The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-03-26
YILLAINY OF PROTECTION

From the New York Evening Post.'o
The controversy over boss rule in Penn
sylvania is Illuminating in more ways
than one. The Philadelphia Ledger"
an Independent Republican journal, has
a leading editorial article today, entitled
Senator Quay as a Public Servant
which deserves general attention for the
light that it casts both upon the way in
| which manufacturer dictate the construe-
ton of tariff laws and the demoTalizing
connection between a high tariff and boss
rule. The Ledger has received from a
prominent carpet manufacturer of its
city a protest against its treatment of
| Quay. and a plea in his behalf on the
| ground of his great services to his con-
stituents', and his services to the car
! pet manufacturing industry in the franz
ing of both the Wilson and the Dingley
tariffs. The Ledger" admits that
Senator Quay did conspicuously serve
the manufacturer of carpets by holding
up the Wilson tariff bill in the Senate I'M
I'll Senator German, in despair, consented
to accept the carpet, schedule which Mr..
Quay supported''; and 1t also admits that
he served the manufacturers with like
efficiency in respect to the carpet
schedule of the Dingley bill" But it
dissents from the view that his services
to 4the select few of his fellow-citizens
who are engaged in the manufacture of
carpets were great public services, and
it thus tells the truth about the effect of
his action
o manufacturers of carpets through
out the entire country, thereeare possibly
a few scores, or a few hundreds. OF the
consumers of carpets there are 0,OO0, 600.
| The gain of the manufacturers from
| their higher schedule was the loss of the
consumers, the latter having to pay the
increased cost represented by the en-
ianced duties.
did Senator Quay serve the 1000, 600
consumers of carpets when he supported
in the Senate the Dingley carpet schedule
by virtue of which a great trust is now
being formed to enhance prices or did
| he serve his scores of millions of con-
| stituents when he assisted to impose the
present excessive duties on Canton mat
| tings, which are not made in this coun-
try at all, and which because of their
~cheapness and beauty were SO commonly
the Clearly, sanitary carpets of the poor?''
1t would be difficult TO frame a severer
indictment of the protective system than
10 21C-C lawn oS q AA( .
| paper, published in The chief city of a
State which has always been the strong
hold of that system. We have the plain
| confession of this expert authority that,
while Senator Quay has unquestionably
| served the manufacturers of carpets, a
handful out of 10. 000.0 600 people, he has
not served the people, all of whom are
users of carpets" Nor does the Ledger
stop at this point. 1t shows that there
was a bargain between the manufactur-
ers and the boss, by which he secured
the approval of Congress for the sched-
ule which they had prepared, without
the change of a word or a comma" and
/ they in turn have furnished the money
to keep him in power. Upon this point
the Ledger" says
To- services so valuable to them In
connection with both the Wilson and
Dingley bills, the manufacturers should
be grateful to Senator Quay. But rave
| they really been ungrateful to hirn2 Have
| they not, in part at least, paid the debt
| of gratitude they owed him by their most
/ generous contributions to his various po-
| litical and faetional campaign funds since
1898? If Senator quay has served the
manufacturers have they not also served
him? Have they not furnished him lib
orally with the sinews of war in his re-
| peated contests with his political oppo-
nents? And have not his opponents chiefly
been the friends of good government, of
government by the people instead of gov
| eminent by Boss Quay? Or, have not his
followers been generally the supporters
of bad government-of the government
of. by and for bossism, as sordidly repre-
| scented by Senator Quay?"
As an object lesson in the injustice Of
the protective system and the corrnpting
! effect of a high tariff upon our politics
this exposure by the Philadelphia
Ledger should attract national atten-
ton.