The Sauk Centre herald., 1905-12-07
PROTECTIVE TARIFF PLANK.

IA tdIIlD VI uuIy suOuiu OO
imposed upon all articles imported
that are the same or similar to
articles produced in the United
States, equal to the difference in
the cost of production at home and
abroad"
The above is the substance of the
protective plank that has been
inserted in every protective plat
form adopted by every protective
party that has ever held national
convention in the United States.
1t is the doctrine of protection, and
all of it. If you add anything
thereto or take anything therefrom
it is no longer protection but be-
comes either oppression or free
trade. The wisdom of this doctrine
has been so thoroughly established
by results that to argue against it is
the sheerest folly. 1t is plain to
understand that if an individual, a
firm or corporation were produc-
ing a commodity in the United
States at cost of a dollar and an
European concern produced the
same commodity for eighty cents
and the freight cost five cents, that
the American producer would soon
be driven out of business unless he
were protected by a tariff. 1t is
equally plain to be seen that In this
case the proper amount of the tariff
to be imposed on this article would
be twenty cents and with that tariff
the difference in freight would be
a sufficient margin to give the
American producer the home
market. 1t is equally plain that if
tariff of forty cents was imposed
that would give the American
producer an opportunity to charge
twenty cents exhorbitant profit.
In some cases this does not follow
as the home competition keeps the
prices at natural and proper level,
but this is not the case in articles
controlled by trusts as in them there
is no competition. Let us illus
trate: All harvesting machinery is
controlled by trust and ever since
the trust has been formed the price
of harvesting machinery and extras
has steadily advanced. There is no
trust in threshing machines and
year by year threshing machines
have become cheaper, owing to the
sharp competition between domestic
manufacturers. Can any man on
earth give any reason why har-
vesters should 60 up and threshing
machines 60 down except that the
former are in trust and the latter
are not? The International Har-
vester Trust sent man to Europe
who, after "careful examination
of market conditions" discovered
that "harvesters cost more, and the
American manufacturers got more
for them in Europe than in the
United States" Congressman Nc
Cleary submitted carefully prepared
tables in his Boston speech, showing
that steel rails were worth more in
Europe than IN the United States.
Now we have no tables to submit
but there are few things we know,
and one of them is that you can get
''tables" to prove any side of any
question under the sun if you have
the price. And we know, and so
does every man of sense, that if
Harvesters are dearer in Europe
than in the United States there is
no need of a tariff to keep people
from going over to Europe and
buying the dearer machines. We
also know that in 19O2-3 a rail-
road was built partly in the United
States and partly in Canada, and
that all the steel for the road was
bought in the United States and we
further know that the company had
to pay more for the steel used in
the United States than they did for
that used in Canada, but if this was
An exception, and as a rule steel
rails are dearer in foreign countries
than in this, then tariff on steel
is q useless encumbrance on the