Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-09-07
For Congress Tenth District.
H, ST, GEO. TUCKER,
OF AUGUSTA.
WHAT IS TO BE GAINED BY IT.

~~'-' -
WHAT IS TO BE GAINED BY II.
All long-fxed conditions, surroundings,
and systems make fierce struggle against
removal. They hide their faults. exag-
gerate their benefits, and plead hard for
life. Especially is it so if they have lasted
q generation. for the men who have been
born and reared under them. and have
genuine faith in their operation, are found
as their advocates. With these, the idea
has insensibly taken possession of their
minds that what is to-day has always
been, and that change means disruption.
1t has been so with monarchies, with
slavery, and with restricted suffrage.
Wise and practical men have advocated
all three, and predicted with deluded,
but sincere vision that change in them
meant ruin. And yet the Republic, the
Free Man, and Universal Suffrage have all
come, and to-day the world is the happier
for them.
1t is so with High Tariff of twenty
seven years duration. Men have been
born, and reared, and learned trades, and
worked farms under it. They know of no
day in which anything else bat High
Tariff existed. They do not remember
that but for the great civil war of 1861
there would be no High Tariff at all,
and that it Is in its birth and essence ex-
clusively war measure. They do not
remember that the country was going, land
had been for fourteen years going, pros
perously under low tariff-that the farm
and the workshop had been busy and hap
by under tariff tax as low as $l8 in the
800. They do not remember that the
country took plunge into war costing
thousands of dollars hourly, and at the
same time to raise those thousands adopted
a tariff tax of $47 in the 800.
That war ended twenty three years ago,
but the High Tariff tax did not. 1t could
not then, for there was an immense debt
and interest to pay. Time went On, the debt
was reduced one-half, the rate Of interest
more than One-half, and the revenue from
the tariff was 80 great that the country
went on to call in its debt before it was
obliged to meet it. and establish far
greater sinking fund than there was any
call for. But still this war tariff tax was
kept up, pouring its useless dollars into
the Treasury. Why was this? Why
should useless tax be taken from the
people and poured into an OVERLOOKING
treasury. with no prospect of spending it
1egitimately? The answer to that question
lies at the bottom of, and has caused the
revolution among the American people of
to-day, the rallying cry of which is slow
taxes" Under this war tariff had come
q new feature in this country-the million
ARE feature. The high protection given
had made the profits of many manufac-
lures enormous, and millionaire manu-
facturer had come to be common thing.
The country for the first time in its history
had distinctly segregated wealthy class.
This wealth had come from the fact that
tariff law provided directly for a large
profit. How? This way. If manufac-
turer made dollars worth of starch, that
law forbade any starch to come into this
country of which dollars worth could be
sold at less than one dollar and ninety
five cents. 1t did it by stopping that
dollars worth Of starch at the custom
house and making it pay 95 cents duty.
And so this starch manufacturer charged
In America, there being no competition
admitted from abroad, ST. for bis one
dollars worth of starch. For a dollars
worth of wooden clothing, the government
made it 50 that the vendor could get $161
And so they went-for dollars worth of
brown sugar the price was $1.S2; for
dollars worth of cutlery $1.59; for dol
lars worth of fax thread ST. so; for dol.
lars worth of varnish $1.95, and on
through the long line of everything we
wear and use.
1t is violent wrench for human nature
to consent to abandon such lush field of
profit as this. Many tmid cries are heard
coming from its owners. They say to
abandon the highest tax for lower one
proposed by the Democratic Mills bill,
means ruin to the wOrkmen. Does it +?
Does any one think if the tariff on say
knives and forks, we're increased another
SO cents, that that addition would 20 to
the workers in the American cutlery fac
tories Would it lot amaze work.
man to bear his employer come into the
factory in the morning and say to him:
sThe Tariff was raised yesterday and you
are to have fifty-nine cents more for every
dollars worth of work turn out Does
not the mere putting it in print before
your eyes show you the folly of the
thought. Does any workingwoman suppose
that if the protection on fax thread was
increased 40 cents. the proprietor of the
Barbour fax thread mills would come into
the mill and tell the laborers that for every
dollars worth of thread turned out they
should have 40 cents more of wages No;
he would keep the increase himself, and
10 on importing cheap British labor as he