The Elk Mountain pilot., 1899-11-14
IAN ACT OF MADNESS -
rHE PROPOSED ABANDONMENT
OF PROTECTION.
4 We Arc to Achieve Commercial;
Supremacy We Must Hold to the Policy
That Has Made Us Industrialy and
Financially Supreme.

A timely article on the subject of
Commercial Empire and Protection"
Is contributed by Hon. Edward N.
Dingley to Gunton's Magazine for Oc-
tober. 1t is just now quite the fash
ION among certain expounders OF "ad-
ranced" economic theory to assert that
protection has outlived whatsoever use
tulness it ever had in the matter of
developing and sustaining domestic in
dustries, and, in view of the new con-
ditions which have arisen, must now
be greatly modified, or, better still, al
together abandoned. Such is the pur-
port of an article in a recent number
Of the Forum, and to this proposition
Mr.. Dingley addresses himself with the
vigor and zeal born of an intense con-
viction that the abandonment OF our
fixed national policy Just at a time
when its successful operation has
wrought such splendid results would
be an act of madness.
1t was by establishing and maintain
Ing a protective tariff, as Mr.. Dingley
points out, that the founders of our
republic, after having thrown off the
political yoke of England, took steps
TO throw off the commercial and indus
trial yoke which the mother coun-
try" had so firmly fastened upon the
necks of the American people. How
successful was this determination and
what magnificent results have flowed
from the practical realization OF the
hopes of the fathers of the republic
are matters of history. Today the re-
M l,
tons of the earth-supreme, Industrial
ly, commercially, and financially; the
home of the most prosperous and pow
erful nation the world has ever known.
After the lapse of century from the
passage by congress of the first tarifr
bill under the federal constitution,
framed by Madison and approved by
Washington-an act FOR the support
of the government, for the discharge
Of debts of the United States, and for
the protection of manufactures"-the
same fundamental principles remain
alive in the Dingley tariff law of to-
day: the raising OF revenues and the
encouragement of domestic industries.
The effective manner in which these
principles are carried out under the
existing tariff law. together with the
demonstrated fact that because Of the
Increased employment and the in
creased purchasing power of the
people protective tariff produces more
revenue than a free-trade tariff, are
matters which Mr.. Dingley's article
emphasizes most convincingly. SINH
larly cogent is his demonstration that
the home market can be preserved
only by maintaining to the highest pos
sible degree the purchasing and con-
Stunning power of our own people" This
Is the pivotal point of the whole ques-
ton.
Turning to the question of CONNER
cial supremacy, Mr.. Dingley urges that
"a nation must be industrially and
financially supreme before 1t can be
commercially supreme; 1t must be
strong at home before it can be strong
abroad" 1t is for the full develop
ment and maintenance of this strength
at home that the writer appeals-a
strength which has come by and
through protection, and which will re-
main with this nation as the result of
steadfast persistence in the faith of
the fathers who planned protection as
the surest, The only, way to secure for
their country absolute freedom. abso-
lutte independence, absolute prosperity.
If for no other reason than to serve
notice upon all whom it may concern
that protectionists see nothing in ex-
isting conditions which suggests the
wisdom of abandoning the American
policy, but are, on the contrary, tirmer
than ever in their adherence to that
policy, Mr.. Dingley has done well to
make public his views in the article
in Gunton's from which we have quot
ed. Protectionists know where they
stand, and it is well that the "ad-
vanced" theory expounders should also
know.