ns -0675 ^IS ■IJ 1 'I ! 1 .. ll ill .ri>,!i{ Cornell University Library HF 1755.D675 The true issue: industrial depression an 3 1924 013 819 853 Questions of the Da y.—xvi. THE TRUE ISSUE DUSTJIIAL DEPRESSION AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION CAUSED BY TARIFF MONOPOLIES lEFORM DEMANDED IN THE INTE.REST OF MANUFACTURERS, FARMERS, AND WORKINGMEN E. J. DONNELX NEW YORK & LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1884 WORKS FOR CITIZENS AND STUDENtS. THE AMERICAN CITIZEN'S MANUAL. By Worthington C._FORD. Part l.-^Governments (National, State, and Lotal), the Electorate, and the Civil Service. " QUestiotis of the Day," Volume IV. Octavo, cloth . . . . - . . - . , .'•.'. , '. .75 Part II. — The Functions of GbverninEnJ:i; coijsidered with fspecial reference to Taxation and Expenditure, the Regulation of Commerce and Industry, Provision for -the Poor and. Insane, the Management of the Public Lands, etc. '.'Questions of the day," Volume V. Octavo, cloth . . . .' . . . . . .75 A work plariued to afford in compact foriii a comprehensive summary of the nature of the organization of the Goveriiment of the United States, Natibflal; State, and Local, and of the duties, privileges, and the responsibilities of American citizens. " Mr. Ford writes thoughtfully, carefully, impartially, and furnishes one of the best imaginable ^manuals that conld be prepared for circulation on either side of the Atlantic."— AT. Y. World. SIX CENTURIES OF WORK AND WAGES. The History of Eiiglish Labor (1250-1883). By James E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. Large octavo . .' . . . . '■ . . . ; .> $4.90 PaiNciPAL Contents.— Rural England, Social Life, Agriculture,. Town Life, The Distribution of Wealth and Trade, Society, Wages, Profit, Disconterlf, Combina- tions, Insurrection, The Developiaeijt of Taxation, Labor, and Wages,' -Agricuitu re and' Agricultural Wages in the Eighteenth Century, Wages in the Nineteenth Century, Present Situation, etc. " The author supports his. arguments by so many strong considerations, that he is entitled to the patient study of all who are interested in economic sii'bjects,' and especially of those who feel that the social problem is by no means solved, in the accepted Political Economy, and needs other and more organic remedies ithan arft suggested in the orthodox %retil\ses."— Commercial Advertiser,'^. Y. ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Emile de Lave- LEYE, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Liege. Translated by Alfred W. Pollard, of the University of Oxford. Edited with an introduction and supplenientaiy chapter by F. W. Taussig, Instructor in Political Economy. i2mo, cloth . . $1.50 POLITICS. An Introduction to the study of Comparative 'Cnnstitutjonal Law. By William W. Crane and Bernard Moses. Svo, cloth ; . . . . $1.50 " The work is an arsenal of. facts, precedents, incidents, and argument, and will give the student of national affairs much basic instruction. It is altogether meritori- ous."— C(?««i«tf«a'tftf//A, Boston. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK. Questions of the Da y.—xvi. THE TRUE ISSUE INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION • CAUSED BY TARIFF MONOPOLIES REFORM DEMANDED IN THE INTEREST OF MANUFACTURERS, FARMERS, AND WORKINGMEN E. J. DONNELL NEW YORK & LONDON P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1884 COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1884 Press of G. P. Putnam's Sons New York THE TRUE ISSUE. Messrs. Geo. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers. Dear Sirs : — I send you herewith copy of a let- ter written by tne for publication in " Bradstreets " newspaper. I wish you to publish it in pamphlet form. I will now state the origin of my letter to " Bradstreets," and how it happens that I send it to you for publication. " Bradstreets " published a letter from me in their issue of 12th of July, which is sufficiently de- scribed in the letter I send you. In their issue of 26th July there was what pur- ported to be a reply to mine, filling five columns of the paper, and covering nearly the whole tariff controversy. There was nothing new in it, but I thought it an opportunity I should not discard, to lay before the public a short statement of what I believe to be the present practical and logical position of the attack on our present tariff system. LOGICAL PROGRESS OF THE TARIFF DEBATE. Great controversies of this kind never stand still. If we permit ourselves to repeat old catch- 2 THE TRUE ISSUE. words and run in old grooves, we lose all rapport with living forces. We have now arrived at a stage in the tariff controversy where all mere theories sink into in- significance in the face of a demand for relief com- ing from every department of our national indus- try. All suffer, but few have yet seen clearly the cause of their sufferings. Our politics are corrupt beyond all precedent in our history, and the credit of our financial institu- tions has been impaired to an extent, and from causes hardly known before. Many thoughtful people are at once perplexed and appalled by these things. If the cause of this industrial and politi- cal demoralization were generally known, it cannot be doubted that it would be removed. CAUSE AND CURE OF PRESENT EVILS. The progress of events is revealing the cause, which is the same in both politics and industry. In exposing the cause they also point out the true remedy. Having arrived at this point the battle must of necessity be fought at close quarters, Hence forward there should be no time wasted in fencing ; the blows should all be aimed to kill. NEWSPAPERS SHY OF THE SUBJECT. I find that our newspapers do not like this kind THE TRUE ISSUE. 3 of warfare. They will readily publish anything on the tariff question that is bright, sparkling and harmless. Expert fencing on the minor details of the question suits them admirably. In truth our editors are as much afraid of the tariff question as they were of the slavery question thirty years ago. The causes of their fears in both cases are simi- lar. It is the great pecuniary interest in the mo- nopolies sustained by the tariff now as in the case of slavery then. The power appertaining to such interests always attempts to terrorize its opponents, and for a time succeeds. Fear is a carrion crow whose presence indicates the existence of death and disintegration. " BRADSTREETS " DECLINES TO PUBLISH, I may be mistaken in supposing that " Brad- streets " was influenced by fear of the monopolists, in declining to publish my rejoinder to Mr. Mason and the protectionist party for which he wrote. It is sufficient that they declined, hence my applica- tion to your house. I had hoped that the controversy would have been continued in " Bradstreets," so as to enable me to meet any possible arguments against the lead- ing affirmations in my letter, I will follow the letter by recurring to a few of these leading affirmations as briefly as I can, con- sistently with my present purpose. 4 \THE TRUE ISSUE. A REPLY ANTICIPATED. As any one of these affirmations, if substantiated, would be fatal to our present tariff system, I take it for granted they will not be left without some attempt to refute them. In this case I can only hope the responses will be of such intelligence and character as will enable me, or better still, enable others, more competent than I am, to close the discussion forever. E. J. DONNELL. IMPRACTICABILITY OF THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM UNDER DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. To THE Editor of " Bradstreets." Sir : — In my letter of 7th, inst., I quoted from a letter of Judge Kelley's about the present embar- rassed condition of our woolen manufacturers, and undertook to explain, not only the cause of this embarrassment, blit also similar troubles which have followed every other protective tariff on wool since, and including the first in 1824. I stated in substance, that protection to manufactures was neu- tralized by similar protection to the raw material, and that, without benefiting either, both together became a burden to the whole people ; I further stated that to protect the one without protecting the other, would be a denial of equal rights, and THE TRUE ISSUE, claimed that therefore the protective system is not only incompatible with, but impracticable under a government founded upon democracy. I asked the attention of your protectionist correspondents to this aspect of the tariff question. I now find in your issue of the 26th, inst., a long letter purport- ing to be a reply, signed David H. Mason. Mr. Mason does not confine himself to the par- ticular issue submitted, but rambles over nearly the whole field of tariff controversy. I have no doubt, however, he has made about as good an argument against my thesis as was possible. His conscious- ness of the weakness of his position is betrayed in the length of his letter, and in the fact that his treatment of the question in hand occupies a very small part of it. I will first consider the tariff on wool. As Mr. Mason's statements and arguments on the general question of tariffs have long been familiar to me, I prefer to have my controversy with the protec- tionist party rather than an individual. In treating of the genesis and baneful influence of our tariff on the national industry, a sense of duty may demand from me the use of language that I would not in any degree apply to Mr. Mason, who seems to be an honest gentleman and a protectionist by convic- tion. The suicidal effects of the wool tariff. Mr. Mason tacitly admits that every high pro- 6 THE TRUE ISSUE. tective tariff has been followed by embarrassment, but he states that, after the enactment of the tariff of 1867, the cause of the trouble was something else than the tariff — that, in fact, it was caused by the large quantities of army clothing sold out by the government. This theory cannot possibly be correct for these reasons : First, the conditions fol- lowing the tariff of 1867 were precisely similar to those which followed previous increases in the wool tariff, viz., a lower price for wool, increased imports of woolen goods, and embarrassment and bank- ruptcy among our manufacturers. Similar effects indicate similar causes. Second, the sale by the government of a few months' extra supply of clothing for half a million people was wholly inad- equate to produce such effects on the clothing market of thirty-eight millions. Third, the import of foreign woolens was not only large, but found a ready market. It was the American demand for foreign woolens that was one of the causes that produced the abnormally large exports from En- gland which continued until the Jay Cooke panic, which Mr. Mason alludes to in another part of his letter. Fourth, the embarrassment following the tariff of 1867 was not temporary. Delusions about the wool tariff of 1867. Mr. Mason describes the tariff of 1867 as the " pride and boast of both wool growers and manu- THE TRUE ISSUE. 7 facturers for a decade." The real facts are these : There were more failures among woolen manufac- turers in the decade named than ever before in any in our history. The average price of fine washed fleece in the New York market in the decade named was less than 47c. in gold, or 54c. currency. The simple statement of these facts is sufficient. I have asserted that wool has been highest under our lowest tariff, and lowest under our highest. Here is the proof. Proofs that a tariff on wool lowers the price. Under our lowest tariff in 1858, 1859 and 1800, the price of fine washed Ohio fleece, averaged 52.83c. gold. This, notwithstanding the depres- sion following the panic of 1857. Compare this with the three years following the panic of 1825, and the first wool tariff in 1824. In 1826-7-8 the average price was 44.17c. In 1824, before the tariff was enacted, the average price was 63c. During the ten years of the low compromise tariff of 1833, ending in 1842, the average was 56.80c. In the three years of the high tariff of 1842, 1843 to 1845, the average was 40V3C. In the revision of 1883 the reduction was too trifling to count in any any way. Is any further proof neces- sary ? Mr. Mason states that the present trouble is 8 THE TRUE ISSUE. caused by a departure from protective principles in the revision of 1883. The tariff on raw materials destroys protection. My assertion is that protection never has ex- isted and never can exist in any wool tariff that combines a tariff on both wool and woolens. What can he mean by protection ? It lowers the price of wool, it bankrupts manufacturers, and it deprives working people of employment. Is this protection ? I verily believe it is, for it is what protection is now doing for every department of our industry ! Mr. Mason admits the correctness of my posi- tion that every department of our industry must be equally protected in a government founded on democracy. This being impracticable, as I have shown in wool and woolens ; (and also, as I will show fur- ther on, in every other department) it follows that protection and