Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1892-08-25
THE TARIFF E%XPOUNDED.
Text of Gov. McKinley's Lucid
and Convincing Tariff
Speech at Chicago.
Reasons Why the Foreigner
Should Be Taxed Instead
of the American,
How Products Have Been Cheap-
ened by PrOtection--A
Mastery Statement.

VI
yention, Gov. Mckinley said:
L congratulate the country, I con-
graduate the conservative business
element OF the country that for four
years more this country will be safe
IN the hands of an honest. a pure, a
wise, and a patriotic statesman in
the person of Benjamin Harrison.
Applause. We love our leaders, but
we love our cause and our country
oetter than any of them, or bet
ter than all of them. We stand this
year as we stood four years ago for
the maintenance of honest elections.
Tor an honest dollar, whether it be
gold or silver or paper, each equal to
the other, each worth a hundred
cents, each equal in debt paying
power and in legal-tender, and we
stand today as We always have stood
Tor a protective tariff. GAppiause.
tarltf that will take care of the
labor and the wages of our own peo-
pie and the homes and the firesides of
American citizens.
A democratic revenue tariff believes
in buying goods abroad. We believe
In getting them at home if we can
get them. Why do we believe in get
ting them at home? We believe in
getting them at home because getting
them at home means labor at home,
means wages at home, mean shops
and factories at home, means hone
In the hearts and homes of the mil
ions of people living on our soil.
lApplauSe.l Some people seem to think
IIlat you can get on without a tariff.
HOW would you raise the expenses
oil this government if you didn't have
a tarltf? Three hundred and fifty
mllllonS or dollars are required every
year to keep this governmental OPERA
tlon. How are you going to raise it?
OF can raise it in one of two WAYS.
0 can raise it by taxing yourselves,
Dy taxing your property, your possess
slons, your lands, your incomes, or
your occupations, or you can raise it
by taxing the products of some other
people seeking a market in the United
states: That is the republican way:
That is the right way. Applause.
The republican party does not believe
that We should tax ourselves a mil
non or dollars every twenty-four
hours, for that is what it requires to
meet II public necessities; it does
not believe that we should tax our
selves a million of dollars every TWEEN
ty-four hours If we can find the pro-
ducts of other peoples, of other cOun-
tries, to tax. That is a tariff. But,
they say, You can do that with a
revenue tariff" So you can. But a
revenue tariff is not as safe for u
revenues as a protective tariff. A
protective tariff has never failed,
either in times of val or peace, to
raise money for public purposes.
But a revenue tariff has more than
once failed in the presence of a great
national emergency. A protective
tariff therefore will do every
thing which a revenue tariff will,
but it will do infinitely more. 1t will
not only raise all the money needed
for public purposes, but while it is
doing it it will be stimulating our
own industries, it will be promoting
our own enterprises, it will be giving
employment to our own labor. it will
be advancing the prosperity and
the development of the United
States. That is what a protective
tariff has done. That is what a pro-
tectlVe tariff IN the future will do.
MISSION OF A REVENUE TARIFF.
A revenue tariff has but one mis-
sion, and that is to raise a revenue.
That is all it proposes to do. That is
all it undertakes to do. A tariff for
revenue only, a tariff which excludes
every other consideration, it dismisses
every other object, and levies tariffs
upon foreign products for the pur-
pose of putting revenue into the pub
lie treasury. A protective tariff does
that just as well as a revenue tariff.
but it does more. 1t stimulates the
activities, the industries, and ener-
gieS of people. "Ah, but" they
say, your protective tariff is a bur
den upon the American people"
There is not a man or woman i'm this
audience who knows from any per-
SOnal experience of his own or her
own, that we have got such athing as
a protective tariff. Not one. TAp-
plauSe. There is not a man in the
state of Illinois who, from any per-
Sonal realization of the burden,
knows that there is such a thing as a
protective law on the statute books
of the United States. Well, a thing
is not very burdensome if you don't
feel it. You are not suffering very
greatly if the thing don't hurt you
and somebody has to come around
and tell you that you are hurt.
laughter. There is not a man in
the state of Illinois, there is not a
man in the United States who does
not know from hisO own personal exper-
fence the benefits and the blessings
of a protective tariff. 1t is seen in
every home, il is seen in every work
shop, it is seen in every income, it is
seen in all the qualifications of our
business what protection does for
American energy, American genius,
and American enterprise.
Now, if protective tariffs are such a
burden upon the American people
there should be some way of ascer-
tanning it. But is it a burden? Has
it increased our state debts? They
have been diminished over Is per
cent in the last ten years. Have pro-
tective tariffs increased our National
debt? 1t has been diminished so
that twO-thirds of our great national
debt has been paid off under the rev.
enues gathered into the treasury by
the protective tariff. "Ah, but"
they say, "your protective tariff keeps
us out of a foreign market" If there
is anything that the democratic
heart delights to speak about it is
something foreign, something abroad.
Laughter. / don't know how you
feel about it., but for me and mine
there is no place like home. Pro-
tectiye tariffs keep us out of the for
eign markets. Now the tariff law
has been in operation eighteen
months, andi In the last twelve months
we have sent more American pro-
ducts abroad than we have sent
abroad in n other twelve months
since the beginning. of the federal
government. [Applause.l
ABOUT THE MCKINLEY BILL.
They call the Fifty-first congress a
billion dollar congress. Why, it is d
two billion dollar congress, for under
the legislation of the Fifty-first on
gresS Our domestic trade has been a
billion dollars and our foreign trade
added to it makesit within a hundred
thousand dollars of two billions of
dollars. That expresses the result of
the Fifty-first congress.
All, but they say what we want is
s'free raw material" Why, we never
had anything but,raw material in the
good old democratic days. Under a
democratic tariff the coal and iron
ore which God Almighty had put
into our hills and mountains were
permitted to sleep. Raw material
under the magic hand of protection
is no longer raw.
Then they want things cheaper.
Things were v as cheap as they
are today. With the exception of
pearl buttons laughter there is not
anything upon which the tariff was
increased by the law of 1890 that is
higher now than it RAJ then. In
most instances il is lower now than