The Portland daily press., 1888-05-21
Mr.. REEDS GREAT SPEECH.
Theories of Free Trade and Protec-
ton Contrasted.
Brilliant Argument for the American
System.

Brilliant Argument for the American
System.
A Speech that Is Praised on Every
Hand.
WASHINGTON, May 19.-In the House this
morning, after brief and fiery reply on the
Il part of Jehu Baker to MIR. breckenridge Is
|, speech Of the day before, Mr.. Reed began the
Il closing speech for the Republicans on the
| tariff. Many Senators were among the
H hearers and the galleries were filed. Mr..
II Reed was in splendid condition, and spoke
II substantially without notes. He was fire.
! auently interrupted with applause and at its
close was greeted with cheers, and congratu-
lations were showered upon him. Both
sides of the House listened intently through
0ut.
The Speech In Full.
propose to discuss to-day some of the
general principles which. in my opinion,
Inderlie the two modes Of national action
which are confessedly in dispute In Congress
and in the country. | shall treat the bill
before us IS in their hearts the leaders on
the other side treat it, as step only in
particular direction. The whole course of
| the debate has gone that way, and it is just
| and proper way.
| are the intense interest already excited by
| the pending measures on two continents
bears the strongest witness that can be
borne by men. Those who, living on this
| side of the ocean, grow and make articles
whi h are necessary for the comfort and hap
| piness of the people of the United States are
| on one side of the question, while the foreign
manufacturers, foreign political economists,
and foreign statesmen are all on the other.
This, however, should not prejudice the
| question. If it be true that by having their
| goods manufactured abroad the people of
the United States as whole would become
richer and more prosperous, would have
their houses better furnished. their tables
spread with finer linen, and covered with
more healthful food; If their bodies would
be protected by warmer woolens from the
| cold of Maine and by finer clothing from the
burning sun of Texas; if they would on the
whole, and from generation to generation,
enjoy more of the comforts and luxuries of
| life, and would themselves be more intelli-
| gent, more independent, and better fitted to
be the citizens of Republic already great
and destined to be mighty beyond all former
dreams of empire, then by all means let us
sink national prejudice. burst the barriers
of provincial narrowness, and with one ac-
| cord adopt not merely the present bill, but
such legislation as will surely treble the
| spindles of Europe and destroy our own
| such measures as will put out our furnaces
and illumin those beyond the sea.
| Let us vote for such laws as will make our
| mines mere holes in the ground, and stand
aside to behold the glory alike of free raw
| materials and cheap goods purchased in the
more disdgure our beautiful skies, and the
rushing streams flow to the sea unvexed by
| mill-wheels, their murmurs undisturbed by
| the clash of the shuttles and the clicks OF
| the looms.
Ifof every two dollars in our pockets, the
| one alone is sufficient, if spent in England,
| to give us all we have now, aud we are still
| sure OF having in our pockets the same two
| dollars which we now have, surely the prob
| lem is too easy for dispute, too simple for
| discussion. We have only to pass bill
which gives free course to what the free
| trade professors, with glib secularizatiOn of
the Deity, call the International law of
| the Almighty; and If the learned economists
| do not palter with both their language and
their convictions, they can propose no other
| course.
Napoleon was right when he said that
Europe must be Cossack or republican; Lin
| coin was right when he said the United States
must be either free or slave. The house
divided against itself has to unite or fall
| The revenue reform argument Is either a
false pretense or covers the whole ground.
Protection is either in its essence benefit or
Il CURSE. lOu CduuOb uilutc CuIoc anu
make it a blessing. Ratsbane and water are
no more food than ratsbane pure. Inciden-
tai protection is sham. TariH Tor revenue
only goes down before the same arguments
which are used against protection. ~
III protection be a tax for manufacturers
benefit then it is the same tax if 1t be
the result of even revenue tariff. Incident
al protection is of all the most inexcusable.
IL is an accident which ought to be avoided
like railway disaster. II when you take
one dollar from the citizen for the Treasury
and four for the manufacturer, is 1t any the
less robbery that you call 1t a revenue tariff?
If you gentleman on the other side believe
what you say, you ought to be as furious
against the rapine and plunder Of the Mills
bill as you profess to be against those Of the
present law.
The President is the leader of the Democ-
racy. He is also the dispenser of patronage
and as he Is rapidly shaking the dust OF civ
ilservice reform off his feet, he is assuming
control over his party. One paragraph in
his message covers the whole ground of pro-
lection and free trade, and points out the
plain duty of the Democracy.
There is but one free trade, and the PreSi-
dent is its prophet. Whoever falls in battle
in the service of this new. Allah and its
prophet for him shall open the shining gates
of the heaven of foreign missions and Fed
eral Offices Therefore, with confidence l
quote to the true believers the inspired wis
dom of the message. 1t is an old quotation
much wondered at. The mere wisdom of
this world has refuted 1t many times and oft
But it is of the essence Of the doctrines which
oppose protection. 1t is the warp and woof
of the whole discussion, which must be my
excuse for again infiicting it on a weary
world "These laws" he says, and he Is
speaking of tariff laws
"These laws raise the price to consumers
OF all articles imported and subject to duty
by precisely the sum paid for such duties"
Precisely" is the word he uses, and it is a
word of tremendous significance. But the
corollary which he draws from the whole
sentence is of still more tremendous signifi-
cance. III the consumer pays precisely"
the duty in excess Of the price Of the import
ed article, then the President is also right
when he says that on all domestic protected
articles the consumer pays NEARLY or quite
the same enhanced price," That is the whole
counsel of the Lord on the subject. Wheth-
er the protection be incidental or accidental,
the result of war tariff or peace tariff, the
consumer not only pays the duty on imported
articles to the Government, but also on all
domestic productions its equivalent to the
greedy manufacturer.
At last, then, we have mathematical ba-
sis on which to calculated the damage infic-
ted on this country by the system established
by the men who framed the Constitution.
By tariff taxes, whether great or small,
whereby manufactures are encouraged, every
dollar raised by the Government takes out of
the pockets of the people other dollars and
puts them into the pockets of capitalists. All
these dollars are not merely changed from
the pockets OF the poor to the pockets of the
rich-their value is lost to the nation; for by
Just soimuch has the nations labor been un-
profitably expended and wasted.
Since then, we pay to protected industries
the equivalent of the duty which Is imposed
on imported articles, we have only to calcu-
late the amount of this payment thus lost to
the country to find just what we have been
doing and just where we are. Our manufac-
tured products in 1880 were $3.50, ,OOO, 600. If
YOU add less than One-third for increase you
will have for the year 1887 the figures given
by the report of the Committee on Ways and
Means, 81, 100000. IL you take only one-half
Of this sum as being under protection. and
calculate the duty, you will find that the sum
uselessly paid is more than one thousand
millions Of dollars.
Since 1880 more than six thousand six hum
dred millions of dollars have been wrested
from the people, and six Thousand six hun
dred millions would have bought every acre
of farming land in the United States at the
outbreak of the war. If you carry back the
baleful calculation to the day when we Re
publicans took charge of the country, you
will fiud, If the President be right, that we
have thrown away the whole value of the
land we lived in, and instead of turning over
to civil-service reform country worth S44,-
900, ,000, 900, we turned over rack-rented farm
mortgaged far beyond its value.
There are other remarkable figures to be
deduced from that paragraph in the message;
figures which must light up the pathway of
a. A. -.