The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1896-10-09
WILSON LAW A SUCCESS.
AMPLE Tor REVENUE AID PR0TE0.
Tl0g no LABOR

Alchiniey'a Lettce Reviewed by John /
10 Witt Warner, 3Iombar
at Che Committee of Congress
THAT Framed the Wilson uu
mr. Mckinley begins Tho uuior,un.
nlo hi8hpro.eeaou portion OF hi8 lot.
ter Of acceptance by claiming that in
December, 1922, under tao tariff act
bearing hig name, tho country was IN
% condition of extraordinary pros.
peTity no cites from President Har-
risou'a message She statement that be-
tween October, 1890, and Ostobor %,
1892. 315 additional industrial plant8
had been established and los extern
giona had OF existing plants, aud that
during tho lrst six months OF tho cal
ondar year 1902, 1876 now factories
had been built. The facts wora that
the two preceding years had boon
those OF steadily increasing industrial
depression. Omitting oil Instances of
labor troubles Che cause OF which was
either doubtful or clearly other
wise 30 DO classified, there has boen
co.latoi and published as q challenge
20 proteshonists, with datc and place
and circumstances in each ccac, nearly
twelve hundred instances Of wage re.
auctions during those very two years,
with strikes against them or lockouta
by employers in order 90 force accept.
nuce. The number of new plants and
factories and extensions of such quoted
by him from President Harrison is so
petty, whom tho size OF this country
and the myriads OF its industries are
taken into account, as TO be but a
triding Offset to the terrible record Of
of disaster then daily being added to.
and in reality a humiliating confession
of the failure of Mckinley legislation
which has promised better things.
AS proof of Democratic depravity
Mr.. Mckinley then quotes from Presi-
dent Cleveland's message Of August 8,
1898. 1t correctly characterized the
condition Of our country eight months
later, when is condition, still under
Republican legislation, had reached
such q crisis that Congress was called
together in midsummer to save our
finances from ruin by the repeal of
the purchasing clause of the Sherman
act, for which Mr.. Mckinley had voted
and which the party which now poses
as q knight Grant OF sound finance
had vociferously pointed to with pride
IN its platform of q short year previ-
GUS. The abyss from which the action
OF the Democratic Administration then
rescued the country was but the end
of the descent upon which it had been
started by the twin protection" sis
tiers.
Mr.. Mckinley says that from 1880
TO 1892 we had ga protective tariff I'M
der which ample revenues were col
lected for the Government and an ac-
cumulating surplus" OF these years
he was responsible only for two-lS9O
TO 1392-during which his law was in
operation. So lar from a surplus ac-
cumulating under his bill the annual
surplus had fallen from $l06, 000,0 900
lin the year before the passage of the
Mckinley billy to $37, 900, 600 in the
first year of its operation, to SO, 900, =
900 in the second year, andto 50, $780,
900 in the third year, and had turned
to a deficit Of 500, 900, 600 in 1894, the
last year before its repeal.
Such is the Generalization of our
finances, resulting from Republican
legislation, with which our commerce
and manufactures have struggled for
years and Mr.. McKinley's figures by
which, charging to the Wilson bill the
ruin caused by the Sherman act, he
strives to make the Mckinley bill
tolerable by comparison, are not
merely unfair, but, when rightly read,
the best proof that he is wrong. That,
under all the circumstances, our ex.
ports of manufactured goods are so
nearly the maximum figure for our
most prosperous years; that the bal
ance in our favor of our foreign trade
is so large and so rapidly growing,
shows how much the Wilson bill has
done to Offset the disaster bred by the
Sherman act
Mr.. Mckinley charges the Wilson
tariff with failure to raise revenue
sufficient to satisfy the needs Of Gov.
eminent. What does he mean? Does
he not believe that, even from a pro-
tectionist standpoint, all interests oil
business demhnd that IN adjusting a
tariff it should be so fixed as to remain
without substantial change for con-
siderable period, say eight or ten
years? II this DO true, must he not
also admit chat It's rates should be 50
adjusted, not in view Of the maximum
revenue probable under exceptional
prosperity or to the possible minimum
under an extraordinary depression,
but to the probable average of condi
lions during the entire term contem.
plated? To adopt the latter measure,
Mr.. Mckinley must admit, would be