YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLET FROM HIS ELECTION TO CONGRESS TO THE PRESENT TIME NEW YOEK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1893 OOPTBIGHT, 1893, Bt D. appleton AND' COMPANY. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. In this volume are presented sixty-five of the speeches and addresses of Hon. "William McKinley, Governor of Ohio, late Itepresentative in Congress, and one of the prominent public men of the country. It has been compiled by Mr. Joseph P. Smith, Librarian of the Ohio State Library, and revised by Mr. McKinley himself, so far as the opportunities of a busy public life would admit. The selections have been made from several hundred speeches, delivered in all parts of the country, and indicate the •wide range of topics on -which Mr. McKinley has spoken. Espe cial attention is called to the care and ability with which he has discussed the tariff question. All his more important tarifE speeches are here collected in a single volume, and it is believed that his arguments in advocacy of the doctrine of protection will prove peculiarly acceptable at this time, when the matter of ad hering to or abandoning our present economic policy is the prin cipal question at issue between the two great political parties of the country. CONTENTS. PASE 1. The -Wood Tariff Bill 1 2. Congressional Gterrtmanderino 23 3. Free and Pair Elections 33 4. Crimes against the Ballot — Ohio Republican State Convention OF 1880 55 5. The Contest against Judge Taylor 62 6. The Tariff Commission i .... 70 7. The Tariff of 1883 106 8. James A. Garfield— A Memorial Address. (With Portrait.) . . 124 9. The Morrison Tariff Bill 131 10. The Wallace-MoKinley Contest 160 11. Equal Suffrage 165 12. What Protection means to Virginia 181 13. Labor Arbitration 196 14. The Payment of Pensions 200 15. The Surplus in the Treasury 203 16, The Dependent Pension-Bill Veto 213 17. Our Public Schools — Address at the Dedication of a Public- School Building 215 18. Prospect and Retrospect — Address to Pioneers of the Mahoning Valley 220 19. The Cleveland Administration 225 20. The American Eaemer — Address before the Ohio State Grange . 242 21. Free Raw Materials — Address before the Home Market Club of Boston 250 23. The Purchase of Government Bonds 263 23. John A. Logan — A Memorial Address. (With Portrait.) . . .271 24. Views of the Minority — Prom the Minority Report on the Mills Tariff Bill 377 35. The Mills Tariff Bill 290 26. Not a Candidate — Remarks at the Republican National Conven tion of 1888 336 37. Protection and the South — Address at Atlanta, Georgia, before THE Piedmont Chautauqua Association 837 28. The Senate Tariff Bill 355 29. The American Volunteer Soldier — Memorial Day Address in New York City 358 vi CONTENTS. PAGB 30. Protection and Revenue 368 81. The Question of a Quorum 381 32. Civil-Service Reform 395 33. The Tariff of 1890 397 34. Ulysses S. Grant— A Memorial Address. (With Portrait.) . . 431 35. Committee Meetings- People Heard by the Ways and Means Committee 445 86. William D. Kelley — A Memorial Address 447 37. Free Materials for the Foreign Trade 450 38. The Duty on Sugar 452 39. The Silver Bill 454 40. The Federal Election Bill 456 41. The Fifty-first Congress 459 42. The Eight-Hour Law 469 43. The Conference Committee's Report 471 44. New England and the Future — Address before the Pennsylvania New England Society 482 45. A Reply to Mr. Cleveland — Address before the Ohio Repub lican State League 487 46. The Direct-Tax Refunding Bill 498 47. The Hawaiian Treaty 502 48. The Tribune's Jubilee — Address at the Fiftieth Anniversary op THE Pounding of the New York Tribune 507 49. Pensions and the Public Debt — Memorial Day Address at Can ton, Ohio 515 50. No Compromise with the Demagogue— Ohio Republican State Con vention of 1891 523 51. July Fourth at Woodstock 533 52. The Ohio Campaign of 1891 — The Opening Speech at Niles . . 539 53. The American Workingman — Labor Day Address at Cinci>-n'ati . 558 54. The Ohio Victory of 1891 562 55. The State of Ohio — Address before the Ohio Republican State League 564 56. Oberlin College— Address before the Cleveland Alumni . . 571 57. Issues make Parties — Address to the Republican College Clubs AT Ann Arbor, Michigan 574 58. Notification Address to Mr. Harrison 581 59. July Fourth at Lakeside 583 60. The Triumph of Protection — Address before the Nebraska Chau tauqua Association at Beatrice 589 61. An Auxiliary to Religion — Address at the Dedication op the Y. M. (!. A. Building in Youngstown, Ohio 606 63. The Issues of 1892 609 63. Dedication of the Ohio Building 630 64. The Defeat of 1892 — Address before the Ohio Republican State League 638 65. Rutherford B. Hayes— A Memorial Address. (With Portrait.) . 640 SPEECHES AI^D ADDEESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. THE WOOD TAEIFF BILL. Speech in the House of Eepeesektatives, Foett-fifth Congress, April 15, 1878. [From the Congressional Beeord.'] The House being in Committee of the Whole for the consideration of the bill (H. R. 4,106) to impose duties upon foreign imports, to promote trade and com merce, to reduce taxation, and for other purposes, Mr. McKinley said — Me. Chairman : It is a matter of regret that the distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Wood], who presented this tarifE bill to the House on Tuesday last, should have failed in his opening speech to give any explanation of the details of the bill. Indeed, at the very outset of his remarks he disavowed all intention of giving to the House any explanation or analysis of the provisions of the bill upon which the House will be expected to take action at no distant day. Following his example, I shall content myself, for the present at least, with a discussion of some of the general features of the bill, and their efEect upon the business of the country. I am opposed to the pending bill from a high sense of duty — a duty imposed upon me by the very strong convictions which I entertain, after an examination of its several features, and from the conviction that should the pro posed measure become a law, it will be nothing short of a public calamity. It scales down the much needed revenues of the Govern ment. Although this proposition was denied by the distinguished gentleman who opened this debate [Mr. Wood], I desire in this con nection to call attention to a carefully prepared statement by Mr. Young, Superintendent of the Bureau of Statistics, in which it is shown that the revenues to be derived under this bill, if it shall be come a law, estimated upon the basis of the importations of 1877, will fall short of the revenues of that year something more than $9,000,000. 2 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. This bill not only impairs the revenues of the Government, but it is a blow well directed at the mining, the manufacturing, and the industrial classes of this country. It will not be denied that any ma terial readjustment of the tarifE system at this time is a delicate and hazardous undertaking, and should be approached, if at all, with great care and circumspection, with a thorough knowledge of the busi ness and commerce of the country, their needs and relations, which it proposes to affect. Its consideration should be unincumbered by individual or sectional interests, and should be free from any at tempt or desire to promote the interests of one class at the expense of the many. The highest good to the greatest number should guide any legislation which may be had. I believe if this rule should be adopted the proposed measure would find little favor in this House. I do not doubt that free trade, or its " next of kin," tarifE reform, might be of temporary advantage to a very limited class of our popu lation, and would be hailed with delight by the home importer and foreign manufacturer ; but no one, I predict, who has thoughtfully considered the subject and its effects upon our present state and con dition can fail to discern that free trade or tarifE reform, introduced into this country now, would produce still further business depression and increased commercial paralyzation. Our once prosperous manufactories are barely able now, with the present duties upon imports, to keep their wheels in motion ; and what, I ask, must become of them if the foreign-manufactured prod uct which competes with the manufactured product of the United States shall be sufEered to come into this country free of duty or at re duced rates of duty ? Mr. Chairman, there can be but one result, which I shall endeavor to present later in the course of my remarks. If a change is necessary in the present tarifE system, or in some cases a reduction is demanded for the general good, then I answer that such reduction or change should be the work of time, and not hastily or inconsiderately made. Any change, however seemingly trifling, will seriously operate upon the business interests of this coun try, will unsettle trade and disturb values. Even a discussion of the question is a terror to the commercial classes ; and we have discov ered since the report of the subcommittee of the Committee of Ways and Means was given to the House, and to the country, a marked disturbance in every avenue of trade and labor. There can be no justification for an immediate change of the pres ent system. If a new policy is to be inaugurated or departures are to be made from the old, then they should have reference to a period of THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 3 time in the future sufficiently remote from the present to enable busi ness men and tradespeople to prepare for the new order of things and adjust their trade conformably to it. We want in this country no sudden shock to further paralyze business. A law passed now, to go into eflEect at once, as proposed by this bill, or in the near future, would be without justification on the part of this House, and, I may almost say, would be an act of criminality. The business interests of this country can stand no additional burdens; they ought not to be subjected to them; and the party which is responsible for them will be held to fullest accountability. There is no National demand, I assert, for the passage of this bill ; no popular appeal is pressing for its enactment ; no public necessity requires such legislation ; no interest is sufEering for want of it. There is no plethora in the revenues, or overflow of the Treasury, justifying it. Neither the producer nor the consumer wants it ; but the almost universal sentiment of the country is for the defeat of this bill, here and now, without concession, compromise, or amendment. There can be no mistake, Mr. Chairman, as to the popular judg ment upon this measure. Scarcely an interest in the whole country but has petitioned this body, commencing at its extra session in Octo ber and continuing down to the present moment, remonstrating against the proposed legislation. These petitions come not, as in former years, from the manufacturer and the producer alone, but the farmer, the mechanic, the laboring man, and the miner, all unite in protesting against this legislation, declaring it injurious to them as a whole and as a class. I am reminded, in this connection, of a single petition, signed by over one hundred thousand laboring men of this country — coming from seventeen States of the Union, brought here by three of their own number, demanding an increase of at least ten per cent upon the present rates of duty. Mr. Chairman, I doubt if any of the gentlemen of this House have read the memorial of these laboring men, for by a single objection it was excluded from the pages of the Record, and I propose at