Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-03-21
GREAT TOPIC or DISCUSSION.
High Authorities on IA Tariff BILL
Purely Sectional Affair.

High AHtuOFitte6 0h a pasibh
Purely Sectional Affair.
The main topic Of talk for the week has
been the experimental free trade tariff,
whichis the small and grotesque outcome
from Mr.. Cleveland's ponderous free
trade message. II Robert J. Walker had
lived long enough to nave been the maker
of a tariff for this administration, and
had preserved his rhetorical and imagi-
native powers undiminished, he might
have constructed a tariff MS magnificent,
from an English free trade standpoint, as
that which he got adopted in 1916, and
which only a remarkable combination of
favoring Previdsnce-such as the Cali
fornia gold discoveries, the Crimean war,
etc.-prevented from yielding its magnif-
cent result, In the way of widespread
financial distresses, long before 1857,
when the deferred disasters came.
Now, however, times have changed. In
1848 cotton was king in the south and
free trade was dominant. At that time
slavery and free trade combined to keep
labor In chains in the south, and in ruin
GUS competition with foreign. labor in the
north. Free trade was rampant, and its
advocates had tho courage of their un-
American convictions. From Robert j.
Walker ta Mr.. Cleveland and Mr.. Mills,
what an intellectual descent
That athletic and accomplished student
Of political economy and tariff legislation,
Judge Kelley, In an interview reported by
The Worlds Washington correspondent,
expressed his natural contempt for the
Mills tariff, as one that sis net peryaded
by any paramount principle or the
doctrine Of any school of economists,
native or foreign" and added that
sit is not in accordance with Mr..
Mills often declared conviction in favor
of the Robert j.. Walker bill of 1916, or of
the bill of 1857, which reduced Mr.. Walk
er's rates of duty pro rata n gave us
the nearest approach to free trade we
have had since before the wal of 1912.
Judging from the clear but, as I think,
very mistaken views presented by Mr..
Cleveland in his recent message, a brief
glance at the strange commingling Of high.
protection tariff on a number of southern
| productions and the extreme free trade
provisions applied to some of our heaviest
productive industries, must nauseate
him."
From Walker to Mills is from the sub
lime to the ridiculous. Yet there is a
sort of low political cunning in the Mills
bill. Its free trade features strike hard
on the people of the Republican states.
Congressman Burrows, of Michigan,
bears witness to this when he says to The
Tribunafs Washington correspondent: 81
have studied the bill carefully enough to
discover that Ii it becomes q Law it will
swamp all of the most Important indus
tries of Michigan, wool growing, lumber
ing, salt making, the raising of flax and
hemp; etc. In fact, it doesn't leave us
anything except the privilege of fishing,
and l do not know whether Canada would
permit us to engage in that industry.
Our copper must go by the board, but our
iron ore is saved, not because it should
not go into the bill, il the latter be con-
structed on any principle whatever, but be-
cause to place it on the free list would mean
the loss of the electoral votes of Virginia
to the Democratic party, and endauger the
party's supremacy in Tennessee and
Alabama. You see it Is mainly a sec
tional bill"
The Republican Pacific coast catches 1t,
of course. Says Congressman Morrow:
ITO the Pacific coast the hiil will be oh.
jectionable In general aud in detail. 1t
would destroy many Of our industries just
in the process of development. Take, for
instance, our raisin interests. We pro-
duced last year from 16, coo, 600 to 20, 000,-
600 pounds of r%aisins, and the industry is
only In its infancy. The bill would reduce
the tariff from two cents per pound TO one
and one-half cents, which would be sufi.
GENT to enable the importers to drive our
raisins out of the market.n
Republican Vermont and Ohio are
special victims Of this partisan bill, which
protects only Democratic interests. HThe
sheep industry of Vermont says Con
gresham Circuit, of that state, ..has
suffered severely from the tariff reduction
OF 1883, as has that of the whole country,
but this means humiliation, and how the
president and his party can expect the
sober Judgment OF the American people to
approve it is indeed mystery. Wool and
marble, with q so per cent. duty struck
off, and lumber, all demand a hearing
from my state, and I think the committee
will grant it unless their heads are Gem.
pletely turned.n
"The bil,n says Congressman Gros
venor, of Ohio, els shamefully sectional
1t strikes at the lumber, wool, salt, vege,
tables, hay, fish and many other of The
products of the north, and carefully keeps
hands off from cotton goods, rice, sugar
and many other things OF the south. The
Kentucky bourbon is protected by thu
jKentucky member of the ways and means
committee. The potteries Of Ohio are hi
hard, but the specialties of the south ar,
not molested. The salt industry of M,
district will be destroyed If the bill passes
The wool men of my section will be forced
out of business"
These are some of the aspects of a tariff
btu that's the natural outcome of tn,
small, narrow and inconsistent partisan
ship which has an ex- Mugwump president
now Spoils Democratic in his fierce deter
mination to get q second term, for a SIRE
form" fgurehead, and whose figureheat
In the Democratic branch of congress
Speaker Carlisle, stands for the tswhisk,
ring" and free trade, the whisky ring
being the only remaining substitute TO
the old 'sslaye power'' in the south an,
controlling most of the southern polite
and politicians and newspapers. Any
thing to keep up the whisky tax is it
motto. seThe whisky ring'-by far th
!, most formidable "trustn In the country
and all Of it in politics, all the time an,
with all its power, compromises wit
southern sentiment by keeping up th
duties on pig iron and coal.
Such is revenue reformn under thi
remarkable Observation-Disclosures Yor
Mail and Express.
American Climate Stamps Out Leprosy
The young Norwegian girl afflicted wit
1eprosy at West Liberty is named Johr
son She is native of C~hristiania, an
was advised by her home physician t
come to this country. Her disease Shove
Itself ten years ago. Leprosy is commo
In. Norway, and in the Norwegian colon
in Minnesota there is nearly always a cas-
or two. It always proves fatal, but n