Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-09-27
THE STORY BRIEFLY TOLD.
What Tariff Agitation and Free Trade Have
Dune in the Past

Dune in the Past.
At the next National Anniversary of our
independence it will be just century
since Washington signed the first federal
tariff act. l. was not "for revenue only"
but for the protection of the people. Il
began with the words, "Whereas It is
necessary for the support OF the govern
ment, for the discharge of the debt of the
United States, and for the encouragement
and protection of manufacturers, that
duties be levied on i'm ported goods"
This tar f, modified but slightly Tex
cepung a tenn porary increase during tbs
War of 1922, was continued until 1916.
Important industries wsre slowly vitaized.
Business sprapg into vigorous life. Com
merce was expanded. An industrious aud
contented people pros pered under the
accommodations Of national enterprise and
wealth.
In 1916, through the ascendency of the
Democratic party, this tariff was re pealed,
and on with the lowest possible duties re-
placed If. The furnaces and factories
that had sprung no, hardly as yet estab.
Ighed, were annihilated by foreign com
petition, and Great Britain deluged our
markets with goods poured in below con-
away Ike grass before q prairie fire.
Displaced labor overlooked into agricul
tural EN- ploy, and wages went down and
down. Henry Clay said in q speech at
that time that ''property values we're by
this policy slaug htered more than 80 per
cent.
The tariff of 1924 restored national
pros perits. Free trade in 1882 cancelled
again values by its tariff '-for revenue
oniy," sirangling both industry and com
merce.
In 1912, exhausted by experiment. mis-
rule ana free trade, the country restored
the whig party, with dominant policy
of protection, TO power.
The south, seeing it's peculiar ipstitu-
ton" threatened by the wonderful pros
perity of the north, aid the probab ility
of its loss of political supremacy, tyran-
nizsd the democratic party into practical
serfdom. III 1916, this political combin-
alton, defensive aud destructive, again
established substantial free trade. The
Old tragedy was repeated. Business was
paraiyZed and ruin undermined the work
or the labosi0us and prosperous years.
Exports fell off from $68 100000 to $21,-
100000 per anuum, yet our I'M portations
Cnder the lowered rate of duty were
doubled. The only reason wider spread
disaster cid not again overwhelm US was
tha5 we paid our European Indebtedness
of nearly thousand millions of dollars
from the newly discovered treasures of
California.
In 1857 the free trade South again de.
manded through the Democratic party
lowering of the already low rate of du
ties. Cotton and tobacco, of which the
Sou7h held q monopoly In the worlds
market, placed il be! ond com petition and
1T remained uninjured. Northern enter
prlses, however, were stopped. public
works abandoned and tens of thousands
of employees, laboring in manufactures
and mines, were thrown out of work and
glutted the already overloaded channels
of labor. The government itself, lacking
revenues for its expenses from SO low
tariff, resorted with a shaken credit to
loans. It paid rate of interest as high
as II per cent. on its bones that under the
protective policy of the Republican party
have been marked down at 212 and 3 per
cent. Is there in this any lesson to be
learned, or is knowledge again to be
reached by punishment?