Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1897-09-11
THE TARIFF, EAST AND WEST.

One OF the standby statements of the
free traders is that protection ia wrong in
principle for the reason that it benefits
one section of the country to the detri-
ment of another, or in other words, the
east thrives at the expense of the vest
and everybody has seen pictures of the
famous COW grazing west of the Missis-
sippi and giving milk to the Industrious
dairyman located somewhere in Pennsyl-
vania. 1t makes n magnificent high board
fence decoration, but for any other pur-
pose it has become utterly worthless.
If protection opens thu mills and fac
tories in the industrial centers and gives
employment to armies of men-and there
is no free trader who will have the temer-
ity to dispute that it does, since the trial
given tariff for revenue only the past
must be benefited by tariff for protec-
ton. Workingmen and their families
must be fed and the farms and ranges of
the west must furnish the food. The
greater the number of men employed in
manufactures the greater will be the de-
mand for grain, meat, vegetables and
fruit. Since the prices of all commodities
are regulated by the supply and demand,
the natural effect of an increased demand
for farm products is to raise the market
value of everything the farmer has to sell.
When the agricultural interests of the
land prosper the whole country partakes
of that prosperity, and the butcher, the
baker, the candlestick maker come in
for their share of the money that is put
into circulation.
The Democrats also claim that the
Dingley tariff law has had nothing what
ever to do with the wave of prosperity
that is sweeping over the land, after four
years of business depression ana financial
disaster, under a trial of tariff for rev
enue only, but that the mysterious ways
of Providence have brought it about
That may be true, but it is very strange
that Providence should be 80 everlasting
ly down on the Democratic party. Every
time the people have seen fit to place the
government under the complete control
of that party the e fleet upon all branches
of industry has been the same. That a
shortage of crops in foreign lands has
resulted in a large measure in making
dollar wheat possible, no sane man will
deny, but the failures of harvests were
never known to start mills and put men
to work. The reports of the various
commercial agencies show that in the
past two months mills have been opened
up in every part of the country, and hun
dreds of thousands of men now have
steady employment, who have been idle
for many months past.
Had there been no barrier interposed
between the American mechanic and the
under paid labor Of Europe, in the way of
a tariff, does anyone suppose for mo-
ment that factories would have opened
up on the strength of short crops across
the water? Not by a long shot. The
mills of England, Germany, and other
foreign lands would have reaped and
! benefited of our dollar wheat. Otherwise
the men who are now at work and those
who will go to work as the times CON
tinue to improve would either have re-
manned idle or taken European wages,
which would mean much the same thing
For the free traders to declare that pro.
lection does not benefit the west the same
as il does the east is tantamount to their
saying that all the fools in the country
have settled west of the Mississippi river.
At the time the picture of the colossal COW
was SO popular as free trade argument,
many people undoubtedly believed that
the tariff was nutmeg Yankee scheme to
draw the wealth of the land to the east,
but mighty little stock is taken in such
twaddle at the present time, and the
sooner the opponents of tariff for pro-
lection take up new line of argument
the sooner will thew to make them
selves ridiculous.