, 1888-02-03
Sherman Answered.


WASHINGTON, Feb. AT 3 o'clock
to-day Senator Kenna secured the floor to
reply to the tariff speech Of Senator
Sherman. All the circumstances, he said,
justified the belief that the speech was ex-
haustive Of the resources of the senator
from Ohio and the party Of which he was
the leading representative which could be
invoked in criticism OF the president S
message. The senator from Ohio had
dismissed the solemn warming of the pres
ident with a wave of his hand. He had
treated the large and growing treasury
surplus as a matter neither requiring at
tention nor iustiiying apprehension. The
great statesman whom Sherman had
quoted did not share such an opinion.
Sherman had CARRIED the words which he
quoted from President jefferson so as to
Justify his own opinion. Jefferson had
%solcnInly invoked a change in the organic
law Of the land to avert the danger Of
surplus. Gen. Jackson, Daniel Webster
and a succession of republican presidents
and secretaries of the treasury had shared
the apprehension expressed by President
Cleveland.
Republican statesmen voicing such
opinions had not been denounced as free
traders. The voice OF the responsible of
ficials of the government was united in its
expression of the dangers which Presi-
dent Cleveland has called upon congress
to avert. No patriotic American, except
ing possibly Sherman himself, calmly
contemplated the unnecessary withdrawal
and boarding of money. Senator Sher-
man had protested most vigorously
against the president declaring that the
internal revenue should not be done away
with. In 1867 Senator Sherman himself
had expressed much the same opinion
that he now SO severely criticised. In
1870 and in 1882 he had eloquently and
forcibly maintained much the same views.
Senator Sherman had charged that the
treasury surplus was due to the presi-
dents failure to exercise his legal func-
tons. This charge was based mainly on
the fact that the president had opposed
shipping subsidies. Upon such criticism
the president could well afford to meet the
issue.
Senator Kenna then proceeded to the
discussion in detail of the effect upon the
revenue and upon the domestic interests
of a judicious revision of the tariff, dis
putting almost every economic proposition
advanced by Sherman, and maintaining
that the presidents suggestions pointed
the way not only to relief from burden
some taXatiOns and excessive revenue but
also to increased prosperity and the cor
rection Of innumerable evils without dis
regard for any established interests Of the
country. The true solution of the diff
Guilty, he said, is a fair and just medium
which shall produce the reyenue which
the country needs, no more or no less,
according to the plain dictates of common
l--.... .. l.luua1 L. Al. IL H.
cratic platform and in a spirit of fairness
to all interests.
Sherman had declared that to lift the
burdens of the laboring man and to give
him equal opportunities in the great
struggle of life would be to degrade him.
To show the senator's inconsistency on
4, 1864, passed under the special patron
age of Sherman, allowing immigration
under contract. In very recent years the
honorable senator voted against a bill to
restrict immigration of Chinese. He
afterwards pleaded for a limitation of the
term of exclusion to five years, and final
ly voting for the last bill, he insisted that
every skilled laborcr in China should be
excluded IRON its operation.
While our excess of import duties has
nav q ANhNNilAS " buLlN up al lO0NNA
monopoly it has had a like tendency to
invoke free competition to labor and re-
duce working men to a minimum of COM
pensation Yet laboring men are blandly
told that they are to bind themselves
hand and foot forever and forever to a
system to which gives them all free trade
and competition, and to others, the priyi-
legged few, monopoly and profit.
He (Kenna) was mistaken in the intel
ligence of the American laborCr, if it
allowed that condition to longer exist. A
bill 10 reform this revenue system and re-
duce taxation would come from the house
and he did not doubt that it would be
framed in n spirit of conservative fairness
to all sections and all interests. The cry
of the demagoguc that the president and
his policy were aiming at lcssening the
just reward of labor was as indecent as it
was false. The system of taxation in
this country tor the last twenty years has
been a standard of menace and a source
of constant injury to the laborer himself.