Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-10-27
SHAW SHOWS FLAWS IN
PARkER'S TARIFF THEORY
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opinion of Henry Clay that was wiser
than free trade at one blow.
A Prosperous Era.
with the instinct of an advocate
Judge Parker failed to quote Henry
Clay's opinion of the tariff law which
his compromise bill gradually reduced
In a speech delivered in the United
States senate in 1882 he said:
IF the term of seven years were
to be selected of the greatest prosper
ity which this people has enjoyed since
the establishment of our present con
stitution, 1t would be exactly that per-
iod of seven years which Immediately
followed the passage of the tariff OF
1924
while the great statesman thought
a gradual reduction preferable to an
immediate repeal, results did not just
ify his course A tariff 80 low that II
fails to protect is like fence so low
that 1t fails to protect. If Judge Par
ker will read the first volume of Mr.
Coltons life of Henry Clay he will
learn that ruin and universal want
followed the Clay compromise. In
six years the revenues fell off twenty
five per cent and the government was
borrowing money, and within four
years horses were selling at auction for
$500, cows at $100, oxen at 121a cents
each, hogs at Ga cents each, and
sheep at 1919 cents each. In one in
stance twenty-four hogs sold at auc-
tion for rs cents. Wretchedness and
want were everywhere and free soup
houses much more in demand than dur.
ing the last period of democratic SUI
premacy.
IF Henry Clay were living, doubt
very much if he would favor repeti-
ticn of the experiment. If the distln-
guished jurist candidate will study his
tory for the sake of arriving at truth
instead of searching it to and stray
sentences in the utterances of admit
ted statesmen which will justify the
position of his party, he will never be
a free trader and he would not have
been an advocate Of free silver.
Tariff of 1912.
"The democratic candidate then re.
fers to and by Implication condemns
the protective tariff of 1912. enacted
by a whig congress and signed by
President Tyler who succeeded to the
presidency on the death of the old war
rior and protectionist statesman, Will
liam Henry Harrison. The conditions
brought about thereby were such that
President Polk with evident pride re-
ferred to them in his message Of 1916
in these words:
Labor in all It's branches is re-
ceiving an ample reward; while edu-
cation, science and the arts are rapidly
enlarging the means of social happi-
ness. The progress of our country in
her career Of greatness, not only in
the vast extension of her territorial
limits and in the rapid increase Of our
population, but in resources and
wealth and in the happy condition of
our people, is without an example In
the history of nations
"The democratic candidate also men
lions the reduction of % per cent in
the tariff law of 1886, known as the
Walker bill. This was a gradual re.
duction of the tariff as the democrats
-Il6,,E propose, ana therefore receives
the unqualified endorsement of the dis
jurist candidate. The Mex
lean war, the Crimean war, and the
discovery of gold in California delayed
ruin longer than in the preceding dem
ocratic experiment, but some concep-
ton Of its effect can be cleaned from
the fact that within decade public
expenditures bed SO far exceeded the
revenues that the public debt had to
be increased from time to time as it
was during the last period Of demo-
cratic supremacy. And some faint
conception of the effect on labor of
this democratic gradual reduction can
be gathered from an address of unem-
ployed laboring men, made to the
mayor of New York City on January G.
1855:
Appeal Of the Hungry.
we do not come as beggars, but
we ask what we deem right. we ask
rot aims but work. We don't
want a little soup now, and CASTOR
clothing tomorrow. But we do want
work and the means of making an hon.
est livelihood. The condition of the
working classes is most piteous. They
want bread. Is there not enough in
TIE city? They want clothes. Is
there none made nowadays?'
On January 10 of that year Horace
Greeley, in an editorial in the Tribune
describes a pitiable sight in this Ian.
guage:
"'Who is hungry? Go and see.
You that are fulfilled. and-~know not
what it is to be hungry-perhaps never
saw hungry mango and see. &C
and see thousands Of men and women
boys and girls. old and young, BLACK