The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-15

treatment than they. So inexcusable was this act that MT. Cleveland, who favored a reduction of tariff all along the ltne and who believed in free raw materials, was unwilling to sign the bill, and used these characteristic words It may well excite our wonder that democrats are willing to depart from this free raw material doctrine, the most democratic of all tariff prin- ciples and that the inconsistent ab surdity of such a proposed departure should be emphasized by the sugges- tion that the wool of the farmers be pit on the free list and protection of tariff taxation be placed around the iron ore and and coal of corporations and capitalists
 But this did not avert the fatal blow. Less organized than other industries in the country, you were unable to secure the recognition to which you were just ly entitled, and your great product was made the victim of. free trade. (Cries of That's rightly In all the years in w'llch the republican party was in DO oNar you know that it gave protec- ton to wool, and in the act of 1890 gave to this industry increased protection.
 That law, the law of 1890, gave to every agricultural product of this, coun- try, every farmers product in this country, the best protection ever had before. Every protection that could be given to them against outside competi- tior and to preserve the home market was always cheerfully and generously accorded by the republican party. (Great applause and cries of That's rightly
 '"The platform of the national repub- lican party. upon which we stand this year. much to my qualification, singles out the wool industry and makes it of special mention as entitled to full pro- lection under our revenue laws. Loud applause.) This is the language of the national platforms TO all our products, to those of the mine and the field as well as those of the shop and factory to hemp, to wool, the product of the great industry of sheep husbandry, as well as to the finished woolens of the mill-we promise the most ample pro teption.' (Applause.) SAnd what the republican party promises it is in the habit of performing. (Cries of That's rightly
 Tt does not make promises to the broken. It says what it means and means what 1t says. But my fellow citizens what we want, whether we produce wool or any other agricultural product is to preserve the splendid home market to our own American producers. (Great applause) It is the best market in the world. There is no tt principle of justice and fair play 1t belongs to us and to nobody else be- fore us. (Applause and cries of that's rightly As showing the importance of your industry it is only necessary to say that in 1892 there were seven hundred thousand wool growers in the United States, 100000 people whose chief occupation was that of wool growing. There were probably one fourth as. many more who were owners of small fiocks of sheep in the United States
 This industry employed besides those who owned the focks, it is esti- mated, at least a half million laborers, representing, with those who were de- pendent upon them near 2,5000O0 per- sons. There were 100000 farms, aver aging 160 acres each devoted to this industry; and the mountainous regions and the vast plains of the great west, which are not adapted to other kinds of farming have been utilized in this great industry and made valuable.
 Every one of these farms compris- ing 160 acres of land-112, ,000, 900 acres in all-has been seriously injured by placing wool upon the free list. In one of the agricultural papers west I have seen the statement that in Oregon. Utah, Washington, Idaho and Vest ern Montana there were 6,710,7 746 sheep, which were worth in 1892 $13 421 900 and which in 1896 were worth only S6, 719000. In 1892 we had 47,29S, ,000 sheep in the United States, valued at $125, ,0000 900. In 1892 we had 3S,29s,OOO, valued at $65.- 100000 and the total imports of woolen goods In 1892 under the republican pro- tective tariff law were a little above S37, 100000 and in 1895, under the Will son tariff law those imports amounted to more than $60000000. (Cries of "hurrah for Mckinley and the repub- lican party.") On the second day of April, 1888, in presenting the minority report in opposition to the Mills bill in the national house of representatives I said:
 Wool on the free list is a deadly assault upon great agricultural inter- est and will fall with terrible severity upon a million of people, their house. hols and dependencies. It will destroy invested capital unsettle established values, wrest from Aockmasters their lifetime earnings, bankrupt thousands of our best and most industrious farmers. and drive them into other branches of agriculture already overcrowded. (Cries of that's what it has done.) It is a vicious and indefensible blow at the en- tire agricultural country ((Cries of you are rightly
 Alexander Hamilton in his report up- on manufactures made to congress 104 years ago, said: This idea of an ex- tensive domestic market for the surplus product ofthe soil is of the first i'm portaI8te It is, of all things, that which most effectually conduces to a fiourishing state of agriculture
 Thomas Jefferson said: Experience has taught me that manufactures are as necessary to our independence as to our comfort. The duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign