The Forrest City times., 1891-12-11
HISTORY AND TARIFFS
IMAGINATION THE BASIS OF
 PROTECTION THEORY.
congressman W. L. Wilson Reviews the Early Tariff History of the Country --Jener.on . Personal Sufferer
 from Protectionism.


 that protection must always bring mate rial prosperity and social comforts, and free trade or revenue tariffs must always bring distress and calamity, he does not consult current history or the usual sources of information to learn the con- dition of the country at any particular period. He turns to the tariff alone. If that is high or rising, it is period of abounding prosperity. If that Is low or falling, it is an era of bankruptcy and disaster.
 This method of arguing was developed chiefly by Henry c. Carey, the founder of the existing school of American protec- tionists, who was among the first to dis cover and proclaim, years after the time, that the period between isi6 and 1881. while the Walker tariff was in force, was a time of industrial depression. This as- sertion, which flies in the face of all the current history, contemporary testimony and census records, has become part 5f the speech and creed of all protectioniats of our day, in spite of the fact that any intelligent school boy, with an hours in- vestigation, can expose it's absolute and absurd falsity.
 h seems, however, that Major McKin- ley, Tn rehearsing it at the recent banquet of the Home Market Club in Boston, met with a rebuke from quarter where he least expected it. The tariff controversy in Massachusetts has, fortunately, reached point where the usual sophis- tries and the usual Actions will no longer pass for reasoning and facts; and so the American Wool and Cotton Reporter tells him fatly that he discredits his sincerity and statemanship by such assertions. It informs Major Mckinley that many of the largest mills in New England were started during the very period he pictured as without hope for manufactures, and that the mills in existence were paying steady and fat dividends. But the Re- porter need not waste it's time in trying to correct Major Mckinley or any of his school. Their theories must work out, and if the facts are against them the facts are doubtless in the pay of British free-traders. Equally culpable io their claim that the protective system of to- day was founded and approved by the early statesmen ot the Republic.
 Both Mir. Hamilton and Mir. Clay would be arrayed against the Mckinley bill were they living, for their recorded utterances condemn it's principles no less than it's details. But the champions of prohibit tory duties do not stop with claiming Mir. Hamilton and Mir. Clay. Said Major Me- Kinley at the Tariff League banquet in New York: "No man can feel insecure in the advocacy of great principle which every President of the United States, except three, had advocated, and which the earliest statesmen of all par ties held essential to national welfare and independence" We are left to guess the excepted three" by whom he probably meant Cleveland and Polk, with Johnson or Pierce, but for the earliest statesmen" he makes no exception, and MT. Sherman in speech in the Senate on September 29, 1890, specifically claimed Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jackson as sup porters of the protective system.
 Now every student of his country's his- tory knows that our War for Independ- ence was largely war for freedom of commerce, and that the chief substantial
 
 mother country arose out of her claims to monopolize all their trade, both of buying and selling, to suppress their carrying trade and their commerce among themselves and to prohibit their manufacturing SO far as it competed with her own traders. This was simply min ute and vexatious application on the part of Great Britain of the mercantile or protective system to the colonies. It is not probable that men who fought to emancipate themselves from such a sys- tenn would adopt 1t on achieving their freedom. And, accordingly, we find that their first efforts were directed toward se- curing free trade with other nations.
 But at that time all nations, as rule, were hopelessly entangled in the protec- tive system, and neither the practice nor the theory of free exchange was familiar to them. It may not be amiss, however, to recall a few of Mir. Jefferson's utter ances, at different periods of his life, to see what his views were. and how reck- iessly false is the claim that he supported the principle" of protection. Without citing any of his earlier utterances, let us turn to the Report on Commerce made while he was Secretary of State in Wash ington's Cabinet: "Instead of embarass- ing commerce under piles of regulating laws, duties and prohibitions, could it be relieved from all its shackles In all parts of the world, could every country be em- pioyed in producing that which nature has best fitted it to produce, and each be free so exchange with others, mutual sur pluses for mutual wants, the greatest mass possible would then be produced of those things which contribute to human life and human happiness; the numbers of mankind would be increased and their condition bettered. Would even a single nation begin with the United States this system of free commerce, 1t would be ad- visable to begin it with that nation, since 1t is one by one only that it can be extended to all" A very strong argument for free commerce and very early and radical advocacy of reciprocity.
 A few years later, while Vice. President Mfr. Jefferson was driven by thecalumnie, and falsehoods of which he was the con- stant target to address letter to Elbridgt Gerry, in which he said: sln continuation of these and all further calumnies, bJ way of anticipation, l shall make you q profession of my political faith, in conf dence that you will consider every future imputation on me, if of contrary com. plexion, as bearing on it's front the mark of faisehood and calumny. = an for free commerce with all nations"
 Two years later he became President and in h's inaugu::al address gave that inspired summary of "ths essential prin ciples of our Government" which ha