Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-08-27
AOGOSTA NAME FRIDAY MORNING. AUGUST 81 1886

nao the control of national affairs passed into
the hands of the democratic party with their
known hostility TO a protective tariff and
with consequent uncertainty of what they
might do. than there was a disturbance
throughout the length and breadth of the
land on this very labor question. l want to
be careful. | do not pretend to say that be-
fore they had done anything, that the cause
was adequate, but do say that as soon as il
had happened the effect was visible, and
leave them to explain why it was not Il
there labor organization in the country
| formed because of dissatisfaction with wages
of which do not pretend to know the cause
| nor do doubt the facts on which they state
1t, but is there one whose evils and whose
wrongs and whose expressions will in any
degree be alleviated or cured BY bringing the
democratic party into power in Maine. Go
back fifty years and from the organic alton of
that party to this hour. Give me a single
law they ever passed that was favorable to
the increase of wages to lsboring men. They
never passed protective tariff and never
ia led to repeal one when they mad the power
to do it. never. Laughter.
You may GO back to the tariff of 1924 and
the tariff of 1928, and the tariff OF 1888, and
the tariff of 1912, and the tariff of lS46, and
the tariff of 1857, and that of 1861, and go
Nhioush tuS " uOlS VI tuSul, duu ou every TOll
call under all those Presidents--John Quincy
Adams, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Bu-
channan, Lincoln-every one of them, with
out single exception, on the roll call of the
democratic party, with almost solid vote,
was against the doctrine of protection and
they are now. They don't make anv disguise
about it. That's the only honest thing they
have In regard to it. Laughter. They
passed resolutions against il IN their very
last State convention.
Do you want to break that down which
now exists? A considerable number of gen.
tlemen before me, and " no do me the honor
to listen 10 me, can remember great deal of
the legislature that have spoken of.
Mr.. Blaine referred to a number of young
men present, who had attained their msjor-
ity under the doctrine of protection, and then
said that there were good many men pres
ent who could remember when a dollar a
day was pretty high wages and when men
worked in Bath ship yards at seventy-five
cents day who lived to get So so for the
same job.
He suggested that the experiment of free
trade for five years only, that it would prove
too costly might prove beneficial as a means
of instruction. He referred to the danger
from the under paid and degraded negro
labor IN the South, and then speaking of the
benefits of the protective tariff took as an
illustration the growth of the steel rail in
dustry. The republican party has stood
steadily against great odds in the teeth of
great opposition and has made of great op.
position and has made great contests in sup
port of a protective tariff. 1t has encount-
ed every form of hostility and thus far it has
triumphed in its tariff policy. Let me tell
you one incident and think it a very strik-
ing one. As lately as 1870, that was nine
years before We had specie payments and gold
was somewhere from 20 to 80 cents premium,
if | remember correctly, the railroad mania
was at fever heat. We were building in all
directions. Money was plenty. We were
importing rails and the older railroads
of the east such as the Vanderbilt rords of
New York and the Boston & Albany
west of Boston were beginning to put steel
rail down. They paid for those steel rails
from Sc, entyive to eightv-five dollars in
England. They paid the duty and then they
had to add the premium on gold and by the
time they got that reduced to greenbscks it
cost over one hundred dollars ton to put
steel rails down, While it cost just one hun
dred times as much per mile, in the teeth of
that, high prices staring everybody in the
face, the republican party had the nerve, the
foresight and the courage to pat twenty eight
dollars ton gold duty on that. Do you not
remember how all the free traders in the
world, how all the free traders in this country
denounced the republicans as lunatics, pro-
lection gone mad, violating every principle of
economy. gone as the Scots say, absolutely
clean daft. Well, it went on twenty-eight
dollars a ton gold, thirty per cent. premium
made eight dollars and forty cents, so the duty
in our currency was between thirty-six and
thirty-seven dollars a ton. l remember my
self that it did look little hazardous; | was
a little afraid of it. but l supported it with
the rest of my party. What is the result?
The democrats said you are going to put a
price on steel rails where no railroad can
afford to buy them, and then they began all
their talk about the duty being added to the
cost ana gong 10 De pa'o oy the consumer
Ihls very last year, thls last ~inter' steer
rsiis OF an American manufacturer were paih
Gown III this country tha' cost twenty, elgn'
collars ana nan at the Hiii oniy nail uoi-
lar more on Tue ton tnah .he uuty we put on
then In 1917. lhst Is only sixteen years ago
and practically we were not making any steel
rails then.
1here was little Dill OF an experiment al
the GAMBIA Iron WORKS IN fennsylvania ana
little IN Iroy,N. I. Under the stlmuius OF
the duty eight, ten, twelve and thirteen large
establishments were bullt' ana In little
while were turning out larger amount than
the combined works of England and Belgium
today ICries OF good and applause. If
there mere genuine free trader present he
would get up and say, Yes, that Is true.