this time to read it : To fhe Senate and Souse of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled : We, citizens of the United States, believing that the permanent prosperity of the people of the United States can be secured only by complete protection against foreign competition of all domestic industry, do respectfully petition for a revision of existing tarifE laws by an increase of at least ten per cent of the present rates, 4 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. and especially that, to prevent frauds, the same imposts be levied upon old as upon new raDroad iron ; and that all imported iron shall be subject to a protect ive duty. We do further petition that in such revision the rates upon all imports be adjusted to accomplish, as nearly as possible, these results : First, absolute pro tection of all domestic products in the domestic market ; second, the largest rev enue upon all imported luxuries not produced in this country ; and, third, to per mit all uncompeting articles of necessity, or of general use, as tea and coffee, togo to the people untaxed. This, I say, was signed by over one hundred thousand laboring men of the country. And you will observe that it does not demand a reduction of the duties upon imports, but it demands an increase, and in case of a revision of the tarifE it announces the true principles on which such revision should be made ; and these principles have been wholly ignored by the Committee which prepared this bUl, as I shall show hereafter. Now, I ask if these appeals are to go unheeded. I want to know if any respect is to be paid to the popular judgment on this subject. And I speak to the gentlemen on the other side of the House, who in season and out of season upon this floor have declared their afiEection for the poor laboring men, and during the first three months of this session of Congress have filled the Eecord daily with professions of love for them. I ask you now if your service in their cause is to be mere "lip service," or will you unite with the majority of this side of the House in defeating a measure so much in opposition to the development of the material industries of the country and so obnoxious to the people at large? I trust you will, and it will be no longer said of you that " you keep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the hope." But, Mr. Chairman, the defeat of this measure is not only de manded by the popular judgment of all classes, but it is aUke the dictate of every just principle of morals and of fair dealing. The present tarifE has existed almost without alteration for the past six teen years, and every effort in the direction of a substantial change within that time has been met by defeat. Men have embarked in business under the existing law regulating the tariff; great enter prises have been projected ; vast amounts of capital are invested all over the country upon the faith of the existing law and relying upon its permanence, and to-day millions of dollars are invested in buildings, machine shops, and factories all over this land, built up under the fostering care of protection. It is proposed by this bill, without any note of preparation to the manufacturing classes, with- THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 5 out any word of warning, without any service being made upon them, by a swift and certain blow, to destroy these vast investments of capital and labor. In my own district, with its wealth of mineral resources, with its factories, machine shops, mills, and furnaces, the disaster which must result from the passage of the pending bill can not be estimated. The rich mines of coal abounding in the counties of Stark, Mahoning, and Columbiana, which even now are unable to furnish full time and fair employment to the operatives, will be forced to diminish their productions and the miners will be driven into other avenues of labor, already overcrowded. The mills and furnaces, factories and machine shops situated in these counties, accessible to rich mines of coal and ore, are famons for their iron and steel and agricultural implements. They have struggled with unyielding courage through the panic of 1873 and the distressing years that have followed, and even at the meager wages now paid are keeping thousands of families from actual want. All these must, I am assured, if the present bill becomes a law, put out their fires, while the potteries of East Liverpool, which are employing a thousand men, after a bitter struggle with foreign capital and the established trade of European manufacturers, must also surrender. So with the steel interest, the wool and woolen in terest, the flax interest, and the bagging interest ; and what is true of these special interests, in the localities I have named, is true of many industries the country over. These industries, as I have already said, were commenced and have grown and developed under the wise and fostering protection thrown around them by the legislation of this country. Capital has been put into manufacturing everywhere, relying upon this law. Contracts have been made upon the faith of it, and I say that it has ripened into a vested right, if not a legal vested right, the highest equitable and moral right, as to existing interests at least. I was glad to observe the other day in the speech of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Wood] that he was forced to admit a moral right existing in the manufactures of this country for the continuance of this same protection, and I call your attention to a brief extract which I have taken from his speech upon this subject : I recognize [says the gentleman from New York] in consequence of the pres ent tariff a moral right in the interest affected for a little longer enjoyment of the assistance so liberally dispensed to them. Even he admits that there is a high moral right resting upon the Congress of this country to continue still further the protection which 6 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. in the past has been given to the industries of the country. I can assure the gentleman that his bill does not recognize this right, but as to many industries wholly ignores it. Free trade and tariff reform are captivating phrases, and to one unacquainted with their true meaning and import are deceptive, while the arguments urged in their behalf are alike deceptive and delusive. The chief consideration that is urged by the advocates of free trade or tariff reform, so called, is that the duties fall upon the consumer ; in a word, that the great mass of consumers in this country wUl get their products, their goods, their merchandise at a very much less price than they now do if free trade or tariff reform prevailed instead of the present policy. Mr. Chairman, history and experience both teach us that the agri cultural products of this country have in the main increased in price since the tariff of 1834, but that substantially all manufactured arti cles, articles that have been protected by that or successive tariffs, have been secured to the great body of the consumers at a very much less cost than they formerly were. And, Mr. Chairman, the price of articles has not only been diminished and the consumer benefited by the reduced price, but the quality of the article has in every instance been improved. Home competition will always bring prices to a fair and reason able level, and prevent extortion and robbery. Success, or even ap parent success, in any business or enterprise will incite others to engage in like enterprises ; and then follows healthful strife, the life of business, which inevitably results in cheapening the article produced. I assure you, Mr. Chairman, that the European product costs the American consumer very much less than it otherwise would but for the existence of domestic rivalry. Remove American competition from foreign manufacture and importation, and the price of every article bought which is manufactured abroad will increase, and we will be forced to pay whatever grasping avarice may dictate. Our principal business will be to send abroad to enrich the coffers of for eign nations with what money remains in this country. Be assured if the tariff is disturbed as proposed, very much of American compe tition will be destroyed. These familiar propositions are aptly illustrated by the testimony and experience of foreign manufacturers, from which for a very little time I propose now to quote. I only use the testimony which I get from one branch of manufacture ; but the testimony in this case, THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 7 and conclusions to be drawn from it, I venture to assert, is true of all the other industries which come in competition with American industries. The old Staffordshire granite white ware, so universally used in this country for a great many years, has almost disappeared from the American market, and is rapidly giving place to our own manufac tured article in this branch of industry. The condition of the Ameri can market, the fact that the European trade was losing its hold upon this country, led in 1877 to an arbitration between the owners of the potteries at Staffordshire in England and their operatives, touching a proposed reduction of ten per cent in the wages of labor to enable them to compete with the American manufactured ware. The arbi tration was held at Hanley, England, before J. C. Davies, Esq., of London, umpire. I read you the testimony of Mr. Shaw, an English manufacturer, largely engaged in making this ware at Staffordshire. He says : He found from time to time, first one article and then another was being manufactured in America at a less rate than here. The boast of America was no empty boast, that in ten years, at the rate they were going on, they would super sede the use of British crockery in the United States. This is the testimony of an English manufacturer, and must be very gratifying to the American manufacturer and to Americans gen* eraily. In ten years, at the rate they are going, they will supersede the use of British crockery in this country. Do you object to this, my free-trade advocate? And would you check " the rate," by unfriendly legislation, which in time will place Americans upon a footing so firm and in a position so encourag ing? If this be your purpose you have only to pass the pending measure. Again, as to the quality of American ware. Mr. Shaw produces before the umpire samples of white granite ware of American manu facture, and testifies that they are sold at fully ten per cent less than English goods ; he was convinced that Americans had superior mate rials to those the British had in the Staffordshire potteries or they could not produce the articles they did ; they had every material neces sary ; the difficulty as to strength and soundness was already removed, and he saw no reason why, in a short time, they would not overcome each and every difficulty. And I am justified in assuring this House, if Congress will but let 8 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. our American potters alone, they will overcome each and every diffi culty which exists now, or hereafter may come in their way. Mr. Ellsmore, another English manufacturer, testified that he was engaged in the American trade, had been to the United States and had had opportunities of seeing the quality of their goods ; his im pression was that the goods Americans were making were superior to British ; he was himself exclusively in the American trade, and had had the greatest diflBculty in retaining his trade there ; at one time he was unable to supply as much as was demanded, but circumstances had changed, the demand