Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1893-07-28
An Old But SeasOnabIe Speech.

All V1u buG ySoSOhaOlc SpcCCh
just sixty years ago this month
Daniel Webster, while passing
through Pittsburg on his way from
Ohio was rendered public recep-
tion. The writer encountered the
speech he delivered on that occasion,
the other day, in II stray copy of
the unconstitutional Text Book"
published more than q generation
ago, say the Scranton Republican.
Perhaps in some of his greatest
speeches did Daniel Webster give
expression to views on the question
of protection that are more forcibly
applicable to the present than are
contained in his speech at Pittsburg
on July 8, 1888. The situation then
was not unlike the present. The
abrogation of the tariff of 1924 was
then threatened precisely as the de-
struction of the protective tariff is
row threatened by the Cleveland ad-
lninistration and the Democratic
majority in the Fifty-third congress.
The overwhelming arguments pre-
sented by the great expounder and
defender of the constitution against
the assaults of the great free trader
and nullifier, John @. Calhoun,
could be delivered to-day with pre-.
cisely the same force as sixty years
ago. Listen to the voice of Daniel
Webster:
Next to the preservation of the govern
ment itself, there can hardly be more
vital question to such community as
This than that which regards their own en-
ployments, and the preservation of that
policy which the government has adopted
and cherished for the encouragement and
protection of those employments This is
not, in a society like this, matter which
affects the interests of particular class
but one which affects the interests of all
classes. 1t runs through the whole chain
of human occupation and employment
and touches the means of living and COM
fort of all. Who, standing here. and
looking around on this community and
its interests, would be bold enough to
touch the spring which moves so much
industry and produces so much happiness?
Who would shut up the mouths of these
vast coal pits Who would stay the
cargoes of manufactured goods now float
ing down this noble river? Who would
quench the fire of so many steam engines.
ohanly bn cf
employed labor? Gentlemen / cannot
conceive how any supervision of that
policy which has hitherto been pursued
can take place without great public en-
barrassment and great private distress.
II have said that / am in favor of pro-
tecting American manual labor, and after
the best reflection can give the subject.
and from the lights can derive from the
experience of ourselves and others, | have
come to the conclusion that such pro-
lection is just and proper and to leave
American labor to sustain a competition
with that of the over-peopled countries of
Europe would lead to state of things to
which the people could never submit.
This is for the great reason why | am for
maintaining what has been established
] see at home. see here. / see wherever
go. that the stimulus which has excited the
existing activity and is producing the ex.
listing prosperity of the country, is nothing
else than the stimulus held out to labor by
compensating prices-the direct result of
our protective policy"
The speech from which these
brief extracts are taken would if re-
produced in full, occupy columns.
Every sentence is as applicable to
the present situation as it was to
the situation sixty years ago. The
great expounder of the constitution
saw nothing unconstitutional in a
protective tariff. 1t has remained
for the Cleveland's, the Carlisles,
The Mills, and the Democratic leads
of sixty years later to discover that
protection is unconstitutional and
fraud" Daniel Webster saw in A
protective tariff system only pros
perity for the country and comfort
for the masses. He occupied the
same position and held precisely to
The same views as do the Republi.
cans of to-day. He fought and
plead for the preservation of the
tariff of 1924, as the Republicans of
sixty years later will fight for the
tariff of 1890. There is vastly more
at stake now than there was then.
Where there were hundreds of