Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1883-10-04

tax Is to raise the price of the article.
| Well when the price of the article
just brought into this country is raised
the domestic manufacturer raises the
price of his, too, but all the additional
price which he gets goes into his own
pocket and, although the people pay it,
just as they pay that which goes into
the national treasury, every dollar of it
goes into the pockets of the monopo-
lists-the manufacturers-and il is a
fact easily capable of demonstration that
this amount thus paid the manufacture
ers of the country equals, perhaps, if it
does not exceed, the whole amount that
is raised by the tariff which goes into
the Treasury of the Uuited States.
Now, my friends, it is sometimes said
you Democrats are free traders and YOU
would break down all the domestic
manufactures. There is no truth in
that at all-not the least bit of truth.
If by free traders is meant that all cus-
toms duties shouid be abolished there
is no party in ti.is country that can be
called "Free traders" because they all
agree there must be some collected by
means of tariff duties, and so long as
the expenses of our government are as
great as they are, so long as the interest
on the public debt is so onerous, so long
as the principal of the debt remains un-
paid, SO long as the pension list is so long
and so heavy, so long as all these things
continue, why, you will have tariff;
but the question is whether it shall be
fair tariff, or whether it shall be an un-
fair one; whether it shall be tariff
that favors monopoly or whether it shall
be upon equal rights. Now, in the adj
Justment of tariff their are great diff
hcultles, that is very true; but what the
Democrats require, what the platform
of your state convention requires, is that
while you have such tariff YOU SHAH
SO frame its provisions as to do as little
injustice to any class of people as possi-.
BILE.
OF what use is a tariff on Indian
corn to farmer here in Plain township
or anywhere in the United Stateso
None, practically, because we import
no Indian corn. We raise more than
we can use and export it. A protective
tariff cannot benefit an Ohio farmer.
What good would it do to Ohio wheat
raisers to lay q duty on wheat? 1t
would't raise the price of their wheat
one lota, because there is no wheat inn
ported into this country. We export
immense quantities of it. Take cotton
one OF the largest of our agricultural
products. What good would it do to
the cotton-raisers to levy duty on cot
ton? Not the least in the world, be-
cause we do not import a pound of cot
ton. On the contrary, we export more
cotton than all the other countries of
the world put together. And so 1
might go on. Take hay. Why, have
you any idea of the hay crop of the
United States? will tell yet that the
census shows that the value of the hay
crop is nearly equal to the value of the
corn crop and perhaps quite equal to
the value of the cotton crop. Now,
what advantage would it be q farmer
to levy duty on hay? None what
ever. 1t won't raise the price of his
hay one particle, because no hay is i'm
ported into the United States.
There is hardly any thing that he can
have the price raised, or be protected in
his price, by duty; but there are one
or two things. There is tobacco, for
one, because there can be good deal of
tobacco brought into the country free if
there were no customs. The next and
only remaining great article produced
by the farmer that can have its price in
creased by a protective duty is wool,
and yet these manufacturers have so
pulled the wool over the eyes of our Con-
gressmen, as they. did at the last session,
) that they went to work and reduced the
price of our wool and increased it on
the manufactured article of wooden
cloth. Now, say that is not fair play.
If you will have a protection, if you will
insist on protecting everything that is
American in this way, then protect the
farmer as far as you can as well as the
manufacturer. Protect the farmers
wool as well as the New England mans
cloth. That is my doctrine. But [
leave my friend Geddes, who has all
that at his fingers ends, who saw the
machine atwork, who knows how it was
done and if it had not been that l
wished to say these few things | should
: not have touched it.