Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-06-08

The Congressional Joker.
Whenever the Hon. S. S. Cox ofNew
York arises to address the house of
representatives, says the Boston Adver-
tiser. no matter what the occasion nor
how grave soever the question under
discussion may be, the members settle
back in their chairs and prepare to
laugh. As he proceeds with his in
tensely funny remarks the smile of com
pIacency gives place to the grin oR de
light, and that in turn makes way for
the scarcely suppressed guffaw, and
eventually to the uncomfortable burst
of irrepressibIe merriment.
And yet it would be hardly fair to
speak of Mr.. Cox as a mere buffoOn, or
to question his ability ever to look upon
grave matters from a grave standpoint,
or to consider them In a serious aspect.
It is only charitable to assume that he
sometimes thinks deeply, although one
would scarcely imagine it possible from
the manner Of his address.
These remarks we are constrained to
make from a remembrance Of past eff
forts of the honorable gentleman and
from a somewhat hasty perusal of his
recent speech in the house of the Mills
tariff bill
Perhaps the most disingenuous state
ment made by Mr.. Cox In the course
of his speech was that in which he said
that during the war it cost this country
$3.50, 900, 900 to put $50, 600, 900 customs
duties into the treasury, and even now
it costs the country $500, 600, 900 to ac-
cOmplish the same object. The infer
ence which the jOcular representative
evidently desires to have drawn from
this statement is either that it costs the
difference between fifty and three hun
dred millions of dollars to collect the
former sum by means of the tariff, or
else that in some other manner the
county is "Out" Just so much because of
the existence of the tariff. But in point
of fact the cost of collection IS cOmpar-
atively trihing, and the country is
not "Out' at all. The somewhat en-
HANGED prices paid for a certain kind of
manufactured goods on account of heavy
customs duties find their way in part
into the national treasury, in part into
the hands of the manufacturers as div
idends upon their investments, and in
much larger part into the pockets Of
the working people in the shape Of wa
ges which could not be paid to them If
they We're brought more directly and
sharply into competition with the poor
ly remunerated working people Of Eu-
rOpean countries.
Mr.. Cox boldly declares, however,
that wages are a matter utterly irreIe-
want to a discussion of the tariff.
What, then, does he consider relevant"
to q discussion of the tariff? Surely he
does not expect the great body of en-
PlOyers who pay wages, nor the mighty
host of employers who receive them to
believe such stuff as that! The prob
abilities are that when Mr.. Cox comes
to study over the election figures next
| fall he Will discover that the working
men did not consider the question of
wages as involved in tariff legislatiOns
/ so entirely irrelevant" after all.
| The conclusion of Mr.. COx's speech
is perhaps the funniest" part of it. IN
/ it the honorable gentleman admits that
/ the country has grown from sea to sea
and from gulf to lake in the expansion
! of its progress, and that it has increased
nightly in wealth, prosperity, power,
! in everything, in short, which goes
/ to make up a nations greatness, under
/ the system of protection. And then he
asks in substance, why it would not be
| the height of wisdom to break down
/ this system and revOlutiOnize the policy
under which this prosperity has been
secured, by adopting the recommends
| tiOns embraced in the presidents free
/ trade message and practically embOd-
/ led in the Mills bill.