The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-03-23
DEMOCRATS FEEBLE VAIL
MINORITY PROTEST AGAINST the
PROPOSED VIEW TARIFF.

The Evils and Bane of an Overlooking
Treasury Set Forth-It Corrupts the Pub
lie Mind and Public Servants-Protection
Denounced as Crime-The Bill Would
Encourage Reckless Extravaganza.
Washington, March 22.-The report of
the minority of the committee on ways
and means upon the tariff bill was pre-
sented to the house this evening by
Representative Bailey, dem, OF Texas,
the leader of the democracy. In part
it says;
This bill was framed with the avowed
purpose of protecting the manufacture
efs of the United States against foreign
competition and if it accomplishes that
purpose, it must result in compelling
more for their manufactured goods.
And for this reason, we think it should
not pass. 1t is a gross perversion of
the sovereign power of taxation TO en-
ploy it as a means of enabling favored
classes to levy unjust charges upon the
great body of the people. We deny the
right of congress to make or enforce
any regulation which requires one man
to give any part of his honest earnings
toward encouraging the enterprise or
increasing the fortune of another.
No man would defend a system of
taxation under which the government
first collected the money and after
wards distributed it among its favor
ties. The advocates of protection have
not dared to incorporate any provision
for direct bounty in the present bill.
We are unable, however, to perceive
any difference in principle between a
law which requires the government
to collect the money and distribute it
among the protected industries and a
law which enables these industries to
collect the money directly from the peo-
pie. When we remember that a pro-
tective tariff not only collects more for
the government than is needed for its
economical administration, but that it
also enables favored classes to collect
more than the government itself, the
injustice becomes so clear and so enor-
nous that it would be a reflection upon
the intelligence of the American people
to suppose that it can escape their
swift and decisive condemnation.
Perhaps no effect could be more
faulty than the extravaganza which the
bill encourages The importations Of
last year were smaller than usual, ow-
ing to the general depression: but even
supposing that importations hereafter
can be kept at a level with the impor-
tations of 1896 the bill will collect from
the people more than $9Oo0o,O00 annu-
ally above the requirements Of our
present eXtravagant and wasteful ap-
preparations.
An overlooking treasury is a constant
temptation to enter upon expenditures
that corrupt both the public mind and
the public servants. Under system
of high taxes there must be a surplus
or there must be waste, and both are
serious evils. If the government We're
now properly and frugally administer
ed our expenditures. including liberal
pensions for the soldiers of the late
war would not exceed $3.50, 900 900.
The extravaganza which necessitates
the billion dollar appropriations, which
have become such a scandal upon con-
gress, had it's origin in the unjust sys-
tenn of levying taxes for the purpose
of enabling private interests to prey
upon the public through the favoritiSm
of the law.
1T is not more certain that protection
encourages extravaganza than it is that
it breeds unlawful combinations of cap
ital.
Regulations to prevent the foreigner
from trading with us must prevent us
from trading with the foreigner. We
believe in the principles of competition
and we believe that the people of the
United States can successfully compete
against any other people of the world;
and we denounce as a crime against the
best interests of our people any law
which leaves the consumers of this land
subject to the exactions of reckless and
corrupt combinations formed to destroy
competition and control prices.
The report of the committee on ways
and means is singularly silent upon the
old pretext, that these high taxes are
imposed for the benefit of American Ia
Dor; and the silence may be taken as
conceding the democratic contention
that the intelligence and skill of the
American factory operatives are all the
protection which he needs or desires
The American laborer is able to pro.
duce seven times as much as the less
skilled and less intelligent laborer OF
continental Europe: and fifteen times
as much as the ignorant and unskilled
laborers of Asia.
We have not been allowed g reasona-
BILE time to prepare a substitute for the
pending bill and must content ourselves
with protesting against the passage OF
the committees report.
SUSPENDED FOR HAZING.