River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1894-08-02
FREE TRADE ABROAD.
The Tariff Ms . Protection to Dome 90
Manufactures.

manufactureS-
In the United States an internal rev.
cnue tax is essentially a war tax.
Three times the government has had
to resort to it, each time to meet the
extraordinary expenditures and debts
eaced by war. In each case it pro-
tested a purpose TO abandon such
taxes as soon as the state of the pub
lie finances would permit. This spe-
cies of tax has always met the most
determined opposition from the peo-
pie and has always provoked bloody
conflict with the public officers. At
the close of the revolutionary war an
internal tax was adopted. which pre-
cipitated the Shay rebellion and was
very soon abandoned. Again, at the
close of the war of 1912, IL was tried,
and after few years abandoned as
promised.
The present system was adopted
during the civil war, the enormous ex-
pense and debts of which compelled a
resort to every possible device for rails
ing money and with the most solemn
doned as soon as practicable. This
pledge was faithfully kept In view by
the republican party while in power.
All taxes on occupations, on incomes,
on legal and commercial papers and
on manufactures, except spirits, beer
and tobacco, have been repealed And
it is the pledge and the intention of this
party to keep its promise and abandon
the whole internal tax system as soon
as practicable.
But the government must have
money with which u meet its vast ex-
penditures, and this money it must de-
rive from some form of taxation. And
from the beginning of the government
it has been our policy to derive this
money from customs duties. The tariff
is tax on foreign products brought
into our country to be sold in our mar
kets. 1t is the only form In which we
can make foreigners who enjoy the
protection of person and property
given them by our laws, and who have
the profits of trade in our markets,
contribute TO the expense of maintain
ing them. And SO, the second law
placed on our statute books, by the
first congress of the United States,
was tariff. This tariff was avowedly
adopted for the two-fold purpose of af-
fording revenue for the treasury and
protection to domestic manufactures.
And the principles of this act, pre-
pared by Madison, advocated by Ham
ilton and approved by Washington, is
still the republican shibbolith. We
are for tariff for revenue. so adjusted
as to protect our own manufactures and
thus furnish employment for our own
labor.
Our political opponents do not stand
on the same platform with us. In spite
of constant denials, in spite of the
warnings and opposition of individual
leaders in their own ranks, year by
year they are growing holder and bold
err in their advocacy of free trade. This
was the undoubted doctrine of the
democratic party before the civil war,
and back TO this position they are
steadily drifting as the inevitable re-
suit of their fundamental doctrine of
state rights. In 1s4s their national
platform declared ''that the fruits of
the great political triumph of 1874
have fulfilled the hopes of the democ-
racy of the union in the noble inn
pulse given to the cause of free trade
by the repeal of the tariff of 1912, and
the creation of the more equal and pro-
ductive tariff of 1916" In 1856, they
again declared, ''the time has come
for the people of the United States to
declare themselves in favor of free
seas and progressive free trade
throughout the world" During the
rebellion democratic doctrine burst
into full flower as applied to revenue
systems by provision in the confed-
crate constitution prohibiting their
congress levying an import duty for
the encouragement of any industry.
And since the war, each tariff bill they
have prepared goes further ard further
in the direction of their free trade
theories, until now, in the Wilson bill,
we are challenged to a choice between
the two fundamentally different sys-
TENS of external and internal taxation.
This bill cuts down the tariff, equally
regardless of protection and OF reve-
nue., and proposes to supply the def
cheney by a return to the income tax,
and an exte nsion of other internal
taxes We are at the forks of the road.
1t is no longer question of tariff for
revenue only, as against a tariff for
protection. 1t is now a tariff for de-
ficiency and permanent adoption of
internal taxation for revenue. The
democratic cry of tariff reform" "a
tariff for revenue only" is demon
strated to be insincere. Its true mean
ing is, free trade in foreign goods,
and internal taxation to supply the
revenue"