The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-04-05
Effect and Results Of the New
Tariff,

try has Chinese wall of high tariffs
round about ii, and the only remedy
is found in the cessation of work.
of laborers, who have gain
ed nothing while employers prospered
and were enriched by the tariff that
paid them enormous profits for Il time,
must now starve. There was no tariff
to protect labor; none to exclude com
petition with labor from Eu! ope. it
was brought in by the ship load and
dumped down at Castle Garden, and
distributed everywhere to keep Down
it's price, when that Of steel rails was
highest aud now, when the market
for these rails is glutted, production
must stop Thus labor, gaining roth
ing by the high tariff, is at last starved
by it. These facts and conditions APP
ply, to a greater or less extent, to every
protected industry. Free raw materI-
ais, at least, should be concurrent with
free labor. Give this uB Unprotected labor
unprotected, untaXed neCessaries of
life, as does England, and the iron
mills need not stop. With free raw
ma erials production would be so
cheapened that ii might progress prof
itabfy without reducing the wages of
LABOR but while everything used and
consumed or transformed by the mills
is protected y wages must be lessened
or the mills closed. The protectiOniStS,
protecting labor in nothing, and pro-
tecting products of labor in the hands
of capital, are the veriest enemies, of
labor. That mills must be closed aud
thousands Of toiiers in them suffer
greatly, we do not doubt Where the
responsibility rests there can be no
question. This revised but unreform
ed tariff system, instituted to pro
tect" the lich, leaving labor un-
guarded against the worlds com petiug
labor market. has wrought calamities
of W hich we have only seen the begi u
ming in the closing of iron mills.
Looking in another direction, we
see deluge sweeping slowly and most
ruInously, for this season of the year,
ovec lhe cotton and sugar growing
valley OF the Mississippi. 'G'hls flood
will subside, leaving the lakes and
bayous aud the porous soil of the low
lands full of water. Then will come,
in May or June, the annual overflow
of this Am erican Nile. However mod
crate this volume OF water from melt.
ing SHOWS il the Rocky Mountains,
the valley viii be surcharged as never
before, and the probabilities all tend To
the conclusion that the sugar crop OF
Louisiana will be less than ever before.
Importation will be stimulated, sugar
consumption will not be materially
iessened, apd the reduced tariff on
sugar will send greater sums from this
source into vaults of custom houses
than ever before. Thus it happens
that the less the ability of the country
to pay taxes the greater the revenues
I i,n a hfs
people the more they must pay. In all
its aspects we find the tariff system
false in theory and ruinous in fact
ruinous to all except the protected few
the lords OF looms aud mills, These,
at last, having grasped at too much,
have produced more than they can sell
and, holding all they have made, they
close their MILLS and factories, with.
draw, with their bonds and money :
bags, to their tariff built palaces ana
leave toll 10 beg or starve. So palpa-
bly, vicious and uni ust is the govern
ment, as administered by the so called
Republican party, that. instead OF pro
tectipg labor, at least by making Tree
every commodity which labor con
sumes, that it may live, this poIiticl Al
party absolutely relieves of taxation
first, those commodities and facilities
of business life which are enjoyed and
used almost exclusively by The rich.
banking capital, bills, deposits, checks
perfumeries, and the like, are set free.
While the tax on tobacco is lesseued,
the machinery of its collection is still
the same Gen Raum's patronage
and STAMPS ami collection districts are
as numerous and costly as before, and
the burdens of the country are as
weighty as when tobacco palu more to
lessen them. The purpose of the Re
publican party III enacting this =" re
formed (?) TARIFF was To remove the
question from the arena of political
discussion and leave its favored class,
for which, ever reckless of the rights
and interests of the people and of the
States, it delights to legisiate, in the
perfect enjoyment of a Federal reve-
nue. system. enabling them, by enor-
nous profits conceded, to withstand
strikes till labor, starved into helpless
ness, comes back to its toll OH any
terms they choose to impose. Mean :
while they rest until surplus products
of protected mills are consumed, and
then, "istimuiated" again to over pro-
duction, mills are reopened, and again
does the unnatural, tariff begotteu in
enormously enriched and armies of
beggared toilers in mills and furnaces
and mines. The whole system is ar.
tificial, unnatural, and violative of ev-
cry principle Of justice, equality and
right. In its general results, ana rs
special industries are effected by it.,
the tariff code is an intoIerabie caam-
ity, as seen in the fact that in order to
produce $500, 900. 900 for the govern
ment it exacts from the people instead
not less tbau ST 200 900, 600 annually
Viewed simply as partisan question
the Democrats have gained by this
enactmsnt everything. AS measure
of reform, it is palpabIy and wholly
delusive. But it is a Republican tariff,
begotten of Republican statecraft and
it is against this scheme of legislation,
as it subsists.s that Democracy, as an
unit, if need be, may wage a relent-
less war. The honest, telling, tax
paying people, as distinguished from
railway aud other corporations, and
from the untaXed bankers ana coupon
clippers, will never approve at the bal
IotboX this last grand achievement of
probably the last Republican Congress
that will sit in Washington while free
government i'll form or fact sub8ists
The career of the grand old party OF
grand moral ideas, ends with the con-
summation OF this revenue scheme of
rapacity and wrong, SO palpabiy insult
ferable and selfish that the most igoO-
rant of those made to believe that a
tariff puts money in their pockets, be-
cause it fills those of their employers
with gold, will revolt as one man
against it, Every honest, toiling,
sensible voter III all this broad land,
with protected" hammer, will drive
u protected nail into the protected vel
vet that covers the protected lumber
encasing the protected grave clothes
of the dead body of Protection. 1t
stinketh.-[The American Register.
rHHEX NOW talk hu The recently NAT.