The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1897-03-20
President Mckinley's Message.

Congress convened In eXtraor-
dinaly session Monday, and Presi-
dent Mckinley sent in his maiden
message to that body. Brevity
marks his paper as exceptionally
good and his main topic is the
question of revenue. On the sub
ject he Picayune thus dwells:
The revenue bill passed by the
democratic congress in 1894 failed
to provide a sufficient income for
the government. This deficiency
was due chiefly, if not wholly, to
the annulment by the supreme
court of the United States, of the
income tax law, and since then
the inadequacy of the public re-
venue has caused a large deficit
every year The president sets
forth the government needs mon
ey, and called congressinto session
order to have some provision
made.
The presidents recommenda~
tions are directed entirely to ia
riff on foreign imports as the
source from which tho needed
fun'ls are to be derived. He gives
no attention to internal taxation
as offering any field for raising
money for public use. Said the
president:
In raising revenue, duties should be so
levied upon foreign products as to pre-.
serve the home market,so far as possible,
to our own producers; to revive and in.
crease manufactures; to relieve and en-.
courage agriculture; to increase, our do
mestic and foreign commerce; to aid and
develop mining and building; and to ren
der to labor in every field Of useful occu
patton the liberal wages and adequate re-
wards to which skill and industry ar,
| Justly entitled.
The necessity for the passage OF tarit
law which shall provide ample reyen'r
not be further urged. The imperatiJI
demand Of the hour Is the prompt en-"
ment OF such measure, and to this
lstCa,S 7 fior6 ofnJsr6t9 eo,scortte
Iect earnestly recommend that .ot.ess
shall make every endeavor. Before 9TH
or business Is transacted, let us Grst pro
vide sufficient revenue to faithfully ad-
minister the government without The con.
tracing Of further debt or the continued
disturbance Of our finances.
The president finds himself con-
fronted, al the very commence
ment of his administration, with
conditions which drive him from
his grounds of high protection by
practically prohibitive duties on
foreign goods. His hobby has
been tariff so adjusted as that il
would literally exclude foreign
goods and give monopoly of the
home markets to American man
ufacturers. But this is now i'm
possible, since the tariff is looked
to as source from which is to
come the chief income of the gov
ernment. Under these circum-
stances, whore a very large
amount of money is to be secured,
it becomes necessary so to regu-
late the tariff as that it will en-
courage very considerable impor-
tations of foreign goods, and the
greater the volume Of imperta-
ltions the greater the amount of
the revenue.
| President Mckinley, at the very
outset of his administration, ia
driven to adopt democratic doc
trines as to the tariff, and a con-
sequent abandonment of his favo.
rite notion of high protection,
because prohibitive tariff would
yield no revenue. The democrat
ic system is the only proper one
for the administration of this gov
ernment, and the astonishing
spectacle is presented of the dem
ocratic politicians abandoning
their principles and going over to
socialism, while republican pres.
ident is seeking relief from some
of the troubles which beset his
administration by adopting the
democratic doctrine Of tariff for
revenue only.
The largest individual land