The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-02-13
The Author of the Tariff Bill
Speaks at Toledo.
OHIO LEAGUE CLUB BANQUET.
American Protection for American
Workmen the Subject.
Orator OF the Evening Makes . Bril-
liant Answer to the Speech of the
Stuffed Prophet Made at the Thur
man Dinner.

TOLEDO. Feb. I2-Lincoln's birthday
was chosen for the fourth annual conven-
ton OF the Ohio League Republican Clubs,
and the session was held in this city. The
event OF the occasion was the banquet in
Memorial hall tonight. Three hundred
guests were present, including many men
OF national repute.
Congressman Ashley responded to the
toast, abraham Lincoln"
Hon. William Mckinley responded to the
toast, "An American Tariff for an Ameri-
can People" His address was openly a
reply to ex-President Cleveland's speech
at the Thurman banquet last November.
He said:
It gratifying to the friends of protection to
have that eminent Democratic leader make an
open confession of the objects which he and his
party associates aim te accomplish by free tar
IN. Assigned to respond to the sentiment
american Citizenship" he made cheapness
the theme OF his discourse. His ayowal is only
that which the protectionists have always
claimed to be the inevitable tendency OF his tar
IN policy, which exalts cheap goods from abroad
above good wages at home
The tariff reformer gravely asks why we want
manufacturing establishments in the United
states when we can buy our goods in other
countries as cheap as we can manufacture them
at homeg The masses of the people are in no
temper for such suggestions, and win never
consent to the Inauguration of policy which
will scale down their wages and render it
harder to obtain the necessaries of life. The
"cheap coats to which the gentleman is SO
much attached do not tempt them, for
many remember that in the previous free trade
eras OF onr history they were too cheap at any
price. Is American manhood to be degraded
that merchandise may be cheap? Coats at any
price. at sacrifice robborv Of fhut ID.
borer, are not cheap We scorn cheap coats
upon any such terms or conditions. They are
nasty at such price.
The gentleman who is now so insistent upon
cheapness of the necessaries of life, while in
Office and clothed with authority, was unwilling
that sugar, an article of prime necessity to every
househould, should come untaxed to the Amer
fcaD people. When IL was known that it was an
annual burden on them Of SEQ, ,OOO, 900, he stood
then as the incorporating advocate of dear
sugar for the masses.
During his term he was dishonoring and dis
crediting silver and enhancing the price OF gold.
He endeavored, even before his Inauguration, to
stop the coinage of silver dollars, and afterwards
and to the end of his administration persis-
tently used his power to that end. He would
have increased the value of money and dfmin-
ished the value of everything else. Money was
the master. and everything was its servant.
reckless assumption?
The tariff reformer has, in his wild ecstaey,
made so-ealled victory, but has been forced
that poverty is blessing to be promoted and
encouraged, and that shrinkage in the value
OF everything but money would be q national
benefit. He no longer conceals his love for
cheap merchandise, even though it entails beat
ing down the price of labor, and curtails the
comforts and opportunities OF the masses.
Those who advocate duties solely for revenue
see only as the result cheaper prices, which are
but temporary at best, and do not see the other
side, lower wages, cheaper labor, agricultural
depression and general distress.
Mckinley went on to eulogize the pro-
tective system, and said:
If this policy Is TO be reversed, IL must be
done not by clamor of Misrepresentation, not by
schoolmen and theorists, but, after the fullest
discussion and investigation, by the sober and
intelligent Judgment of the majority .con-
stitutionally registered. The only menace
to our advancement and prosperity, to our
wage-earners and farming interests, is the party
pledge to the repeating of the new law and the
substitution of the British system in its place.
Free and full discussion viii avert the danger.
Nothing else will.