had been nearly equal to the capabilities of supply by him. The " circumstances " referred to by the witness, it is scarcely necessary I should tell you, have been produced by our manufac turers, under the judicious protection now afforded ; and if you want to alter these circumstances and restore Mr. Ellsmore to his former position, when with all his capacity he is not able to supply the American demand, you have only to alter existing law as proposed by a majority of the Committee of Ways and Means. Mr. Shaw is recalled, and resumes his testimony as follows : When in Ameriea he had taken the trouble to go through the leading manu factories, and his impression as to their prospects of successfully competing with this country [Europe] was that unless we oan produce at a very much less cost than at the present time, and the tariff is reduced, the trade of this district is limited to a brief time. But if, with the tariff at forty per cent (and that is the existing tariff), we can here produce goods at as cheap a rate as they can, we will be able to keep the growth and increase in the States in check, and thus preserve the amount of trade that must otherwise go from our potteries. The tariff must be reduced in the interest of the foreign potteries or their trade will be greatly impaired, and to gratify them, to pro mote this industry in Europe, to build up theirs at the expense of ours, is the purpose and effect of the proposed bill. This would be unwise, un-American, and unpatriotic. Mr. Shaw closes his testimony with a significant question which he propounds to the umpire : Is it your opinion that if Americans had enjoyed and benefited by a systcn of free trade, as we have in this country for the past twenty years, that they would have been in a better position than we are at the present time? The umpire answers, " I do not see how I can apply it, although it is a very important question." The question is a strange and con tradictory one, for after Mr. Shaw has been complaining of the dis tressed condition of their business under free trade and the encour- THB WOOD TARIFF BILL. 9 aging prospects of ours under a tariff policy, he gravely inquires, " If the United States had enjoyed a system of free trade as we have, would they have been in any better condition than we are to-day ? " Certainly not, Mr. Chairman ; but, acting the part of wisdom, the Congress of the United States has up to this time persistently refused to impose upon this people a policy which, upon Mr. Shaw's own tes timony, has depressed and almost disorganized the pottery trade in Europe. But I am anticipating. Mr. Edwin Powell, an English manufac turer and a party to the arbitration, makes the following truthful and forcible reply : My opinion is, that if there had been no protective tariff, America would not have been in the same position to-day. This is the whole story, and completely substantiates the doc trine of the protective system. This opinion is well worthy the care ful consideration of the American statesman. It confirms all that has ever been claimed for the protective system. Our proud position to-day is due in great part — indeed for the most part — to the wise protection and fostering care thrown around American manufactures and labor and enterprise by the early statesmen of this country, and continued down to the present time. No other policy would ever have given us the advanced stage in manufactures that we enjoy to day. It will be seen from' the testimony to which I have called your attention (and there is more of the same kind which I might present from this arbitration, for it is all printed and given to the public) that the policy of the manufacturers of Europe is to keep "the growth and the increase in the United States in check " ; and it can be done, say they in their testimony, in one way only, and that is by a reduction of the tariff. The American Congress is to-day engaged in that, to the European trade, commendable work ; and for what purpose ? To keep the growth of manufactures in the United States in check and increase the board of trade returns in Europe. If we did not know better, Mr. Chairman, we would be justified in believ ing that we were in the British House of Commons, legislating for British subjects, rather than charged with the high and sacred duty of making laws for the citizens of the United States, to protect them in their labor, their industries, and their investments. Another significant fact is made apparent from the testimony to which I have called your attention, that since our American potteries 10 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. have been established and have got some hold upon the trade of this country, granite ware has decreased in price from thirty to thirty-five per cent. Another fact which comes out in the testimony is that we pay to the workmen in this country in the same line of industry at least fifty per cent more than the English manufacturers pay to their workmen. While upon this subject it is proper I should say that, al though the proposed bill upon its face reduces the duty only five per cent upon common white granite ware, the old duty being forty and the proposed duty being thirty-five, and upon first examination would seem not to seriously operate upon this industry, yet upon a more careful examination it is found to be sufficient to very seriously crip ple if not wholly destroy it in the United States. I want to call your attention to the difference between the two rates of duty, the forty per cent under the present rate and the thirty- five per cent as proposed by this bill ; and I give you the average net price per package of this class of goods imported into this country, estimating two average assortments of best goods and one of second. The average net price is £6 6s. Under existing law what would be the duty ? I give you the figures below : UNDER present LAW. £ s. d. Net cost of goods 6 6 0 Add package 16 0 Inland freight and charges 10 0 7 12 0 Add two and a half per cent customs 3 9 Total value of goods 7 15 9 Duty forty per cent 3 2 4 UNDER PROPOSED LAW. Net cost of goods 6 6 0 Add five per cent 6 4 6 13 4 Duty thirty-five per cent 2 13 11 Which is an absolute reduction of over fifteen per cent. And yet they tell us that they have only reduced the duty five per cent upon this class of goods. The very meager profits now enjoyed by this trade and the great expenses to which they are still subjected by way of experiments and otherwise are enough, I am assured by the leading manufacturers of the country, to endanger this growing industry in the United States; THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. H and operators and operatives have united in a protest against this measure. But this is not all. In the line of decorated wares they will be even more seriously affected than in the branch to which I have just called your attention. This is almost new in the pottery art in America, and may truly be said to be in its infancy. The proposed duty is forty-five per cent, and the present duty is fifty per cent, and although the reduction is the same as on the former class of goods it will more seriously affect this special interest, because the latter has not reached that degree of perfection which the former has attained. This class of ware is exciting great interest among potters, and the United States trade is commanding special consideration, as will be seen by an article which I have clipped from the Pottery and Glass Trades Review of January, 1878, an English publication : During the past month good shipments have been made for America, and orders from that country are now coming in very freely. . . . There seems to be a growing taste for more artistic pottery than they have formerly had, and no doubt if our own manufacturers only lay themselves open to meet this demand they may yet show a considerable increase in the board of trade returns. In the same publication I find a significant fact for the encourage ment of the English manufacturer: that the duty on this class of goods is to be reduced by Mr. Wood's tariff bill. Now the question which the American Congress is required to set tle is. Shall we concede to the demands of the British manufacturers and producers, to the injury of our own, or will we continue to throw a reasonable protection around our own industries, and thus develop the material interests of the country ? I have given you the testi mony of the English manufacturer ; let me now present the state ment of our own. I quote from the report of the United States Pot tery Association for January, 1877 : The trade of the United States is of more value to England, France, and Ger many than all the rest of the world combined. Under our present tariff (though not in proportion to the difference of the labor values of the rival countries, Europe and America) they can not crush us, as they are striving hard to do. In fact they are fast losing their hold upon the market of the United States, just in proportion to the increased home production. It is evident, however, that they do not propose to lose this market without an effort commensurate with the object to be attained. They do not disguise the fact that they are prepared, with sufBcient money, to buy up newspapers and fill the country, when the proper time arrives, from Maine to California, with free-trade lecturers and pamphlets. But we have faith in the sound common sense of the people of this country. We do not believe 12 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. that they are going to be deceived by the catch word, " free trade,'' and to their own detriment alter their tariff to suit the foreigner, thus sending their money abroad to buy that which they will have to pay double price for the moment home competition is taken off. We feel safe in making the prediction that, if our tariff remains as it is, long before the expiration of fifteen years the people of this country will buy both china ware and earthenware, plain and deeorated, at less than half the price they paid for it previous to the present tariff— say from 1855 to 1860 ; and, further, that the development of an art industry will spring out of it, rivaling the most coveted and noted productions of Europe and Asia. But it is said, Mr. Chairman, that our present system is an ob struction to foreign trade, while the fact stands out before us, bidding us read, that our foreign trade has uniformly increased under the tariff policy, and always when the tariff policy has been withdrawn our foreign trade has invariably diminished. Why, sir, we are increasing in our foreign trade to-day, with all the disadvantages we now experience and all the distresses that have swept over this country for the past five years. To-day our imports and exports are increasing, and in support of this I quote from the late report of the Secretary of the Treasury, issued April 1, 1878 : Imports and Exports. 1877. 