Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-08-30
THE TARIFF ISSUE,
The Condition of Affairs When Free Trad
Had Free Sway-Some Hard Facts.


At recent mass meeting ct Nation,
ILL.,, Mr.. John F. Seaman the eloquent
Irish orator, who has made political
economy a study for years dealt out
some hard facts among winch were
these:
It's not necessary TO DUN our Gus
houses TO reach q -condfffon OF things
practically worse than free trade. A reve-
nue. tariff destroys our home industry. A
revenue tariff in 1920 reduced the country
TO abject poverty, threw the wOrkingmen
into idlenesS and removed home market
from the American farmer. During that
period -four sold in Pittsburg for 81 a
barrel, lumber for g per thousand. It
took twelve barrels of -four to q yard of
foreign broadcloth. Tea was worth 81 a
pound, or one barrel of flour, and farmer
took home two pounds OF coffee for a bar
rel of flour, and sold five and half bush
els of oats for So cents and took in ex-
change foreign-manufactured jeWSharp.
l took these figures out OF the book of a
country grocer. A revenue tariff reduced
our country TO a like condition in 1887,
closed our factories, and for the first time
In the history of the United States opened
soup-houses to feed American merchants.
The panic Of 1887 lost to this nation as
much money as it took to suppress the
last Rebellion, and left the country so
poor that in 1910 an agent was sent to Eu-
rope to borrow ten millions of dollars,
where he could find no person who would
take the loan, and when the government
advertised for popular loan. after his re-
turn, few hundred thousand dollars was
offered by citizens at modest rates of inter
est at from s to 80 per cent per annum.
The cry of the wOrkingmen was, accord
ing to Pittsburg newspaper OF that date:
Give US work, give US work at your
We have nothing for them to eatP'
The wing party, coming into power in
1910, gave the country a protective tariff
in 1912 and brought prosperity to the
American people, work to the working
men, and 8 home market to the farmer.
In 1916 the Democrats again introduced a
revenue tariff, and with the assistance of
another reduction in 1856 brought on the
panic of 1857. During this revenue tariff
period, from 1850 to 1860. the wages of the
wOrkingmen of this country, for laborers,
was so to rs cents; for mechanics, 81 to
$50. Corn was burned for fuel III Hi
noiS and Iowa. The money of the country
was so poor that in travelling from one
State into another one had to pay and
sometimes 10 per cent. exchange on the
money to do business with. Out of the
ITO banks in Illinois, when all of them f.
nancially failed five of them only redeemed
their notes at par While men were
was quoted at $3.50 a barrel. All foreign
manufactured goods were held up at a
high price because the competition of
American factories had been wiped out
by driving them into bankruptcy.
The Democrats now claim that they are
not for free trade. The history of their
party is more truthful than their claim
In the 1913 platform they congratulate
themselves ''in the noble impulse given to
the cause of free trade by the repeal of the
tariff of 1912" The platform of 1852 on
which Mr.. Pierce was nominated pro-
claimed for "unequivocal free trade"
The platform of 1856 on which Mr.. Blu
chanan was nominated declared 'in favor
of free seas and progressive free trade
throughout the world" and when the
Southern wing of the Democratic party
went into rebellion a section of their
Constitution prohibited them from ever
having q protective tariff.
A still greater evidence of the Democ-
racy's tendency toward free trade lies in
the fact that there has never been an Of
fetal proclamation issued by that party
in favor of protective tariff. Our demo
cratic friends claim that the farmer is
robbed by reason of the high tariff on steel
rails and railroad material by paving high
freightS to compensate the company, and
yet the London Ironmonger OF 1884 shows
that the freight rates in the United States
are cheaper than in any o cher country in
the world, as the following rates on coal
per ton per mile for the following named
countries prove: Belgium, 1 1-2 cents per
ton per mile; France, 1874; Germany, 2 "a;
England, 3 to cents; United States, !
cent