St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-06-05
THEY SEE TIE CAT

When WILLIAM MCKINLEY's famous
bill to decrease revenue by checking
imports was under consideration, Mr..
ANDERSON, Republican member of
congress, proposed as an amendment
that when any article Oh which duty
was laid by the measure became the
subject of manufacture in this country
by trust that the president should pro-
claim all imports of those articles free
of duty. The amendment was incOnti-
nently voted down. The Republican
members were then doubtless impressed
with the force and accuracy of the re-
mark made by Mr.. BLAINE in the pre-
ceding presidential campaign that
these trusts arc largely private affairs,
with which neither the president nor
congress have any CONCERN" Anyway,
they acted as if they were.
Then. when the Democratic papers
charged the tariff as being the oppor-
tunity if not the melting cause of the
trusts. the Republican papers jeered at
them; and, again following Mr.BLAINE,
who observed that there was coffin
trust III England, they asserted that
England was ptastered with trusts"
and that, therefore, as trusts existed in
free trade country, tariff could not
be cause OF them. Like all protec-
ZIONIST logic. the defect of this lay in
the major premise-there are no trusts
in England.
We do not recall these unplea SAINT in
cidents at all in the way of reproach,
but merely to show our friends how far
they have moved in the right direction
within relatively short time, and to
extend to them our hearty congratula-
tons that they have moved forward
and are getting into position where
they can see the old protective cat
teeth, claws and all.
The Minneapolis Tribune, insisting
that it always told us so, says that mo
tariff protection should be given to trusts
and conspiracies against the freedom of
| labor and trade" Good for the Tribune,
and, better yet for it, it can speak those
ominous words. freedom of trade"
without a shudder shaking Its spinal
| column. And it quotes approvingly its
New York namesake. that ''there is rea-
| son to doubt whether duties should be
| maintained on refined sugar, cordage
and Irvine, lead and some other products
which are monopolized by trusts, and
| that it might be found wise to abolish
| duties on such articles" The Tribune
in the East, it will be noticed, treads
with tentative step on this new and un-
familiar ground on which the Tribune
of the West steps with firm and conf
dent tread. but it is significant of re-
markable advance that the former can
| get onto such ground at all.
| No one will read these assaults on the
trusts and these recommendations of
free trade, real free trade, not the milk
and-water tariff-for-revenue-onl free
trade, than will the projectors and pro-
moterS of the trusts themselves. A bow
/ being spanked for smoking by father
! with cigar in his mouth would typify
! the trusts under chastiSement for
| sitting competition, by government
| which declares that competition is in
furious and lends its power to stop or
hinder it. The trust and combination.
! wherever found and whatever industry
! preying Oil, is as logical product of
the protective policy of the nation as is
the wheat in the head the product of the
wheat put into the ground. tits true
that the advocates of protection claimed
that the restriction of competition from
the outside would create competition on
ths inside, and thus reduce any i'm
mediate increase of cost; but the logic
OF the case to those engaging in the
sheltered industries, supplemented by
the Inherent selfishness of men, was
that il competition from any source is
bad it lis from all sources, and if 1t is
right to obstrtiet or stop it from one
l s4aeA1s Il is from al sources. Aud out