The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1908-03-06

tion wages, in order that we may ge
such products cheap and let such for
eigners produce all the articles we
consume in this country and by sc
doing, let the American laboring man
tramp over the old familiar grounds
so thoroughly Jtraversed by him from
1898 to 1896 inclusive, atwhic time
we had either a low tariff or free
| trade and not less than three million
idle laboring men, tramping the coun-
try from one end of the United States
to the other, begging for any kind of
employment at any kind of wages,
while their wives and children were
sustain life, poorly housed and poorly
clothed. Would he approve of a re-
turn to such conditions? / hardly
think so. Ny dear farmer, do you
want any more of such times? If you
do, never have the slightest hope of
convincing me to your way of think
ing, on our protective tariff policies.
Free raw sugar from the Philip
pines, or from any other foreign coun-
try would not only retard but would
forever destroy that magnificent sug-
ar factory in our industrious little
town of Owosso. not only this, but all
such factories in the United States.
Free trade, or even a reduction of
duty on sugar, would not tend to
bring up Philippine labor to a level
with American labor, but would close
the sugar factories at Owosso and
elsewhere, and tend to bring down
the prices paid for American labor
to the prices paid FOR Filipino labor,
at present sixteen cents per day.
Mr.. Sugar Beet Grower, stop, hesi-
tate, look before you take step in
the direction, indicated in your letter
to the Argus. Every time you take
step in the direction of Free Trade,
you direct a blow at your dear wife
and your affectionate children in
their welfare and comforts at home.
Mr.. Taft says he is protectionist
in favor of a revision, downward of
our present tariff schedules, but he
does not think it would be wise to
make that change at this session of
Congress. He would wait until after
the next Presidential election If
such a revision of our tariff laws
would be wise, and is necessary, in
order to benefit the greatest number
of our people, why wait minute?
Why not do it now? But he says it
might be dangerous to the party to
attempt it just before the Presiden
tial election. If that be true, then
why. in the next breath, does he pre-
pare the Philippine Free Trade Bill,
and at the same time the Presidents
message reaches congress on the first
Monday in December, why does he
send to Congress this Philippine
Free Trade Bill and urge it's imme-
diate passage. In one breath he says
not now, wait awhile, and in the
next breath he asks that it be enact
ed into law at once.
Ny dear FARMER friend, let me say
to you, that while have the honor to
represent, in part, the people of the
State of Michigan in the National
House of Representatives will stand
here day by day and defend the hon
est farmer, the producer and the
honest hand of labor by insisting that
they shall be protected by tariff
wall so high that cheap Filipino. or
any cheap foreign labor cannot get
over this wall and drive back Ameri-
can industry. Our tariff walls, gen.
orally speaking are none too high.
No scientific or practical farmer ever
stopped cultivating his corn to go
and remove the top rail from the
fence around his corn-field because
it was too high. but many an honest
and practical farmer has turned back
put another rail on the fence around
his CROP where that fence was so low
that his farm stock was getting over
it into his crop and destroying it.
So it is with our tariff wall; with the
nation the same as it is with the in
dividual.
During President Cleveland's s last
administration, from 1893 to 1897
we operated under a different tariff
law than the one on our statute
books at the present time. That law
was known as the WiIson-Gorman
Tariff Measure. Under the provi-
sions of that law, foreign wool was
admitted into our markets free of
duty, and the consumers inthis coun-
try, at that time, purchased wooden
goods cheaper than ever before, but