1878. Imports (twelve months, ending February 28th) Exports (twelve months, ending February 28th) $420,199,831 603,631,538 $475,638,634 637,757,892 I also invite your attention to the following extract and table, which I take from Mr. Bigelow's excellent work upon the tariff policy : The foreign trade of Russia and of the United States increased during the past ten years, under the policy of protection, in a greater ratio than that of Great Britain under the policy of free trade ; and, also, in a greater ratio than that of France, whioh the English claim as a free-trade ally. The following comparative table shows the percentage of increase (in round numbers) in the imports and the exports of merchandise of each of the countries just mentioned during the ten years ending 1875 : the mean amount of trade in 1866 and 1867 and the mean amount of trade in 1874 and 1875 being taken as the basis of computation : ConNTKIES COMPARED. Increase in imports. Increase iu exports. Russia Per cent. 104 3330 la Fer ceiU. 81 United States 73 Great Britain 25 France 16 THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 13 Those who are accustomed, so inconsiderately and flippantly, to denounce dur tariff as prohibitory and destructive of commerce, would do well to ponder these facts. Mr. Chairman, a wise tariff protects American industries and man ufacturers, while it does not destroy foreign competition. Prohibi tion is no part of the American system. It builds no wall about commerce and trade, shutting out the great world from us ; it does not exclude foreign importation; it prevents monopolies from ab sorbing the wealth of the Nation, while it encourages growth and enterprise among our own people. It opens our mines ; it erects our machine shops, our furnaces, and factories ; it enlarges our cities and builds up villages. It adds to the material wealth of the Nation. It enhances the value of real estate. More than that, it gives to the farmer a ready market for the products of his farm. It brings a market almost to his very door. It imparts value to many articles which he raises which otherwise would be of little or no value; articles which it would not pay to ship to a distant market have ready sale at home. It does more than this : it furnishes employment to the laborer and subsistence to the poor, and all the while is adding to the Nation's wealth. General Jackson sounded the alarm of the present proposition in the bold words which he addressed in a letter to Dr. Coleman, of Virginia. He said : In short, sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of British merchants. It is time we became a little more Americanized, and instead of feeding the pau pers and laborers of Europe, fed our own, or else in a short time by continuing our present policy we shall be paupers ourselves. It is therefore my opinion that a careful tariff is much wanted to pay our National debt and afford us the means of that defense within ourselves on which the safety and liberty of our country depend ; and last, though not least, give a proper distribution to our labor, which must prove benei&cial to the happiness, independence, and wealth of the com munity. Mr. Chairman, if in that early day a careful tariff was needed with which to pay the National debt, how much more pressing is that necessity to-day, with over two thousand millions of debt hanging over the United States? And if a careful tariff was needed then for the proper distribution of the labor of the country and to prevent pauperism, how much more overshadowing is that necessity now with thousands of men out of employment and tramping the land search ing for work ! 14 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. And, Mr. Chairman, Henry Clay was no less emphatic. In the United States Senate, February 12, 1832, he delivered a speech from which I now read : The fall of the protective policy, sir, would be productive of consequences calamitous indeed. When I look to the variety of the interests involved, to the number of individuals interested, the amount of capital invested, the value of buildings erected, and the whole arrangement of the business for the prosecution of the various branches of the manufacturing arts which have sprung up under the fostering care of this Govemment, I can not contemplate any evil equal to the sudden overthrow of all these interests. History can produce no parallel to the extent of the mischief which would be produced by such a disaster. The repeal of the edict of Nantes itself was nothing in comparison with it. That condemned to exile and brought to ruin a great number of persons. The most respectable por tion of the population of Prance was condemned to exile and ruin by that meas ure. But in my opinion, sir, the sudden repeal of the tariff policy would bring ruin and destruction on the whole people of this country. There is no evil, in my opinion, equal to the consequences whioh would result from such a catastrophe. Mr. Chairman, if contemplating in that early day the variety of interests involved, the number of individuals interested, the amount of capital invested, the value of buildings erected, the whole arrange ment for the manufacturing arts led the great Whig statesman to draw such a picture of the calamity and distress that must follow a change of the tariff policy, how much greater, how much wider and deeper that distress would be with all the conditions he has described in creased and multiplied ! The founders of the Republic, and its early statesmen, compre hended this subject and understood that it was of the highest impor tance to give protection to American industry and American labor. The second law of any kind that passed the Congress of the United States after the adoption of the Federal Constitution embodies the whole doctrine of the protective system in its first section, to wit : It is necessary for the support of the Government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manu factures that duties be laid on goods and merchandise imported. Revenue and protection are distinctly recognized. And if rev enue was needed then to pay the obligations of the Government, how greater the necessity now. If the necessity existed then for the encouragement and protection of our manufactures, what of the necessity upon us to-day, when these manufactures, in the language of the distinguished gentleman from New York, " lie weakened and prostrated and sick almost unto death " ? THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 15 The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Townsend, of Ohio, and Mr. Sayler moved that, by unanimous consent, the gentleman's time be extended. There was no objection, and it was ordered accordingly. I am greatly obliged to the gentlemen and to the House for the courtesy shown in extending my time. Mr. Chairman, we can only compete with foreign manufacturers by being placed upon an absolute equality with them, and until that equality is reached free trade — or, what is little better, tariff revision — is simply impracticable and vicious. We have disadvantages in the United States that can only be overcome by a wise discrimination in favor of American and against foreign manufactures. It may be asked. What disadvantages does America labor under not common to other countries ? And I answer, that while we have natural advantages equal to any, skilled mechanics, improved ma chinery, and industrious labor comparable with the best, we lack the accumulated capital, long and well-established trade, and that other important species of capital which alone can come from ex perience. Again, we pay higher wages to the labor that enters into the man ufactured article. We pay a higher rate of interest for the money used in the manufacturing business of this country. No man or party would be bold enough to advocate the reduction of labor as a naked proposition, but rather its increase. But, Mr. Chairman, behind this bill, underneath its provisions, as I shall at tempt to show you later, is inevitable reduction of the price of labor all over the country. The price of labor to-day is inadequate to the necessities of the laboring men, and the workingmen of the country are patiently accepting the inevitable in the hope of relief and better times in the very near future. And while I would rejoice at the reduction of the rate of interest for the use of money and the decrease of local taxation, I must protest against this or any other measure which looks to the scaling down of the wages of labor, although it might enable us to compete more advantageously with the foreign manufacture or to accept free trade wholly. The rich stores of American manufactures exhibited at the Cen tennial Exposition at Philadelphia, rivaling the exhibits of all na tions, commanded the admiration of the civilized world and was the constant wonder of the foreigner. They exceeded his expectations, and the frequent inquiry was, " What has accomplished all this ad vance in a single century of the Republic ? " And the whole answer 16 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. is contained in this statement, " Chiefly in consequence of the pro tection afforded manufacturers by the tariff." This bill means reduced wages to operatives. It means the clos est, sharpest competition among manufacturers at home with manu facturers abroad. It means the closest economy of the price in the article produced. And the very first step taken in the direction of economy on the part of the manufacturer is to reduce the wages he pays to his laborer ; not because he loves to do it, but because the exigencies of his business demand it. That has always been so, and. the present and future will be no exception to the past. Why, we can even see this tendency underlying the great speech of the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means made on Tuesday last. He uses this language : The total exports of iron and the manufactures of iron for the fiscal year 1877 was $8,089,540, thus showing that the apprehension arising from the competition of foreign mechanics with Amerioan workmen has now little force. And as further showing that such apprehension is without foun dation he states that — It was put in evidence before the Committee of Ways and Means, by Mr. Roach, the celebrated American iron-ship builder, that he readily obtained work men in Pennsylvania at from fifty to sixty cents per day. Mr. Chairman, I grant you, if workmen can be obtained readily at from fifty to sixty cents a day, there need be no serious apprehension arising from competition of foreign manufacturers. But if this be true, is it to remain so ? Is it to continue ? Is the present low price of labor, arising from causes not connected with the tariff, to be taken advantage of to inaugurate a system which will still further depress labor ? The argument of the gentleman from New York, showing our ability to compete with foreign workmen and foreign manufacturers, is based upon the presumption that from flfty to sixty cents a day is what the workingmen are receiving in this country, and that it is to continue. We do not want fifty-cent labor, even though it might enable us to adopt what the gentleman from New York is pleased to term " political economies purely American." He then quotes approvingly Mr. Isaac Southerin Bell, member of Parliament, the English judge at the Centennial Exposition in Phila delphia, on his report upon the iron interest of the United States, in which he declares that " the increased value of labor in the United States has unduly added to the cost of iron, and the demands from certain sections of the workman are now acting adversely to the true THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 17 interests of the trade " ; which means that labor is too high — that the price of labor in the United States has unduly added to the cost of iron, and is now acting adversely to the true interests of trade. The distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt], in his report on the production of iron and steel in its economic and social relations, as Commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1867, puts the case in its true light. This was eleven years ago, but the same principle exists to-day : We have seen that the cost of making iron in England, Belgium, and France at the present time varies from £6 10s. to £8 per ton, and £1 additional