The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1888-10-05
into seekers of aims from their servants in

proper, till all America seems to be standing
with an open palm begging their Congress.
men to take the money which they had
obliged them to give, and give it back to
them for every conceivable purpose. The
country is TO be studded over with magnifi.
cent architectural buildings. River and har.
bor bills run up in the millions. Vast forti'
fications are to be built, 10 which armies are
to be kept, so that those armies may be used
to put down strikes of the laboring men
when they resisting oppression upon them
strive Tor better wages, which better wages
are the synonyms OF comfortable homes. And
every form of extravaganza, my fellow-citi
zens, in which the federal government in
dulges is a temptation TO your servants al
Washington, and lowers the tone of public
life. Hence it is that we of the Democratic
House arraign before the bar of the American
people the Republican Senate for its refusua
to have the taxes reduced.
MIR. Breckenridge sharply criticized the Re
publican system of financiering, under which
the government is paying four and four
a-halfper cent. interest on its bonds, which
would find purchasers at two and a-half per
cent. The difference is what the American
people pay for the pleasure of having had
the Republican party in power when the re.
funding act was passed. This amounts
to twelve millions of dollars year for the
entire time the bonds have TO run. The best
thing to do with the surplus is to pay our
debts with it and the Secretary of the Treas
ury is trying to buy some of the bonds at a
premium of $25 on hundred. That is bet
ter than squanderng it. But what do you
think ola financial policy which dooms you
to the alternative of paying out your money
at $50 premium or throwing it aways
The money is coming into the treasury at
the rate OF three hundred thousand dollars a
day, for which we have no use.
If, in spite of our efforts to be economical ;
If, in spite of an honest President like Cleve-
land if spite of watchful representatives
wehaVe allowed this accumulated surplus to
tempt US to this enormous expenditure, what
can the American people do better than to
keep that money away, and to keep it in
their own pockets instead of trusting it to
such fellows as we are? How better can
they settle the matter than to say that they
will spend that money for themselves, and
that they will keep it from going into the
treasury? You do not want to have it paid
out. Your true object is to keep it from GO
Ing in. That is the true Democratic receipt
for the difficulty your money from GO
ingin. We want to reduce the taxes. Did
you.ever hear of people before that did not
want to reduce their taxes
Now, the Forty eighth Congress had this
problem to settle partially: We had three per
cents. upon which we could expend money,
and the Republicans of the House united
with certain Democrats to strike the enactng
clause out of the Morrison bill and thus re-
fused 10 reduce taxation. There was this ex-
cuse for it-let us be just They said "This
money can be used by calling in The three
per cent. bonds, and it is good thing to do
let US call in those three per cents" Gentle
men of the Democratic party who were for
protection, said, "let us take those bonds and
get them out of the way before we enter upon
the question of taxation" The Republican
party was perfectly willing to get that con-
tingent from the Democratic party. AS long
as the tariff was not interfered with, they did
not care whose votes helped them. The For
ty -ninth Congress had the same question be-
fore it. / have heard it said in this contest
that has been going on between us and the
Republican party for the last five or six
years, and that is going on to-day-I have
heard it said that this contest was going to
settle the question between protective tar
i'll and revenue reform tariff That is fool
You can never settle this question
in favor of privilege against equality. The
spirit of justice, which represents the sanct-
ty of American freedom, fights with irresst-
able anger against the settlement of any
question in favor OF privilege and monopoly
and against liberty and equality. Such set
Element can never be accomplished. The
whole idea of this prohibltory tariff is the
idea of privilege the idea that somebody is
entitled to something more than the mass of
the people from the government. You de-
stroy the whole argument in favor of it by
simply quoting the language of Jefferson in
the Declaration of Independence, that all
men were created free and equal, and that no
man has the right to put his hand into my
pocket and take my dollar and give il to Brad
ley johnson here. under any pretense, don't
care what it is. Applause and laughter, in
which General johnson, who was seated on
the stand near the speaker, very heartily join
ed. Though he may be much cleyerer and
handsomer and drawer man, it is my dollar,
and nobody has right to take it from me
and give it to anybody else and no settle
ment of the question, which is based upon
the view that anybody has that right will
ever settle it.
Let us go back again. Several years ago
the Senate of the United States passed bill
in revolutionary violation of the constitu.
tional provision that all revenue bills should
in the House. That bill was really
framed by conference committee of the
two houses. 1t was said it settled the ques-
ton, but afterwards came the Forty-eighth
Congress, which had been hardly convened
before the question popped up unsettled.
They settled it again by striking the enacting
clause out of the Morrison bill. Next year,
the Forty-nnth Congress had hardly met be-
fore the question came up for settlement
d. hot, r
my Democratic friends and some of my Re-
publican friends it was said that this great
question does not seem worthy of the cOnsd-
Grafton of the American Congress, and they
would not take it up for discussion even, and
they turned out of Congress men like Morri-
son, and said, "These fellows would like to
turn the world upside down." and that they
should have no part nor lot in reopening set
tied question. But the Fiftieth Congress had
been hardly opened before the President of
the United States, in the name of his august
office, and by virtue of his duty as an homer
able and honest public officer, said that this
settled question was the only open question
worthy of consideration by the American
House of Representatives And that ques-
ton is not going to be settled it comes too
close to the people, no matter who is elected.
1t is not going to be settled until it is settled
on fair and just and equal principles.
What are those prnciplesY Practically in
what is known as the Mills bill. The subjects
of taxation, under which this money is pour
ing into the treasury, come under two heads.
One is the internal revenue, and the other
is the duty on imports. We hear great deal
about free trade. / don't know how Amer-
can people are ever going to have free trade.
lfit were an entirely new proposition l do
not hesitate to say that would like TO see
trade as free as possible. II we were now at
the beginning of things, think would like
to see that same financial principle which
now exists, and which has for one hundred
years existed between the different States of
the Union, extended wherever we have any
thug to sell, for have never been able to see
how man could make money by cutting
himself off from the market where he could
sell his goods at the highest price, buying
his necessities at the lowest price, and by fix-
ing it so that he must sell his goods at the
lowest price and buy his necessities at the
highest price. never could understand how
a man could lift himself over fence by tug
ging at his own boot straps, nor how he
ever could get rich by putting his substance
into the pockets of the taxgatherer. How
he could get wealthy by turning over a part