Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-12-28
THE WILSON TARIFF.
The Majority Report of the Com
mittee on Ways and Means,
Embracing the Customs Features of the
Bill. Presented in the House-The
Minority Will be Heard
From Later On.

ing the bill ITO Reduce Taxation, to
Provide Revenue for the Government
and for Other Purposes" and it was
referred to committee of the whole on
the state of the Union. The report is
as follows:
The American people. after the fullest and
most thorough debate ever given by any people
to their fiscal policy, have deliberately and
rightly decided that the existing tariff is
wrong in principle and previously unjust in
operation.
Continuing, the report says: They have de-
c1Ged. as free men must always decide, that the
power of taxation has no lawful or constitu-
tlonal exercise except for providing revenue
for the support of government. Every de-
parture from this principle is Il departure from
the fundamental principles of popular inStitu
tions and inevitably works out gross Unequal
ity in the citizenship of country. For more than
thirty years we have levied the largest part of
our federal taxes in violation OF this vital
truth, until we have reached in the existing
tariff an extreme and voluminous of class taxa
ton to which history may be challenged to
furnish any parallel. So many private enter
prises have been taken into partnership with
the government, SO many private interests
now share in the prerogative of taxing
7o,0OO,OOJ people, that any attempt
to dissolve this illegal union is
necessarily encountered by an opposition
that rallies behind it the intolerance OF mo-
nopoiy. the power Of concentrated wealth. the
inertia of fixed habits. and the honest errors
OF a generation of false teachings The bill on
which the committee has expended much pa
tient and anxious labor is not offered as COM
plete response to the mandate of the American
people. 1t no more processes to be purged of
all protection than to be free of all in its
complex and manifold details. However. we
may deny the existence OF any legislative
pledge, of or the right of any congress to make
such pledge for the continuance Of duties that
carry with them more or less acknowledged
protection, we must recognize that great inter-
ests do exist whose existence and prosperity
it is part of our reform either to
imperil or to curtaiI We believe. and we
have the warrant of our own past experience
for believing. that reduction of duties will not
injure but give more abundant life to all our
manufacturing industries, however much they
may dread the change. In dealing with the
tariff question as with every other long-stand-
ing abuse that has interviewer itself with our
social or industrial system. the legislator must
always remember that in the beginning tenn
perate reform is safest having in itself the
principle of growth.
glance at the tariff legislation of our own
country ought to satisfy every intelligent stu
dent that protection has always shown it's
falsity as q system of economy by absolute
failure to insure healthy and stable prosperity
to manufactures. 1t teaches men to depend on
artificial help. laws taxing their country
men for prosperity in business, rather than
upon their own skill and effort. 1t throws
business out of it's natural channels
into artificial channels where there
must always be fuctuation and
uncertainty and it makes tariff system the
football OF party politics and the stability of
large business intere SITS the stake of every
popular election. None have recognized this
truth more fully than the wiser men who
from time to time have engaged in the So
called protected industries.
Years ago Edward Everett stated in an ora
ton at Lowell that the sagacious men who
founded the manufactures of New England
were never friends of high tariff policy.
Hon. Amasa Walker, former member of
this house from Massachusetts,, and one of our
foremost writer's on economic questions. de-
clared it to be within his own personal knowl-
edge that when the proposal was made to I'M
pose the protective tariff OF 1915 the leading
manufacturers of Rhode Island. amongst whom
was Mr.. Slater. the father of cotton spinning
in this country met at the counting room OF
one of their number, and after deliberate con-
sideration, came unanimously to the
conclusion that they would rather
be let alone; their business had
grown up mutually and succeeded we'll
and they felt confident OF its continued pros
perity. if let alone by the government. They
argued that by laying protective tariff their
business would be thrown out of it's natural
channels and subjected to fluctuation and I'M
certainty.
far-sghted men and the ambition OF law
makers to usurp the place OF Providence pre-
vailed. The country entered on a protective
policy, with the unfailing result that govern
ment help begot violent demand for more
government help. The moderate tariff of
1916 rapidly grew into the tariff OF
abominations' that carried the country to a
verge OF civil discord and provoked natural
revulsion. Protection has run q like course
since 1861. When congress began to repeal war
burdens and to relieve manufacturers OF the
internal taxes, which they had used to secure
compromising duties like foreign products
there rose demand throughout the country,
without respect to party, for reduction OF the
war tariff. Unable to resist this de-
mand, the protected industries baf-
fed and thwarted any reduction OF conse-
quence until 1872, when they defeated house
hill that did make a substantial reduction, by
substituting senate bill which carried a hori
zontal cut of 10 per cent. AS sooA, however, as
the election OF 1871 gave the next house to the
democratic party, that bill was repealed by the
outgoing republicans, and rates restored to
what they were before 1s72 And although the
demand for tariff reform AID reduction Ct taxes
has ever since been 4 burning and q growing
one in the country. the protected indus
tries have eXacted and received from every re-
publican congress elected since 1874 an in
crease OF their protection, occasionally per-
hitting the repeal or the lessening of tax
thatwas paid into the treasury in order to keep
away from or to increase duties levied for
their benefit. Protection left to it's natural
momentum never stops short of prohibition,
and prohipitory walls are always needing to
be built higher to he patched and
streng thened. A protective tariff never has
and never can give stability and satisfaction
to It's own beneti Charles. Even il it's victims
too veal. or too scattered to agitate for its de-
crease. those beneficial ries sure to agitate
for an increase. When the reform tariff OF
1916 was before congress the legislat ure was
full of prophecies that it would destroy
manufacturing industries, throw labor out of
employment. or 20 compel it to work at pauper
wages and dwarf and arrest the prosperous
growth of the country. Every representa-
tive of four great manufacturing states
of New England voted against il with gloomy
foret oilngs OF its blghtirg effect The rate Of
duties provided in that tariff much lower
than these of the bill we here offer. What
was the result? Instead OF paralyzing the in
dustries and parpcrizing the laEor OF New En-
gland or the rest OF the country. the tariff of
1876 gave Immense yigor to manufacture with
steady employment and increasing wages to
labor. So that after several years experience
under it the longest period o. stability we
have ever enjoyed under any tariff, the
of those same states with
practical uaaninity voted for a further reduc-
ton OF ,, per cent. AMI by a two-thir1s vote
sustained the tariff OF 1887, which maGc II reduc-
ito, of y par centum.
And 50 we'll contented aud prosperous were
the manufa oturers of that and other sections
CT .he country under the low rates OF the tariff
OF iai- that when the Morrill, bill OF l1Gi took