The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-04-08
TEXAS sTATEsMANsHIP.

Roger @. Mills has broken into the
North again, and broken out again with
his free-trade rant. Mills has sat at the
feet of cowboys and learned political
economy in the wild broncho school of
Texas. When he mounts his free-trade
hobby lie makes it prance like a Mexican
mustang on an open prairie. Mills is a
great -statesman-in Texas. His latest
deliverance was at a banquet of a
jefferson Club at Springfield, o., a few
nights ago. The club is one of those
which try to maintain the pleasant
fiction that Jefferson was one of the
founders of the Democratic party, and
that the so-called Democracy of to-day
is descended from that of his time. One
of the necessities of this fiction is to
maintain that Jefferson favored free
trade, whereas, in truth, he was decid-
edly in favor of the protection and
development of American industries.
Making Jefferson's birthday an occasion
for preaching free trade is about like
making Andrew Jackson's birthday an
occasion for preaching civil-service
reform.
In his speech at Springfield, after Offer
ing incense to the memory of Jefferson,
Mr.. Mills said that, as a people, we had
arrived at that stage when the productive
capacity of our labor had far oustripped
the capacity of our people for consump-
ton. He continued:
What are we to do with this surplus pro-
duction of our labori For nine months in
can consume in twelve. 1t means three
months of idleness for men who cannot af-
ford to be idle. men upon whose work de-
Ponds the subsistence of themselves, their
wives and children They must have EN-
ployment. What is the solution of this
question:
This is Monsieur Tonson come again.
1t is our old friend Bynum in a new
guise. Did Mills get from Bynum the
great idea that American workingmen
are idle and starving three months out
of every twelve, or did Bynum get it
from Mills? Perhaps they evolved it
between them. They belong to the
school of statesmen who seem to be as
much worried by a surplus production as
by a surplus revenue. Yourtrue Demo-
crat is never quite happy unless he is
causing a deficit of some kind.
Mr.. Mills asks: "What is the solution
of this question:" Of course his solu-
ton is free trade. The Texas idea is
that free trade would ''open the
markets Of the worldn to us
and thereby relieve our overproduction.
Mr.. Mills elaborated this idea very ably,
but it evidently never occurred to him
that free trade would open our markets
to the rest of the world as well as
theirs to us, and that in the end the
cheap labor of Europe would control
from overproduction; how much more,
then, are foreign countries suffering from
the same cause. He assumed that for
eign markets were waiting for us to en-
ter in and possess them, whereas, in fact,
they are inadequate to their own prod
ucts. Foreign markets are worse glutted
than ours, and for that reason foreign
manufacturers are looking with longing
and ayariciOus eyes to the American
market. If the American market is
glutted and suffering from overproduc-
ton, as Mills, of Texas, represents, it is
still, incomparably, the best in the
world, and, therefore, should be jeal-
ously guarded and preserved for
American manufacturers. He would
improve our market by admitting
the products of foreign cheap labor free
of duty, and would cure the evil of
overproduction by flooding the country
with foreign manufactures. If it were
true, as Mills and Bynum say, that
American workmen and factories are
idle three or four months out of every
twelve, how would they be bettered by
bringing them into direct competition
with the workmen and factories of
Europe? The Mills-Bynum idea is that
if two bodies of water, on different lev
els, one higher than the other, are con
nected by an unobstructed way, the
water will rush from the lower into
the higher until a level is established.
Great idea that!