suffices to pay its cost of transportation to the seaboard of the United States. At these ports American iron can not possibly be delivered at less cost than $60 per ton in gold against $40 in gold for the foreign article, and the entire difference consists in the higher wages and not the larger quantity of labor required for its produc tion in the United States, where the physical, mental, and moral condition of the working classes occupy a totally different standard from their European eoii- freres, and where the wages can not be reduced without violating our sense of the just demands of human nature. Reduce the tariff, and labor is the first to suffer. The differ ence between the present and the proposed rate of duty must be made up somewhere, must be compensated in some way. As always has been the case, when economy in production is to be studied, the man ufacturer looks to his pay roll of labor and commences there flrst. In the language of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt], "the difference is in the higher wages paid," and that difference must be removed ; the tariff must be maintained, or the manufac turers will be ruined. I cite further authority upon this subject, and I read the follow ing extract from a pamphlet issued by the American Iron and Steel Association on February 12, 1878 : Protection will always be necessary if we would pay our skilled and unskilled workingmen higher wages than are paid in the Old World. Protection is largely, although not wholly, a question of wages. Free trade ignores the welfare of the workingmen, and therefore does not concern itself with their wages except to re duce them. If our people were content to receive the wages that are paid abroad, if they were willing to accept the scant comforts and squalid surroundings of European workingmen and their families, it is possible that protection might be abandoned and our manufactures still live ; but they will not be content with such rewards for their labor, nor would it be for the best interests of sooiety and the Nation that they should be. ... A reduction of duties at this time would not only still further reduce the wages of labor, but would cause the stoppage of industrial establishments in every State of the Union, thus inoreasing the distress and the jealousy of workingmen toward employers, which it should be the object of all wise legislation to mitigate. 18 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. I have here a comparative table of the price of labor at the ship yards in Scotland and in America in January, 1878. I take it from a little book published by a very intelligent gentleman, Mr. Codman, which he entitles Free Ships, the Restoration of the American Car rying Trade, issued in 1878. This, I am assured, will serve as a fair comparison of the prices paid in the United States and in Great Britain in other branches of industry, although not by any means conclusive. The table is as follows : COMPARATIVE TABLE OF PRICES OP LABOR PER DAT OP TEN HOURS IN SCOTLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. Branches of Industry. Shipyards. Carpenters , Joiners Blacksmiths Platers Riveters Laborers Angle-iron smiths , Riggers Hammer men Holders-up , Engine and boiler •works, Smiters Hammer men Angle-iron smiths Boiler platers Riveters and calkers Holders-up Iron turners Iron finishers Engine fitters and erectors Planing machinists Shaping machinists Slotting machinists Pattern makers Carpenters Joiners Engine drivers Laborers Scotland. United States. $1 40 $3 36 1 45 3 48 1 30 3 18 1 30 2 35 1 15 2 07 75 1 31 1 25 1 89 1 35 2 03 85 1 91 85 1 51 1 83 1 35 85 1 91 1 30 1 91 1 41 3 35 1 35 2 07 94 1 51 1 29 3 35 1 30 2 48 1 23 2 47 1 13 2 25 1 03 3 35 1 06 3 35 1 51 3 70 1 40 2 36 1 10 3 70 91 2 25 80 1 31 Mr. Codman is a strong advocate of free ships, and uses this table for the purpose of showing that owing to the difference of the prices of labor ships can not be built equally cheap and well in this country as abroad. He presents the real arguments of the free trader hon estly and without guise, as will be seen from the extracts which I now read : THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 19 Now, although the flgures given in the table ought to be convincing at a glance, it is easy for any one with an ordinary knowledge of arithmetic to make a close calculation of the labor difference in cost of British and American steam ships of the same quality. Naturally in this line of argument I shall be met by the oft-repeated ques tion, " Do you then advocate the reduction of the wages of our mechanics to the level of ' pauper labor ' in Scotland ? "... I maintain that in the particular industry of ship owning, so long as the necessity for higher wages is imposed upon us, we ought to avail ourselves of any labor, pauper or otherwise. This is the whole doctrine of free trade and of tariff reform. We might as well understand the question now and here. It is a question of the price of labor, or of whether in several branches of industry we shall have any labor at all. Mr. Chairman, self-preservation is the flrst law of nature, as it is and should be of nations. The general welfare is of paramount im portance, and any measure which does not keep this steadily in view, which does not foster and encourage American labor and American industry, is in opposition to the great law of life, and subversive of the principles upon which governments are established. We want to be independent in that broad and comprehensive sense, strong within ourselves, self-supporting and self-sustaining in all things. It is our duty, and we ought to protect as sacredly and assuredly the labor and the industry of the United States as we would protect her honor from taint or her territory from invasion. We ought to take care of our own Nation and her industries first. We ought to produce for ourselves as far as practicable, and then send as much abroad as is possible — the more the better. If our friends abroad think this position illiberal, they have only to bring their capital and energy to this country, and then they will share with us equally in all things. This was the policy of England all through the early years of her history, only tenfold more rigorous. Down to 1842 her tariff amount ed to absolute prohibition, and it was only when capital had accumu lated, vast industries were built up, and well-established trade was secured, that she sought other markets. With skilled mechanics, with improved machinery, with accumulated capital, and with cheap labor, she believed herself able to supply the markets of the world and defy competition. Then free trade was conceived as the true and only policy, and all nations were invited to embrace this new and catholic theory of so-called political reform. The United States did not embrace this new theory, and England is to-day seriously considering the question of abandoning free trade. 20 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. The manufacturers and laboring men of that country are discussing it, willing to flee from that which promised them increased wages and greater comforts, but which has brought them neither. I listened attentively to the carefully considered speech of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Wood], waiting to hear of some American interest which was demanding this new legislation, and at last I was rewarded for my patience. He sent a letter to the clerk's desk to be read, from Messrs. Worthington & Co., of Jackson, Michi gan, manufacturers of agricultural implements, who declared them selves in favor of the bill, and that they were able to import steel to this country, manufacture it into agricultural implements, and send it back again at a proflt. This was a strange statement and entirely inexplicable until the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conger], always on the alert, stated to the House that this firm, which was well known to him, did their work with the convict labor of Michigan at thirty-two cents a day. No other statement was needed. This was the only interest the whole country over, which the gentle man furnished as satisfied with the proposed change. Comment is unnecessary, for when we commence to employ convict labor I will concede free trade is practicable. If the oft-repeated argument be true that the duty falls upon the consumer, then I ask the Committee of Ways and Means upon what principle of fairness or equity have they increased the duty on sugar, the necessity of the poor man's table, and decreased it upon silks and satins, which go to make up the elegant apparel of the rich ? Or why increase the duty on other staples of the poor man's household, and decrease it upon velvets, which are only accessible to the wealthy, and which the independent classes alone can buy ? Again, this Committee have imposed a duty of twenty cents a bushel upon wheat, and they have suffered wheat ground into flour to come into this country free — an unjust discrimination against every flour manufacturer in the land. Again, they have under their bill suffered cloths, manufactured cloths, to come into this country at fifty per cent ad valorem ; and in that same bill they allow the cloths made into clothing for wearing apparel to come in for forty-five per cent duty — a discrimination against every manufacturer of clothing, every tailor, every sewing woman, the country over. They have reduced the duty upon scrap iron, wrought and cast ; and what will be the result ? Why, it will throw thousands of men out of employment, and will wholly destroy the vocation of the pud- dlers of the land. THE WOOD TARIFF BILL. 21 The bill in some cases protects the raw material, while the manu factured article is practically free of duty or largely reduced. Why should rye, oats, and Indian corn be dutiable, and buckwheat, buckwheat flour, bran, mill feed, etc., be on the free list ? Is the duty on rye flour for revenue or for protection ? During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1877, the duty on rye flour yielded a revenue of forty-five cents. They have destroyed the entire classification of wools. They suffer noncompeting and competing wools to come in at the same rate of duty. They have broken down the more reasonable classifi cations which have been approved by the wool grower and accepted by the trade, and now they are all to come in at the same rate, whether we grow the wool in this country or not. Mr. Chairman, the proposed bill is a piece of patchwork, and abounds in inconsistencies. It is an attempt to conciliate two schools of political science and pleases neither. It has marched out into the broad field of compromise and come back with a few supporters, it is true, who were opposed to the original bill as reported. It is neither free trade, tariff reform, nor protective tariff. It has none of the vir tues of either, but the glaring faults of all systems. It is an attempt to change a law which does not improve the old one. It is an experi ment opposed by all experience. It introduces uncertainty into the business of this country when certainty is essential to its life. I can not better characterize it than by quoting the language of the distin guished gentleman from New York [Mr. Wood] in speaking of a tariff bill pending in June, 1864, in this House. Speaking of that bill (and his words seem prophetic as applied to his own), he said : " The Committee has given us a bill which I regard as an exceedingly crude and improper measure"; and that is what the country has already said of the pending bill, and it is what I believe will be the verdict of this House when a vote is reached. What the country