Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-03-07
TARIFF CONVENTION.
Proceedings Of the Reform Con.
ference in Chicago.

A0I0uC0 III OulCd8O.
Tariff Reformers Meet to Discuss the Re-
duction of Taxation-Speeches by Men
Prominently identified with tho
Observation-Disclosures Adopted.
The recent conference of the American
Tariff Reform League at Chicago was well
attended ]. Sterling Morton, Ex-Governor
of Nebraska, was elected permanent chair
man. Mr.. Morton, in taking the chair, spoke
of the honor of presiding over a meeting
called not to name a man for an office, but
to proclaim "a true principle of human
government, the essence of liberty itself "
They were there as abolitionists to make
commerce as free as America had made
thought, speech and the free press
Among the letters of encouragement was
an autograph letter from President Cteve-
land, which was read and received with
great enthusiasm After indorsing the pur-
pose of the league as set forth in its circular,
he says:
is the misleading of countrymen by spe-
clous theories, cunnngly eontrived. and falsely
offering to the people relief from personal
burdens and the legitimate expenses necessary
to secure the benefits of benefcent rule under
the sanction of free institutions.
The declared purpose of your league will not
be attained until ali those instructed in the
economic question which Is now pressed upon
their attention are freed from all sophistries and
clouding fallacies and until the subject of.tarff
reform presented to them as topic involving
the relief OF the plain people in Their homes
from useless and unjust expense.
The following well-known gentlemen
were elected officers of the conference:
Observation-Disclosures W. Deering, Illi-
nos: Horace White, New York; Henry A. Rob-
inson, Michigan: Enoch Harpole, Kansas; E.
W. Judd. Massachusetts,; S. w. Williams, In
diana; Jesse Metcalf, Rhode Island; R. b.
Kirkland Wisconsin; Governor Simon B.
Buckner. Kentucky; K G. Harger. Iowa; E.
NJ. Wilson, Minnesota; James d. Hancock,
Pennsylvania; j. Lawrence Durham, Con-
uect:cut; Harbert Boggs, New Jersey, and j.
0. Smith, Ohio.
Observation-Disclosures W. Thomas, Texas i;
Walter H Page Massachusetts, j. Lawrence
Durham, Connecticut, and John L. White and
w. E. Thome. Illinois.
A large number of resolutions were pre-
sented and referred. c. G. McDOugal of
Handforth, Ill. representing the farmers of
the convention, offered a resolution which
reads thus:
I'VE believe, with our facilities for trans
portst on and exchange which enable US to
produce upon our land the crop that yields the
largest returns, with long hours of labor,
and above all with our unequaled soil and eli
mate. that We are able-in fact, always have
Deel ana always Will De aDie-IO compete III
the markets OF the world in the sale of agri-
cultural products
Tie first speaker was Charles K. Ladd, of
Illinois. He began by observing that a con-
test was going on between the laboring
many and the crafty few. The issues to-day
were the same as the issues of 1860 The
masses were contending against money
aristocracy. For the last twenty-five years
the country had been nothing but a great
INN Shp flr1l of slave chains broken
onets and polished brass buttons When a
tax bill was presented for payment the poll
tician would harangue the people and say:
didn't we save the country: Didn't the
war cost something's" The fiattered voters
would swell up with a consciousness of hav-
ing saved the country and give their votes
to sustain the schemers. The speaker said
the country adjoining the town in which
he lived was as beautiful and fertile as any
In the world
The people were honest and thrifty and
yet during the last winter more auction
sales and extensions of interest had been
made than any previous year. The debts
for which the sales had been made were due
men who twenty-five years ago were not
worth a dollar and who had grown rich off
the extras of a protective" tariff. A mer-
chant in Canada had told him that he had
sold American axes for twenty years in
Will axes,
he had been obliged to pay a duty upon
them of two dollars a dozen, and yet the
tarifhtes said that duty must be levied in
order that Americans might be able to make
axes at all In conclusion, Mr.. Ladd said
the convention should be named the ''Eman-
cipation convention rather than Tariff
Reform convention.
Governor Buckner of Kentucky, said that
q President had just been elected by
Il A. l. -
go to Washington to inaugurate an admin
istration whose chief purpose was to per-
petuate an odious system of taxation for the
benefit of a class. He believed, however,
that free trade had only received a check
and that the movement would gather such
momentum within four years as would gain
victory in 1892
Thomas J. Shearman, of Brooklyn, N Y,
spoke on Protection, the Enemy of Indus
try" He began in a droll way, putting the
protectionist argument in a shape to con-
vulse his audience. He enlarged his sub
ject and made protection out to be the COM
mon enemy of humanity. Growing serious
he fell to quoting dates and statistics to
show that protection in the United States
had proved itself the enemy of agriculture,
of labor and even of its pets, the manu-
facturers He laid the blame for the i'm
portation of foreign pauper laborers on the
DrOtectIOn anu 10 III Iut
ruin of the iron and steel trade in the East,
while the West, where protection was al
most neutralized by reduced railroad rates,
had reached production of iron and steel
manufactures eleven times as large as hf-
teen years ago
Clinton Kurdish, of Illinois, ikened
Grover Cleveland to Stephen A Douglas,
and proceeded to attack the old political
parties and in q fierce vein OF mingled sat
ire and invective rebuked Congress for re-
fusing to obey the dictates of the people to
reduce the tariff He said:
We tried to get reduction from 100 per
cent. tariff and We were told we had to be
content with reduction of per cent, be-
cause it was all We could get from Congress
elected by Democrats. The Republican party
have levied on the people a tax which plunges
5O,OoJ.OOO of white men into a slavery thou
sand times worse than the slavery from which
they rescued 10000, 900 of black men. IT'S all
the same when you have run the gamut OF the
Republican party from Blaine to Wanamaker,
no matter whether you run from Blaine down
or the other way"
j. @ Smith, of Ohio read a paper on THE
Mills Bill" and The Senate Substitute. -
The Mills bill was not perfect, Mr.. Smith
said but it was much better than the Senate
bill Mr.. Mills bill provided for reduction
of s7S, 600 600 while the diminution by the
Senate bill would be only 81 CO. OoO The pas
sage of the Mills bill would save to the pub
lie $50 600 600 on imported goods and $780,
OOO 600 by the necessary reduction of price
of American-made goods of the same C ass
Mr. Hancock, of Philadelphia. chairman