Morning journal and courier., 1888-04-19
TARIFF REFORM.

Hon. Frank Hard of Ohio Speaks
 Under the Auspices of the Yale Kent
 Club at She MYperiOn-A Large Audi
 enee.
 The frEt lecture of the Yale Kent club course took place at the Hyperion last eyen- ing and was very largely attended. nearly
 every seat in the house being taken. Presi-
 dent c. D. Reinhardt of the club in few
 we'll chosen words introduced the lecturer of
 the evening, Hon. Frank H. Hurd of Ohio,
 who delivered avery interesting lecture on
 fTariff Reform,n during which he said:
 The Congress of 1862, which passed this
 tariff reform bill, could not make it irrepara-
 ble, and those who then asked for it and took
 it, took it as it was, and it is too late now for
 them to complain. After having enjoyed it's
 benefits must they not take it's burdena It is dangerous thing for man to take into his business as partner the Congress of the United States. It is not enough that yon should know the natural laws of your coun- try without going to lawmaking your selves and have for partner body who don't know it's own mind on the subject. It is twenty-five years since law was passed by the United States to lay taxes, and to-day you have the same tax system as then and the same
 
 our treasury, and this system must change soon or the time will come when all of your money will be locked up in our treasury. There are two vsays to do this-by abatement of the revenue tax or by tariff reform. Shall the taxsbe taken of from whisky and such things which are luxuries and our children go to school poorly clad, or shall it come off of necessaries, as it surely must, by reduce ton of the tariff. When tariff is imposed for raising money for the government what is known as a revenue tariff is laid, but when l it is laid for helping man in his private business it is called 8 protective tariff, and to ! this I am utterly opposed. Applause; Whose government is ita Ours. And shall I it protect one mans interests and not another. Equal protection is no protection. Unequal protection is that one man shall be protected over another. For instance, go into the blow business, and if make money don't want the government to help me, but ' if am poor I do, and so the public are made \ to pay two prices for an article, though one maker should be no more protected than the others. As you will see from last years statistics the increase on foreign goods is | nearly ferty-seven per cent. and on domestic goods nearly the same, and to the things the poor have to have nearly one-third of the | whole. Now the average wage earner gets possibly S400 year and this is consumed in the \ support of his family by purchasing for them \ the bare necessities of life. The tariff don't | give the laboring man one cent of the $4OO, but makes him pay one-third more than the ! articles are worth. One-third of his money stolen by law, one-third of his time spent for nothing at hard work, and how much | better it would have been could he have saw ' ed it for everybody, and when he grows old he would not then have had to be supported \ by his friends or the public, as is the case in
 almost every instance now, and simply be- cause their savings were torn and stolen \ from them by this tariff when they were strong. (Applause.) I charge that every \ dollar in increase of the original price the | tariff makes is day of slave's labor for the | workingman and is stolen from him. How does the tariff affect the farmer in regard to I his foreign market, and what | are the results? The farmer takes | ,O00 bushels of wheat and goes abroad to \ sell it. and gets 1 1000 yards of cloth for it.. He brings it back, and when he arrives here \ the custom house takes half of it, and in the ! end what does the farmer receive for his | ,000 bushels of wheat2 Why only 300 yards \ of cloth, and the same if it were money; in | the end for $1 ,000 he would receive but $500, \ and the result is that the farm CT is swamped | in his vat grain, being unable to find mar | ket for his goods, nor will he do so until the barriers of this tariff are broKen away. The \ manufacturers in general are little aware of ! the effect this law has upon them. Some | manufacturers are aided by natural means ' and so don't feel it, while others protected | by our patent laws are able to compete with the market and don't need it, while still others are totally ignorant of it. While believe that many of these manufacturers are interested in the trusts now being formed in this country to limit production, I do not believe they are aware that this very ! tariff gives them the means of making them Let goods come into this country free and | the market would be too large to combine | and form trust of, and if you don't want trusts you must reduce tariff, so I for one shall not cease my efforts until these monop- olies are oyerthrown and the workingmen set free. What means the rapid growth of man. ufactories in the West and Southi It means that the manufactories of New England will be diminished, the West and South making their own supplies and leaving the world for your market. The speaker then concluded by giving several very glowing illustrations of the growth of the United States if the tariff was reduced and the benefit it would be to the people of this country