Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-08-14
TARIFF AND EDUCATION.
Free Trade Would Destroy the True BASIS
of Our government. /.

OF Our government.
Is not the discussion of the tariff con.
Quoted upon a basis much below what the
best interests of those most concerned
demand2
The main argument is, that under the
effective operation of a protective tariff
manufacturers and working capitalists
are able to pay larger wages to their OPP
e~ratives and laborers than under a tariff
for revenue only, or any system approach.
ing free trade. That this proposition is
true and the argument sound can be con
clusively shown. But the argument
which stops with telling the workngnan
that under q protective tariff he is in re
ceipt of higher wages; hat he can eat
more meat, better bread and butter and
more of it, and wear better clothes than
his brother workman in England and on
the Continent; which does not bring the
discussion up to u higher plane than mere
physical needs and advantages, is fraught
with error and is worthy only of the poll
tician, who once q year can trust his hand
in the strong hand of the laboring man
and ask him for his vote.
The error lies in this: The argument
leaves the impression and tends to make
the laboring masses of our citizenship
feel that they are the wards of the ma
ton, and that the nation and it's law
making powers are bound to protect them
in all that pertains to their physical well
fare, instead of the true view that they
are the strength and backbone of tho ma
ton, that they are free men, each an in
dividual member of q commonwealth of
freemen, and Us such bound to hold fast
and sacredly guard those privileges which
shall enable them to exercise intelligently
and preserve unimpaired to their children
their liberties and rights as freemen.
Granting, what it Is presumed no one
will deny, that love of country and the
perpetuation of her democratic institu-
to every patriotic American, regardless of
party affiliations, we come to the ques-
ton, How is this end to be securedf
None are so blind as not to see that upon
the education of the laboring masses of
her citizens must depend the safety and
integrity of the nation and her institu-
lions.
Henry Ward Beecher gave terse utter
anc to the truth in the expression, .We
must educate or we must perish" That
great philosopher in France, and ex-
FOUNDER of the philosophy of law, Mon
tesquieu, saw the need but could not
reach the goal of his desires. His words
are: t'The laws of education are the first
that we receive, and prepare us to be citi-
zens. They are different in each form of
government, and in each have q different
object; in the republics they have for
their object virtue. = v \ This virtue
may be defined, the love of law and of
country. All depends, then, in a repub-
lie, upon the establishment of this love;
and 1t is to inspire it that education
ought to receive the highest attention"
-Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Book ",
i, v.
The farmer. the agricultural laborer
and the wage worker in the cities and
manufacturing establishments make up
an M majority of the voters of the
nation. These men by ballot chose their
representatives and agents: not to tell
them what laws they need, not to instruct
them in the art of government, but tc
embody in proper form, ard as their agents
provide for the execution of such laws as
the voters, as principals, think necessary
for the promotion of their best interests.
Nor do they this unwisely or without In.
telligent exercise of their rights and
powers. By the policy of their govern.
msnt, in the exercise Of their sovereign
powers they have provided for themselves,
and placed within the reach of every indI-
vidual schools, and other means Of educa
tion, in name and extent unknown tx
any other people. They have awaited
themselves of these means their intelli
gence has provided until they have at
tanned q degree of intellectual advance
ment and development u~nequaled in any
country, by reason of which they are able
to cope with, and think and act intelli,
gently upon questions of policy
and of government, upon which
citizens of the same class il
other countries have no time o.
inclination or ability to think. Thet
children growing up under such inhu
ences, surrounded by and listening daily
to the conversation Of the fathers, O
reading daily Of the printed discussion
on these grave subjects, educated in tn
principles of self government, imbues
with true notions Of the liberty and indie
pendence which is theirs under the insti
tutions and government of the state o
which they form a part, early learn t.
love those institutions, and early becom
familiar with the principles and opera
tons of that government.
The danger then Is not from within
but from without. The first great DANCE
arises from the importation of foreign
clements which refuse to assimilate witt
the native strength Of our nat+on; whicl
ignore our habits Of thought and system
of advancement and development, and b
government by scorning and chillin,
the love for its independence and its II
stitutions. Guards against this DANCE
have been to some extent erected. an,
wisely, too.
But another danger lies in the whole
sale and untrammeled importation of til
products Of the poorly paid, poorly fed
poorly clothed and more poorly educate
labor of foreign countries. When tn
wage workers and laborers of this natio,
shall, through free trade measures, b
forced to compete with the low, starva
ton wages of the old countries of Europe
with the decline of wages to that 10,
level, the educational facilities which ar
tho boast and pride OF our nation will dis
appear, for they by whose strength an
intelligence they were maintained are n
longer able to avail themselves of them
the intellectual development in which i
its hope of safety must cease to move on
because the energy and active intelligence
to which 1t owed Its onward movement
are things of the past; the Independent
manhood which was its bulwark of defens
will be no longer known, because tn
teaching by which it was imbued with til
principles of liberty and equality ar
crowded out by the pressure of the CON
petition of the starving millions OF Asi
and Europe.
When In this land the time and strength
of the whole family arc REQUIRED I
earn h wlges which under more patriot
father itlone had earned, the fathers, Gu