The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1888-07-19
HE EAKORS PROTECTTOM.
MR., JOHN FLYNN, OF TROY, EX-
PRESSES HIS VIEWS,

PRESSES HIS VIEWS,
He Very Clearly Shows the Disastrous
Effect the Mills Bill Would Have on the
Knit Goods Industry-Although Loyal
Democrat, He will Vote for Harrison
This Year
In an interview had by an Amsterdam,
N. y, Democrat reporter with Mr.. John
Flynn, of Troy, N, Y, dealer in knit
goods and selling agent for the Troy
Manufacturing Company of Cohoes, N.
Y, and for George lockwood & Co., OF
Bennington, VT, manufacturers of knit
underwear in relation to the probable
effect of the Mills tariff bill on the knit
goods industry, and as to his position on
the free trade issue, a day or two ago,
Mr.. Flynn said:
81 have examined with some care. the
Mills bill and read several OF the
speeches made in Congress in its sup
port, Whatever consolation those
Democrats who are straining to swallow
the free trade pill because it seems to be
party measure, may derive from those
speeches and the arguments of the pre-
tended revenue reformers, they fail to
llC, 40 u DuoiuGoo Niob ~
Is sound policy to raise the gates and
flood our markets with cheap foreign
goods. l distrust the tender solicitude
manifested for the workingman by our
Southern brethren and our English
friends particularly as their promises to
supply the workingman with all the
necessaries and great proportion of the
luxuIies of life at next to nothing prices,
is not wholly disinterested,
MIR. Congressman Mills, and his CO.
terie of free traders aud so-called
revenue reformers, who have forced this
Issue of free trade upon an unwilling
people, may crack the party whip as
loudly as they please, but there are
loyal Democrats, and am one of them,
who do not propose to be driven into
the support of a measure which they
believe is a ruinous one for the northern,
western and eastern portions of this
country. We regret the necessity which
places us in this campaign outside of
the party ranks, as it were, on the Ma
tional ticket, but what would you have
us do?
Can l support measure which pro-
poses to reduce the tariff on knit goods
2915 per cent. 22I3 per cent. 25ll per
cent. and As per cent. according to
grader Which puts lumber aud marble
on the free list; proposes to annihilate
the salt industry; places cotton ties made
from hoop iron on the free list so that
our Southern brethren can buy them at
two cents per pound and send them back
to us, around the cotton bales billed as
cotton at to IA cents per pound; which
discriminates against some Of the most
important industries of the land and
would enforce upon large portion OF
our population perpetual holiday
I'VE do not need any such revenue re.
form as that. This talk about Mill
Lords, monopoly and trusts, and a
ruinous surplus in the National Treas
ury, wrung from a suffering people,
taxed to death, is campaign dodge that
the intelligent workingman will not be-
lieye. We are, in this country, essen
TALLY working people, and we contain
within ourselves all the elements neces-
sary to a self-sustaining nation. Under
the stimulus of a protective tariff, we
have in % years increased our pOpula-
ton from 80 000, 900 to 10000, 900 Vas
tracts of country have been transformed
from a wild desert into fertile and popu
lous states. Cities have spung up in the
great west, like magic. The manufac-
turer, the merchant, the farmer, the
mill hand, the mechanic and all classes
dependent on them have prospered to-
gether; and no one discovered the need
of any sweeping tariff revision until Mr..
Grover Cleveland conceived the idea
that his political fortunes demanded an
| issue.
"What has been the consequence
| Why, President Cleveland's free trade
message, and the Mills tariff bill have
disturbed and unsettled the business Of
the whole country and England. the
once boosted workshop of the world,
stands ready to regain her former pres
tige, and flood our markets to the ruin
of certain of our honest industries.
Now, when it is morally certain that
a reduction of 2212 per cent, 25li cent.
20l2 per cent, AZ per cent. on knit
goods will drive our domestic goods out
Of our own markets, and close our mills
and throw our operative idle upon the
streets, when other industries, such as
the numbering trade, the salt trade, the
iron trade, the marble and the wood in
terests must suffer in proportion, should
|, as business man, support on ma
tional issue party that proposes to pass
measure which will ruin my business
and close the workshops and factories OF
the land by its sweeping and inconsider.
ate prOvisionsI
THE moment our wOrkingmpn lose
their wage earning facilities the whole
community must suffer, and of what
avail will it be then that free trade has
lowered the price OF the necessaries and
the luxuries of life, when the power to
purchase 10 gone. which would be the
result OF the passage of the Mills Bill.
This is home question, important in
far greater degree, to the millions OF
the north, west and east, who must de-
dend upon manufacturing interests for
their daily bread, than it can be to the
people of the one or two Southern States
for whose benefit the rest of the cOun-
try il pay tax OF forty-five millions OF
dollars on suguar alone, out Of the
eighty-six millions dollars import du-
ties the revised tariff is expected to yield
as revenue as per the schedule which
Mr.. Mills attaches to his report accom-.
panying his bill, thus leaving about
forty one millions Of dollars only of pro.
tective duty upon the remaining INDUS
tries of the country.
IL am, and propose to remain Demo.
crat, but on this issue OF whether shall
blindly follow the party in support Of a
measure which must prove disastrous tC
my line OF BUSINESS, or vote as my judg
ment dictates on the National ticket. my
plain duty is to oppose the Mills tariff
bill by voting against its supporters aud
| hsYe the satisfaction of knowing that
other loyal Democrats intend to do like
WISE"