New-York tribune., 1909-06-10
HALLTCIFATTONS.

Our esteemed contemporary The New York
Times is certainly suffering from an aggra-
waited hallucination when ii argues that the
country never approved and does not now ap-
prove the policy of protection The Times says
that the Republican programme of protection
was ''foisted on the country in the first instance
by what was in effect trick" II explains that
during the Civil War very high taxes for
purely revenue purposes were levied on all sorts
'of American manufa actures, and, was but
Just compensatory duties on competing foreign
imports were enacted, with some additions foT
revenue" Subsequently, The Times" con
tinues when the internal taxes were abandoned
the tariff taxes were retained las a result of
purely Congressional action, on which the peo-
"pIe never expressed and never had remote
chance TO express a specific judgment Since
the war only two Presidential elections, accord
ing 10 our contemporaries view, have been de-
cided the issue of protection rcrsuS nom
protection. These were the election OF 1883.
when President Harrison chosen, but polled
a minority of the popular vote, and the election
of 1892 when Mr.. Cleveland was elected for the
second time by a large popular as well as
an electoral ma ajority.
1t will astonsh most students Of American
history to hear that the first protective tariff
emergency Civil War measure. From
the beginning of the government there have been
protective tariff laws and the Whig party IN
Henry Clay's time was as regularly protection
ist as the Republican party is now. The Wings,
when in power, laid protective duties Oh i'm
ports while the Democratic party, controlled by
the slave labor interest, favored as free entry
as possible of European manufactures The
Morrill, tariff law, the first law of the sort
credited 10 the Republican party, was not war
emergency measure. It was enacted by the Con
gress elected in 1858. when secession was con-
sidered only a distant possibility. 1t was
passed by the House of Representatives on May
IL, 1860, six months before Lincoln was elected.
1t was held up il the Senate until February 21
1861. It was signed by President Buchanan on
March . 1861 and therefore antedated the
incoming of the Lincoln administration and the
attack on Fort Sumter. 1t was not an acci-
dent of war, but a deliberate effort to repair
the damage done to American Industries by the
Democratic low tariff of 1857.
The Morrill, tariff stood from 1861 10 1888 be-
cause il represented the natonalistic policy Of
the Republican party. That policy was not
seriously threatened until the seeded states had
regained control of their own affairs and, with
a largely increased representation in Congress
and the electoral college, due to the emancipa-
ton of the slaves had again become a powerful
factor in national politics. The Solid South.
allied with a few Democratic states In the
North, attempted TO reapply the old Southern
doctrine of free trade with Europe, and thus re-
vived an issue which had been dormant for more
than twenty years. They forced the tariff issue
to the front in 1886. 1888. 1890 and 1892, and at
last won victory more disastrous to the cause
OF anti-protection than all its previous defeats.
Whatever other party issues have come and gone
between 1860 and 1909, there was never time
in that period when the Republican party did
not stand explicitly for protection. No voter
who supported Republican national ticket ever
had the slightest reason to doubt that the Re
publican party would uphold the general tariff
programme exemplitied in the Morrill, law and
elaborated in the tariff commission law of 1888.
the Mckinley law of 1890 and the Dngley law
of 1897.
To say that the protective policy has not been