The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-08-13
M'kINLEY's SPEECH.

oiS oho Attie gun IL Gan So"hiohu W
fight the most desperate battle it ever
fought, but what he said is remarkable.
Coming from any other man the reader
of his speech would attribute his utter
ances to ignorance or knavishness. Mr..
Mckinley is not ignorant. But he is a
politician and trusted that the not we'll
informed few among his audience would
accept his promises as sound and his
conclusions as just for nc intelligent
man will believe that Mr.. Mckinley took
stock in what he said. Here is "a speci-
men argument:
"The truth is the protective tariff has
c~heapened every manufactured product;
not by cheapening labor, but by it's high
rewards, securing from labor its high ef-
ficiency. Substantially everything which
protection directly affects will be reduced
in price except labor"
Mr.. Mckinley should have furnished a
diagram with the above. If the jargon
means anything it means that protection
has cheapened manufactured products
by increasing wages thus enabling the
laborer to buy more with a days labor.
That is, protection secures the highest
rewards to labor, for the worth of a
mans labor consists in its capacity to
supply his wants. This is evidently the
idea Mr.. Mckinley wished to convey.
But how wide he is from the facts. The
average wages in all the protected indus.
tries is less than a dollar a day, and since
his tariff has been in operation there
have been over 800 strikes and lockouts
in the country caused by cuts or at
tempted reductions in wages. These
cold facts do not show that labor secures
it's "high efficiency" under protection. If
he had said capital receives it's ''high re-
wards" under protection he would have
stated an evident truth. But when he
says protection cheapens manufactured
products and at the same time increases
wages he utters an absurdity. In this
day OF close competition high wages
and cheap necessaries of life are not trot-
ting mates. They are strangers to each
other.
In order to show hat we can sell
abroad if we do not buy abroad Mr.. Nc
kinley drags to his aid the European
famine of last year. Here is his Ian
guage: During the last year we sold
abroad nearly s2O3,O 1000 more than we
bought abroad. This was an excess IN
our favor which foreigners paid US, and
which is circulating among our people,"
What rot! If Mr.. Mckinley
had been disposed to treat
his subject fairly n follow some
where within hailing distance of the
lines of truth, he would have said: Last
year we had bountiful crops. We
raised a surplus of 1904 10000 bushels of
wheat. There was a bread famine in
Europe, Russia, India and other foreign
wheat-growing countries upon which
Great Britain, France, Germany and the
whole Latin states relied to a greater or
less extent for their breadstuffs, didn't
raise enough for their own consumption.
Our people contributed shiploads of
breadstuffs to the furnishing peasants
of Russia. We sold S%22G,OOO,OOO worth
of food to Europe. Nearly all this vast
sum was paid to us-not in money, but
in u bonds and other securities held
by foreign capitalists. We added moth
ing to our money circulation. for during
this same time we were shipping our
breadstuffs, foreigners who were holding
bonds sent them over to us and de-
manded gold for them. We sent them.
with our breadstuffs, over S7J,O0O.OOO of
the yellow metal in excess of what we
received, and if it hadn't peer for the
democrats who by their persistency for
silver reconciliation had given us over
S45O,OOO,OOO in silver and silver certif-
Gates with which to carry on business
we would have had a money panic.
III Mr.. Mckinley were not a politicians;
II he were a plain spoken, honest man
he would have thus shown to his Neb-
raska audience how it happened that a
in Europa gave us an apparent
balance oil trade in our favor and helped
the farmers raise one corner of the mort
cages covering their homes.
In his further showing of the beauties
of protection Mr.. Mckinley goes on to
say: "The report Of the treasury shows
that dutiable merchandise has decreased
under the new law from S478,674,S44 for
the fiscal year ended June 81, 1891, to
100, the year just passed, a de-
crease of S0l, 1898 The free list il
the sam time increased s91, 759, 1913"
Ii the gentleman had wished to
present this matter to his hearers as any
one but a politician, working for the in
terests Of the money power, would have
presented it he would have spoken about
as follows:
Ex11--.