Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1904-02-25
PROTECTION RIDICULED
Leader Williams Tells What 1t
Is and How 1t Works.
THE GREAT BANANA INDUSTRY,


Artificial Prosperity-rh" Way L"
Raise tho Price of Bananns-IIot-
houses Cannot BE Expected tu
! Compete with Tropical Sunshine.
The Hon. John Sharp Williams the
new minority leader in congress. is
making his Republican opponents I'M
comfortable whenever he rises to speak
which is quite often. In his rattling
speech on Cuban reciprocity be said in
part:
"Protection is system of taxation
whereby many are robbed in order that
few men may be hothouscd by legis-
lation into artificial prosperity. AS u
supplementary definition protection is a
system of taxation whereby capital and
labor are DETECTED from naturally prof
table pursuits and enterprises into the
channels of naturally Improbable pur-
suits and enterprises. And as a corol
larry the method whereby they are de
fected is by the enactment of laws
forcing the consumer to pay to the arti-
fetal hothoused enterprises q higher
price than with a free commerce the
| consumer would have to pay.
THAT brings me, Mr.. Chairman, to
my favorite banana theory. There Is
not in the United States, ! suppose, a
hundred acres of land where bananas
can be grown in the open air and yet I
could were the legislating body of this
! country or were the cZar. with abso-
lutte power and disposed to make people
pay the price for it, create a great
American banana industry could
put tax Of dollar apiece on bananas
which are now selling at three for
nickel. and inside of five years | could
with good custom house service have
created and exploited Il vast banana
industry. 1t is true that great many
people who formerly ate bananas could
not buy any banalas at all, but it is
also true that Il great many people who
| are plutotr:ts and ariStocratS would
eat them H'callSr the common people
da"oeS. I"rseNnien and Mississippians--
could not
'if continued that system of taxa
| ton i'll cNiSi'lic" for twenty years at
the end of that time there would have
come 10 the front a new generation
| that knew not Joseph nor cheap ba-
nanas. and the moment sensible peo-
pie came into power with the idea Of
revising the banana schedule these gen
tlemen who knew not Joseph and had
gone into the American banana bust
ness and perhaps formed banana
trust would come to the committee
room of the national legislature, knock
| Ing upon the doors all the time and
giving utterance to cries of unutterable
woe: Are you going to strike down the
| great American banana industry? Are
| you going to reduce the duty from q
dollar apiece on bananas to so cents?
/ We can't stand it. 1t will ruin us.
Are you going to make the people en-
gagged in banana raising go to the soup
! houses? Are You going to discriminate
in favor of pauper tropical sunshine
against self respecting American hot
| house laborcrs'
LET us stop moment and follow
the banana theory little further be-
cause l am fond Of bananas What
would have been the result of estab-
fishing that industry? Merely this,
that you would have DETECTED GER
, tain amount Of American labor and
| capital engaged in the general hot
house industry into a different chan
mel of hothouse proceedings, and in
stead of having their hothouses for the
purpose they have them now they
would have converted them into ba-
mana nurseries, and the consumers
would be paying dollar apiece or per-
hapS 90 cents apiece for bananas be-
cause the protected interest would have
to undersel somewhat the foreign mar
i kets.
"After fifteen or twenty years home
competition would have reduced the
price of bananas in the American mar
: ket to, let us say, 40 cents apiece, and
then Republican orators and politicians
would say privately, III newspapers and
on the stump and within these walls
with due solemnity and without a mu-
tual smile: 'Lo and behold! See how
protective tariff has reduced the
price Of bananas from 80 cents apiece
in 1850 to 40 cents apiece in 1865, near
ly so per cent decrease in price to the
consumer Protection did it,
"Yes; reduction from superlative ex
tortion to comparative extortion.
But in all this picture keep in mind
one thing-while protection lasted ba-
nanas would never reach three for
nickel. because If they did that public
enemy, tropical sunshine, would be
master.
| "What would you have accomplished?
Would you have increased the wages Of
labor? Not particle. You would mere
~ have DETECTED capital from one chan
mel 70 another, from one sort Of hot
house production to another or from
nrOduofi0n which hot.