The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-10-17
Some of BIaine's Tariff Lies.


Some of Blaine's Tariff Lies.
Mr.. BLAINE's speech at Tomlinson hall
Thursday evening was a characteristic per-
formance-characteris in its disregard
of facts, its juggling with figures, its shall
low sophistry, its monstrous perversions
of the relations of cause and effect, and its
unblushing appeals to ignorance and
credulity.
There was nothing new in the speech.
Mr.. BLAINE simply travelled over the
same ground he covered in his Indiana
speeches four years ago, and advertised
the weakness OF his cause and the
poverty of his resources by rehashing
the threadbare fallacies and transparent
sophisms that have done duty for him in
so many campaigns.
Mr. BLAINE's argument-if the term may
be applied to the array of false assump-
tions and preposterous deductions with
which he tried to bolster up the free
states have increased in population and
wealth more rapidly since 1860 than the
eastern states have; we have had a high
tariff since 1861; therefore the West has
been made great by protection, and it
ought to oppose the policy of making raw
materials free, and of reducing the taxes
on the necessaries of life.
A bare statement of Mr.. BLAINE's propo-
sition is enough to condemn it in the mind
of any intelligent man whose judgment is
not blinded by partisan prejudices. His
figures showing the increase of wealth
and population since 1860 prove absolutely
nothing so far as the tariff question is con-
cerned The development of the great
West did not begin with the high tariff
system, but had been in progress long
before it was adopted, as Mr.. BLAINE
knows perfectly well, and as he testiies
in very strong language in his book,
Twenty Years in Congress"
Let us take Indiana for illustration.
The increase 81 population in this state
between 1910 and 1850 (six years low tariff
and four years high tariff was AL per
cent; from 1850 to 1850 dow tariff it
was $3.50 per cent; from 1860 to 1870
(high tariff il was PA per cent; from
1870 TO 1850 thigh tariff it was but III
per cent. What does Mr.. BLAINE say to
these figures? Do they prove that the
high tariff had anything to do with the
growth OF indianapolis from $4,000 in 1860
to l25, 900 in 1888? Don't they prove, on
the contrary, that if it has had any effect it
has been to check rather than to stimu-
late this growth? The figures are Off
i,to1 x,~;n 10 a
l, of the compendium of the Tenth
Census" And they dispose completely
of Mr.. BLAINE's absurd and utterly dis
honest claim that the war tariff has built
up the West.
1t is astonishing that any sane person
of ordinary intelligence, can swallow, even
in the heat of a political campaign, such
ridiculous assertions as Mr.. BLAINE makes
upon this subject. Every person who
knows anything at all about the history OF
Indiana knows that the greatest progress
the state has ever made was under the So
called free trade tariff OF lS46-6l-a tariff
averaging less than half the rates proposed
| by the Mills bill. Between 1850 and 1860
the number of manufacturing establish
ments in Indiana increased from 1892 to
1923; the amount of capital invested from
$3.50, 4O2 to SIS, 451, 121; average number
of hands employed, from II, 40 to q, S5S;
average amount of wages paid annually,
from S3,72S,S4 to S6,31S,335; average
value OF material used annually, from
SlO,369, 200 to S27, l42, 597; average annual
value OF products, from SIS, 725, 423 to
so, SO3, 400.
1t will be observed that during these
ten years of "free trade" the amount of
capital invested in manufactures in Indi-
ana increased about $50 per cent; the
number OF hands employed in manufact-
uring increased about 90 per cent; the
average amount of wages paid almost 100
per cent; the value of materials used,
about 175 per cent, and the value of the
annual product about 1873 per cent.
This record of growth cannot be equaled
or Appropriated by that of any decade
since the high protective policy was estab-
lished. During the decade from 1870 to
$780, under high tariff, the number OF
manufacturing establishments in Indiana
actually decreased.
And how about the agricultural interests
of the state? The value of Indiana farms
| increased from Sl36,3S5,173 in 1850 to
1856, 7l2, 175 in 1860, or more than 80 per
cent. During the same period the value
of farming implements and machinery in
the state increased from S5,704, 444 to
| Sl0,457, 1897. The farmers of Indiana grew
| rich in the ffties because their earnings
were not confscated by the government
to the use Of the manufacturers of the
East
In the face of these historical facts what
sublime effrontery does it take for JAMES
| G.. BLAINE to stand before an Indiana
audience and say that this state has been
built up by the war tariff!
Out of Their Own Mouths.
There is scarcely a republican of any
past or present prominence in the
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