democracy are irreconcilable foes, which cannot exist together without mutual de- struction. There is no logical, door by which to escape from this dilemma. Mr. Mason tries to escape by the chimney. He declares that protec- tion cannot be inconsistent with democratic equal- ity because the slave-holding South was in favor of free trade ! I should suppose that Mr. Mason was jesting if THE TRUE ISSUE. g I had not learned long ago that nearly all protec- tionist arguments are just as loose jointed and illogical as this. Such arguments should never be offered by thinkers to thinkers. They are the stock in trade of stump speakers. History of the connection between Slavery and Protection. One of the leading compromises effected in the formation of the Constitution was that between slavery and protection, by which Congress was denied power to prohibit the importation of slaves from Africa for twenty years, and was granted power to regulate commerce. The South was in favor of protective tariffs until 1824. Every pro- tective tariff we have ever had has invariably been followed by a loud cry for higher tariff, because none has ever really effected the purpose for which it was intended. Hence arose the cry of distress from the manufacturers after the tariff of 1824. It was further advanced in 1826. This was followed by another outcry, and greater dis- tress ; and then followed the tariff of 1828, again higher and followed by still increasing trouble. Then came the tariff of 1832, which was protec- tion run mad. This produced the nullification movement. From that time forward, the majority of the Southern people were opposed to protection, be- cause they believed it to be robbery, and believed lo THE TRUE ISSUE. themselves to be its victims. No man, personally acquainted with the history of those times, as 1 am, can doubt that slavery could, at any time after 1832, for twenty years at least, have entered into an alliance with the protectionists that would have intrenched slavery in the government beyond reach of assault, for a hundred years at least. Some of the Southern leaders understood the situation per- fectly. They believed that to accept the alliance, would be to make the Southern planters tributa- ries. Whatever else may be thought of the influence of slavery, all agree that it made the slaveholders proud to arrogance. They were cer- tainly too proud to accept the alliance of the tariff mongers. For twenty years after nullification, the manu- facturers of the North mobbed abolitionists, and did every thing in their power to reach an under- standing with the slaveholders, but in vain. The latter preferred to fight it out. Now, they have not only seen slavery destroyed, but they are tribu- taries. That is the history of slavery and pro- tection. If they had become allies they would have been ultimately destroyed together, as the natural enemies of liberty, civilization, and pro- gress. As it is we have got rid of one pest and the other still torments us. That justice which comes forth from the eternal nature of things, dooms this also. Delusion, it was once ; it is fraud THE TRUE ISSUE. 1 1 now. That which was delusion in the night of ignorance, becomes crime under the noonday sun of science. The incompatibility of protection and democracy innate. The incompatibility to which I have given logi- cal expression is but the out-cropping of an antag- onism which is deep-seated and inderadicable. The natural distribution of wealth is always just and beneficent. Protection, changes the natural cur- rents creating a very wealthy few at the expense of the many. During the past twenty years it has changed all the conditions and even the spirit of American society. The spirit of liberty and equality seems to be dying out. Millionaires govern every thing. When their ambition runs into politics they buy seats in the Senate of the United States. As the growers and manufacturers of wool framed the wool tariff, so it was, practically in all other departments. Our tariff system is the offspring and parent of corruption. Taxes are levied in accordance with bargains made between legislators and private capitalists. No wonder members of Congress become million- aires ; and suspicions of corruption taint our whole political atmosphere. Suppose we should have twenty years more of this kind of government ; where would we be ? 12 THE TRUE ISSUE. The tariff is the cause of pauperism and vagabondism; Less than fifteen years ago we had few beggars, and no tramps in the woods. Before we were cursed with the Morrill tariff, we had no street beg- gars at all. It makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. This tendency of the protective system to con- centrate ■v^ealth in a few hands is understood in Europe better than here ; though this country is one of the most conspicuous examples of it in history. Under free trade England is moving rapidly towards democracy. Under protection, Germay is moving as rapidly toward an autocracy. Bismarck understands this perfectly. He knows what he is aiming at, and he goes straight to his purpose. He also is creating millionaires rapidly. Every millionaire he makes reduces the laboring masses one peg lower in the scale of manhood. Where these great unnatural inequalities of condition exist civic manhood must decline until it reaches either serfdom or revo- lution. Fiscal necessity, forces European governments to disregard economies. There is another fact in the condition of the governments of Continental Europe which in- fluences their system of taxation not a little at the present time. Owing to their immense armies and THE TRUE ISSUE. 13 almost continual expecEation of war, the need of large revenues overrides all other considerations in levying taxes. Here comes in the bad influence of America. They have seen us raise immense sums, even when the industry of the country was prostrated, and thousands of our working people suffering for want of sufficient employment. It is now nineteen years since the war ended, and out of the nineteen there have not been seven, in which our working people found full employment. Dur- ing this time the United States has paid more national debt and made more millionaires and pau- pers than any nation in history in a century. This is the spectacle the struggling governments of Europe have witnessed with the deepest inter- est. You may be sure they have inquired into it carefully. I will now tell you what they have dis- covered. They have found that there was a way of taxing the people without exciting complaint, by convincing them that the tax is levied to pro- tect them from foreign competition ! The bad influence of the U. S. in taxation. They see this done with a people reputed to be the smartest in all creation. It is easy to see how tempting such an example as this is to almost any government in Europe. Talking to a Swiss poli- tician in Geneva, last September, I expressed my surprise that any intelligent man in Switzerland 14 THE TRUE ISSUE. could think of protection. He made this state- ment. " We want more revenue ; we must give some reason for collecting it that will reconcile peo- ple to it." In truth, the American idea is consid- ered equal to nearly all our other inventions put to- gether. Yet, it is just such state-craft as this, that ha3 made history a perpetual tragedy in all ages. The toiling masses seem to have been born with saddles on their backs — saddles of ignorance, for ignorant demagogues to ride upon. Our tariff lowers the standard of wages. The assertion that a protective tariff raises the standard of wages and improves the condition of the working classes has long ago degenerated into cant. The masses of our people still think that there must be some truth in it. The next genera- tion of Americans will regard this delusion with a feeling, not unlike that with which we regard the belief in witchcraft. As a matter of fact, it has not the slightest foundation in truth, — the exact con- trary is the truth. Still our politicians, having en- tered into alliance with monopolists and specula- tors, are forced to foster the delusion. I do not think they are generally conscious of any fraudu- lent purpose. They are themselves persuaded of its truth. Such self-persuasion is never difficult under such circumstances. The whole system se- cretes poison which proceeds from the heart of the THE TRUE ISSUE. 15 government at Washington to the consular service all round the globe. What consular reports are worth. Mr. Mason gives a quotation from the consular report of A. V. Dockery, our consul at Leeds, about the sad condition of the woolen industry in England. I know nothing about Mr. Dockery, but I can furnish some facts about the woolen industry in England ; and I can assure Mr. Mason that the reports of American consuls on subjects connected with our tariff, even remotely, are not worth the paper they are written on. There are many ex- cellent, upright men in our consular service, as there are in other departments of our government machinery, but they all understand, perfectly, what is required of them by their masters at Washing- ton. They know that reports favoring freedom of exchange, would be quickly followed by their re- call. They know that their masters are in close alliance with all the great monopolists and specula- tors in the nation. Many of our consuls are free traders at heart, and from conviction. Generally these gentlemen are as close-mouthed as oysters. I remember one of them who told me confiden- tially, that his observation and studies, since he had received his appointment, had made him a thorough-going free-trader. He told me that he was firmly convinced that, if our tariff was not rad- i6 THE TRUE ISSUE. ically reformed in the direction of free exchanges, our whole industrial system would fall into confu- sion, if not collapse. He seemed to be dependent on his office for a support. He evidently regretted having spoken to me so candidly, and requested me to promise him that I would never name him to any body in connection with the tariff. Of course I have been careful to comply with his re- quest. All the functionaries of our government remem- ber the fate of David A. Wells, who, being em- ployed to prophesy for protection, turned round under the inspiration of better knowledge, derived from conscientious investigation, and prophesied for free trade. They saw how quickly the Wash- ington allies of monopoly cut off his official head, and hung it up in the highway as an example and a warning for the future. Let us be candid and use the only language suit- able to the case. Our existing system of protec- tion, so called, originated in delusion, and is per- petuated by fraud. I do not mean conscious fraud on the part of individuals generally, for I do not doubt for a moment that Mr. Mason and thousands like him are perfectly honest. low as to the English woolen industry. Some facts about the English woolen industry. During over a hundred years from 1 724, which THE TRUE ISSUE. r? is the earliest statistics I can find, there was little or no progress in the English woolen industry. As early as 1760 the export was ;^5,453,30o; as late as 1830 the export only amounted to £\,']2Z,- 000. About this latter date wool was put on the free list, and has remained there ever since. Up to this time they had retained the double-barreled protection which we now have and, as a conse- quence, they almost literally stood still. With free wool, progress began. In 1 842 the import of foreign wool, after deducting re-export, was, in round num- bers, forty-two million pounds; in 1847, fifty-eight millions; in 1852, eighty-two millions; in 1857, ninety-three millions; in 1862, one hundred and twenty four millions; in 1867, one hundred and forty-three millions; in 1872, one hundred and sixty-nine millions ; in 1877, two hundred and twenty-two millions; in 1881, one hundred and eighty-five millions. Exports of woolen goods in 1852, in round numbers, ten million pounds' worth ; in 1862, seventeen millions ; in 1872, thirty-seven millions; in 188 1, twenty millions. It may be seen from this that the export was, in 1872, from some cause, probably a combination of causes, abnor- mal. The decline in the number of sheep since 1877 is ascribed by some people to disease. My own opinion is that the English farmers found some- thing else more profitable. They change their in- 1 8 THE TRUE ISSUE. dustry very readily. It is the same in manufac- tures : if one thing don't pay they go at another. When any thing is overdone they lay it aside for a time. Owing to free trade they have the markets of the world. i Tariffs can not exclude foreign products. Mr. Mason makes an inexcusable blunder, yet a very common one with protectionists, in suppos* ing that protective tariffs can keep goods out of any market permanently. If a nation excludes one article, it will all the more need some other; if it attempts to exclude every thing, the whole system! breaks down of its own weight. The philosophy of protective tariffs, is this : They, in the end, can only fetter the nations that enact them. True, such laws have always some influence in impover- ishing the whole human family, but they do worse than this for the enactors. Protectionists are credulous. I am particular to give these facts, because mis- representation about the condition of English in- dustry is one of the favorite devices of the protec- tionists in this country ; and I find that Mr. Mason is easily deceived on the tariff question. He gives in his letter, a copy of a letter received by him in 1874 from an Illinois wool manufacturer, stating that the price of fine washed wool in i860 was 25 cents, and in 1874, 50 cents ; that jeans were 60 THE TRUE ISSUE. 