The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-05-04
Indiana Manufactures Under Free


THE SENTINEL remarked a day or two
ago that the manufacturing industries of
Indiana had their birth and their greatest
development under tine democratic policy
offree trade" and that ten years of free
trade would do for the manufactures of
Indiana what a similar period of free trade
did for them before, viz, double them"
To which the Journal responds:
To this preposterous statement we re-
ply that in 1850 Indiana had, all told, lilo
manufacturing establishments, which
used S26,6l3.038 worth OF raw material
and turned out SAL $40, 434 worth of prod
ucts. In 1880 she had 11,l9S establish
ments, which used Sl00, 262,9 I7 worth of
materials and turned out S148, LOG, All
worth of products. The increase during
twenty years of protection, from 1860 to
1880. was far greater than it had been
curing the entire period from the admis-
sion of the state in 1916 to 1860, most of
which was under democratic free trade or
tariff for revenue only.
The Journal pronounces THE SENTI-
NEL's statement as to the growth
of the manufactures of Indiana
under democratic free trade as "pre-
posterous," but it does not attempt to
disprove it. The statement was based
upon the official figures on pages $50 and
93l of the compendium of the Tenth
Census" which have been frequently set
forth in these columns They show that
under the Walker free trade tariff
the capital invested in manufactures
in Indiana increased from $780,
4O2 in 1850 to S1S,45l,l 2l, an
increase of 24O per cent; that the
amount paid in wages increased from
s., lbs, S44 to S6.3lS, $50, or nearly 100 per
cent. the value of materials used from
$40, 1863, 700 to S27 AZ, 597, or about 275 per
cent; the value OF output from SIS
725, 423 to 81. S03, 100, or about 220 per
cent. This is the way in which manufact-
ures fourished in Indiana under the
Walker free trade tariff, aud we mad no
natural gas either.
From 1870 to 1880, under the highest
tariff ever known before the Mckinley
abomination was spawned, the number of
manufacturing institutions in Indiana
actually declined. The big fish swallowed
t4lO AAtAAO OhNC.j 1AC CAiANdA AhNOotCu III
creased only about % per cent, as against
240 per cent. between 1850 and 1860; the
amount paid in wages only about Is per
cent, against nearly 100 per cent. i'll the
free trade decade; the value OF materials
about 90 per cent, as compared with 275
per cent. from 1850 to 1860; the product
less than 40 per cent, as against 220 per
cent. during the ten years-IS50 to 1860
The manufacturing industries Of Indi-
ana were literally born under free trade.
They grew to maturity under free trade.
They have everything to gain and moth
ing to lose from the abandonment of Nc
Kinleyism. All Indiana needs is fair
field and no favors to make her one OF the
greatest manufacturing communities on
earth. Untax the raw materials of her
manufacturers, open up the great markets
of the world to her people, cease to bolster
up her competitors with protective tariffs,
so that she can have the full benefit of
her extraordinary natural resources, and
her manufacturing interests will show an
expansion during the next ten years equal
to that which was witnessed between 1850
and 1860.