The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-10-27
GIVING AWAY THE ARGUMENT.

The Herald, in defining the difference
in the purpose of a Republican and
Democratic tariff. said:
The purpose of the Republican tariff
is to enable American manufacturers
in given lines to charge high prices for
their goods. The purpose of the DEM
ocratic tariff is to provide the neces-
Sary revenue to pay Governmental eX-
penses. The latter is constitutional,
the former is not.
To this a Republican contemporary
attempts a reply and enters a denial.
But as is customary with that paper it
succeeds in refuting its own asser-
tions. AS a sample we quote these
sentences:
The purpose of the Republican tariff
Is not ''to enable American manufac-
turers in given lines to charge high
prices for their goods" but 1t is to
enable certain needed manufacturers
to establish costly plants, and to pay
fair wages to their workingmen, and to
keep in this country the money which
otherwise would be sent abroad.
Very we'll When the costly plants"
are established, and the wages are
paid. and the goods thus produced are
sold. do not the purchasers have to
pay the prices set upon those goods by
the protected manufacturers? And
of what use is the tariff for protection
If it does not thus protect them? Why
deny the primary purpose Of putting
on the high tariff when that denial
knocks downs the whole protective the
ory?
Goods manufactured abroad are
brought to this country and duty Is
placed upon them so that the manu-
facturer of similar goods in the United
States may have the benefit Of the
difference of the duty. For in
stance, piece of cloth cost
ing abroad one dollar yard
and having a duty of one dollar
yard placed upon it, enables the
American dealer to charge two dollars
a yard for his goods. That is the pur-
pose and object of the protection thus
afforded or it is not protection at all.
Another thing. After the costly
plants have been erected and the
protected capitalists begin to receive
returns for their investments, instead
of taking off or reducing the duty on
the kind of goods they make, they ap-
peal for still higher duties and the
Republican party, which they help to
keep in power, yields to their demands
and piles on the duties, higher and
/ higher, until as under the Mckinley
monstrosity the people will endure it
no longer.
Wages, too, do not rise with the
tariff but in many instances decline
as the tariff goes up. Pennsylvania,
which was the most completely protec-
ted district of the country, paid the
lowest wages to its common Iaborers
under the highest tariff ever invented
to burden the oppressed masses and
enrich the corporations and capital
lists.
The Republican tariff is not primar-
lily for revenue. though our contem-
porary says: 1.-THE object of all tariffs
is for revenue" That is the only sort
of tariff authorized by the Constitu-
ton and that is the tariff for which
Democrats contend. This is called "the
English plan by our befogged con-
temporary. That does not matter 1t
Is the only true American plan. Eng
! land has profted by it SO as to make
the world tributary to her. So will
the United States when that plan is
fully adopted.
But the Republican plan is a tariff
for the protection of certain selected
classes. chiefly capitalists and in their
special interest, and the revenue de-
u rived is only incidental to that plan.
That is why it is unconstitutional a
point which high tariff protectionists
Il generally avoid and never meet di-
rectly.
Democrats do not, as falsely reiter-
ated by Republican papers and speak
ers, want American industries stopped
or injured. On the contrary, they want
them promoted on just and honest
principles But they do not want the
American people to be swindled, as
they have been under exorbitant tar
ifs, levied to enrich the wealthy, by
forcing the consumers of the country
to pay exorbitant prices for goods that
; can be manufactured in America at a
profit without the protection intended
to give them the benefit of the high
duty on foreign goods.
The denial of the proposition that
: high tariffs are to enable American
manufacturers to charge high prices
for their goods, is tantamount to de-
nying that there ever was any tariff
for protection. The statement of the
position by our contemporary is a
virtual admission of our entire con-
tention. For that kind of logic it is
without a peer.
THE FACTS IN THE CASE.