Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-11-21
MEMPHIS APPEAL
HOW AMERICAN SHIPPING Is"PRO.
TECEEnD

TUESDAY, NOfEMRER Il, 1852
HOW AMERICAN sHIPPIEG Is PRO.
TECTED."
II there was nothing else to condemn and
show the misehievous nature of the protec-
tion system which is robbing the American
people, what it has done to our shipping in
terests ought 10 be sufficient TO bring down
upon il the maledictions of every sensible
and intelligent man. Once the United States
had no compeer in the world in the shipping
business, and the inventive skill and the SUI
periority of its seamen and OF the vessels
they navigsted. To-day this is all lost, de-
stroyed by false and evil policy which has
reduced US to an inferior and contemplate
position in every port and harbo=. Year by
year our tonnage hiss been reduced in
amount, our sailors have been driven to
seek living in other avocations, and our flag
mas olsapPe~Aed To - srost maria of
commerce. Statisticians put the value o. =,
American carrying trade at from 100000
900 to 1920, 100000 year. That vast gum
all goes into the hands Of foreign ship
owners, and the abominable means BY which
this disgraceful result has been brought
about il hidden from the people
under the false and fraudulent prelense that
that system is one that protects American
labor. Can deceit and falsehood go beyond
the monstrous facts? ruin, destruction, ami
hilation to an interest that once found en-
ployment for thousands of industrious work
ing men. That these are not idle assertions
every traveller knows who has been struck
with shame on observing, among the bun-
dreds Of ships he has seen in the ports he
has visited, the absence of his coun,ry's flag
That we are telling no more than bitter and
discreditable truth, is demonstrated in the
figures that appear in the lsies, quarterly
report of the Bureau Of Statistics at Wash
ington. Those official and undeniable fig
ures inform us that in 1860 the total imports
and exports OF the United States amounted
to the value of S762, 2SS,55O. OF this
amount S507 pa, 757 was carried in Amerf-
can, and $255, S4O,793 in foreign vessels,
percentage on American vessels of 655,
which is considerably more than one-haii the
whole. The war necessarily exercised de-
structive effect upon the trade, which had
fallen of, in 1865, to 27.7 per cent. In 1866
there was a rise 10 1922 per cent, and the BUSH
ness ought to have gradually returned 10 its
former proportion, but the blight OF "pro-
lection" was worse than the destructiveness
OF war, for in the four years after that event,
In 1870, the proportion of carriage on Amer
lean bottoms was 35.6 per cent, a proof that
If uuobstructed by the baleful influence OF
protection our com merce on the sea would
have been recovered under the spring and
energy with which our people always recover
from reverses. Under the paralyzing hand
of the tariff during the next twelve years,
those figures were never reached again; the
tariff extinguished the pluck and enterprise
that even war had failed to subdue, and pro-
lection protected our seamen from the power
to carry the merchandise OF their own coun-
try, and protected the receipt of the millions
the ocean carriage brought into the hands of
English, French, German, italian and Span
ish. Such was the disgraceful, disgust
ing triumph of a system which system
attic falsehood calls 'protection to
American industry" Who can restrain
their indignation at such a result that
is not held back by the Judas bride the tsriff |
hands over 10 the monopolist and his servile |
supporters? In 1876 the percentage left to |
our American industry on the sea was SO IL |
per cent. Then, while monopolists .fatteued
on the tribute they drained from wronged |
and defrauded people, the percentage faded
and dwindled and died away until in 1882
we carry 15.5 per cent against the 66.5 per
cent. of 1860. These are the shameful facts,
this is the scandalous record that brands
protection" with a stigma that will yet
bring upon its outrageous wrong and iniquity
the scorn and condemnation of the country.
The stars and stripes, the emblems of our
national life, are driven from the seas by
the Unsuitable greed and cormorant rapa-
ciousness of the monopolists, the men who
declared at their convention in Chicago that
they would have a tariff not for revenue, but
for their grasping demon protection" How,
In future years, that word will be hated by
every American man and woman! Under
the whitening upas tree of protection" our
dourishing shipping interest has been
destroyed, our flag has been banished from
the ocean. Exports and imports have
enormously increased, and the protectors"
Of American labor have handed over the
vast carrying trade involved in that increase
10 other nations, and then, with an impu
dence and an insolence that is intoler able
and hateful, the perpetrators OF these deeds,
the rapacious, gorged monopolists, who levy
tribute upon the farmers, the clerks, the
and the professionalism, proclaim
themselves the protectors of the laborer and
the benefactors TO American industry We
are prospecting, and our prosperity sees our
dag driven from the seas, our sailors de-
spoiled, and our ocean carriage proceeds
handed over to strangers and foreigners.
immigrants crowd to our shores by tens of
thousands, but there are no American ships
o receive them. Oar corn and cotton pours
mt from our ports, but they go in foreign
hips. The Lighthouse. keepers below New ,
York, Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans
ee the vessels go thronging past for distant
,orts, but they display no American flag.
Vas ever government before this guilty of
he recklessness, the folly, and the wrong
hat have disgraced our own? 1t is time the
'eople reused themselves and shook of this :
ncubug, this curse, this Infamous "protec-
ion," that has enabled a small fraotion of
he community 10 levy tribute upon whole
country. The shipping figures stand tie
aecusers of protection" a
ystem of fraud whose vastness has no par
lllel in the history of the nations. True,
our navigation laws, antiquated and insp-
Dlicable to present conditions, have aided
o bring about the disgraceful catastrophe,
'ut the protectionists stubbornly kept them
n existence, and because there were Two ,
hieves engaged in the robbery that does not
Excuse the thief protection" The naviga- !
ion laws had long been in existence; tbe
evealing figures quoted above refer only 10
time when the whitening blast of the pro-
ective tariff was doing its deplorable work &
t destroying our shipping interests. E
JEWS AND CHRISTIANS.
The Rev. DIR. Sonneschein is one of the
most able and learned Israelites in this
Ouutry, admired by Jews and Gentiles Tor
lis talents and revered for the purity and
-irtues of his character He recently preached