Year: 1878




and expense Of transportation, and ye


every industry in the land which use


iron in any way is obliged to pay thi


taX-because the iron-masters of Penn


sylvania and elsewhere are so powerful


that no politicians are bold enough tc


oppose their wishes"


And having thus airily in single par


agraph disposed Of a subject which ha


occupied nations for generations, thu


profound philosopher hies him to fresl


woods and pastures new.


Now | do not pretend to know any
thing worth knowing about the tariff
anything at all except what the human
mind inevitably and unconsciously &C
quires by living in an intelligent atmos
phere. Nor is it imperative that a cler
gyman should know anything about the
tariff There are plenty of persons
whose business it is, and we have a right
to leave it to them. But when a clergy


man. before my very face and eyes
breaches nonsense on any subject what
ever, it Immediately becomes my affair
1t would surely seem as if a man mi ght
never have known so much as that Spain
held town of Tarifa; it would seem as
if man might have been born deaf and
dumb and blind, and only touch the
world with fumbling finger tips and yet
as we country folk say, might sense that
such discourse as this sermon must be
| nonsense.


Grant that minister believes an i'm
portant part of the good tidings of great
joy which shall be to all people was a
low tariff or free trade; but why does he
stand in Boston and vault over his pulpit
railings and across Massachusetts,, across
Connecticut, across New Jersey, to
pounce down upon Pennsylvania pig iron
for denunciation and defiance? Every
son of Elkanah among US instantly sets
himself to asking this son of Kish,
What meaneth then this bleating of the
| sheep in my ears and the lowing of the
oxen which 1 hear?" Does not Mr..
Clarke know that it is the cry of the
sheep whose fleece and its fabrics are
weighed down with war tariff to pro-
tect the focks of Hampshire and Berk-
shire. and the woolen mills of Salem and
Newburyport, and Amesbury, and Low
ell, and Lawrence? Is it not the lowing
of the oxen whose tanned hides must
pay toll to feed the shoe manufactures
of Lynn, and Beverly, and Danvers and
all the region roundabout? But this
clergyman whose church is built, whose
streets are paved, whose clothes are
made from a war tariff, he-like Sam





court room ceiling-lifts his eyes to high
Heaven, and, blind to the glare and deaf
to the blare of the tariff all about him,
valiantly arraigns the pig iron of Penn
sylyania, and then glances around upon
the politicians with the triumphant self
satisfaction of Saul, the King of Israel:
L have performed the commandment Of
the Lord"


Impelled by what evil angel does DR..
Clarke select pig iron as the particular
object of his anathemas when treating of
the worst features of war tariff? He
justly describes iron as 1.-The material of
almost all other mechanical industry,
and does not seem to see that If there be
anything at all in the doctrine of pro-
tective tariff it should find its strongest
support, its most complete justification,
in the independent production within
our own borders of that metal whose uni
versal use he so forcibly, yet fruitlessly,
affirms. If he has any definite meaning
in arraigning the war tariff for its effect
on pig iron, he means that the American
people have been forced to pay higher
prices for this necessary metal by reason
of the duty levied. Mr.. Clarke evident
ly derives his information from the Fun
ny Paragraph column of his Boston pa
per.


Evidently his political studies have
lain in the stray items of gossip, the
irresponsible and ignorant chatter that
never rises in a tariff discussion above the
wit and the point of calling an eminent
protectionist in Congress Pig iron Kel-
ley" and then sinks exhausted beneath
the weight of this crushing argument for
low duties and free trade. venture to
say that there is not man in this coun-
try, outside of pulpit-there is surely
not man inside of our National or State
legislatures who would have been rash
enough to rise officially and publicly, and
denounce the tariff, with pig iron for
until he had previously gone
to the authoritative official sources of
Information to see what had actually been
the effect Of the war tariff on pig iron to
the American consumer. But Mr.. Clarke
scars with sacred Indifference over these
troublesome earthly researches, poises for
one graceful moment on single swaying
twig of the tariff, and then blithely carols
out his heavenly song that the war tariff
is the cause of our woe, and that the
pallor Of our politicians before the iron
masters of Pennsylvania is the cause of
the tariff!


If Mr. James Freeman Clarke would
but descend an instant to the gruesome
earth and examine an official table giving
the price of No. l pigiron in the Phila-
delphia market for every year of the cen
tury, and for every month of every year
from 1912 to lS7S-not half so sonorous
a service as standing in a Boston syna-
gogue and denouncing Pennsylvania
sins, yet not without certain mean, nous
ing advantage ges-he would find that never
since the American Union was formed,
IL
Tariff, Compromise Tariff or Free Trade
Tariff; under tariff fashioned by Henry
Clay or formulated by Robert J. Walker,
was pig-iron so cheap to the American
consumer as it is in this very year of
grace under this very War Tariff which
he has taken occasion to single out for
denunciation from the sacred desk. Rise
in that desk TO morrow morning, the Rev.
James Freeman Clarke, in ashes and
sack cloth, and say ITO your people that
you have sinned q great sin, and that
pig-iron is selling in the Philadelphia
market at eighteen dollars ton for the
inferior grades. 1t is sad hindrance to
the correct conduct of life that when Sir
Oracle opes his mouth in the pulpit no
dog in the pews can bark without throw
ing organized society into confusion. 1t
is a stumbling block in the way of Ma
Llohal progress thdI the clergy mas peen
permitted to take out aperpetual charter
of immunity from contradiction, and may
preach any amount of sacred or secular
untruth from the pulpit without the
smallest risk of being taken to task for
it. The first impression regarding a man
who should speak out in meeting would
be that he was lunatic, and it is gener-
ally the true one! A clergyman's evil
utterances have consequently full course
to run and be glorifed. Had Mr. Clarke
spoken his piece" in any Board of Trade
or any Legislative Assembly, or any tar
if caucus, he would have been instantly
brought to book, challenged, ridiculed,