Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-11-30
WILMINGTON. THURSDAY. NOR. 30.



The new Tariff bill is now before the
American people for consideration and
will shortly come before their chosen
representatives in Congress for action.
1t represents great deal of labor on
the part of the Democratic members of
the ways and means committee, and,
without attempting to pass Judgment
thereon in all its multitudinous details,
we can confidently say that, taken as
whole, it represents labor expended in
the right Objectionable creation of
tariff system for the masses and not for
the classes; tariff for revenue with
adequate incidental protection instead
of tariff which seeks the taxation Of
the whole people for the aggrandize-
ment of not more than ten per cent of
their number.
For thirty years the Republicans have
been tinkering at the tariff. During the
trying times of the civil war and the
years Immediately following the de-
mands for abnormal revenue necessitated
abnormal taxation, and since this was
to be most readily raised through taxa
ton of imports, the nation acquiesced
with all the complacency that could
have been demanded in shouldering and
carrying the burden. So long as war
tariffs were required for revenue they
were borne almost uncomplainingly,
but when plutocracy began to get the
upper hand Of patriotism they naturally
became FESTIVE. For long while the
sophistries of the protectionists and
their professions of love and zeal
for the welfare of the American
laborer blinded many of the people
to the selfishness that had crept
into tariff legislation, and the Republi-
can party was permitted to go on with
its programme of fostering venerable
'infant industries" and casting abroad
for new 'infants" to coddle at the pub
lie expense. But when their zeal in this
direction reached the length Of mourning
new obligations to enable the party in
power to more enormously protect
the men who had put up their millions
to carry elections, while wages went
down and the competition of the "pauper
labor of Europe" was being brought
day by day in greater volume into our
own workshops, then the masses began
to kick-and the verdict went forth at
the polls that the people wanted their
innings and were going to have them.
The tariff bill just sent out has beer
framed in accordance with this demand
1t will of course meet with bitter criti
cism from both protectionists and free
traders. The combinations which hay,
grown up on government pap will o
course clamor that their industries will
be ruined if this bill becomes law
They will cry out that the Democrats
''tariif smashers" are bent on driving
the nation to inevitable destruction
But the people have heard these predic.
tons before. The principle of tariff TO
protection has been abundantly triet
and found wanting-it did not avail il
practice to save this country from tn
greatest panic ever known in its history
it has not availed, under its culminatio
in the Mckinley act, to keep the wage
Of Pennsylvania coal miners from goin
down to 70 cents per day; it has nc
availed to prevent the price of Amer
can wool from declining until wester
farmers are killing their sheep for mu
ton; it has not galvanized into life th
little tin-plate infant of which such gres
things were predicted; in fact it has ne
prevented the country and its industrit
from getting into pretty bad way a
around.
1t is clear that we, as nation, hay
gotten on to the wrong track; that pr,
lection" has been run into the groun,
Whether the Wilson bill will put us G
the right track, or whether it will q
through Congress, and in what shap
remain to be seen. But we give ii
majority members of the ways an
means committee full credit for graz
pling with this difficult problem in vii
accordance with the promise of tart
reduction made to the American peop
in the platform of the party to viii,
the reformation of the tariff has be,
entrusted. As the Baltimore Sun say
the bill they have formulated is &c,
honest and courageous effort to I
lieve the masses from the exa
tons of monopolies granted al
protected by an abuse of the ia
ing power. For over % years t
means of the poor have been fitch
from their pockets by plausibly or sly
worded tariff schedules, and the effs
is seen everywhere in the contrast
wealth and poverty of different sectio
of the community. Vast fortunes ha
been piled up for the Carnegies a,
other pets of protection, while the CO
Stunning classes-the farmers, mechani
day laborers, professional men, clerl
merchants, teachers, &c.-have struggl
as best they could against legalized G
tortion. What the Wilson bill pl
poses is justice between man and m
and equality of opportunity. 1t p
poses to bring our economic legislati
back to sound principles, so that ind
tries Of all sorts may thrive and prosl
under the operation of natural laws
Statistician F. @. Waite says tina
was the stay-at-home voter that did
In 1890, in New York, 100000 vot
stayed at home; this year, 100000.
Chicago the staY-at- homes nnmhal