19 cents in i860, and 50 cents in 1874 ; and his high- est wages paid in i860 was one and one-half dol- lars, and in 1874, three dollars. Now every one of these statements was either untrue, or intended to express an untruth, and it is a wonder that Mr. Mason did not discover this. The average price of fine washed wool in i860, in New York, was 54 V4 cents gold, and in 1874 it was 44 cents gold value. The price of jeans may have been as he states, but he should have added that the cost of manufacturing textiles had, in the mean time, been reduced in all countries fully one half. As to wages, they were higher, on the average, of all grades in i860 than in 1874. The purchasing power was one-third higher. If his correspondent had not intended to deceive, he would have given his average wages, instead of his highest. He may have had a boss in 1874, and only a foreman in i860. We know that high tariff times are the harvest times of bosses, in industry as in politics. Mr. Mason, in eulogizing the tariff of 1867 uses the following language : " The stimulating effects on our sheep husbandry is shown by the increase in the number of sheep from 39,385,386 in Febru- ary, 1867, to 49,237,291 in 1883. The simplicity of this statement is remarkable. The wool tariff prevents the natural increase of sheep. In the ten years ending with the census of 1880 20 THE TRUE ISSUE. the recorded progress was as follows : Increase in number of cattle (excluding working oxen) was (I omit fractions) 54 per cent., in number of swine 90' per cent., in number of sheep 23 per cent., in corn crop 129 per cent., in wheat crop 59 per cent, in oats crop 45 per cent., in cotton crop 120 per cent. Mr. Mason sees his facts through the spectacles of a false theory. In this he is pre- cisely like Mr. Carey and Judge Kelley, and all: our other protectionists. He belongs to a school — a party. How is it that sheep, the only protected item in the whole list, shows the smallest increase? I trust Mr. Mason will not shrink from an honest attempt to find the true answer to this question. By the way, I find that, between i860 under free trade, and 1870 under the full grown and much amended and revised Morrill tariff, yea, under Mr. Mason's world's wonder, the tariff of 1867, the number of sheep increased only 27 per cent. He can join the two questions together. The right answer to either will answer both. Mr. Carey or Judge Kelley would probably tell him to say it was all owing to "British free trade" ending in 1861, or possibly to the "infamous compromise tariff of 1833!" Or may be the Cobden Club ! I will not suppose for a moment that Mr. Mason would follow such counsel. This is a serious ques- tion, so extremely serious that it is constantly THE TRUE ISSUE. 21 forcing the honest student into the domain of bit- terest irony. In 1870, Mr. Greeley not only ad- mitted that a tariff on wool lowered the market price of home-grown wool, but boasted of it as one of the great triumphs of the protective system, de- claring that it was because it stimulated production. This, in face of the fact that in the spring of the previous year (1869) the Agricultural Bureau re- ported a decrease in the number of sheep of noi less than 20 per cent, since 1866, the truth of which was fully confirmed by the census in the following year. That the tariff on wool always has lowered the price and restricted the natural expansion of our wool industry, is placed beyond question by the facts since the first wool tariff was passed sixty years ago. I challenge the whole protectionist party to disprove it. As Mr. Blaine wishes to "force the fight" on the tariff, question, I will will- ingly extend the debate to other branches of our industry to accommodate him, only I give him fair warning that stump speeches, like his late letter, will not serve his purpose. If Mr. Mason will only rid himself of all precon- ceived theories, I propose to Convince him and all honest protectionists who will do likewise, that the system called protection in this country cripples every indigenous industry that it touches, whether it touches it with the hand of the tax collector 22 THE TRUE ISSUE. or that of the bounty payer — whether it attempts to make it a tributary or a beneficiary. It has cramped the expansion of our manufactures? by increasing the cost , of production beyond the reach of all voluntary purchasers. It has thus forced both capital and labor out of manufactures into agriculture and railroad building to an extent wholly unnatural and even destructive. We have had no real prosperity since the war. There has been no steady, genuine pros- perity SINCE THE present HIGH PROTECTIVE POLICY BEGAN. In order to avoid any misunderstanding with my readers I will try to define my meaning in using the words, steady, genuine prosperity. I mean such a condition of industry that every body wish- ing to work can find employment^a condition under which agriculture, mining, manufactures, trade, and commerce all work together like a piece of well balanced machinery. Productive industry is the palpitating heart ; trade and commerce are the veins and arteries.] The veins and arteries must be free from all formsj and degrees of obstruction, or the heart will be- come gorged and helpless. It will struggle, and the pulse will beat rapidly, using all the vital forces to release the vital fluid — that is to obtain some THE TRUE ISSUE. 23 degree of liberty — free exchange, Stimuliants may help, but they alone can not bring back healthy conditions. Since the close of the civil war the above de- scribes perfectly the condition of American indus- try. We have had two spells of what was called prosperity; three years ending in 1873, and three ending in 1881. I wish the reader to mark well what were the causes of these two spurts — the same in each case. It was speculative railroad building. We have what no other nation on earth possesses — a vast continent teeming with natural riches. Our railroad speculators strike boldly into the wilderness, building the roads first, and then inviting immigrants from all parts of the world, (but China). The unhealthy stimulus from speculation railroad building. These speculators have big ideas as to profits. They expect the public to pay from two dollars up, for every dollar the roads cost. Indeed the water is only limited by the limits of public credulity. Of course such enterprises are only practicable in times of excitement. Hence what we call "booms." At such times the excitement extends rapidly into all departments of trade. Every body buys something and prices advance. There is a great demand for labor and wages also advance. This is called prosperity, and it is in a certain sense, 24 THE TRUE ISSUE. but it is not health. So far as the productive in- dustry of the country is concerned, its action is analogous to that of stimulants on diseased circu- lation in the human body. When the boom ceases, it is found that the circulation is still obstructed. The tariff on raw materials prohibits exports of manufactured goods ; contrary to the spirit, if not even to the letter of the Constitution. The dis- eased condition remains and the life blood is thrown back upon the heart. True, the country gets rich apace. Our rail- road magnates stride the continent with their mill- ions. The " pauper labor " of Europe pours into the great West at such a rate as to promise profits, even on watered stock, some time in the future. No matter if the methods of our great speculators bring honest industry into disrepute. But this ac- cumulation of wealth is apart from our so-called protected industries. Unless when under the in- fluence of stimulants, they are working short time, not more at an average than eight months in the twelve. Some leading tariff monopolies. The seven great railroad companies that own nearly all the anthracite coal lands, being protected from foreign competition by the tariff, refuse to accept export price and thereby reduce home con- sumption, and increase the expenses of, not only THE TRUE ISSUE. 25 every family but of every industry in which coal is used. Mr. Mason states that protection is a part of patriotism. May the good God deliver us from such patriotism as this. The deliverance can not come too soon. These great companies, in order to maintain the inflated value of their monopolized coal lands, force their laborers to work short time ! Yei the tariff was surely intended for the benefit of working men. In this case, it is true, it has created a monopoly of seven great railroad companies, and it has made thousands of laborers slaves. True, they have the privilege of striking ; but, unfortu- nately for them, this is just what their employers want ! In fact they are under a necessity as stern — as absolute, as if they were chained like slaves. The evil does not stop here. There are hundreds of factories more or less dependent on cheap coal for prosperous activity. Who can follow out through all its ramifications the evil that is produced by this single monopoly ? What can we say of the legislators who created it ? What of the demagogues who to-day defend it ? What of the intelligence of the people who tolerate it ? What of the newspapers and politi- cians who are struggling so hard to keep the tariff out of politics at the present time ? What ? The great iron monopoly. Now let us glance for a moment at the giant of 26 THE TRUE ISSUE. all the monopolies, created and sustained by all the legislative powers of our government. When Alex- ander Hamilton framed our first protective tariff, we had been exporting pig and bar iron for more than a century, and wages were two to three hun- dred per cent, higher than in Europe. Neither Mr. Hamilton nor his contemporaries pretended that a tariff would advance wages; nor was there any complaint of wages until after we were blessed with a protective tariff. Very soon after, pig iron ad- vanced 50 per cent, in price, and imports of iron and iron manufactures increased rapidly and largely. Then began the cry for more tariff, which has always followed every increase of the tariff; and was only silenced for a time when trade and industry were, in some degree, relieved from the crushing burden oi patriotic protection ! From the enactment of the revenue tariff in 1846 until the outbreak of the civil war, little or nothing was heard about tariffs. To the best of my recollection they were not discussed at all. Surely, this was a sign of contentment at least. True, we had few millionaires and were making few. It generally required two generations to make one ; yet the percentage of increase in the national wealth was greater than ever before or since in the same length of time. Let us return to the iron monopoly. It is within my own personal knowledge that pig THE TRUE ISSUE. 27 iron is produced at the present time in the South West at as low a cost as in any part of Europe. Yet there are hundreds of iron lords in Pennsyl- vania who will testify before any committee of Con- gress that it costs them from 75 to 100 per cent, more. It is not of the slightest consequence whether they tell the truth or not. In 18 15, land owners and farmers of England testified before a committee of Parliament that it was impossible for them to produce wheat for sale at less than eighty shillings" per quarter. Within seven years they were selling their wheat at forty shillings, without reducing either production or wages. Similar testi- mony was furnished in reams, when free trade in corn was demanded. Well, free trade came, and both land and wages advanced, and for thirty years the people secured cheap food, higher rents and wages. Why should the whole people be compelled by law to pay twenty dollars to Pennsylvania for what can be had elsewhere for ten ? It matters not whether the difference is ten dollars or five, the principle is the same. What the iron monopolists are doing. There is an association of iron lords united for the purpose of keeping up prices, and keeping wages down, and paying the expenses of a lobby at Washington, and subsidizing newspapers and publicists, and hiring stump speakers to persuade 28 THE TRUE ISSUE. the laboring masses that, if they did not pay high prices for the iron they work up in their handi- " crafts and factories, they would be reduced to pauperism ! These iron lords have for some years been buying up the cheap iron lands of the interior South and West, in order to perpetuate their mo- nopoly in the future. They seem to have perfect confidence in their ability to procure any legisla- tion they may need, no matter what party is in power. Still they have a decided choice in parties, and will spend millions in the approaching elec- tion. ■ Even if they should be beaten the people must not fold their arms or go to sleep. The tempta- tions which these iron lords can offer to politicians in Washington are enormous. I am not sure that our conservative, prudent, compromising " tariff re- formers " will be proof against them. The present duty on pig iron added to the other expenses of import, almost doubles the original cost price when it is landed here, yet it is imported every year more or less ; showing that our iron lords use all the advantage the law gives them. Be it remembered that this large monopoly in one of the richest gifts of nature to this continent, is ad- vocated in the name of that much prostituted word* protection. It is not protection at all, it is the very antithesis of protection — worse than a coun- terfeit. THE TRUE ISSUE. 