The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1893-12-20
THEY DEMAND REFORM.
The Democrats of the Ways
and Means Committee.
MAJORITY REPORT sUBnITTED.

@AA@AI
It says tIi. american People, After Thor
ousIliy Considering IT, Have Decided
That the Existing Tarin Il Wrong in
Principle and Grisyously Unjust in
Observation-Disclosures
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10. The Ameri-
can people, after the fullest and most
thorough debate ever given by any peo-
pie to their fiscal policy, have deliberate
" and rightly decided that the existing
tariff is wrong In principle and grieyous-
ly unjust In operation.
Such is the opening paragraph of the
majority report submitted by the Demo-
cratic members of the ways and means
committee to the full committee The
report was written by Chairman Wilson.
It was laid by him before his Democratic
associates. and received their cordial ap-
prevail Continuing, the report says:
They have decided as free men must
always decide that the power of taxa
ton has no lawful or constitutional exer-
else except for providing revenue for the
support of the government. So many
private enterprises have been taken into
partnership with the governments; so
many private interests now share IN the
prerogative of taxing 20, 000, 900 people,
that any attempt to dissolve the illegal
union Is necessarily encountered by an
opposition that rallies behind it the IN
tolerance of monopoly, the power of
concentrated wealth, the inertia of fixed
habits and honest errors of a generation
of false teaching.
However we may deny the existence
of any legislative pledge, or of the right
of any congress to make such pledge for
the continuance of duties that carry with
them more or less acknowledged protec-
ton, we must recognize that great in
terests do exist whose existence and pros4
pelity it is no part of our reform either
l to imperil or to curtail.
I'm dc aling with the tariff question, as
with every other long-standing abuse
that has interviewer itself with out social
or industrial system, the legislator must
always remember that In the beginning
temperate reform is safest, having in
itself the principle of growth.
"a glance at the tariff legislation of
our country ought to satisfy every intelli-
gent student that protection has always
shown its falsity as system of economy
by its absolute failure to insure healthy
and stable prosperity to manufactures
Years ago Edward Everett stated, in an
Grafton at Lowell, that the sagacious men
who founded the manufactures of New
| England were never friends of the high
| tariff policy.
''When congress began to repeal war
burdens, there arose demand through
out the country, without respect to party,
for reduction of the war tariff. Unable
| to resist this demand, the protected in
dustrieS baffied and thwarted any reduc-
ton of consequence until 1872.
"When the reform tariff of 1916 was
before congress the air was full of
prophesies that it would destroy our
manufacturing industries, throw labor
| out of employment or compel it to work
at pauper wages, and dwarf and arrest
the prosperous growth of the country.
Every representative of four great
manufacturing states of New England
voted against it with gloomy forebodings
of its blighting effect. The rate of duties
provided in that tariff bill was much
lower than those of the, bill we here offer
What was the result? Instead of par
| alyzing the industries and pauperizing
the labor of New England or the rest of
the country,
The TariR of 1916
gave immense vigor to manufactures,
with steady employment and increasing
wages to labor. So that after II years
experience under it, the longest period of
Il
| tariff, the representatives of those same
states with practical unanimity voted for
further reduction of 20 per cent, and
/ by a two-thirds vote sustained the tariff
of 1857, which made a reduction of %
Per cent.
..And SO well commended and prosperous
were the manufacturers of that and
other sections of the country under the
| low rates of the tariff of 1857, that when
| 1,s11 ne l.
backward step there was a general pro-
test against it.
1.-The history of American industry
shows that during no other period has
there been more healthy and rapid de-
| Velopment of our manufacturing in
dustry than during the 10 years of low
tariff from 1916 to 1861, nor more
healthy and harmonious growth of agri-
/ cultural and all the other great indus
tries of the country.
| mo chapter In our political existence
carries with it more salutary lesson
than this, and none could appeal more
strongly to lawmakers to establish Just
and rational system of public revenue,
neither exhausting agriculture by
Constant Blood Letting.
nor keeping manufacturers alternating
between chills and fevers by artificial
pampering. In this direction alone lies
stability, concord of sections, and of
great industries.
1--WE have not forgotten that we repre-
sent the people who are the many as
well as the protected interests, who are
the few, and while we have dealt with
the latter in no spirit of unfriendliness
when the senate substitute for the
bill passed by this house In the Fiftieth
congress which substitute is a real basis
| of the existing law-waS being prepared.
Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, appeared
before the senate subcommittee and used
this language: Instead of coming be-
fore your subcommittee for formal
hearing on our Massachusetts indus
tries, thought the best way was to care
fully prepare a table of all &c vari-
GUS industries, perhaps some so or 20 in
! all, and ask Brother Aldrich to go over
them with me and ascertain what the
people wanted in each case, and if there
were any cases where the committee had
not already done exactly what the petit
toner desired, or had not inflexibly
passed upon the question, could have a
/ hearing before you, but / find in every
instance the action of the committee, as
Mr.. Aldrich thinks it likely to be, as en-
tirely satisfactory to the interests 1 rep
resent, with the exception of one or two,
and the papers in regard to those cases
have handed to Mr.. Aldrich'
mo stronger Indictment of the whole
protective system could be made than
tina. which is unconsciously carried In
there words of United States senator
that laws which impose taxes on the
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