Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1886-11-24
Tariff Remarks by Senator Beck.

1.-The following is an extract from
Senator Beck's speech, delivered at
Chicago last Wednesday:
81 am speaking to the merchant
princes of the world. You know that
machinery owned by few men is now
driving human labor from our manu-
featuring establishments. One person
now produces what it required seven
to produce thirty years ago. You
know that we have surrendered the
trade in manufactured goods with the
l ,500,000,000 of people on the earth
to the nations of Europe, in order to
enable few protected monopolists to
extort double prices for their products
from sixty millions of American tax
payers. You know that our ma
chinery is now more than equal in
productive capacity to all the human
muscle in the world, that it can pro-
duce in six months all that this people
can consume in twelve, that it is the
slave of its owners, and when idle,
consumes nothing that human labor
produces, but the families of the men
who are hired to operate it starve
while it is idle and while itS owners
hold their surplus products till scarcity
forces higher prices, which must come
when competition from abroad is pro-
hibited by protective tariff legislation.
You know better than any other body
of men that nineteenth of our exports
are agricultural products, which with
our vast railroad system and its daily
increasing capacity and the cheapening
of transportation by competition and
inventions, coupled with the donation
of public lands to the people of all the
world who will come and take them,
are vastly in excess of the consump-
tive capacity of this country, and
that surplus is increasing year by
year. 1t is so great now that the
foreign price of the surplus regulates
the home price of the whole crop.
When wheat falls in Liverpool it falls
in Chicago. When cotton falls in
London it falls in New Orleans.
When tobacco falls in Paris it falls in
Louisville, and so through all the list
of goods exported. What can the
Chicago merchants afford to pay Mr..
Dalrymple, the great Dakota farmer,
for his wheat? Simply the Liverpool
price, less the cost of transportation
by land and sea, with the commissions,
interest, insurance, ETC., reasonable
profit on the venture deducted. Mr..
Dalrymplo only gets what remains.
If he ships it himself he is no better
of. When he gets to Liverpool he
meets the wheat from India, the Bal
tic and the Black Sea. He gets just
what they got for like article.
He has to compete with every
grade of pauper labor. Congress
cannot protect him nor his labor
ers in the market. Well say he
gets 10000 for his wheat in Liver
pool. There money is only valuable
to him for what it will buy. He
must have clothing for himself and
his family. He must buy new
machinery and supplies for his farm
in order to rase another crop. He is
offered all he wants in Liverpool for
$4,000. He cannot buy because Con-
gress by laws made to protect some
body requires him to pay fifty per
cent. tax, or $1,000 before he can land
his goods He knows that he can buy
them for $1,000 in New England or
Pennsylvania, therefore he brings back
no return cargo. He buys his goods
here, pays somebody who had no right
to take dollar from him $4,000 more
than was offered for them. The gov
eminent gets nothing. The Dakota
farmer loses $4,000 after selling in