The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-12-29
TARIFF FOR REVENUE RESULTS.
What First Rendered the Protection Sys-
tenn Necessary.


tenn Necessary.
1t is very easy to predict the coDse-
quences of such tariff legislation as the
democrats are now proposing. The
country had an experience in that re-
spect before the war, and history tells
what calamltous result ensued.
There are many citizens who have a
vivid personal recollection of that peri
cd of stagnation and suffering; and
those of later generation can get full
information upon the subject by con-
sulting the newspapers and public doc
uments of the time. The tariff then
in force was of anti-protection char
acter. generally speaking, and the Will
son bill duplicates it in many particu-
lars. 1t pro missed increased prosperity,
and it brought national disaster. Man
ufactories were closed, wages were re-
duced and poverty entered the homes of
people whose labor was made practical
ly useless to them. Professions of ragged
and hungry men, women and children
were seen in the streets of all the large
cities. The clamor for food, shelter
and employment was so great that
troops were detailed to preserve the
peace and protect the public property.
Men were discharged by the thousands
in all lines of productive industry.
Meetings were held everywhere to
devise means for supplying destitute
families with the necessaries of life,
and the charitable resources of differ
ent COMMITTEES were strained to the ut
most in the work of caring for those
who were willing to work at any price,
but could find nothing to do.
There has been no repetition of that
terrible experience since the passage of
the Morrill, tariff law and the in
auguration of the present protective
system. Under that practical and benef-
icent system, the country has prospered
as no country ever prospered before.
We have had no famine, no cutting of
wages, no lack of employment. Our
workingmen have Jared better than
those of any other part of the world in
any period of history. Homes have
been multiplied at an unprecedented
rate, and enterprises of all kinds have
flourished in remarkable degree The
proposition of the democrats is to do
away in large part with the system
which has thus promoted our welfare,
and to restore the conditions that ex-
listed before the war. They insist that
the experiment would now succeed,
and that we no longer need protection
to sustain our manufactures and insure
steady work and good wages to the la
boring population But there is no
reason TO believe that the same circum-
stances which brought disaster then
would now bring advantage. The les
sons of experience are to the effect
that like causes produce like results
That is the philosophy of our civiliza-
ton, as well as the instruction of COM
mon sense. We know how revenue
tariff has operated in the past, and
that is the best basis of Judgment as to
how it would operate at the present
time. The country cannot afford to
take the risk of inviting another catas-
trophe of the kind that fell upon it be-
fore the war by reason of a democratic
scheme to raise revenue according to
the theory that protection is fraud
and a mockery. Louis Globe-Dem-
Ocrat
S-There will be no republican fiji
clustering against the Wilson bill The
bill will hurt the country, and for this
reason the republicans will endeavor
by all legitimate means to defeat it.
but its passage will make republican
victory in 1894 and 1896 easy and over