by the comforting of an empty compli- |
ment, to entrap him into an expression |
of sympathy with its philosophy of self
ishness and greed it failed sigally.
General Garfield is candidate for the |
With that we have nothing |
to do. Our readers will vote for or
against him as they please. But General
Garfield has rendered great service to
the cause of Home Industry during his |
public career, and we would have been
untrue TO ourselves and to every indi-
vidual member of this Association if we
had not testified as we have done to the
excellence and fullness of that service,
now that his tariff record has been mis-
American iron and steel
have found him wise
friend in time of need, and we say so
gratefully.