The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-24
FOR PROTECTION.
tconttnued from Page One,

From 1894 to 1897 we had a nom
protective tariff law, or a tariff for
revenue. Again our mills, shops, fac
| tories, and mines were closed, opera
| lions on railroads largely suspended,
and millions of laborers wandered the
| highways of the country in search of
an employment they could not find.
Bankruptcies, receiverships, and fore
/ closures were common in all parts of
the country and to very branch of
| business and industry. The revenues
! were again insufficient to pay the ex-
penses of the government, and its
bonds were sold in a time of peace to
raise money with which to defray its
| ordinary expenses. Everything was
cheap, but those who depended on en-
| ployment and wages and the sale OF
| the products of their own industry
could not buy. Tt would be impossible
to eXaggerate the hardships of that
period.
Country's Greatest Prosperity.
From 1897 to this time we have had
| period of protection. Immediately
after the enactment of the protective
tariff law in 1897 mills, shops, mines
and factories, that had been closed,
| country rushed in, and the greatest
period of industrial activity and pros
perity that the world has ever known
set in, and for 15 years the protection
| products of American labor has given
employment to our people and pros
perity to all.
Our mills, shops. factories, and
be without employment under nom
protective tariff laws until our stand
ard of living and our scale of wages
are reduced to the level of those who
compete with US in producing for our
market 1t is a question of wages and
living, and we can have free trade
with the world when we level down to
the rest of the world or when the rest
n1r -
OF wages and living, but not until
then.
Things are cheap under nonprotective
In1ngS may be high under protective
laws, because everybody is able to and
does buy The laborer in the mills, the
roads buy the products of all American
INDUSTRIES, and they prosper together.
Geheraily there Is low wage, a cheap
man, wife, and children behind a cheap
product of labor.
The Proposed Tariff Law.
What of the proposed tariff law? 1 am
appearing tonight in the capacity of an
historian and an economist rather than
In the role of prophet, but L venture
this prediction: To the extent that we
tent our industries will be idle and our
laborers without work; to that extent our
money will go to other countries to build
rather than at home; to that extent our
farmers will be without a market The
tariff bill in its present state of prepara-
ton could well be entitled AN act to en-
courage industries in other countries than
our own, and to provide for the employ
ment of laborers in England, France,
Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Portu-
gal. Spain. Japan, China, and India
The product that can get into the mar
ket at the lowest cost will control the
market. Labor being the principal cost in
the production of most products of in
dustry. our laborers will suffer from the
competition that is proposed with the la
borers employed in the countries I have
named. The labor that gets a higher
wage will have to surrender the market
to the labor that gets a lower wage and
the terms of this deplorable surrender are
now being prepared by the Democratic
party, and the administration is so eager
for the early completion of the work that
every other matter of government is made
ident and of congress is held for those
who do the most to make the surrender