The Portland daily press., 1888-05-21

dence and.cOurage. Have you never reIndfkeu
the wonderful difference between a sleepy
country village, living lazily alongside an un-
used waterfall, where more than half the en-
ergy Of the people was lost for the lack OF the
KING OF work they wanted TO do; where,
whenever three men met In the road, the
rest looked out Of the windows, idly wonder
ing what the riot was about, and that same
village after the banks were lined with
workshops and the air was noisy with the
whir OF the spindles, and every man was so
eager to work that there never seemed hours
enough in the day to tear from the powers
Of nature their imprisoned richness?
If you have, you have also seen the con-
trast between men left to themselves, so
many foot-pounds and fractions Of horse
power, and men melted by hope, spurred on
by ambition, and lighted on their way by the
confidence OF success.
For nation to get out of itself or out of
the earth all the wealth there is in both, it is
not necessary for the nation 10 buy cheap or
sell dear. That concerns individuals alone
What concerns the nation Is how 10 utilize
all the work there Is in men, both In muscle
and brain, of body and Of soul, in the great
enterprise Of setting in motion the ever-gra-
tutous forces of nature.
How shall you get out Of the people OF
nation their full powers? Right here Is pre-
cisely the dividing line. The let-alOne school
say leave individual man to his own devices.
The protectionist school say let US stimulate
combined and aggregated manEto united en-
deavor. What made men work before gov
ernments? Was 1t an intellectual belief that
work was good for the musclesY Not the
least in the world. 1t was hunger and de-
sire. Hunger has ceased to play the greater
part, but desire will never pass away.
In the ever-gr0wing desire OF mankind Tor
new worlds of comfort and luxury to conquer
Is the blazing promise Of the unhastening, un-
resting march of civilization. In that column
of march the whole nation must be ranged.
Association is the instinct Of humanity
which grows with its growth. First the
family, then the tribe, and then the nation.
The race will come by and by. FaithfulnesS
to each in their order is thetrua route TO the
next.
Here in the United States are GO,OO0,O00
people with all the varied characters their
numbers indicate, Some have faculties fit
for farming, some for the management Oh
machinery, some for invention. The prob
lem before you is what system will get from
all these creatures, so different from each
other, the maximum OF work and wealth and
wisdom.
/ have already said that the great incen-
tive, the motive power Of man, Is desire.
That is the magnet which draws him, but,
like all other magnets, 1t must be put near
the armature. The quenching of desire
must not cost too much. The pathway to its
accomplishment must not be too rugged. III
you say to him who loves invention and
hates farming, your path and your desire lies
say this thing costs too much. If you say to
the man who loves the fields, your way must
be through the workshop, you bar his pro-
gress.
There is only one way to get the best work
out of men, and that is to give each the work
he can do best You can only accomplish
this by diversifying industry. To diversity
industry completely in a country such as
ours, there is but one way given under
Heaven among men. TO enable the Ameri-
can people themselves to supply all their
wants, you must give and assure to the
American people the American markets.
What does this phrase mean in practical life?
IL means that we, the nation, say to capital,
Embark yourself in the manufacture Of
such and such articles, and you shall have
a market to the extent Of the wants OF the
American people"
Capital then says to labor, go with me
into this new field, all of you who like this
work best and we will share the results"
Then begins new industry. Multiply this
by hundreds and you have a community
where every man honestly minded will get
what on the whole suits him best, and the
nation will get the greatest amount Of werk
from the greatest number.
To this system, so far sketched, no human
being can find reasonable objections. But 1t
Is averred that there are some drawbacks
1t is alleged that the people who are in the
older industries-those which establish
themselves without law-have to pay higher
prices for the articles so manufactured, and
that the employment In new industries is all
at their expense. This does not in the least
touch upon the utilization Of human energy
and natural energy which would 9TH
erwise run to waste. 1t does not
touch upon the question Of the divine
right of those who are adapted to the
older industries to reap alone the riches Of
the earth
So seemingly unjust has this appeared in
one instance, that Of the landowner, that a
prominent free-trader, Mr.. Henry George,
who will vote next election for revenue re-
form, has proposed to take away from land
more or less Of its value to the owner. That
/ do not agree to. i make no reclamati0ns
on that account.
| meet the question squarely and assever-
ate that protection does not raise prices.
The opposite statement and the argument
which backs 1t up l propose to state fairly,
fO- we now come to the famous revenue
reform dilemma. You tell us, they say, that
protection Is for the purpose Of enhancing
prices to enable high wages to be paid, and
yet you say that protection lowers prices.
This is fiat contradiction. So it is as you
state it. But your statement, like all reye-
nue-reform statements, fourishes only by
assumption.
In order to make yourself clear, you have
utterly omitted the element of time. You
assume that we say that both our statements
of higher prices for higher wages and lower
prices for consumers are for the same instant
of time. Not so. When you begin there are
higher prices for higher wages, but when
you establish your manufactures, at once
the universal law Of competition begins to
work. The manufactures abroad, urged
upon by the lower prices which the tariff
forces them to offer in order to compete with
us, cause every element of economy in manu-
facture to be set in motion. Every intellect
Is put to work to devise new machinery
which will produce at lower cost, to seek out
dc nf raffl II To
tion Of effort to lessen general expenses, and
the thousand and one devices every year
invented to get more work out Of the powers
of nature.
At home the same causes are at work, and
with redoubled energy, because on account
Of higher wages there are greater induce
ments to substitute labor saving devices for
costly labor. And this colossal struggle be-
tween two great empires Of industry, the for
eign and the domestic, results everywhere in
the cheapness of commodities, in which pro-
gress Of cheapness the world has marched on
in one unbroken undertaking line, until to-
day the citizens of the United States, the
sovereigns of to-day, as we call them in mo-
ments of patriotic exultati0n, the poorest cit
liens have for the cOmmonest necessities OF
life the luxuries of the sovereigns of old
days.
That lower prices will come at once, we
have never said. That they will come and
grow lower and lower and lower so that in
the series of years which make up a mans
life all he needs will cost him less than under
revenue reform we asseverate and maintain,
and all history is behind our asseveratiOns.
But would not all this take place under
free trade would not English manufacturers,
supplying all the world, have grown thus
cheaper by themselves? Let me answer this
question by two others. Do you believe in
the lowering Of prices by competition? OF
course you do. Do you believe that the
great production of 81, 900, ,OO0, 900 Of manufae-
lures have not entered into competition with
those of England? You know that they
have been the great power which has forced
English prices down.
DO you want an example of to-day? In
1888 the importers were eager to prevent the
increase of the tariff on pottery. l know 1t,
because gentleman was here earnestly urg-
ing me not to consent to the increase Only
three years afterward he acknowledged to
me that the foreign manufacturers were
obliged, in the face Of the great increase Of
product, both in quantity and quality, to cut
their prices so as to pay even more than the
tariff tax. Perhaps some revenue reformer
may ask me, on the strength Of this example,
how our raising tariff helped manufacturers
here if the foreign manufacturer lowered his
prices.
am glad to answer that question, for it
answers many others. Before the raise we
were on pottery fighting foreigners g0rged
with profits and flushed with the spoils of
our markets To-day we are fighting them
on even terms, or would have been, but for
the package clause. Their profits would be
going into our treasury, not into their pock
cts, aud between them and us would still be