Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1892-04-07
BRYAN ON THE TARIFF.
Extracts from the Able and Brilliant
Speech OF the Young Member.

ting the burden somewhere. When
ever you see the government by
operation of law send a dollar
singing downinto one mans pock
ct, you must remember that the
government has brought IT cry
ing up out of some other mans
pocket. You might just as well
try to raise a weight with alever
without a fulcrum as to try to
help some particularindustry by
means Of taxation without plac-
ing the burden on the consumer.
Back in Illinois whom we were
repairing a rail fence we would
sometimes find a corner down
pretty low tn the ground, and
not wanting to tear down the
fence we would devise some way
of raising that fence corner to
put under it anew ground chunk.
How did we do II? We took a
rail, put one end of it under a
fence corner, then laid down a
ground chunk for a fulcrum.
Then we would go off tothe 9th
cr end of the rail and bear it
down; up would go the lence COR
ner-but docs anybody suppose
there was no pressure on that
fulcrum?
That, my friends, illustrates
Just the operation, as | conceive
it, of a protective tariff. You
want to raise an infNnt industry
for instance, what do you do?
You take a protective tariff Tor
a lever, and put one end of it
under the infant industry that is
to be raised. You look around
for some good. fat, hearty eonsu
mer and lay him down as a
ground chunk; you bear down
on the rail and up goes the in
fant industry, but down goes
the ground chunk in the ertuhd.
The reason our friends justify
the principle is that they see the
infant industry rise, but they for
get the man upon whom they
are placing the burden. And the
trouble with this country is that
all over the land are the homes
Of forgotten men-men W h o S e
rights have been violated and
whose interests have been disre-
garded in order that somebody
else may be ELI iched. 1t is the
principle that is involved in this
little binding twine bill You see
the industry that gets the 500
900, but you never think of the
farmers who 60 down into their
pockets and pay the little sums
that make up the great amount.
Is not that a fact? Is not that
the effect OF the tariff? Therefore
the man who instifies protection
as a principlB must prove three
things: He must prove that the
principle is right, that the policy
is WISE and that the tax is neces-
sary.
When some young man selects
a young woman who is willing to
trust her future to his strOng
right arm, and they start to
build a little home, that home.
which is the unit Of society and
upon which our government and
our prosperity must rest-when
they start to build this little
home, and the man who sells the
lumber reaches out his hand to
collect a tariff upon that; the
man who sells paints, oils wants
a tariff on them, the man who
furnishes the carpets, taS Slecloths
knives and forks, dishes, furni-
ture, spoons, everything that en-
tiers into DEMONSTRATION anlop
GRAFTON Of that home--when all
these hands, 4 say, are stretched
out from every direction to lay
their blightine weight upon that
cottage, and the democraticpar-
ty says. Hands off, andlpt that
home industry live. lit is protec-
ting the grandest home industry