29 Bounty on iron the only form of protection possible. I will tell you what would be protection accord- ing to the genuine principles of that doctrine. It would be to pay a bounty to our iron producers, and thus secure cheap iron to every industry in the nation. What a beneficence this would be. Suppose it was ten dollars on every ton of pig iron. We now produce five million tons per annum and it would soon be doubled. Even if it cost a hundred millions per annum in bounty, it would add a thousand millions to the profits of the productive industry of the whole nation. I am not sure but that I would vote for it in order to get rid of the present costly fraud, I would vote for genuine protection in order to get rid of the im- postor. Fraudulent legislation. I wish the whole. American people would pause and consider this matter with the seriousness and earnestness of true patriots. I wish they would continue to investigate it until they comprehend fully the enormous evils of fraudulent legislation in taxation, and make up their minds, once for all, to be done with it at any cost. If we are to have protection, give us honest protection. This at least will give us pure politics, which no other measure without it, not even civil service reform, 30 THE TRUE ISSUE. ever will. These surface reforms are all right in their proper time and place. Reformers must go to the root of the evil. Are the American people children to be amused with toys, while the whole atmosphere is charged with the plague, and our political life is an open sewer reeking with filth ? It is like an anti- climax to treat the minor monopolies after dis- cussing the giant monopoly of iron ; yet some of them are very important. The minor monopolies. The copper lords we know avail themselves of all the privileges secured to them by the tariff. They are much blamed for selling their surplus to the foreigner at a lower price than is paid by their own countrymen. I think this is the one thing for which they deserve thanks, because it enables them to give their labor full employment. Who can doubt that if our coal and iron lords pursued the same policy it would be a boon to their employes ; albeit, of that kind which is conferred by a master upon a dependent or slaves. Then, there are our silver kings, I do not call them lords, because the kind of protection they re- ceive is of the royal order, as much above the others as silver is above iron. This is what may be called a blue blood monopoly. At the dictation of these kings, through a popu- THE TRUE ISSUE. 31 lar agitation worked up by their contrivance and at their expense, Congress passed a silver coinage law, which is a constant menace to both the national money and the national credit. (It will require vigorous measures by Congress, before the end of the present year, to prevent our currency being de- graded to a silver basis in 1885.) As if this were not enough, it is supplemented by a protective duty of forty dollars per ton on lead, which de- stroys the possibility of exporting lead paints, and burdens every form of industry in which lead is used ; and we know that there are very few from which it is entirely absent. I have not discussed the duties on manufactured articles, nor do I intend to do so for these reasons : They are mere trifles compared with the monopo- lies in natural products. Cheap metals indispensable to natural progress. The metals are the essential material basis of all modern industry and progressive civilization. Their superiority in America over the similar prod- ucts of all other countries, in variety, abundance and accessibility, is greater than our superiority in fertile lands. Indeed, I think I risk nothing in de- claring that, in the latter, we have no superiority at all, over any one of the other three-quarters of the globe. Our superiority in the former is so de- cided as to be indisputable. It was the minerals 32 THE TRUE ISSUE. of America, not her lands, that started the great industrial revolution which began with the first landing of European colonists on our shores, and has continued since with ever increasing power. It was American minerals, even more than American lands, that started the upward movement in the standard of wages and in the social and political condition of the laboring masses. This progress has been arrested for twenty years by legaHzed monopolies under the name of protection. These monopolies are an enormous burden on the labor and industry of the whole nation. On none do they press more heavily than on our leading manu- factures. The tariff on manufactures a sham. Under the circumstances, the duties on manu- factured goods are really no protection at all. It is difficult to believe that they were intended to be such. Like the tariff on agricultural products, they seem to be intended to serve as cloaks to hide the real monopolies in the metals and coal. The tariff on raw wool is merely a " tub thrown to the whale." It can not protect, and it can not create a monopoly, for obvious reasons. After what I have written, it ought to be superfluous to argue that our present tariff system has retarded' the natural growth of our manufacturing industry. The mere statement of the case would be sufficient THE TRUE ISSUE. 33 to convince any man in full possession of a fairly balanced judgment. Our immense mineral depos- its, if left free from the monopolizing influences created by the protective system, insure our being, at an early date in the future, by far the greatest manufacturing nation on earth, as much superior to England, as England is to ancient Rome, or modern Italy. Let us see how the monopoly system has cramped our manufactures in recent times. The tariff dwarfs manufactures and forces agriculture. In 1873 ^^^ of O""" railroad booms ended in what is called the Jay Cooke panic. Our protected industries all collapsed like a house of cards. Free from the tribute exacted by protection in the in- terest of monopolies in raw materials, such an utter collapse would have been impossible, and recovery would have been prompt. After three or four years' fruitless, agonizing struggle, there was a forced redistribution of population and capi- tal. Both abandoned our manufacturing centers for the fertile lands of the West. Capital was in- vested in great farms of five, ten and twenty thousand acres each ; on which grain could be produced at a cost so low that small farmers, to say the least, competed at great disadvantage. The unequal struggle would have reduced thou- sands of them to despair if it had not been for the 34 THE TRUE ISSUE. I series of short crops in Europe. What would have been the course of events if our industry had been free ? If our manufacturers had been free, instead of being tributaries to monopolies, they would have sent their products all round the Globe. In- stead of contraction, there would have been expan- sion. Instead of driving their employes into the woods and highways to starve or beg, they would have retained them and employed more. Revul- sions follow inflation of prices ; recovery comes from reduction of price and consequent increase of both consumption and production. Other things being equal, consumption is in inverse proportion to price. Under natural conditions we would export manufactures, not food. Under such freedom as I have named, we would now have very little surplus of agricul- tural products to export. There would have been such a natural balance between mining and manu- factures on the one hand, and agriculture on the other, as is indicated by the comparative extent of our mineral and agricultural resources. The price of food would have been higher, and, consequently, the cost of labor and production in countries that import food, like England, would be greater. Nor is this all. The revulsion of 1873 was entirely American in its origin. THE TRUE ISSUE. 35 Long continued depression caused by the tariff. Its long continuance was solely owing to our restrictive system — our system of monopolies. It did not affect Europe perceptibly until the sum- mer of 1875. It would not have affected the rest of the world at all, if we had been free from monopolies. The evil arising from a false econ- omical system in a great nation like this, is not merely a curse to ourselves ; it is a curse to the whole human race. Europe and the whole world are interested in this question, just as certainly as they are inter- ested in the sanitary condition of Calcutta, where cholera is said to originate. Our tariff system, while it lasts, secures to England the commercial supremacy of the Globe. This flatters the na- tional egotism of the English, which, God knows, is itself an evil of gigantic proportions. We are now passing through another crisis simi- lar to that I have just described. There is the same struggle and agony — the same gasping for breath in our mining and manufacturing industries. We have choice of the same two forms of relief, of which we chose the worse after 1873. We can break our chains, or we can force our working peo- ple to migrate against their wishes and aptitudes. Our protected industries are the great producers of beggars, tramps and criminals. Here, truly, is a terrible surplus of production ! How subtle and 36 THE TRUE ISSUE. wide-spread is this moral pestilence produced by tariff monopolies! Yet the New York Times says there is no sentiment involved in the tariff ques- tion ! The difficulty in estimating, even approx- imately, the extent to which our tariff has pre- vented the natural expansion of our mining and manufacturing industry, arises from the fact that from the beginning of the protective system under Alexander Hamilton, we have never, at any time, been entirely free ffom monopolies ; hence we have no basis for comparison. Carey and other protec- tionists are pleased to call the so-called revenue tariff period from 1846 to 1861 free trade tariff times. In truth, it was only a time of attempted amelioration. The burden was reduced, not re- moved. Still even this may furnish a basis for comparison that will help us a little. How the tariff affects investments in. manufacturing. The capital invested in manufacturing industries in the United States shows the following percent- ages of increase in the- last three ctnsus decades: From 1850 to 1860 89 per cent, " i860 to 1870 67 " " " 1870 to 1880 65 " " It should be remembered that the powers of modern industrial expansion are cumulative. Its forces increase with something approaching mathe- THE TRUE ISSUE. 37 matical progression. The progress of industrial education, scientific discovery, and mechanical in- vention and adaptation, during the past thirty years, has been enormous. To say that it has been unexampled in history would not begin to do it justice. All other things equal, I should say that the percentage of increase between 1870 and 1880 ought to have been at least double that between 1850 and i860. Still harping on England. Like all the protectionists, Mr. Mason has much to say about England and the rest of Europe. I think I have shown that our own country furnishes an abundant field for apostolic effort in both human- ity and economical science. Still, as our protec- tionist friends seem to be as easily deceived about the condition of Europe, . as of that of their own country, and as the masses of our people are much more easily deceived about people three thousand miles away, that they have ijever visited, than about their neighbors and countrymen, I will state a few more European facts. The most densely populated countries in the world are England and Belgium. They are both free trade countries. Belgium is not so generally called so as England. This is because her system of taxation is not strictly scientific. England is the only nation in the world that can, with an approach 38 THE TRUE ISSUE. to justice, be said to have a scientific system of taxation — a system from which the protective principle is carefully, absolutely excluded. The central truth of economical science. Like other great sciences, political economy pos- sesses one great central truth around which re- volve numberless theories ; some generally ac- cepted truths, others disputed or unverified. The central truth of political economy is freedom of ex- change, as the central truth of astronomy is the law of gravitation. Political economy is younger than Newton's dis- covery which first made astronomy a science. Yet the consensus of opinion among thinkers and pub- licists as to freedom of exchange, is almost as com- plete as it is concerning gravitation. There are works on political economy in the library of the British Museum by thirty-six different authors. Only two of these favor the protective system. One of these is Mr. Carey of Pennsylvania. For more than thirty years, in fact, since George M. Dallas was burned in efifigy because he voted for the Walker tariff in 1846, there has been no free- dom of opinion permitted among politicians, teach- ers and publicists in Pennsylvania. It is a milder form of the conditions existing in the South. with regard to slavery before the war. This is another evidence of the blood relationship between the two THE TRUE ISSUE. 