Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-04-07
II It It Il Il II TT It tt tt tt tt II
! ! Chamb C0rks :.
n Tariff Speech In -
Which GrosVenor and
Hepburn Are Laid Ont y
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suredly. and vast one Is it protected?
The gentleman practically says No.
The Dingley bill. together with Republic
an spellbinders and editors. says, Yes.
and the fallacious theory that corn rails
ing and kindred industries are protected
has held Iowa in the Republican column
for years
The Dingley bill levies tariff tax on
corn of Is cents per bushe of fifty-six
pounds and on cornmeal of 20 cents per
bushel of forty-eight pounds. The rates
on other farm products are about the
same.
When the farmer complains about the
extortionate tariff rates on articles which
he must buy, he is told by Republican
leaders that he has no ground to kick be-
cause of the tariff on corn and cornmeal
by which he is protected.
How much corn is imported into the
United States? In 1902, the last year for
which I have the figures, we produced
1,522, 519,S91 bushels; exported 2S,02S,6 Ss
bushels; imported only 1928 bushels.
Think of the American farmer fearing
competition in corn raising with such
showing as that! In 1901. in which there
was a bumper crop of corn. the figures
show a much greater disparity between
production of corn and imports thereof.
That year we produced 2, los, 02,516 bush
els; exported 181. 405. 47S bushels; imported
only 5,169 bushels. There is scarcely
quarter section in Colonel Hepburn's dis
trict or mine which will not produce that
much corn in any fair crop year Last
year one of my constituents had eleven
acres of corn which produced an average
of 1873 bushels and a fraction to the acre,
and it wasn't an extra good season for
corn. On thirty-nine and fraction acres
he could have raised as much corn as we
imported in 1901, and yet farmers are ex-
Tod 10 rxfo = m tha n
candidates because they are protected
from competition with foreign corn raisers.
After using the words which have
quoted the gentleman from Iowa proceeded:
ION the list day of last October there
were $3.50, 900 of deposits In the little banks
of that county. Ninety-f1ve per cent of
those deposits belonged to the farmers.
and they amounted to more than hum
dred dollars for every man, woman and
child in the county
All of which he attributed to the tariff,
utterly ignoring the sunshine, the rich
soil, the rain, the delightful climate, the
favorable geographical location and the
tabor of Democrats and Republicans alike
in that great county. His is the post
hoe ergo propter hoe argument by which
any fallacy can be seemingly established.
The gentleman's memory was unusually
bad on Dec. /, 1903, for he declared that
for nearly seventy-two years, meaning
from 1889 to 1861, both inclusive the
country experimental with your meth
ods,9 meaning thereby Democratic meth
DDS. If the departed spirits of the mighty
dead take any cogniZance of debates in
this house wonder what Henry Clay,
father of the american system, SO call
ed-a paipable misnomer for a system old
even in medieval times-thought of that
declaration by Colonel Hepburn? What
hos
book of American history think of it?
Certainly it was a most reckless state
ment-very wide of the mark. Surely the
Democrats ought not to be charged with
what happened or failed to happen from
1883 to 1801-twelve years-for Washington
belonged to no party, and old John Adj
ans was rank Federalist, a fierce hater
of Democrats 1t was under his admin
istration and for words written about him
that that immortal Democrat, Mathew
Lyon-the only man ever elected to the
house of representatives from three states.
the maternal grandsire of Colonel Hep
burn-was clapped in jail under the sedi-
ton laws Would to God that brave old
Mathews Democracy had descended along
with his splendid talents to his distin-
guished grandson. When Colonel Hep
burn rebels against the Republican pro-
gramme of unrighteousness, as he sonne-
times does, it is the uncomfortable spirit
of Mathew Lyon the bosom friend of
Thomas Jefferson and Andrew jackson,
stirring within his breast and refusing tc
be entirely exercised
Surely John Quincy Adams, William
Henry Harrison John Tyler, Zachary
Taylor and Millard Fillmore, with their
administrations, should not be charged to
u.s. So that by that measurement the
gentleman's seventy-two years dwindle to
forty-eight.
81. )
take from Henry Clay and charge to
Democrats what happened, good or bad.
under his various protective tariff acts,
beginning in 1894 and extending practical
ly to the passage of the Walker act in
1886
The Walker act, Democratic measure,
gave such satisfaction, the country so
fiourished under it, that in 1856 no party
mentioned the tariff in It's platform, and
Mr.. Blaine in his book accounts the pc
Rod from 1916 to 1861 as the most prosper
GUS long stretch of years in our annals.
In that same speech of the gentleman
from Iowa [Mr. Hepburn] there occurred
the following dialogue with the gentleman
from Mississippi [Mr. Williamsl:
Mr.. Hepburn-Ah, compare prices. The
gentleman from Mississippi is exercised
because of the shelter that is given by the
protective tariff to the steel trust Why
had your way about it. when the Democ-
racy gave us our tariffs. when steel was
introduced into this country under the
Walker tariff, what did we pay for it2
One hundred and sixty-five dollars per
ton in New York for steel rails That
was the price until encouragement to
manufacture was given by the Republican
party.
Mr.. williams Of Mississippi-Can l ask
f1,e gentleman q question?
Mr. Hepburn Certainly
Mr. Williams of Mississippi Has not
that same comparative reduction in the
price of steel rails taken place in Great
Britain and everywhere else in the world?
Mr.. Hepburn Surely EApplause on the
Democratic side.l But it is the competi-
ton of the United States, and the superior
methods of the United States, and the
greater intelligence of the workmen of the
United States. stimulated by Republican
tariff, that have brought this reduction in
price. Loud applause on the Republican
side.l
o.