The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-11-28
TARIFF REvIsroN-rHE ISSUE
FOR 1904.

FOR 1904.
No constitutional power vested In gov
errment is Of greater Importance than
the right to levy taxes. AS Chief Justice
Marshall long ago said, the power to
tax carries with It the power to destroy"
and hence no other governmental func-
lions is so liable to abuse.
This Is peculiarly true in the making
Of tariff laws by our Federal Congress.
based on the grant of power to collect
taxes, duties and imposts. The doctrine
of the Democratic party has always been
that this is a limited power. confined to
the purpose of paying the public debts.
and providing for the common defense
and general welfare OF the United
States" Hence impost duties should be
levied only with the intent of raising
revenue for public purposes. not to foster
private industries by granting indirect
bounties to individual citizens.
Benton, in his history of the Senate.
referring to the tariff act of 1923. which
Calhoun denounced as a bill of abomi-
nations" called attention to the fact that
tariff bills each exceeding the other in
its degree of protection had become "a
regular appendage of our Presidential
elections, coming round in every cycle of
four years with that returning event."
That eloquent son Of South Carolina. Nc
Duffie, denounced the system of indirect
bounties'' as 1.-The most stupendous in
strument of corruption ever placed in the
hands of public functionaries." He
truthfuly declared: at brings ambition
and avarice and wealth into a combina-
ton which II Is fearful to contemplate
because 1t is almost impossible to re-
sist. Do we not perceive at this very
moment" he said (speaking of conditions
more than seventy years ago. 1.-The ex-
traordinary and melancholy spectacle of
less than one hundred thousand capital
lists by means of this unhallowed combi-
potic control over the opinions of eight
millions of free citizens and the for
tunes and destinies of ten millions"
Change the figures to a few thousand 81
gantic corporate trusts. and eighty mil
lions OF free citizens, and we have the
picture presented at the beginning of the
twentieth century Of American industrial
progress.
The Republican majority In Congress
has made three tariff laws in the past
twenty. years-the act of 1888, that of 1890,
known as the Mckinley tariff, and the
present act of 1897, called the Dingley
tariff. Each of these acts has exceeded
the other in the greed OF it's so-called pro-
lection features, the enormous rates of
duty In the various schedules having
been dictated by the manufacturers who
paid for their bounties, or as McDuffie
styled them their imperial donatives."
by large contributions to Republican
campaign funds used to corrupt Presi-
Dental elections.
1t is matter of history that the Ding
ley and Mckinley acts were enacted nv
combination Of privileged interests
pooling their influences. and los-rolling
for each other at the expense of the pub
lie good. The average rate of duties lev
~ ny eAC DAh6iCy tdElh Is cSttuldtcu at
50 per cent ad valorem. BY the adoption
of system of compound duties-combin-
ing specific and ad valorem rates togeth-
er-the rate on many articles is from 500
to 1000 per centum and often much high
er. For example, there is the article of
mica waste. used as lubricant and for
the decoration of wall paper, which was
on the free list prior to 1890 There are
two small mica mines in the United
States. one in New Hampshire and the
other in North Carolina. In a recent case
coming before the National Board of
Customs Appraisers. as stated in a re-
cent interview by Judge Somerville pub
llshed in The Advertiser, and taken from
The New York Commercial, it was shown
that the rate exacted on certain .impor-
tations of mica waste, of a low grade,
was four thousand per cent, shrewdly
concealed under a system of compound
duties The silk, WOOL cotton and metal
schedules of this act contain features of
a like deceptive character, which, as Sec
rotary Moody said of the anthracite coal
poi aBi apit, were sHedkeu into the
Dirgley act
Political discussions during the recent
elections, in the press and on the stump,
have called attention to many of these
enormities, and the voice of the people
is beginning to be again heard in an en-
ergetic ground-swell against this Repub-
lican system OF bounties and prohibi-
tons. which Mr.. Calhoun. in his cele-
brated debate with Webster on the tariff
act Of 1892, pronounced to be robbery
The Democratic party won the Presi-
Dental election of 1892 really on the tar
III issue. The country was overtaxed by
the Mckinley act $4,000. 900. In Decem-
Der, 1887, Grover Cleveland, who went in
to office. pledged to relieve the people
of unnecessary taxation" declared in his
message to Congress: Our present tar
if laws, the vicious. inequitable and IL
logical source of unnecessary taxation,
ought to be at once revised and amend
ed"
The Wilson tariff act of 1894 was a sort
of customs crazy-quilt, constructed on
no scientific principles. 1t was inequita-
BILE in it's favoritism of certain indus
tries. the motive OF which was charged
to sectional prejudices, and resulted in
the reaction of 1896. when Mckinley was
swept into Office by political tidal wave
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