Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1906-09-27


duties which our experience during the
sive.
Protection given through import duties.
so that our home producers shall enjoy
reasonable advantage i'm the home
markets over their foreign competitors,
prosperity, and is vital article in the
republican faith.
Doctrine of Protection.
The second national convention of the
republican party. in 1860, announced the
doctrine in the following terms:
That while providing a revenue for
the support of the general government
by duties upon imports. sound policy re-
quires such an adjustment of these i'm
ports as TO encourage the DEVELOPMENT
of the industrial interests of the whole
country; and we commend that policy of
national exchanges which secures to
the workingmen liberal wages to agri-
culture remunerative prices, to mechan-
les and manufacturers an adequate re-
ward for their skill labor and enterprise.
ana TO the nation commercial prosperity
and independence.
Upon this platform, Abraham Lincoln
was elected president AID the marvellous
growth of the republic began. Forty
four years later the national convention
expressed the thought in this way.
protection which guards and develops
our industries is a cardinal policy of the
republican party. The measure of pro-
lection should always at least equal the
at home and abroad. We insist upon tie
maintenance of the principle of protec-
ton, and therefore the rates of duty
should be readjusted only when condi-
tons have so changed that the public
interest demand their alienation, but
this work cannot safely be committed to
any other hands than those of the repub-
lican party"
Upon this platform, Theodore Roose-
Welt was elected president and i'm his adj
ministratlon we have. reached the highest
point in production, in commerce. and in
prosperity, ever attained among the peo-
pie of the earth In all the years from
1860 to 1906, the republican party has
steadily adhered to the system of pro-
lection. 1t has sought constantly to so
adjust the duties upon imports that our
industries might be as diversified as our
natural resources; that our worIingmen
might receive the wages to which work.
ingmen in free country are Justly en-
titled; and that capital might engage in
enterprise with fair hope of reward
Devotion To Protection.
For thirty-four of these forty-six years.
in almost every political campaign |
have given my time and strength in the
defense and eulogy of this economic doc
trine, which have always believed and
still believe to be essential to the growth
OF our country and the welfare of it's
people. In 1861 we applied this policy
in law which bears the name of a dis
tinguished citizen of Vermont, who has
lately passed to his reward. Thirty-six
years afterwards, we again applied the
policy in a series of schedules which re-
ceiving congressional approval, became
known the world over as the Dingley
tariff law. Between 1861 and 1897, the
changes in the duties that were from
time to time levied upon imports, and it
did this both by special notifications and
general genera revision; The inquiry which
treason to the republican policy for a
republican to believe and say that some
OF the duties prescribed in the law of
1897 are higher than are necessary to
adequately protect the American pro-
duccr; to believe and to say that excess
sive duties may be made the instrument
to believe and say that the duties that
are higher,than are needed to adequate
~ preserve our home markets should be
lowefeir to the point OF protection, to
the enc that we may have full safety
against foreign invasion, but no oppres-
Sion from domestic greed?
1t seems to me that it is not only
the privilege but the duty of every re-
publican to strive earnestly for the just
application Of the principles of his party
The test OF his loyalty is his support of
the principle, not his Judgment with re-
gard to the amount of duty required to
fulfil the principle.
committee on ways and means around
him, In 1896, formulating the schedules
as they now are, / venture to say that
there was wide differences of opinion as
to the duties in specific instances.
nave no doubt that some members of the
committee believed that the duty on steel
rails should be $40 per ton, and that 9TH
ers believed that it should be So per ton,
instead Of Ns4 per ton, as was finally de-
termined upon. II had been a member
of that committee and had insisted upon
the higher or the lower duty, would I
have been any the less good republican
than though l stood for the exact duty
finally agreed upon?
HE Rnefon AIan..s
When my enemies. be they in our
my speeches, they studiously ignore my
constant adhesion to the policy of pro-
lection. When they refer to an address
sion, they overlook this part of it:
Il am thorough going, uncompromis-
ing believer in the protective system of
import duties. With me, the proposition
that the government can promote the
general welfare by obstructing the natu-
raj channels of trade and by opening new
ones, and that 1t is one Of the highest
and most helpful functions of organized
society to do so, has passed beyond the
region Of doubt and dispute into the field
OF settled and established certainty 1t
is hard to conceive country so circum-
stanced that free commerce would be a
wise policy. On the other hand we have
before our eyes country in which pro-
lection has wrought SO powerfully for
the common good that had the govern
ment permitted free trade it would have
been false to the purposes for which Il
was established. From the beginning to
the end, the chief object of the govern
ment is to override natural law, to bring
i:;to existence artificial conditions, and 70
substitute an intelligent right for a
selfish might When, therefore. / lift
schedules, and q wider application of
the political party to which I have all
my life belonged, and when / speak for
reduction of duties, an extension of
the free list, and for more effective reci-
procity, am not speaking for free trade,
hut for a more faithful more equitable
and more righteous application OF the
doctrines OF protection"
Defense Of True Principles.
When they extract a few sentences
from speech that delivered in Chicago.
they do not tell you that said, also:
Let us look for a moment upon the
evolution of that doctrine of protection
which the resistless march of events has
carried to tinal victory. The fair, inn
les cannot mistake it's spirit, although
the partisan advocate OF a special inter-
est may pervert it. 1t began in a Just
of the country, coupled with the knowl-
edge that these resources would not he
developed unless the markets of the
country We're preserved to its producers
against the unfair competition of other
countries already prepared to occupy
them. 1t took notice of the fact that by
reason of higher wages the cost of pro-
duction in many things was, and would
for long time continue to be, higher
here than elsewhere, and that IL our
producers were to compete I'm our own
markets this disparity of condition must
be equalized by an adequate duty upon
''Thus the doctrine was formulatei I,
and thus 1t assumed its place as an Amer