wants above all else at this critical period is rest — rest from legislation, safety and security as to its basis of busi ness, certainty as to the resources of the Government, immunity from legislative tinkering. None of these are afforded by the present bill. Mr. Chairman, much discussion has been had at this session touching the maintenance of the National credit, in which purpose I most heartily concur. The National credit is of paramount impor tance, and nothing should be done to tarnish or impair it, nothing omitted to strengthen and improve it. But will the Congress of the 22 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. United States be reminded that in no way can you more surely maintain the National credit than by assiduously maintaining the great industries of the country which for the most part constitute the Nation's wealth. There can be no permanent credit which is not based upon the labor, the capital, and the wealth of the Nation. Destroy the latter, and at the same moment the former is destroyed. The bill before us impairs the revenues pledged to the Government creditor and endan gers the material interests of the country. Beware lest in your effort to pattern after the English policy you do not at the same time sap the foundations and destroy the true source of our National credit. The National credit is inseparably associated with our National growth and prosperity, and if you touch the latter with an unfriendly hand, you will seriously injure the former. There probably never was a period in the history of this country when business was more paralyzed and labor so depressed as the present. I need not pause to discuss the cause (it is not the result of our policy, for free-trade England is no better) ; the fact stands forth bidding us see and read that trade is everywhere languishing, and willing hands can find nothing to do. The demands for labor have been decreasing under the pinching times of the last five years, and manufactories, even with the present protection, have been fighting against the business revulsions which have swept over the country since 1873 ; and now that daylight is gleaming and improvement seems at hand. Congress sounds the alarm that protection is to be withdrawn, that another shock is coming, that the currents of business are to be turned aside and the existing basis of trade destroyed, and the whole business world is alarmed. And we are told that this is wise legislation, based upon sound principle. Mr. Chairman, there never was a time in the history of this coun try more inauspicious than the present for the dreamer and the theo rist to put into practical operation his impracticable theories of political science. The country does not want them; the business men of the country do not want them. They want quiet to recuper ate their wasted forces ; and I am sure I utter no sentiment new or original when I say that if this House will promptly pass the appro priation bills and other pressing legislation, and follow it with an immediate adjournment, the people will applaud such a course as the work of statesmen and the wisdom of men of affairs. CONGEESSIONAL GEEEYMANDEPJNG. Speech on Acceptikg a REsoMiisrATioK to Congress, at Massillon, Ohio, August 7, 1878. Mr. Peesident and Gentlemen- of the Convention: In response to your action to-day, I have a grateful duty to perform. It is, to acknowledge, as best I can, the high honor you have done me in tendering me so heartily and unanimously the nomina tion for Congress in the new Sixteenth District. This is peculiarly gratifying to me, when I consider that this is the first convention under the new Congressional apportionment, with three counties, hitherto strangers in this political relation, all having distinguished citizens who would do honor to the nomination, and each with popular favorites who would command the confidence and support of the Republicans of the district. I thank you, therefore, most cor dially for the partiality and confidence implied by the nomination ; and in accepting it, I assure you that, with your aid and the assist ance of the constituency which you represent, nothing shall be omitted upon my part to achieve a party success which will overturn and render forceless the machinations of the Democratic Legislature to defraud Republicans of their just representation. The act of the Legislature in reapportioning the counties into Congressional districts, at an irregular period, is without precedent in Ohio since the organization of the Republican party, and without example under the present Constitution. For thirty-three years the unbroken rule has been to form such districts after each Federal census, and at the end of every ten years, such political subdivisions to remain unchanged until the next census. This secures a repre sentation based upon the actual number of inhabitants disclosed at each census, according to the ratio of representation fixed by the Congress of the United States. No innovation has been made upon this rule since 1845, and then but a partial one. Parties have 24 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. changed in numerical strength within that period, political suprema cy has alternated from one to the other of the great parties, partisan hate has been iutense and bitter, party necessities have been great and overshadowing. The majority force has existed many times before, in both political parties, but no Legislature from 1845 to 1878 was found so reckless of principle and precedent as to destroy these political subdivisions between the decennial periods. This action alone, it seems to me, is sufficient, when rightly un derstood, to react upon its authors and secure for them a crushing defeat. It can not be too frequently brought to the attention of the people, nor too severely denounced. It works a vital disfranchise ment of a large body of Republicans under color of law by a shameful abuse of power and in violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the State and of the United States. The apportionment preceding the present one was made in 1873, by the Republicans, who were then in power iu the State. It was made at the regular stated period following the census of 1870. And though the Democratic party had control of the Legislature in 1873, only one year after this apportionment, and when but one election had been held under it, they did not deem it wise nor judicious to disturb it. This, too, in the presence of the fact that in 1872 the Re publicans elected one more member of Congress than they did in 1876, the election preceding the present gerrymander. If this appor tionment was unfair and manifestly unjust, why was the change not then made? If it was unfair in 1878, it was unfair in 1873. It was canvassed and discussed there and then, but public sentiment in the Democratic party and among the people condemned it. The only possible justification for such a scheme would be to defeat gross and manifest injustice. Did the districting bill of 1872 thus operate to the prejudice of the people, or to the Democratic party ? I have taken the trouble to examine the vote of the respective parties in this State for the last twenty-five years to the end that I might, if possible, by comparison, determine the fairness of Congressional apportionments in that time. Let us review the figures for a single moment : By the ratio of ' representation fixed by Congress, the State was entitled to twenty-one members of Congress under the census of 1850 ; to nineteen members in 1860 ; and to twenty members in 1870. The Democratic party made the Congressional apportionment after the census of 1850, while the Republicans made the next two succeeding apportionments. In 1856 the Republicans carried the State by a majority of 16,633, CONGRESSIONAL GERRYMANDERING. 25 electing twelve Congressmen, while the Democrats elected nine. This was under a Democratic apportionment. In 1874 the Democrats carried the State by a majority of 17,302, an excess of only six hundred over the Republican majority of 1856 ; yet the Democrats elected thirteen Congressmen and the Republicans but seven. This was under a Republican apportionment. In 1863 the Democrats carried the State by a majority of 5,577, electing fourteen Congressmen, while the Republicans elected but five. In 1876 the Republicans carried the State by a majority of 6,636, an excess of more than one thousand over the Democratic majority of 1863, the Republicans electing twelve Congressmen and the Democrats eight. These two elections were both under Repub lican apportionments. These comparisons are drawn from three' decennial periods, and present a degree of fairness alike creditable to both political parties. Again, it will be found that in every Congressional election for the past twenty-four years or more, wherein the Democrats have car ried the State by a popular majority, they have uniformly elected a majority of the Congressional delegation. Under the new law, taking the vote of 1876 as a basis, when the Republicans carried the State by over 6,000, the Democrats will have twelve Congressmen and the Republicans eight. The redistricting was not in the interest of fairness, but to increase Democratic representation, in violation of every principle of fairness. It was not the work of the masses of the Democratic party in the State ; it was not the creation of the better class of our political opponents; it met with opposition from the order-loving and law-abiding citizens alike of both parties. It was ordered by designing politicians at Washington, to secure power in the next House, right or wrong ; and the Ohio Legislature, which had before always stood with a " face of flint " against every species of revolution, yielded, basely yielded, principle and justice for purely party ends. In our own district it met with strenuous opposition from the Democracy. In every district in the State there are Democrats who spurn it and will not assist in securing a victory made possible by such methods. The Wayne County Democrat, of May 1, 1878, voiced the sentiments of this class in these bold, prophetic words : For this Democratic Legislature to enact a law tearing up and reforming Con gressional districts would be as gross and offensive partisanship as was the enact ment of the registration law by the Republioan Legislature, and the people would visit a rebuke upon the Democratic party by handing the State over to the 26 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Republican party. Why did not the Sixty-flrst General Assembly, which was Democratic, repeal the present redistricting law, and enact a more equitable measure in its stead ¦? Its propriety was discussed, but the conclusion arrived at was that it was impracticable. Only one election had been held under the law, and now two have been held under it since. Why undertake to disturb it now! The answer is, " We should guarantee, beyond a doubt, a clear Democratic major ity in the next Federal House of Representatives." Shall the General Assembly of the State of Ohio assist in doing this, and Democrats thereby guarantee a Re publican majority in the State at the next election and in the next General Assembly, which will be charged with the duty of electing a United States' Senator ? This language is worthy the careful thought of the good men of all parties ; the whole purpose is disclosed — to " guarantee a clear Democratic majority in the next Federal House of Representatives." And why ? After the 4th of March next the Senate will be Demo cratic ; a Democratic House means turning over the entire legisla tive branch of the Government to the Democratic party. In the lan guage of this Democratic paper, it is to be accomplished by " tearing up " Congressional districts, after one preceding Democratic Legisla ture had discussed it but found " it was impracticable." Shall this " tearing up " to secure Democratic control in both Houses of Con gress be approved and adopted by the people of the State ? Reflect what a dangerous precedent it establishes ; only four years until the next regular period, and but two elections to be held ! Three elec tions have already been held under it, and out of these three the Democrats have carried one. If you can " tear up " districts once in six years, you can reform them every two years. Each incoming Leg islature will take control of the subject. Congressional districts will be the toy of unscrupulous and ambitious partisans of both political parties and will become the creation of party connivance. It is a perilous experiment, fraught only with mischief and evil, and the party, whichever it may be, that profits by it, will not long enjoy its victory. A little more than sixty days and we will have another important election. The political parties are in the field, their platforms of principles are announced, candidates have been placed in nomination, and the contest is fairly inaugurated. We enter the field in Ohio with our party unbroken by dissensions, and fully aroused to the im portance of victory; with a record challenging the closest scrutiny; with a platform wise, strong, and outspoken ; with a State ticket of unblemished character, unquestioned integrity and fitness. Nothing is wanting to insure a complete victory but the earnest and active CONGRESSIONAL GERRYMANDERING. 