39 systems. Mr. Carey was in his way, a secession- ist — he seceded from science and went with his State. If there were as large material interests involved in the defense of the geocentric system of astrono- my as in protection, our printing presses would pour out a flood of newspapers and pamphlets, and the ears of our people would be split with stump speeches in its defense. As it is, the only voice we hear in its favor is that of the Rev. Jasper, of Richmond, who still declares loudly that " the sun do move." Pardon this digression. Let us return to England. England contains a population of four hundred and fifty to the square mile. We have fifteen. A dense population can not be supported under a protective tariff. It is morally certain — nay, it is absolutely cer- tain — that England could not support half her present population under a protective regime. No country, under even a semi-protective system, has ever yet supported a population half so dense as that of either England or Belgium. The reasons assigned by Sir Robert Peel in 1842 for taking his first steps toward free trade were the increase of popu- lation, and the impossibility of supporting it with- out an increase of foreign commerce. Pauperism, vagabondism and crime had been increasing for years, just as they have been with us under our 4P THE TRUE ISSUE. Morrill tariff system. England had no unoccupied lands — no Great West to relieve her centers of population, and thus enable her to perpetuate an ignorant, cruel, fraudulent system of monopoly- breeding taxation, such as she then had and we have now. English aristocracy the offspring and defenders of protection. Her aristocracy, which is the natural offspring of the protective system, stood by its parent, as long as it could. It only yielded when it saw that the one alternative was destruction. The people had learned their power in the success of the reform bill fourteen years before. Then the English ^.ristocracy learned the lesson on which they have practiced ever since, viz.: to yield their privileges as slowly as possible, but always to yield in time — to bend rather than break. English mo- nopoly crushed its millions of human beings before yielding. If it could to-day blind the English peo- ple as effectually as the Americans are blinded, It would re-establish the protective system, and reduce the population to the old standard and to the old condition. When the English movement toward free trade began, the foreign commerce of the two countries, England and America, in proportion to population, was almost exactly equal ; now the former is four- fold greater than the latter ; and what is still worse THE TRUE ISSUE. 41 than the disparity in value, most of our exports represent natural products, and our imports repre- sent mainly labor. During the past forty years England has increased her population 50 percent., and advanced the rate of wages from 65 to 1 50 per cent., averaging over 90 per cent. In addition to this she has reduced the cost of living. So much is the condition of her population improved that her people consume, per capita, 50 per cent, more sugar than the people of the United States. The number of her paupers has been reduced one-half, notwithstanding the increase of population. The number of her criminals has been reduced nearly two-thirds. Our industry, commerce and wages have been declining for three years past. En- gland's have been expanding. Her commerce in 1882 was the largest up to that time ; in 1883 it was still larger, and it was remarked, even in the annual commercial circulars, that at no time had labor had more general, steady employment with good wages. Is this enough ? If Mr. Mason is not satisfied I can furnish him with plenty more ; and I will guarantee they will not be like protec- tionist facts, because they will be genuine, and so stated and placed as to tell the truth. I should apologize for occupying so much of your space. A few words on the wagts question, and I have done. 42 THE TRUE ISSUE. What is the standard of wages ? The standard of wages for labor is its produc- tiveness. Its productiveness depends on, first natur- al advantages ; next on liberty to use them. Nat- ural advantages consist in material and mental en- dowments. The former consist in. climate, and in land and its treasures ; the latter in heredity, that is, birth, education and political, social and intellec- tual liberty. Liberty to use natural advantages means the freest possible access to them, arkd free- dom of exchange without impediment or tax — to sell in the dearest and buy in the cheapest market. It is well known now that, averaging all our in- dustries, the working man accomplishes from 50 to 100 per cent, more than the workman in Europe. When I published this fact two years ago it was not believed fully by any body. Its sub- stantial truth is now admitted by every body com- petent to judge. This difference in productiveness does not depend on the use of machinery, but is largely, if not altogether, independent of it. Unequaled natural advantages of America. America has all the natural advantages in a pre- eminent degree. Even in liberty to use natural advantages we are not entirely wanting. Our ab- solute liberty of internal trade is by far the most fecund of all the blessings secured to us by our constitutional union. Without it political liberty THE TRUE ISSUE. 43 would be impossible, and union itself absurdly so. These advantages secure a standard of wages above any other country in the world. Next to this coun- try, it is in England that wages are highest and labor most productive. This is owing to her supe- rior mineral resources, combined with freedom of exchange. In comparing France and Germany I found the Frenchman, if any thing, the slower work- man, but by far the better. In this respect he is supe- rior to the Englishman also ; his work is not only more artistic but more durable. Of course, France and Germany are loaded down with taxes unscientifi- cally adjusted. This originates in fiscal necessity, an excuse which we can not allege. French wages are about midway between German and English. Any tax whatever on exchanges, or any impedi- ment to them, has the same influence on earnings — on wages — as a general advance in railroad and ocean freights, or as the destruction of transporta- tion machinery. Hence our protective tariff must, of necessity, lower the standard of wages. Any kind of tax on exchanges would do so, but when, as in this case, it builds up and fortifies monopolies, its evils are increased a hundred fold. What labor organizations should aim at. Labor seems to be crystallizing into associations all over the world. If our labor unions would emancipate themselves, and help to create the new 44 THE TRUE ISSUE. era toward which all social forces seem at the pres- ent time inclined, they should at once cut loose from politicians, and devote a year or two, or five if necessary, to the study of economical science. I do not mean the science taught in books alone. Books are only useful to those who know what to do with them. The great things to learn are, first, to what goal do the ameliorating forces of society in the present era tend? Next ; learn how best to co-operate with those forces. I think it will be discovered that the industrial goal of the future will be found to be that point where capital, intelligence, and labor meet, and agree amicably, wisely, justly, on an equitable division of profits in every industrial enterprise. If workingmen would learn what this means, and how best to reach it at the earliest possible date, they must not waste time listening to ignorant, ambitious demagogues, who have never given a single hour's honest study to social and economi- cal questions. One of the saddest sights of the present time is to see hundreds of American workingmen listening open-mouthed to one of these fellows, or waiting weeks for a letter from one of them, before deciding what party they will vote for in the next election. How near we are to the end of tariff monopolies. The tariff controversy is now in a stage of logical THE TRUE ISSUE. 45 development altogether similar to that of the contest about slavery, its twin brother, some twenty-five to thirty years ago. Then, the slave- holders forced the fighting, as Blaine and the long train of gambling speculators who support him do now. Then, as now, the conservatives were cry- ing, "Hush! hush!" and struggling to keep the slavery question out of politics. I am not prepared to say whether the present presidential contest corresponds with that between Buchanan and Fremont or Breckinridge and Lin- coln. In either case we will not have long to wait for the death of protection and its burial in the same grave with its fellow conspirator, slavery. e. j. donnell. United States Hotel, Saratoga Springs, July 28, 1884. I will now recur to some of the leading affirma- tions in this letter. My first affirmation is that the protec- tive . SYSTEM IS inconsistent WITH, AND IMPRAC- TICABLE, UNDER A GOVERNMENT FOUNDED ON DEMOCRACY. I think that, on this point, the statement and facts in my letter are conclusive. I do not think any intelligent protectionist will attempt to meet 46 THE TRUE ISSUE. them by argument. In any case I have written all that is necessary until the attempt shall have been made. OUR TARIFF LOWERS THE STANDARD OF WAGES IN THIS COUNTRY. My next leading affirmation is that : the stan- dard OF WAGES AND THE GENERAL CONDITION OF WAGE EARNERS IS LOWERED BY OUR PRESENT TARIFF SYSTEM. Criticism of Massachusetts labor report. In this connection my attention has been drawn to the " Report of the (Massachusetts) Bureau of Statistics of Labor" for 1884, just issued. In looking over this volume of statistics giving elaborate details of the rates of wages in two coun- tries, the United States and England, the first ques- tion suggested to my mind is this : for what pur- pose has all this labor been expended ? Statistics are like letters in a box — you can spell with them whatever you please. When a work of so much expense and labor is undertaken, it should at least have some well de- fined and openly avowed purpose. If it was intended to investigate the law of wages — what it is that causes wages in one country to be higher or lower than in another, the statistics of THE TRUE ISSUE. 47 two countries alone ; and especially two countries three thousand miles apart, would be wholly insuffi- cient for such a purpose. If it was intended as a basis for inferences by interested partisans of our present tariff system, I could understand it as being exactly suited to the purpose. Suppose it to be undertaken in a spirit of honest investigation into this most important of all the questions in economics, the wages question ; let us consider for a moment the work that should be attempted. Nominal wages at least, are lower in England than in the United States. Is this owing to free trade ? or to the greater density of population ? or to general inferiority of natural resources ? or to the protective system in land — that is land monop- oly ? — any one, or several of these causes, or otHers not named ? Why is it that wages are higher in England than in any other European nation ? Is it owing to her free trade, or her superior mineral riches, or what ? Why is it that in France wages are higher t;han in, any other nation on the continent? She bor- ders on three nations of kindred race, on one mixed and one Teutonic. From none of them is she sep- arated by any natural barrier that makes migration difficult. Why are wages lower in Belgium? Is it the 48 THE TRUE ISSUE. greater density of population ? is it the lower tariff ? Why then are wages lower in Spain, where the tariff is higher and the population to land less than in any of the others? France and Italy are about equal in density of population and in fertility of soil and in the nature and extent of tariff taxation. The superior maritime advantages of Italy are probably more than counter-balanced by the supe- rior wealth of France. Why is it that wages are lower in Italy ? What influence has the more rapid increase of population in Italy on wages ? Why should wages be lower in Germany than in France ? The fact that the same standard of wages does not prevail in any two nations, no matter how closely connected, or assimilated in race, language, institutions or laws, shows that in seeking for the law of wages, it is not safe merely to compare one country with another. If we would learn what is the influence of legislation on wages; we must not only compare each nation with itself, but eacli par- ticular locality with itself. The same rates of wages do not prevail in Ire- land as in England, nor in Scotland either. I doubt if wages are exactly the same in any two counties in England. Wages are not the same in any two States of this Union. In the four divisions. New England, the Middle States, the South, and the West, they differ materially. THE TRUE ISSUE. 