The Portland daily press., 1890-03-20
FREE TRADE oRAToRY.
Mr.. Voorhees, Accuses the Tariff of
Impoverishine the Farmers,

Mr.. Voorhees, Accuses the Tariff of
Impoverishing the Farmers.
WASHINGTON, March 19.-In the Senate,
today, the resolution offered by Mr. Voorhees,,
Monday, as to agricultural depression. was
taken up, and Mr.. Voorhees, addressed the
Senate in relation to it. he characterized
the protective tariff as curse. The farmers
Of the United States today did not receive
on an average, more than 10 cents bushel
for corn and fifty cents for wheat and to 8
cents pound for hogs. The time would
come at no distant day, when the former
would look on the proposition to tax him,
his wife and children for the protection and
benefit of other people besides himself, as he
would look on law of Congress to establish
the army worm and weevil on his wheat, to
infest his cattle with murrain and his hogs
with cholera. Every pretense of a home
market for the farmer was fraud Every
pretense of taking wheat, potatoes and oats
for his benefit, was cheat and sham. He
declared that not only had there been no in
crease in. the value, of land for the last
quarter of century, but there had been an
absolutely loss of 33 per cent. The farms of
Ohle were now under mortgage amounting
to $300000,000. In Illinois, the mortgages
amounted to $4o2 100000. Twenty-three per
cent. OF the whole face Of Illinois was under
mortgage Forty..seyen per cent of the
whole surface of Michigan was under
mortgage. In Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri,
Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and the whole
Northwest, 20 to 30 per cent of the farm
lands were under mortgage at such rates of
interest as the farmers could never pay out
Of their crops to say nothing of the principal.
There was the same decadence in Vermont
and New Hampshire, where there was
movement to re-colonize them with Scandi-
navian immigrants.
The remedies to be applied we're: First,
tariff reform; second, a full supply of legal
tender money; third, free coinage of silver;
fourth. the suppression by law of gambling
in futures; fifth, a liberal policy of pensions.
Mr stewart sad While agreeing With Mr
the farming class, he differed with him in
his views as to the principal cause of the
existing depression. By his [Mr. Stewart's]
tSsa hsaiaf irsnifieiant mnnev circulation was
The Blair educational bill at 2.15 was TAX
en- up and Mr.. Pierce of North Dakota ad-
dressed the Senate. He hoped, he said, to
the bill until the second Tuesday of Deem
ber next in the hope that the bill would be
amended to divest it of its Objectionable
features and yet secure in large degree
what seemed the most righteous objects. Be-
fore passing the educational bill, the Repub-
lican party. should carry out its pledges to
the old soldiers, and pass the dependent pen
sion bill. There would be time enough to
attend to the educational bill after the farm
ers were saved from ruin and the old sol
diers from beggary.
Mr.. Evarts addressed the Senate in sup
port of the bill. In discussing the constitu.
tlonal questions involved, Mr.. Evarts refer
red to jefferson as great lover of educa-
tion, and asked who would have doubted
that he would have put education over every
thing else. He spoke OF the stupendous es-
Inmates made by the opponents of the bill as
to its cost, and said they simply amounted to
$77,00O.OO0, spread over eight years. That
amounted, he said, to $1.25 head for eight
years, or 10 cents head per year on the
whole population.
Mr.. Cail also spoke in favor of the bill.