Morning journal and courier., 1886-12-07
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
CONCLUDED FROM FIRST PAGE.1

lie good requires it, they should be content with such consideration as shall deal fairly and cautiously with their interests, while the just demand of the people for relief from needless taxation is honestly answered.
 A reasonable and timely submission to such demand should certainly be possible without disastrous shock to any interest; and a cheerful concession sometimes averts abrupt and needless action, often the out growth of impatience and delayed justice.
 Due regard should be also accorded in any proposed readjustment, to the interests of American labor so far as they are involved. We congratulate ourselves that there IS among us no laboring class fixed within un- yielding bounds and doomed under all con- ditions to the memorable fate of daily toll. We recognize in labor a chief factor in the wealth of the republic, and we treat those who have it in their keeping as citizens en- titled to the most careful regard and thought ful attention. This regard and attention should be awarded them, not only because labor is the capital of our workingmen justly entitled to it's share of government favor, but for the further and not less important reason that the laboring man surrounded by his family in his humble home as consumer is vitally interested in all that cheapens the cost of living and enables him to bring within his domestic circle additional com forts and advantages
 This relation of the woIkingman to the revenue laws of the country, and the man. ner in which it palpably influences the ques- ton of wages, should not be forgotten in the justifable prominence given to the proper maintenance of the supply and protection of well-paid labor And these considerations suggest such arrangement of government revenues as shall reduce the expense of liv- ing, while it does not curtail the opportunity for work, nor reduce the compensation of American labor and injuriously affect it's condition and the dignifed place it holds in the estimation of our people.
 But our farmers and agriculturists-those who from the soil produce the things con- sumed by all-are perhaps more directly and plainly concerned than any other of our clti- zens in just and careful system ot federal taxation. Those actually engaged in and more remotely connected with this kind of work number nearly one-half ot our popula- tion. None labor harder or more continu- ously than they. No enactments limit their hours of toll, and no interpretation of the government enhances to any great extent the value of their products. And yet for many of the necessaries and comforts of life which the most scrupulous economy enables them to bring into their homes, and for their i'm plements of husbandry, they are obliged to pay a price largely increased by an unnatural profit which, by the action of the govern ment, is given to the more favored manufac turer.
 I recommend that, keeping in view all these considerations, the increasing and un- necessary surplus of national income annual ly accommodating be released to the people by an amendment to our revenue laws which shall cheapen the price of the necessaries of life and give freer entrance to such imported materials as by American labor may be man. ufactured into marketable commodities.
 Nothing can be accomplished, however, in the direction of this much needed reform un- less the subject is approached in patriotic spirit of devotion to the interests of the en- tire country and with a willingness to yield something for the public good.