San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-01-11
A FREE TRADERS SPEECH.

The following extracts are from
the speech upon the Wilson bill,
made by Freetrader johnson, of
Ohio:
ave of the Democratic party"
he said, "went before this country
in 1892 asserting that the existing
tariff was wrong in principle ,and
unjust in operation, declaring the
policy of protection fraud and
robbery, charging it with creating
trusts, throtting industry, causing
enforced idleness, lessening wages,
mpoverishing labor and creating
few monstrous fortunes. We
pledged ourselves to abolish it if
the American people gave us au-
thority. They did give us
authority and out haste to repeal
the oppressive taxes subsidized and
instead of flying at the throat Of
the protected barons and robber
trusts the great Democratic party
began, as it were, to wag its tail
and look for crumbs.
at was the duty, of the party
coming into power under such
pledges and at such junction to
have proceeded without moments
delay to radical revision of the
tariff. If Cleveland had shown the
sagacity and courage the situation
demanded the ink would not have
been dry on the commissions Of his
secretaries before Congress would
have been called into an extra
session to relieve the country of its
burdens of taxation.
at is not merely that we have
yet done nothing. 1t is. that we
have nothing to show where we
promised much. The worst posi-
BILE situation of business is not
that of high tariff threatened with
certain but indefinite reductions.
This is the situation our delay has
for a year imposed upon the cOun-
try. Up to the present, thanks to
our inaction, the victory of the
Democratic party in November,
1892, has worked evil for good.
GAS people," said johnson, 1--WE
walk today in valley of desOla-
ton. Furnace fires have gone out,
and fires upon humble hearths as
we'll while through all our bor-
ders, factories and workshops, and
various implements and appliances
of industry remain idle and I'M
used. In the few months in which
the dominant party has held the
reins of government, it has proved
itself conspicuously incompetent
to deal with single important
question presented by the respon-
sibility of civil administra-
ton. The Executive, with an
ignorance of the limitations of his
office, IineXcusable in an intelligent
citizen, has usurped the functions
of Congress, not to meet any ext
gency or for any justifiable end,
but to undertake and miserably
fail in a foreign policy, which
would be grotesque if it were not
contemplate.
"a tariff bill has been presented
that, if enacted, | predict positive
ly, will be pronounced the most in
famous legislation of our history.
Instead of relief it brings aggrava-
lions. To the manufacturer, whose
idle capital is bringing him no re-
turn. whose plant, disused, is depre-
chatting, and whose income has been
scattered, narrowed or entirely cut
off, it offers deceptive lure OF free
raw materials, while it strips him
off all ability to compete in any
market. To the farmer it offers,
instead of protection, an enlarged
competition from abroad in the
products of his farm; instead of a
vast and growing home market, a
market abroad, in which his in
creased surplus cannot but demon
aliZe prices.
"To the cry of the laboring man
clamoring for work at American
wage rates, to the end that he,
his wife and his children shall
live like Americans, its brutal
answer is lower wages or war
with your employers. And for an
empty Treasury, depleted beyond
the power to meet current eXpen-