27 work of Republicans everywhere. As a party we have no bad record to explain, no party utterances to be withdrawn, no policy demanding a defense ; our principles and practices commend themselves to the conscience and intelligence of the people, and with these we go to the country deserving success, and confident that a deserved victory will be won. On the great political questions which are the subject of public thought and discussion, we have not only been right in the past, but we are right at the present time. On the question of the currency, I may thus briefly summarize : The Republican party created the greenback and made it a legal tender, as expressed on its face. It has stood by it ever since its creation, " through evil as well as good report." It has protected it from Democratic assault, making it constitutional in opposition to the decision of Democratic Supreme Judges of the United States. Only a few years ago we were wont to hear from Democratic statesmen and the Democratic press of the country, that " President Grant packed the Supreme Court for the purpose of maintaining the constitutionality of the greenback." When, but for the increase of the number of Supreme Judges author ized by law, which the Democrats are pleased to term " packing," the old greenback, issued in time of war, solely as a war measure, to fur nish money to prosecute the war successfully, would have been held unconstitutional, and deprived of its legal-tender power. The Repub lican party has been the guardian of the greenback at every step of its existence, first preserving it as money and preventing its deprecia tion, then appreciating it, until its value at last equals its face value and is the equivalent of coin. While the Republican party was thus maintaining and appreciat ing it, the Democratic party was engaged in the work of destroying it. George H. Pendleton, now Senator-elect to the United States Senate from Ohio, on January 29, 1862, while a Representative in Congress, used the following language in opposition to greenbacks : * They will inevitably depreciate. The wit of man has never discovered a means by which paper money can be kept at par value except by its speedy cheap convertibility into gold and silver. I need not cite gentlemen to history or au thorities — or writers on political economy — to prove it. Unless convertible they have always depreciated ; they will depreciate ; they ought to depreciate, because they are only valuable as the representatives of gold or silver ; and if they are not convertible into that which they represent, they must necessarily lose their value. You send these notes out into the world stamped with irredeemability. You put on them the mark of Cain, and, like Cain, they will go forth to be vagabonds and fugitives on earth. 3 28 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Allen G. Thurman, the present Senator from this State, as late as 1867, when a candidate for Governor on the Democratic ticket, in a speech delivered at Waverly, Ohio, on August 5th, in speaking of a period in the past — thirty years or more ago — when he as a boy had addressed a political meeting at that place, made this declaration : Then we had a currency of gold and sOver or their equivalent. Now we have rags, and only rags. The Stark County Democrat, a leading organ of the party in this portion of the State, as late as 1873, thus spoke : Some of our leamed journals clamor for more inflation, on the principle, we suppose, of " the hair of the dog curing the bite," like the trembling victim of alcohol demanding another dram ; but the prescriptions are as various as the physioians are numerous. Were we a member of Congress, after taking the oath to obey and abide by the Constitution of the United States, we should endeavor to have a little regard for that instrument. The Constitution prescribes that gold and silver only shall be a legal tender in payment of debts. Where does Congress get the power to flood the country with irredeemable paper currency of greenbacks ? These quotations fully express what " the Ohio idea " was then, while the last two Democratic National platforms are in perfect accord with these sentiments. They serve to show the favor in which the greenbacks were then held by the party which to-day professes so much love for them, and which, in the language of their last State platform, demands " their permanent establishment as the sole paper money of the country." In their whole history as a party in power in Congress, no single law can be found enacted by them favoring the greenback and securing it as a currency for the people. But it will be found that whatever legislation has been had upon the sub ject looking to the stability and integrity of the greenback currency as a circulating medium for the people, it has either been proposed or enacted by the Republican party. With all their cry about the destruction of greenbacks by the Republican party and the contraction of the volume to three hundred millions under the Resumption Act, it was left to Mr. Fort, a Repub lican member of Congress from the State of Illinois, to propose and secure the passage of a joint resolution, providing " that after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury, or other officers under him, to cancel or retire any more of the United States legal-tender notes ; and when any of said notes may be redeemed or received into the Treasury, under any law, from any source whatever, they shall not be retired, canceled, or destroyed, but CONGRESSIONAL GERRYMANDERING. 29 they shall be reissued and paid out again and kept in circulation " ; which joint resolution passed the House and Senate, was signed by a Republican President, and is now the law of the land. This law will prevent the reduction of greenbacks below three hundred millions, as provided for by the Resumption Act, and maintains the present volume of $346,681,000. In view of these facts, which are of record, and therefore can not be denied, what is left of the Democratic profession of undying love for the greenback ? And, except as experience and a better under standing of our necessities may suggest future legislation, with what strict propriety did the Republican State convention declare this year in favor of ceasing forever so useless and costly an agitation ! Let me read that plank to you : 3. The financial question having been disposed of by Congress, and the country at present needing repose in order that capital may seek investment aud that industries may revive, thus increasing the demand for labor, the situation ought to be accepted ; and we oppose the further agitation of the question at this time as^ injurious to business and devoid of other than evil results. On the tariff question the Republican party by its platform, and, what is still better, its votes in the last House, stands committed to protection and opposed to free trade. It believes that the farmer,; the laborer, and the manufacturer are alike interested in a protec tion which shall foster and encourage our own industries, build up our manufactures, extend and enrich our own country. It defeated the " Wood Tariff Bill," as destructive of the best interests and business welfare of all classes, while every Democratic Congressman from the State of Ohio voted and labored for its passage. No meas ure came before the Forty-fifth Congress which attracted so much attention and earnest solicitude; all the industries of the country were alike concerned. Labor and capital united in protest against it, and yet it was barely defeated. It is one of the live questions of the hour, and its defeat last winter has by no means removed it from the arena of party discussion. " It will not down," and if any Democratic protectionist believes that it is not a political question and will not hereafter receive Congressional action, I need only to call his atten tion to the Democratic State platform of this year, which declares for " a tariff for revenue only ; " and to the significant language that Mr. Wood, the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, uttered in his closing speech in the Ilouse, June 4, 1878. He said : The partisans of protection threaten to kill the bill by striking out the enact ing clause. ' Well, suppose _they accomplish this, what have they gained by it? 30 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. To defeat this measure does not prevent the introduction of another at the com ing session, and one, too, that may be less acceptable. A movement of this character can not be annihilated by such a success of its enemies, which will be but temporary, especially when that success, if it shall be obtained, is gained without justice or reason, and without even a discussion of the principles involved. If the lateness of the session renders it impossible to consider the many important details of the bill at this time, I am willing to postpone their consideration and remove the bill for the present from the position it holds as a measure to be dis posed of now ; but if it shall be got rid of in the summary method referred to, I give notioe that on the first day of the next session I shall bring it again for ward, and persevere in the effort to pass it into law until that shall be accom plished. This menace of the Democratic leader of the House, the Chair man of its most important Committee, clearly fixes the position of that party in relation to this subject and its determination to dis turb existing tariff laws at the earliest practicable moment. It is an open threat to every manufacturer, wool grower, and laboring man in the country. Where can you find in the work of the Democratic party, in the last House anything which commends it to the favor and support of the people ? It is true it furnished a doorkeeper, at the beginning of the session, who, by the votes of Republicans, was dismissed for mal feasance in office. It is true that, without regard to the will of majorities or the law of the land, but to increase their power in the House, they unseated Republicans and put in their places Democrats who had never been elected. They created the Potter Committee, which, in the language of Alexander Stephens, " was a cyclone burst upon the House, and its only effect was to disturb the peace, har mony, and quiet of the country"; and from which, he declared, " nothing but a concert of action of the order and law-abiding people of all parties could arrest the most fearful consequences ; a movement which in the end will prove either a contemptible farce or a horrible tragedy." And, I may add, whichever of the two results shall follow, farce or tragedy, will depend in great measure upon the political com plexion of the next House. Twenty thousand dollars have already been appropriated for the expenses of this Committee, and, with their seaside sessions and junketings over the country, what their future expenses will be the public may never know. The Forty-fourth Congress (Democratic) appropriated $375,000 to pay mail contractors in Southern States, and the Secretary of the Treasury refused to disburse the same until all claims were presented. The Forty-fifth Congress sought to renppropriate and utilize it by CONGRESSIONAL GERRYMANDERING. 