49 From the wonderful advance in the wages and condition of the wage-earners in England since her adoption of free trade, notwithstanding she retains her protective system in land, and notwith- standing her great increase in population, we have a right to infer that free exchange works power- fully in favor of the working classes. There are a few facts that, I think, it would be well for the Massachusetts Bureau to look into and see if they can throw light on them. Why is it that the people of the United King- dom, including poverty-, famine-stricken Ireland, consume per capita 67 pounds of sugar per annum, while the people of the United States consume ojily 44 pounds each per annum ? This is a very important question. There is probably no truer index to the degree of civilized comfort in the present day than the consumption of sugar. Another question : Why is it that the people of the United Kingdom, including poverty- stricken Ireland, consume 37 per cent, more wool per capita than the people of the United States ? To the comfort of man in the United States nothing is more necessary than wool. Next to food it may be said to stand first. What is the cause of this disparity in the con- sumption in the two countries of these two most important articles ? Is it caused by the difference 50 THE TRUE ISSUE. in the ability of the people to purchase them ? or is it owing to the fact that we tax them and En- gland does not ? It may help to the solution of this question to know that in Germany the con- sumption of sugar is only i8 pounds per capita, and in France 27 pounds. It may be found that taxation, even in the form of what is called a protective tariff, can turn neces- saries into luxuries. Is this so, indeed, with this free republic ? This wages report of the Massachusetts Bureau shows that her working people receive 72 per cent, more wages than in England, and it also shows that they come quite as near spending it all as in England. It would be interesting to know what they get for it. The report states that the low grade of clothing used by working people is not much higher in price in Massachusetts than in England. How is this? May not a shoddy blanket cost as much here as an all-wool blanket in England ? Perhaps this may in part account for the differ- ence in wool consumption in the two countries. I find in the Massachusetts report ' a similar dif- ference between the wages in the protected and the unprotected industries, to that which was found in the last census, only more marked. In the preparation of food which is taxed by the tariff, but in no sense protected, the superiority THE TRUE ISSUE. * 51 over England is 260 per cent. In boot and shoe making 166 per cent. In makers of artisan's tools 141 percent. These tools are exported even to England, notwithstanding the disparity in wages and the tribute paid to our iron monopoly. Now look at the protected industries, wool and cotton, on which protective bounties have been lavished for sixty years. The superiority in wool is only 42 per cent., in cotton 38 per cent. I have found some facts analogous to these in Europe. The fact has been noticed and discussed in the French newspapers, that the advance in wages in France in the last forty years has been greatest in agriculture, notwithstanding the heavy burden of taxation. On the other hand, the ad- vance in England has been led by manufacturing and mining, agriculture dragging behind. Now mark the true cause of this difference as I firmly believe. The French revolution freed the land, but com- merce and manufactures remain under the regime of protection. England nearly forty years ago emancipated her trade, but left the land under the old protec- tive system. It seems to me that these facts are analogous in all the three countries, and are the fruits of analogous causes. I have given much attention to this aspect of the wages question with the following result. 52 THE TRUE ISSUE. I AM SATISFIED THAT THE SINGLE FACT RECORDED IN THE LAST CENSUS AND VERIFIED IN THE MAS- SACHUSETTS REPORT, THAT WE PAY LOWER WAGES IN PROTECTED, THAN IN UNPROTECTED INDUSTRIES, IS CONCLUSIVE PROOF THAT OUR PRESENT TARIFF SYS- TEM HAS A TENDENCY TO DEGRADE WAGES AND LA- BOR BELOW THEIR NATURAL STANDARD IN THIS COUNTRY. What can our high tariff advocates say to it ? Speak out, gentlemen ; silence will no longer satisfy the public. Our working people are suffering greatly at the present time from want of steady employment, and I suppose, it affords them some degree of pleasure to hear that there are others worse off than them- selves. Nearly all illusions are sources of consola- tion, but they may be dangerous. Last Winter, while the protectionists were dilat- ing in Congress on the deplorable condition of trade in " free trade England," I was reading the following passage in the annual circular of one of the oldest mercantile.houses in Great Britain. "In reviewing the past year, it is important to note that it has been a time of great prosperity for the working classes ; employment has been abund- ant, and wages have been generally good ; the home trade and the traffic returns of railways have benefited by the spending of these earnings, but the demand for articles of consumption consequent THE TRUE ISSUE. 53 on this prosperity, has been so freely met, that generally, trade has been unprofitable." In the Congressional Record, I find Judge Kelley declaring in the House of Representatives, with great emphasis, that " it is a well known fact that business was never before so depressed in En- gland as it is now." I turn to the newspapers, and I fipd failures in the United Kingdom are little more than one- third what they were four years ago. I find in the London Economist of July 26th, a statement of the assessments under the income tax for the last two years, showing an increase in the two years of one hundred and nineteen million dollars. Outside of agriculture there was only one branch of industry that did not show an increase of profits ; that was quarries, not very important in any case. " Misery loves company," but full grown men should not deceive themselves. There is one test as to the influence of tariffs, or any other form of government interference, on wages, which may be fairly declared infallible. When wealth concentrates in large fortunes, it is certain that the labor that produces the wealth does not receive its natural share of its products. This test of the wages question has in it some- thirvg approaching to mathematical certainty. 54 THE TRUE ISSUE. High priced wages the cheapest. It is a great mistake, though a common one, to suppose that the highest priced labor is the dearest. The quality of labor and the standard of wages act and react on each other — good work brings high wages, and high wages also have influence in improving the service. Intelligent employers of labor know that sometimes an advance in wages, judiciously made, is a most profitable invest- ment. Any cause that produces such industrial de- rangements as we have now, endangers a permanent lowering of the wages standard in this country, than which there could be no greater misfortune. It may be a permanent degradation of labor to be forced to reduce wages even temporarily. On the other hand, when labor in any depart- ment of industry is exceptionally productive, it not only raises the rate of wages in all others, but it makes labor more valuable by elevating the labor- er's individuality, dignity, intelligence — in short, all the attributes of his manhood. I am satisfied, from personal observation and diligent inquiry, that American labor, estimating its produc- tiveness — that is, the work accomplished in proportion to wages paid — is the cheapest la- BOR IN the WORLD. THE TRUE ISSUE. 55 Food the basis of life ; metals the basis of civili- zation. The more vigorous part of the human race have always been moving about in the search for easier conditions of Hfe. In their primitive state they sought for food, and were content when they found it. Civilized man seeks for more than food — he seeks for mineral deposits, because he has discovered that they contain force concentrated, through which he can multiply his own powers almost indefinitely. They place in his hand the wand of the magi- cian, by which he can perform miracles. All this force should act as a relief to the drudgery, and a stimulus to the dignity, of labor. There can be no surer way of depriving the masses of the benefits legitimately due to them from increased use of machinery, than to tax the metals. To legalize monopolies in them is almost as bad as to do the same in food when the people are perishing from hunger. Every new labor-saving rhachine should increase the well-being of the laborer. The rapid increase in the use of machinery should be marked by an equal advance in wages and improvement in the condition of working peo- ple. If this does not take place, it is strong pre- 56 THE TRUE ISSUE. sumptive evidence of the existence of bad govern- ment. The tariff monopoly in iron is the tap-root of the Upas tree that has poisoned both our industry and our politics. My next leading afifirmation is, that : Our TARIFF SYSTEM DOES NOT PROTECT ANY THING BUT MONOPOLIES ; AND THAT BY FOSTERING AND PRO- TECTING MONOPOLIES IN RAW MATERIALS IT PRE- VENTS THE HEALTHY NATURAL EXPANSION OF MANUFACTURES, AND FORCES CAPITAL AND LABOR INTO SPECULATIVE RAILROAD BUILDING AND AGRI- CULTURE ; AND, FINALLY, THAT THIS TARIFF SYSTEM DERIVES ALL ITS VITALITY AND POLITICAL INFLU- ENCE FROM THE MONOPOLIES IN METALS, AND THAT ITS TAP-ROOT, SO TO SPEAK, IS THE MONOPOLY IN IRON. With free iron the monopolies in other raw ma- terials could not stand a day, and the tariff on manufactures would soon cease to have a single advocate, even among the i^ianufacturers. In point of fact, the tariffs on coal, copper, lead, wool and timber, and many other articles which consti- tute the basis of various branches of our industry, had their origin in what is called log-rolling. They were supported by the iron monopoly as a buttress to the iron tariff. THE TRUE ISSUE. 57 The contest between monopolies and labor. There can be no stronger testimony to the greatness of our natural resources and the benefit we derive from absolute free trade between the States, than the fact that our industry has not utterly collapsed under our monopolist and other taxes on raw materials. No other industrial nation on earth could have stood up under such a system. All civilized nations have been forced by stern necessity to free raw materials. It was in this form that the liberal policy began in England. There was no theoriz- ing connected with the movement. It was the simplest dictate of common sense. When there was an outcry against importations of iron from the American colonies, Parliament admitted it free on the specific ground that it was raw material, and, as such, useful to the general industry. When we put the first tariff on raw wool in 1824, England reduced her tariff from 6d. to id. the next year. They seemed to trump our tricks every time we played a card. Monopoly destroys protection. I make a distinction between tariff taxes that establish monopolies and others. Permanent monopolies can rarely be maintained in any but $8 THE TRUE ISSUE. commodities of which the supply is limited, such as iron; ' The quantity of minerals can not be increased and may, consequently, be monopolized. A tem- porary monopoly may be created in an article like steel rails, such as we had some years ago, or in bunting, of which General Butler has a monopoly, because his mill being sufficient for the home mar- ket, intimidates all attempts at competition. So long as manufacturers are taxed on their raw materials, and on the machinery and coal they use, they are not only not protected, but they are oppressed. There is no limit to the extent of their produc- tion, and there is an iron limit to the extent of their market. The same cause that limits the number of their customers, reduces consumption by these same customers. The percentage of increase in consumption, arising froin reduction in price, is always greater than the percentage of this reduction and vice versd. Thus it is that monopoly not only prevents the material expansion of other industries, but equally reduces the growth of the industry it owns. Immense superiority of the United States in raw materials. The coal fields of Great Britain are estimated THE TRUE ISSUE. 