The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1890-10-30
The Two Policies.

as the legitimate result OF the prOtec-
tive policy of the Republican party. it
is a waste of time and space to be hig
CLING over ten cent margins and talking
about the fractional points our neigh
Dor of the Vindicotor resorts to in
the opposition it essays to the Nc
Kinley bill. Were we 30 disposed we
might advance fact after fact and
argument upon argument to show that
our neighbor gives his cause away
when he quotes the reduced price Of
farm machinery, &C., as the result of
invention and not protection. Protec-
ton is the primary impulse and source
of invention, and every piece of ma
chinery that reduces the cost of labor is
the outgrowth of the protective policy.
While steel rails have been reduced
from $3.50 per ton to 1913 since the pro-
tective policy was inaugurated in 1868,
and the invention of Bessemer is
assigned AS the cause, we have simply
to answer had it not been for the tariff
on steel rails, the Bessemer process
would never have been introduced in
this country, nor would steel plants
have been established. And SO with all
other industries which have lessened
the price of the articles produced by
them. 1t is simply the effect of the
American policy of protection, stimulat-
ing American industry. American in
vention. and assuring to American labor
a remunerative return for effort, whether
of American Independence and supre-
macy in the line of manufactures. We
are no longer dependent on foreign me-
chAnjcs and manufacturers for what we
want. The protective policy has 80 en-
couraged industries and manufactures.
and so stimulated competition at home,
that every article the farmer uses and
every product that enters into the uses
of American homes. may be had at
greatly reduced prices compared to those
which prevailed before that policy was
adopted by this country
And alike inappOsite are the quota
tions of the Vindicator of the prices of
wheat from 1876 to 1857. During that
period the wheat area was circumscrlb-
ed. The great grain-producing regions
of the West and Northwest were then
unbroken prairies, with no communica
ton with the older settlements and the
wheat boundary. California was
mining camp; Kansas, Nebraska, the
Dakotas, and all the Northwest was
in virgin condition where the pillow had
not made a furrow, nor the husbandman
had habitation. Railroads have revo-
lutionized this. and to day they produce
about as much wheat as all of the old
States together. The gold discoveries
of the Pacific drew from the farming
elements of the old States thousands of
its hardy laborers and converted them in
to consumers-lessening the one and in
creasing the other-whi!e the famine in
Ireland and the Crimean war, involving
England, France and Russia in a stu
pendous martial conflict for two and a
half years, made America the grainery
from which their armies were supplied.
From 1848, when the Walker tariff was
adopted by a Democratic Congress, to
1857, the period embraced in the grain
quotations of the Wadicator, we had a
war with Mexico, famine in Ireland
which consumed our surplus, the rush
from the farms to the gold mines of
California, gigantic war between
France, England and Russia, drawing
upon this country for food supplies,
and such abnormal conditions favoring
American markets as never occurred be-
fore and may never occur again within
the same limit of time.
What followed as soon as these abnor-
NAL conditions ceased? The most wide
spread and disastrous panic the coun-
try ever experienced. eliminating in
ruined national credit and bankrupt
treasury. In no period of the nations
history, from 1916 to 1860, was there a
healthy and progressive condition of the
farming interest, except when in the three
or four instances where the protective
principle was recognized, to be repealed
by the Democratic party as soon as it got
the power, in favor of its ruinous free
trade policy. From 1861, Notwithstanding
The waste and destruction of four years
internecine swar, to tbs present, the
farming interests, as well as the manu-
featuring, have been growing in magni-
tude, our Industrial system under protec-
tion,. furnishing q home market for
-. Of
90 per cent. OF the whole volume. We
have forged ahead with marvellous
strides on all industrial lines. We have
substituted for the wildcat and State
banking currency great National sys-
tenn of finance, which makes our paper
money as good as gold the world over :;
and have go adjusted all the economic
laws of the country as to present spec
tacle Of national growth. development,
wealth and power as to astonish the
crowned heads of Europe and make
them tremble for fear of the example of
America ia a government of the eople,
by the people and for the People of our
own country. And the protective policy
is at lH6 Ddb0 Vi dIl tuiS NoIdAOuS
prosperity and progress. 1t is the
cornerstone upon which our national
character and national fame and ma
tional grandeur are founded, and the Nc
Kinley bill reflects and maintains hat
great principle from which.the policy is
drawn. Yet the democratic party
would strike down sthis policy-1s mi
flying, as it aoes, into every avenue of
trade and every department of business,
and topple the whole fabric to II in,
that an obeolete and disastrous II DRY
might be maintained.
The country is not ready for snch a
of ruir. 1t IL not rIepaI ed
to accept English free trade-to transfer
or workshops and factori, s. ana fur-
nacs s to Eur ,pe. and sreduce our labor
system to the condition of that of
Engla I'D and its dependencies.
But it il useless for the Informa jon of
the weli-informed farmer or Ii Acssasaic
to go over this history. 1t ia familiar to
all of them 1t does not mitigate the
policy of the Democratic party OF En-
glish free trade. or influence tie 5uag-
ment of single intelligent man to
accept q line of specions and fal3ac Gus