The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-11-25


In twenty years under protective tariff
we have paid off more than $4,000, 900 600 of
the great public debt In the last twenty
years we have reduced state Indebtedness
more than twenty-five per cent. In the
last twenty years we have reduced the in
debtedness of counties and municipalities
more than eighteen per cent, and the per
capita debt of this government is less than
the per capita debt OF any government in
the world.
But they say that this new tariff law is
a Chinese wall around this country; that
you can neither get out nor come in. What
this new tariff law will do no longer rests
in what the "prophet" may say about it..
What it will do no longer exists in the
froth of defamation, but in the fact of
demonstration. 1t has been in operation
now little more than year. 1t has had
one birthday, one anniversary, and it will
have good many more anniversaries.
The principle upon which that bill was
made permitted every thing to come into
this country free which we could not make
or did not propose to make, except lux
uries, and we put the tariff upon the foreign
products that compete with the American
products, TO the end that we might encour-
age American production and American
labor, and there is not a line of that law
that is not American. There is not page
of it that is not patriotic. There is not a
paragraph that is not dedicated to the
American.
Why, they said prices were going up last
fall. The campaign prevaricator had a
wide range, and he played his part we'll.
The law had been in operation but about
three weeks when the elections of last year
took place, but the campaign prevaricator
is out of business on that law now AS
said, it has been in operation twelve
months. We never had so much domestic
trade in any twelve months of our history.
We never had such foreign trade in any
twelve months since the beginning of the
federal government as we have had in the
twelve months under this new law. We
have never bought as much abroad in any
twelve months of our history as we have
bought in the twelve months under this
new law, largely because of the increased
free list that was made on protection lines,
under that law that put everything on the
free list we could not produce ourselves
and permitted it to come in untaxed to the
American people. We not only bought
more abroad in those twelve months, but
we have sold more abroad in those twelve
months, than in any twelve months since
the administration of George Washington,
and when Europe came to settle the bal
ance of trade with us in the first twelve
months of operation under that law, Europe
paid the United States $4,000, 900 in gold,
representing the excess of what Europe
bought of MS over what we bought of Eu-
rope. And yet they did not like it, Why,
they say they want free raw materials.
Why, we never had anything but raw ma
terial under a democratic tariff. 1t was the
rawest of the raw. The coal and iron ores
which God Almighty placed in our hills
and our mountains were permitted to sleep
through the years of a democratic revenue
tariff. and were never developed and
opened up until touched by the magic hand
of protection. Why, they say we cannot
make tin plate. They said that during the
campaign. They won't say it any more.
They said we could not make steel rails.
They said we could not make Russia IRON
They said we could not make plate glass.
They said we could not make cut glass and
cutlery They said we could not make
queens ware and china ware; and we never
did and never could have made any one of
them under democratic revenue tariff
And yet to-day, of all those articles, we
make as good as can be made anywhere in
the world and they are cheaper to the
American consumer than they were when
we imported them from the other side. This
policy of protection must be maintained and
continued, because it represents to us the
highest possible civilization and the best
and noblest destiny. They talk about
things being cheaper from the other side.
There is nothing cheap from abroad to this
people that means idleness among ourselves,
and there is nothing cheap to the peo-
pie of this country that permits to rest
undeveloped in our hills the great, rich
"
there is nothing cheap enough in all Europe
to buy the dignity and independence and
glory OF American manhood and American
womanhood. Whenever the nations of the
world will bring their condition up to ours
whenever they will pay to their laborer
the same wages that we pay to ours, when
ever they will do that, we will meet them in
the neutral markets of the world, and it will
be the survival of the fittest. But so long
as the workingman knows the power and
the majesty of the ballot, we will never
bring our condition down to theirs A
revenue tariff levels down; the protective
tariff levels up. A revenue tariff cheapens
products by elevating men and getting from
them their best SKILL their best genius, their
best inventions.
They want free trade. They wanted it
before the war, You will getit here in New
England. i mean in iron ore and coal and
wool You will get free iron ore and free
coal from the democratic leaders exactly as
you got it under the Mills bill. That is,
you won't get it at all. When the little
coterie of New England democrats assem-.
bled and said "We will have in this Mills
bill free iron ore and free coal" and got it
init was yet in the committee of ways and
means. Tennessee, Virginia, West Vr-
ginia, Georgia and Alabama democrats said
to that democratic committee: "Take
those things out" and they took them out
and they never got in again, and it will be
anxious to see that bill / confess to some
Impotence to see it. l am curious to know
whether it will be fashioned after the
Mills pattern, or after the horizontal pat
tern of Mr.. Morrison. But, whatever it is,
mark my word, it will be a crazy quilt.
The day of criticism of tariff bills under
the democratic party is gone by. The
period of destructive tariff reform is at an
end. The period of constructive tariff re-
form is on the democratic party in the next
house, and l am curious to see their con-
struction. Now think great deal OF Mr.
Mills and | should say he ought to be
speaker OF the next house. And / would
say in his presence, if / did not think it
might injure him, that he is frank, manly
man, and an honest man, and l pay him
that tribute.
But want to say to the men of New Eng
land, this glorious section from which we
get our civilization and from which we
learned our first lessons, we boys of the
West-I want to say that the civilization
and education and the traditions of Texas
do not fit man to dictate the industrial
policy of 100000 of people.
What you want to do here in New Eng
land is to stand by that policy which has
stood by you. If there is any spot of ground
in these United States that is indebted to
protection for its prOpraas and glory and