59 at an area of 11,900 square miles ; those of the United States all the way from 200,000 to 600,000 square miles. We have twenty millions more popu- lation than Great Britain, yet we do not mine half so much coal. Why ? The answer is monopoly. Why should they export twenty-five million tons and we one million ? The answer is the same. Our deposits of iron ore are believed to be in full proportion to our coal deposits. Why then, should they export one hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of iron and steel, fifty million dol- lars' worth of steam engines and other machinery (besides small wares, of which I have no report at hand), and build three-fourths of all the iron steam shipping in the world, while our exports of iron and steel and manufactures of the same, are only thirty millions ; and our iron shipbuilding is hardly worth mentioning ? Still the same answer : monopoly. It will not do to say it is owing to our higher wages. The facts leave no doubt on this point — they lift the question out of the domain of controversy. Look at them. We export manufactures of iron to some extent, even to England. Why are we able to compete successfully with any nation in the world in some of the higher grades of manufactures of iron and steel ? 6o THE TRUE ISSUE. The reason is obvious ; because their value is nearly all in labor, and we have the advantage of the higher character, and consequently higher- priced, but, for that very reason, cheaper American labor. We see here a struggle between American labor and monopoly, beginning at pig iron and advanc- ing to cutlery. Monopoly has no mercy ; every step of the road is moistened by the sweat of the artisan, and marked by the heroic struggles of mind to regain its mastery over brute force. The pity of it is, that this intelligence, which struggles so mightily, does not apply itself to dis- cover what this invisible dead weight is, that baffles it. A little time spent in this work would be of more benefit to our working people, than an eight hour law, or any other law at present discussed in their associations. Honest free trade and honest protection are brothers. This is not free trade versus protection, I am discussing. Honest free trade and honest protection alike merit courteous treatment when honestly de- fended. THE TRUE ISSUE. 6 1 Neither of them propose to thwart natural tendencies. Free trade proposes to leave natural tendencies free, so far as possible under existing circum- stances. Honest protection proposes to co-operate with them and to aid them by legislation. This kind of protection, I show elsewhere, we have never had in this country, and can not possi- bly have, under a free democracy. The conflict between the two is irrepressible, and must end in the destruction of one or the other. Our tariff is not protective, but destructive. Real protection should help ; our tariff obstructs. Real protection should co-operate with natural forces, because any system that does otherwise is self-destructive, and, in any form of statesmanship, it is beneath contempt. Honest, logical protection, like free trade, does not propose to obstruct, nor designedly create monopolies. The two, therefore, stand together in the battle against our existing tariff. They are shoulder to shoulder in front of public robbery, fraud and delusion. The tariff on iron violates every principle of an honest protective policy, by exacting tribute from every industry incident to civilization. 62 THE TRUE ISSUE. This is the age of iron. Without it, civilization would have been impos- sible ; with it, all things are possible. One of the first duties of a free government is to provide cheap iron for the whole people, at least to the extent of guarding it against all forms of taxation, and, above all, against any thing ap- proaching to monopoly. Adequate relief impossible without free raw materials. It is demonstrably certain that we can have no prosperous steady activity in all departments of our national industry while we pay tribute on raw materials, and especially on iron. If we compete in the foreign markets at all, it will only be to an inadequate extent, and that, at an unfair disadvantage to the American workman. If we can not compete abroad on equal terms, full employment will be impossible, and the na- tural balance of our industry will continue to be reversed, by forcing into agriculture, millions who would prefer other pursuits. Hitherto protective tariffs have been advocated on the theory that they would divert our people from agriculture, into mining and manufacturing. They could only have done so partially and temporarily, if at all. THE TRUE ISSUE. 63 It is now certain that our existing tariff has an opposite influence. It is equally certain that this forcing process causes incalculable suffering to our working peo- ple, and depresses the market prices of agricul- tural products, to an extent that is unjust to the farmer, and injurious to the national prosperity. Iron is the key to the arch of monopoly. Almost every branch of American industry can be liberated, by emancipating the one article, iron. We would at once begin to build Ocean steam- ships, not only for ourselves, but for sale to other countries. We would be large exporters of steel rails and railroad equipments. We are already selling steel rails at within a mere fraction of the English price. Of course I do not expect the reform to stop with iron. With the release of iron, the struggle would be ended — the reform could not then be stopped, or even much retarded. Its demonstrated merits would complete it. Three forms of remedy possible. There are three methods by which this reform may be accomplished ; two in accordance with 64 THE TRUE ISSUE. free trade principles, and one with protectionist principles. The former are a total repeal of the tariff on iron, or a gradual reduction extending over some years. The latter, or protectionist remedy, would be to' grant a bounty on all iron produced in this coun- try, as a temporary expedient. Each method has merits jand defects peculiar to itself. The first is somewhat like the abolition of slavery by proclamation. It would alarm, probably, much more than it would hurt. The peculiarity of the situation is in the fact that the relief sought, (and in truth the only relief possible,) is access to the foreign market for our manufactures. A mere reduction in the iron tariff — and that on other raw materials, might not give us such ac- cess to the foreign market as we need, whereas we know that complete repeal of those duties would do so to the fullest extent. Still, I admit that popular feeling in such a case can not be wholly disregarded. The last, or protectionist method, is by bounty paid out of the national treasury. This method is not entirely without advantages, though most people would probably be inclined to reject it without investigation. It has one or two advantages that ought to be considered. THE TRUE ISSUE. 65 In the first place it would be of the nature of a purchase — the buying out of a monopoly. Even from the monopolist's standpoint there could be no complaint on this score. It would be a thoroughly honest measure, be- cause the people would see exactly what it costs them. They could also es'timate, approximately, what profit accrued to the national industry from the in- vestment. So far as I am concerned, I would willingly vote for any one of the three, even at the risk of being called a protectionist : a name that I have for years abominated, because I participated in the common popular error that our present tariff was a fair specimen of what is known as protection. Reform can not be postponed with safety. I do not think that this reform can be deferred much longer. Almost every day of the continued existence of monopolies in raw materials is a day of suffering to our working people ; and manufacturing capital- ists as well. The monopolists cry " Go West." In a late issue of the Philadelphia Times, I find a statement that there are seven thousand iron workers out of employment in Pittsburg alone ; 66 THE TRUE ISSUE. and that in Western Pennsylvania generally, the conditions are similar. It concludes thus : " There must be readjust- ment in the amount of lal)or engaged in this busi- ness, and a lot of iron workers will do what they did ten years ago, — go West and engage in other business." This is the monopolist's remedy for the evils produced by the tariff. The Times even congratulates the trade on the fact that production has been curtailed, and that better prices may be obtained by reducing employ^ ment for labor. I need not dwell on the sufferings of these thou- sands, driven out from Pennsylvania to seek new homes and unaccustomed employment in the far West, yet I do hope most earnestly that the Ameri- can people will neither forget nor neglect it. They can have no nobler motive for political, action than devising means to remove the cause or causes that produce such effects. This has been the cry for twenty years. The monopolists have placed our manufacturing in- dustry on a Procrustean bed. The bed can not be enlarged, therefore the industry can not grow. When it would gro-w, they cry "go West." My next afifirmation, and the last to which I will recur at present, is that : THE TRUE ISSUE. 67 Tariff monopolies a fountain of corruption to the government and the people. The political corruption which has given the past twenty years their bad eminence over every other period in our national history, had its origin in the adoption of what is commonly known as the protective system into the repub- lican national platform in 1860. Mr. Blaine testifies to the first alliance between the Republican party, and monopolists. In his " Twenty years of Congress," pp. 205, 206, 207, he has no difficulty in proving that Pennsylvania always voted with the South on the slavery question until the Republican party pledged itself to the protective system, through the conven- tion that nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Republican party, like all other national parties, had its origin in a question that divided the whole people, and was, for the time being, of such vital importance as to throw all other ques- tions in the shade. It is admitted by Mr. Blaine that, outside of Pennsylvania, the tariff question was not mentioned in the canvass. The masses of people of Pennsylvania are just as patriotic and as much interested in having in- dustry free from monopolies, as any other part of the American people ; but the monopolists, then as now, dominated the public opinion of the State. 68 THE TRUE ISSUE. It was they, and not the people, who bargained for their patriotism. Nineteen-twentieths of the American people were perfectly contented with the low revenue tariff. Difference between low tariff and high tariff times. The difference between those times, and the last twenty years is this : Then, the normal condition was quiet, solid prosperity and full employment, with the usual periodical panic every ten years, lasting a few months, and followed by rapid recovery. The normal condition now, is depression and insufficient employment, with a short spurt of unhealthy speculation every ten years. Our recovery from the panic of 185 7 was so rapid that its effects had all disappeared within six months. The stagnation that immediately preceded the enactment of the Morrill tariff, was wholly owing to the shock proceeding from the revolutionary movements in the South ; not at all from the tariff, as Mr. Blaine asserts. If Mr. Blaine had been a merchant instead of a politician, he might have been saved from such a blunder, and from a hundred others that disfigure his history wherever he touches the tariff question. Indeed he might have seen that his own admission THE TRUE ISSUE. 69 of the popular indifference to the tariff question, is sufficient evidence of his blunder ; even if the facts had been forgotten by living men. First bargain of the Republican party with the monopolists. When the Republican party met in convention in i860, it had been in existence six years. Success in the election was known to be hope- less without the vote of Pennsylvania. There was but one way to obtain it. There was a profound conviction that it could not be car- ried on the slavery question. Judge Black had declared in the convention that nominated Buchanan, that, if the abolitionists forced the question to an issue, Pennsylvania would go with the South. There could be no better evidence of the popu- lar satisfaction with the then existing tariff, than the extreme moderation of the language in which the tariff plank was couched ; thus : — " Sound policy requires such an adjustment of imposts as will encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country." It was at once cautious and insidious. It was a bargain such as seems to be a necessity in politics ; even in the prosecution of the noblest cause. 