The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-07-28
TARIFF HIS THEME.
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CONTINUED from Page One.)
he intends to go to congress ON th M;
platform, he should get into the pon III,
cal party that has that platform. No
Republican party had ever nau -.
Champ Clark is now mastering t
hosts of Democracy 70 stano uPoss. 49,.
platform this year, and reJolces IA ia
hope that he will win upon
hnve Democratic house.
How much progress President 1ais
will make with a Democratic mousse =.
representative you may lHasLne1,. -
Judge Rees starts upon that plallol -
and you can see where ne ne nI i1aen his
essarily vote il he should keep ne
word in revising the Mckinley tarin
upon that platform.
Wool and the Payne Tarin.
"Mr. Wilson put wool upon the Tree
list upon the theory that u Woulo en-
able this country to have cheap clotn-
ing. The tariff under the Mckinley law
was lie a lb. upon the raw "ool, az
the other rates upon manuIactuIItsu
wooden goods were substantially the
same as they. are now.
But to begin making a scheouIe
upon anything they begin with the
rate upon the raw material and then
increase the rates with each step OF
process of manufacture. He began
by putting wool upon the free hst anu
the first result of it was that lInlue-
diately after the Wilson bill became q
law the wool of the vast herds OF sheep
in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, ana
all the range states, went so low Inal
it would not bring enough to pay the
price of shearing; and the price ol
sheep went so low that when tney
we're shipped to market at Chlcag0 TOT
sale, they would not bring enough 10
pay the freight. Four years AFTER
wards 1 travelled over three great
wool-growing countries in Ohio, the
best Wool-growing counties IN tndl
state. and upon every sheep LarIIi
there were slaughter houses wnere
the farmers had slaughtered tnelr
sheep and cooked them into soap rat.
We lost one-half of our wool-groWlns
flocks within two years.
This was not the worst olsaster:
Within that time the woolen mills of
America closed down and turned out
of work more than two million OF the
best skilled workmen in the world ana
left ten millions of their women ana
children to go to the truck patches
and gardens to provide themselves
with food, and they quit buying wheat
and meat from the west and the
prices of all farm products went down
so low that all over this congressional
district in 1894. under the full opera
ton of that Wilson law corn was SELL
ing at Toe a bushel and hogs at from
50 hundred, and good cows at $40
or SIP apiece and good ordinary horses
at from SIS to $25 each, and every
body was in distress.
Low Tariff Brought Bankruptcy.
THE business of the nation was al
most bankrupt. Gold went out of the
country constantly, instead of farm
products. to pay for the things that
came to US from other countries, while
all the wooden mills and cotton mills
of England, France and Germany
were busy when our own working peo-
pie in our own factories were thrown
out of work and quit buying farm pro-
duets. The railroads had less to haul
and they laid off train crews; 900, 900
railroad men were laid off from work
and went without wages; and when
they were cut of wages, eating houses
were closed and the market for the
American farmer was still further re-
duced.
@AIT this. just that the country might
try again the experiment of doing
business without a protective tariff, and
of buying where they could buy the
cheapest and selling where they could
sell the dearest: all this that the
country might try again the expert
ment of tariff for revenue with in
cidental protection only such as Mr..
Reea favors.
Then it was that the people elected
William Mckinley upon the platform
of tariff for protection of the Amer
lean wage-earner and for the Ameri-
can home markes for the farmer, and
he said it was better TO open the mills
than to open the minis. This was
when Bryan was proposing to coin
soc worth of silver into a dollar and
make it dollar in order to relieve
the distress of the country.
Coming of the Dingley Law.
Mckinley was inaugurated and
congress ret and the Dingley law,
which was a tariff for protection, was
enacted. Within sixty days the wool
en- mills and cotton mills of America
were opening up; the men were call
ing for bread and meat from the west;
the railroads began to move freight
and re-employed their men: the eat
ing houses opened up and prices be-
gan to imp owe for farm products; and
for ten years every day was a day of
progress and prosperity for the whole
nation, and no nation ever grew rich
so fast as ours during those ten
years.
More people found work in it at
better wages than had ever worked
before. Prices of everything from the