The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-05-04
ESTABLISHED 1880. /
I ]. H. ESTILL. EDITOR AND PRoPRIEroR.
BAR0NS FIX THE TAXES.
MR.. WILSON LAYS BARE TEE RE-
PUBLICAN TARIFF POLICY.

Thingsas They Pleased Under tho Old
Reg!me-Loyalty to the Union Now
Measured by the New Test of Tariff
Reform.
WASHINGTON, May S.-The House to-day
went into committee of the whole, with Mr.
Springer in the chair, on the tariff bill
Mr.. Wilson, of West Virginia, member of
the Ways and Means Committee, said that
the opponents of the bill represented the
issue to be between free trade and protec-
tion. 1t was rather an effort of the people
TO recover the right to tax themselves. The
rule that only those who paid taxes should
impose taxes was the universal test of free
government, but after twenty-five years of
protection, private interests were SO en-
trenched in the tariff. and had so over
borne public interests, that they re-
garded it as their exclusive domain,
and resented the intrusion of the people as
that of trespassers. This was not new.
Six years ago when a demand came from
the country for reduction of taxes, so
urgent that not even the Republican Con-
gress could neglect it, the chairman of the
WAYS and Means Committee came into this
House, not with bill to reduce the peo-
pies taxes, or stay the unneeded flow of
their money into the Treasury, but with
set argument to prove that the peoples rep
resentatives were not capable Of framing a
bill to tax the people.
A SURRENDER TO CAPITAL.
The Forty y-seventh Congress yielded to
his argument, and humbly invited the
protected interests to make known their
wishes to Congress through a commission
a majority of whom they were permitted
to select. But privilege grows with what it
feeds upon, and even rises to higher tones.
The time was when the test of LOYALTY to
the country was devotion to the Union in
its struggle for its preservation. Lately,
however, the country had been told that
even Mcclellan and Hancock must be
ranked as allies of the Confederacy, because
of their diSloyalty to a particular party;
but, in this debate a new test had been set
up and we have heard the name of a citizen
who stands before the world as the fore
most living representative Of American lit
erature, with a long and honorable record
of public service behind him, poet whose
words in days past-like Luther's words
had been battles for freedom, connected
with that of Benedict Arnold because he
would not bow down to the fetch of pro-
lection.
REPLYING TO BURROWS.
He repelled Mr. Burrows criticisms of
the manner in which this bill was prepared,
saying that such criticisms could not Justly
be made by those who stood for the defense
of the existing law. He said that
while our tariff rates were run
ming up from IS to 48 Der cent.
during the war, and Immediately thereafter
every interest that wished to become a
parasite on the people was permitted to die
tate its own terms and those terms still re-
mained. The so-called revision Of 1888 soon
turned into a struggle between the captains
Of industry for an increase of their bounties
and finally was thrown into a secret confer
ence committee, where higher rates were
given than either House had dared to vote
in public, and it was then hurried through
Congress without being sifted or read. Sup
pose the pending bill was prepared in secret.
WIDE DIFFERENCE.
There was all the difference IN the world
between bill prepared in secret and then
presented for months of debate and examin-
alton III Congress and before the PEOPLE,
and law made in secret, and hurried on
to the statute book without anybody
but the conclave that made it
understanding its provisions. He criticised
the claim of the minority that it
had reduced taxes, and said that whatever
reductions had been made had relieved
property, and thrown the burdens on those
least able to bear them, so that the tariff
could well say: "Whoever else escapes NV
exactions the poor l have always with me-
There was nothing, he said, that so vexed
the genuine protectOnist as tax that went
into the treasury. If he could not invent
a law for transferring large part of it
from the pocket of the man who earned it
to somebody's pocket who did not earn it,
he wiped it from the statute book, and in
this way alone had taxes been lessened since
the war.
REPUBLICAN WEAKNESS.
he declared that as in the past, SO now,
there was no craftsmanship in the Republi-
0an party to deal with this great question
OF the surplus Each speaker, so far as he
gave any hint Of his plan, had different
one.
THE CRY OF BoURBoNIsM.
MIR. Kelley had called his Democratic
colleagues Bourbons, and then almost i'm
mediately said he would deal with the sur
plus after the principles of Colbert and his
great pupil, Emperor Napoleon. But Col
bert was the minister of the chief of the
Bourbous, and neither Colbert nor Napoleon
We're teachers to whom the citizens Of free
republic could turn for instruction as TO
levyng or eKpending taxes. 1t was Colbert
VINO built up his masters navy by chaining
10 the galleys thousands Of innocent citizens
just as protection had built up monopoly
oy chaning millions of farmers and labor
ing men to it's service
AN APT DEFINITION.
1t was Colbert who defined the art of
taxation" to consist in $50 plucking tho
goose as to get the greatest possible Of the
feathers with the lesst possible amount of
sGuealng." There never had been more
apt or complete definition of the protective
tariff. Those VINO resisted this very
moderate measure did not reason, they
lToPhesied. Privilege had never released
Tue people from its tribute without assum-
ing the role of Cassandra, and prophesying
uhuttersole woes as the immediate conse-
quence
WHAT HISTORY SHOWS.
Those who were going to blot out the SUM-
moon and stars from our industrial flrma-
ment il this bill passed, might quiet their
IeaIs II they read a few chapters in the
past experience of England and this coun-
tly Whom it came TO dealing with our
own history, protection acted on the
rule Of the Ohio politician, 10
CAIN everything. Whatever we had
gained in common with all other enlight-
ehed peoples by our efforts and theirs, by
man growing control over the powers OF
nature, from the advance Of science, and of
invention, whatever cdded.wealth had come
10 US from rapid settlement of the great
continent, the enterprise and industry of
Ius people and its mineral and other re-
sources.