70 THE TRUE ISSUE. Pennsylvania kept her part of the bargain by voting for the Republican party, and the party re- sponded by enacting the Morrill tariff. Considered as a war measure, the duties in that tariff were not too high, but the framework of the bill was insidious. Its hostility toward foreign importations was positively wicked. It had in it the very spirit of war, and the spirit of monopoly It was immediately followed by a rush to Wash- ington of capitalists and speculators asking for tariffs, appropriations and contracts to " promote the industrial interests of the whole country." Every demand was granted, that had money and influence behind it. It was believed at the time to be the deliberate policy of the party in power, adopted from patriotic motives and, as a war policy, approved by some of the most intelligent, upright men in the nation. It brought to the Government support that it could ill afford to spare. War imposes terrible necessities. He who would conquer, can rarely afford to reject the serv- ices of either the venal or the vile. It would seem as if no such thing as abso- lute CONQUEST IN HUMAN AFFAIRS IS POSSIBLE. In ORDER TO CONQUER IN ONE DIRECTION, WE MUST SUR- RENDER IN ANOTHER. WiSE MEN SHOULD SEE TO IT THE TRUE ISSUE. 71 THAT THEIR CONQUESTS ARE ENDURING AND THEIR SURRENDERS TEMPORARY. Final conquest of monopolists over the Republican , party. After the enactment of the first Morrill tariff, there was a never ceasing demand for higher duties, and every advance was in the interest of monopolies. These monopolies were nearly all in raw mate- rials and, consequently, oppressive to manufactures. So long as the war lasted, this burden was not much felt, but soon after it ended, the whole indus- trial fabric began to shake. Meantime there has not been a whisper, any- where, as to the policy of removing the real cause of our troubles, viz. : the monopolies in raw mate- rials, and especially in iron. Monopolies generate corruption everywhere. Pari passu with the growth of tariff monopolies grew the lavish appropriations of public lands to railroad corporations, which have been the cause of so much scandal. In truth, monopolies, planted and nourished by legislation, have been the prolific source of all the political corruption and social demoralization that have been the exceptional feature of our recent history. 72 THE TRUE ISSUE. During twenty years men entered politics poor, either as representatives of the people, or as government officials, and came out rich. This was a new thing. Previously, people had chosen public life as the way to honorable distinction, never as a means of obtaining wealth. Monopolies previously the servants, become the mas- ters of the government. So long as the result of the war was doubtful, tariff monopolies were considered subsidiary to the main purpose, the maintenance of the Union and the extinction of slavery : The Republican party remaining on its old foundation. As soon as the result of the war was known the slavery question became subsidiary to tariff mo- nopolies. The party had shifted its base. It was no longer the same party. Party names remain to lead or mislead the multitude, but parties themselves are always changing. Parties should not be distinguished by their names. When history shall have been written by philoso- phers, it will be declared that Abraham Lincoln was the first successor to Jefferson and Madison. THE TRUE ISSUE. 73 The three will be known as the trinity of Ameri- can democracy. These men always" trusted the people implicitly, because they loved them sincerely. In the future party lines will be traced by spirit- ual affinities, not by party names. Monopolists belong to no party. In order to judge correctly our politics and our political parties, there is one truth that should never be lost sight of ; it is this : the monopolists — the men who have become rich, or are becoming rich, or expect to do so through Congressional legisla- tion (though they may use parties) — never in reality belong to them. On all other questions their opinions have a tone of liberality — are entirely free from bigotry, but on the question of monopolies they present a front of iron. These they declare are the cause of the people. Of course they give them other, more popular names. They call them protection to American industry from the pauper labor of Europe ! They have, with wonderful success, concealed from the people the fact that the whole system of high tariff taxation originated in, and derives its whole strength from, monopoly in iron, which is the free gift of nature. 74 THE TRUE ISSUE. Through the influence of this powerful monop- oly, the support of other interests has been bought at the public expense, and the ear of the American people has been abused with endless sophistries. The great issue in the approaching election. The cause of monopoly has now two candidates in the field, for the Presidency of the United States, Mr. Blaine and Mr. Butler, Both of them entered the public service poor, and have become millionaires. As representatives of the people, both of them have helped to establish or to strengthen every one of the great monopolies that now ride triumph- antly on the backs of the toiling masses. They depend on monopoly for their hopes of success, and they boldly defend it, though under another name. This looks like an insult to the intelligence of the people. The result of the election will decide whether it is the candidates or the people who are fools. My political education. I have never been a partisan since I was old enough to vote. Before I became of age I came under the spell of Henry Clay's genius. THE TRUE ISSUE. 75 He was neither a great logician nor a profound thinker, but he was a brilHant leader, and, though of fiery temperament and capable of impassioned eloquence, he always, on all occasions, showed that he possessed the wisdom of moderation, as well as the spirit of patriotism and a lofty integrity. His moderation was shown in the tariff contro- versy when, after the passage of the compromise tariff in 1833, he declared to his discontented fol- lowers that no American industry had a right to exist that could not support itself on a tariff of 20 per cent. He showed his wisdom in his attitude on the slavery question, which brought him into perma- nent antagonism to Mr. Calhoun and his sup- porters. Mr. Calhoun was pre-eminently a logician. Logic is a fine instrument when used by a mind that is profoundly intuitive — in rapport with the fountains of truth. When it dominates a gifted intellect that has, from any cause, the position and attitude of an ad- vocate, it is the most dangerous of all the faculties. Great dialecticians have generally a brilliant ca- reer, but they nearly always ruin the cause they defend, I do not mean to say that great logicians are al- ways the advocates of error, but they have often a fatal tendency in that direction ; because devotion 76 THE TRUE ISSUE. to logic, which is the instrument of the advocate, has a tendency to sever the connection with the fountains of truth, which the faculties can only pre- serve through intuition. In those early days, I naturally became preju- diced against the democratic party. Though I had discovered the fallacies of Mr. Clay's tariff theories some years before his death, this had no influence on my feeling of aversion for the democrats, which was deepened into positive hatred by X}ci^ judicial blindness of their attitude on the slavery question. This is the eleventh presidential election in which I have taken an intelligent interest, and I can safely declare that it is the first, in which my judgment and my feelings have been altogether united on the side of the democratic party. The democratic party taking a new start. I feel firmly convinced that this party is in the act of renewing its youth — the youth that was nur- tured by Jefferson and Madison. Gov. Cleveland the man for the emergency. They have selected a candidate who has shown in the two offices he has held, exactly the qualities which the present emergency demands — a clear head, an honest heart, and an iron will. THE TRUE ISSUE. 77 He has made no enemies that could not have been conciHated if he had been willing to relax his fidelity to the constitution and the people. He has been, so far, the most efficient friend of the laboring masses, because he has united intelli- gence and sincere sympathy with absolute integrity. He refuses to gain a cheap popularity by doing an injustice. He makes no bargains to obtain cor- rupt support. He will not be suspected of bargain- ing for money to carry the election by selling the high offices at his disposal when elected. In truth he is not a politician, according to the vulgar meaning of the word. The great strength of his record as the friend of the laboring masses, is the real cause of the persist- ent efforts by his opponents to obscure the facts and deceive the working people. Practical, not theoretical, reform needed. Gov. Cleveland is no theorist — he is neither a free-trader nor a protectionist. This is not a con- test between free-trade and protection, but I trust and believe — nay I am sure — that if Gov. Cleve- land should be elected, there will be rneasures de- vised and executed, measures at once constitutional and equitable, that will relieve the labor of the whole people from the great monopolies that have oppressed the working people, and held the repub- lican party in bondage for twenty years. 78 THE TRUE ISSUE. At the end of his administration, as I hope and believe, he will be held to be the true successor of Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln. A lesson from history. For the benefit of my friends, the working men, I will recall to their memory an incident in Roman history. The Roman people, like the Americans, were divided into working people and monopolists, then known by the name patricians. The Roman gov- ernment was called a republic, as is our own ; yet the monopolists in Rome, as in the United States, controlled nearly all the legislation and owned the greater part of the property. An honest, earnest, faithful friend of the people named Caius Senipronius Gracchus was elected Tribune and proposed to carry into execution a law long evaded, appropriating a portion of the public lands lying waste — a portion not yet in legal possession of the monopolists, but which they intended to take on the first opportunity — and to divide these lands among working people, most of whom had fought for their country, and had no means of obtaining a decent living. The monopolists bribed the other Tribune Livius Drusus, to go to the people and outbid Gracchus by proposing measures of advantage for them, at once extravagant and impracticable, and THE TRUE ISSUE. 79 thus destroy their confidence in their real friend. The scheme was successful — the people were de- ceived. They deserted their Tribune, who was assassinated by the monopolists, as his brother had been before ; and with him perished the last hope of Roman liberty. Historical writers now generally agree in the opinion that the assassination of the Gracchi and the defeat of their policy sealed the fate of the Roman republic, and by preserving the power of the wealthy few to monopolize the riches of the world, destroyed the Empire also. This occurred more than two thousand years ago. Have we learned any thing in the interval ? Are our working men so much wiser than their fellow toilers of ancient Rome that they can dis- criminate between a real friend and an impostor ? They will answer this question themselves at the approaching election. United States Hotel, | Saratoga Springs. ) E. J. DONNELL. Aug. 18, 1884. TOPICS OF THE TIME. A series of representative essays on questions of the day. Prin- cipa,lly selected -from the leading' British and Continental journals. Published in handsomely printed i6mo volumes. Price each, in paper, 25 cents j in cloth, flexible, 60 cents. The set, six volumes, in box, $3 50. ■ Vol, I. SOCIAIi PROBLEMS. .Comprising Giffen on "World- Crowding," Lat)ouch^re on " The Coming Democracy," Laveleye on "The European Terror," Jehan de Paris on "Secret Societies in Fraiice," Flana- gan on " Home Rule andSecession," Auberon Herbert on "A Politieianin Trouble about his Soul," besides anonymous papers on " Europe in Straits " and " The Nationalization of the Land." Vol, II. STUDIES IN BIOGRAPHY. Including Harrison on '■ Gambetta," Miss Christie on "Miss Burney's Own Story," Dasent on '. Bishop Wllberforce, " Traill on ' ' Lord Westbury and Bishop Wilberforce, '' and anonymous articles on " Dean Swift," " Literary Bohemians," and " George Sand." VoJ. HI. STUDIES IN LITERATURE. Containing essays by Matthew Arnold on "Isaiah of, Jerusalem," by Thomas Wright, the Jour- nfeyman Engineer,- on " The Unknown Public," by the Rev. Dr. Stokes on "The BolWndists," Leifchild on " Hamlei," Shorthouse on "The Humor- ous in Literature," and an essay on " American Literature in England." 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