Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-01-29
JUDGE POWERS SPEECH.

The following extracts from Judge
H. II. Powers speech in the House
will be of interest:
But what about this fgment of raw
materials? Who asks that they should
be admitted to the free list? Who is to
be benefited by it? What practical
good can come to the farmer, the me-
chanic, the professional man, or the
workingman if you give them free
bituminous coal and free iron ore?
They can not gain it Indirectly from
the products Of the manufacturer, be-
cause you keep the duty on the man
ufactured product. Nobody in the
world could receive any benefit, ex-
cept the manufacturer himself, and
he is not asking for it.
The fact is, that this cry for free
raw materials originated in the fertile
brains Of few amateur politicians in
Massachusetts,, who used it to hood
wink the people of that State with
great success for brief time, and it
worked so we'll there, and not being
patented, it was seized upon by the
Democratic party as a slogan for the
last campaign.
But what are raw materials? Take
concrete case. The Wilson bill admits
all manufactured lumber free because
is raw material. Now the gentlemen
composing the Committee on Ways
and Means are all learned and schol-
arly men, and know a thing when
they see it. If they would like accur-
ately to define raw materials in the
lumber trade, let them put on a sleeps
gray suit of clothes made from Amer
lean wool, a pair of boots made Of
American rubber, a cap made from
the skin Of the American bear, should
er an ak made up in Maine, take a
dinner pail made of American tin and
| filled with American pork, American
beans, American doughnuts, and
American cheese, and start out some
morning with the thermometer at 10
below, up the slopes of the Green
Mountains, carrying banner inscrib-
ed, "Science communing with nature"
and standing, ak in hand, before a
spruce tree 100 feet high and four feet
through at the butt, and they will find
they are confronted with a condition.
When they strike the first blow at
the tree they will for the first time in
their lives strike an idea, and that will
be that they have at last found out
what raw materials are in the lumber
trade. They will learn that cutting
the tree into logs involves an expen-
diture Of capital and labor, and is a
step in a manufacturing process; that
hauling the logs to the mill involves
an expenditure Of capital and labor,
and is step in a manufacturing proc
ess; that saving the logs into boards,
planks, and dimension stuff involves
an expenditure OF capital and labor,
and is d step in q manufacturing proc
ess; and when the product of the mill
reaches our boundary line it comes,
not raw material but manufac-
tured product So that this bill, in
stead of supplying raw materials, steps
in at the middle of the manufacturing
process, and declares that we must
give to Canada the benefit of all the
capital and labor that has been en-
ployed in all these initial steps is the
poorest paid and most deserving of
consideration at the hands of the Gov
ernment Of any employed in the whole
process, from the standing tree to the
finished building.
Thus the sublime fallacy Of free raw
materials, when inspected, turns out
to be not only misnomer, but a very
large sized humbug. It is merely
device to give to Canada all the bene-
fit Of the labor that rightfully belongs
to lis, and to give all the profits to the
manufacturers. Why this discrimina-
ton against American forests? Whv
did the God of Nature cover our
mountain sides with the finest quail
ties of every name and kind of stand
ing timber that ever waved in the
breezes of heaven from Maine to Cal
ifornia, from Oregon to Florida?
Why, Mr.. Chairman, the value of
the standing timber, hard and soft in
Vermont today, after hundred years
of harvest, probably exceeds the val
ue of her marble quarries; exceeds
the value Of her granite quarries; is,
in short, the most valuable natural
asset she has. The same thing is true
of Maine, Of Michigan, Of North Caro-
lima, of q Georgia, the Pacific Slope, and
many other states. And not only this,
these same mountains are pregnant
with an untold wealth of lead, iron,
granite and marble, and we are told
by this bill to let them alone-do not |