31 directing the Secretary " to begin at once to pay in full." This was a clear steal of the people's money, and as bald and bold a fraud as was ever perpetrated by an American Congress. This money, by the sheer vigilance of the Republican minority in the House, was saved to the people of the country. They destroyed the Soldiers' Roll in the House, which had existed since 1867, without destroying the salaries ; that is, they retained the usual salaries to be received by others, for whom they were not created. This was the permanent roll for the employment of crippled and disabled soldiers of the Union army, in and about the House, at a salary of $1,200 annually. The maimed and crippled soldiers were dismissed, and Democratic politicians, who had seen no military service, were put in their places, without precedent or warrant of law. They cast a dragnet into the official waters, but were successful in catching Democratic delinquents only. They reduced the tax upon whiskey and tobacco, and proposed to increase it upon sugar to maintain the revenues of the Govemment. What relief have they brought to the suffering masses, whom they promised to " set upon their feet and crown with immortal wealth and unfailing plenty " ? Where is the fulfillment of their promise ? They increased the appropriations for 1878 over those of 1876 by $38,752,265.49, while the last year of Republican rule there was a de crease of $16,123,000 over the previous year. The total appropria tions for last year were $143,317,333.92. The total appropriations for this year are $173,069,589.41. The increase this year is therefore $38,752,265.49. These aggregates cover all the regular appropriation bills. In the Presidential election of 1876 the chief rallying cry of the Democracy was " the reduction of expenses by the Forty-fourth Con gress." Republicans familiar with the subject then asserted that it would be ascertained that much of the claim of reduced expenditures and Democratic economy would be found in the deficiency bills of the next Congress. This assertion has been more than verified. The total deficiencies for the Forty-fourth Congress reach the sum of $18,280,153.49. This is Democratic economy — refusing to appro priate for the necessary expenses of the Government that the appro priations may show a reduction over the previous year, for campaign purposes, and,,when the election is over, to make up the reduction by deficiency bills. Is it to be wondered at that the Cincinnati Enquirer, the leading Democratic paper in Ohio, thus rebukes them for their broken promises : 32 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. The Democratic party of Ohio carried the election last fall by professing to be the especial friend of the poor and oppressed. Thousands of Republicans who were in debt voted our ticket, believing that their only hope of saving themselves from bankruptcy and ruin was to place the Democratic party in power, and thus save themselves from cruel and heartless creditors. By our professions we have been enabled to carry the Legislature, and thereby secure a United States Senator, but what promise have we fulfilled? We answer, None. Broken promises, disappointed hopes, increased appropriations, and threatened revolution — these are some of the trophies of Demo cratic ascendency ! I can not at this time or place present to you, as I would like, the issues which divide the parties and their record, in and out of Con gress, in detail, but shall reserve them for some other occasion in the coming canvass, when I hope to address you more at length. I am firm in the belief that we have a victory within reach, which can be secured by striving for it. The campaign is full of material, which should be employed and carried to the people, showing Demo cratic faithlessness and the dangers of Democratic ascendency. No labor should be regarded too great to restore Republican control ; no effort should be spared in securing a result so essential to good govern ment, and so necessary to the peace, order, and business prosperity of the country. In conclusion, I again thank you for the honor of your nomina tion. FEEE AND FAIE ELECTIONS. Speech in the House of Repeesentatives, Foety-sixth CONGEESS, Apeil 18, 1879. [I'rom the Congressional Hecord.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, for the consideration of the bill (H. R. No. 2) making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes, Mr. McKinley said — Me. Chaieman : The first movement in the programme of a re stored Democracy has already been accomplished, so far as this House is concerned, in the paralyzation of the executive force to preserve peace at the polls. The second step in the same programme is only checked by a few intervening days, when the purity of the ballot-box is to be submitted to the same lawlessness, with no power in the Fed eral head to insure or preserve it. The proposition offered by Mr. Southard in the closing hours of the Forty-fifth Congress, and for the most part now renewed in the extraordinary session of the present Congress, to repeal certain sec tions of the statutes of the United States known as the Federal elec tion laws, is a bold and wanton attempt to wipe from the law all pro tection of the ballot-box, and surrender its purity to the unholy hand of the hired repeater and its control to the ballot-box stuffers of the great cities of the North and the tissue-ballot party of the South. So determined is the Democratic party in the House to break down these wise and just measures, intended to secure an honest bal lot to the legal voter, that they make them a rider to an important appropriation bill, making them, in the language of my colleague [Mr. McMahon], " a necessary companion to the money voted in the bill." The repeal of these laws will remove every safeguard against fraud in the exercise of the elective franchise, and will again make possible 34 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the enormous outrages upon a pure ballot and free government which marked the elections in the city of New York and elsewhere in 1868, the wickedness and extent of which made existing laws necessary and imperative. The proposition we are now considering is an open as sault upon the freedom and purity of elections. What are these laws which are to be repealed in so unusual and summary a manner ? Let us briefly examine them ; and, first, let me pause to refute the very general charge, so often made, that these laws interfere with State and local elections and encroach upon the rights and powers of the States. They do not apply to elections for State and local officers in any way. The States fix their own regula tions, and these statutes have no force or operation upon the election machinery employed by the several States for their local elections. There is and can be no conflict between the State officers and the Federal supervisors and deputy marshals. The law applies and can only be invoked when there is an election for Representative or Dele gate to Congress. The supervisors provided for in this act are appointed in cities and towns of not less than twenty thousand inhabitants, upon the written application to the United States Circuit Court of two citizens of said city or town ; and shall be appointed in any county or parish in any Congressional district upon like application to said court of ten citi zens of good standing, being citizens thereof. The supervisors, it will be observed, are to be appointed by the Circuit Court of the United States, not by the executive power of the Government nor upon the motion of any Federal executive or office-holder, but the application comes from the people themselves ; their number is limited to two for each election district or voting precinct, and they shall be of different political parties. Their duties are prescribed in sections 2016, 2017, and 2018 of the Revised Statutes, to which I beg your attention : Sec 3016. The supervisors of election, so appointed, are authorized and re quired to attend at all times and places fixed for the registration of voters, who, being registered, would be entitled to vote for a Representative or Delegate in Congress, and to challenge any person offering to register ; to attend at all times and places when the names of registered voters may be marked for challenge, and to cause such names registered as they may deem proper to be so marked ; to make, when required, the lists, or either of them, provided for in section 2026, and verify the same ; and upon any occasion and at auy time when in attendance upon the duty herein prescribed to personally inspect and scrutinize such registry, and for purposes of identification to afiix their signature to eaoh page of the original list, and of eaoh copy of any such list of registered voters, at such times, upon eaoh FREE AND PAIR ELECTIONS. 35 day when any name may be received, entered, or registered, and in such manner as will, in their judgment, detect and expose the improper or wrongful removal therefrom, or addition thereto, of any name. Sec 2017. The supervisors of election are authorized and required to attend at all times and places for holding elections of Representatives or Delegates in Congress, and for counting the votes cast at such elections ; to challenge any vote offered by any person whose legal qualifications the supervisors, or either of thera, may doubt ; to be and remain where the ballot-boxes are kept at all times after the polls are open until every vote cast at such time and place has been counted, the canvass of all votes polled wholly completed, and the proper and requisite cer tificates or returns made, whether the certificates or returns be required under any law of the United States, or any State, Territorial, or municipal law, and to personally inspect and scrutinize, from time to time, and at all times, on the day of election, the manner in which the voting is done, and the way and method in which the poll-books, registry lists, and tallies or check-books, whether the same are required by any law of the United States, or any State, Territorial, or munici pal law, are kept. Sec 2018. To the end that eaoh candidate for the office of Representative or Delegate in Congress may obtain the benefit of every vote for him cast, the su pervisors of election are, and each of them is, required to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot in their election district or voting precinct cast, whatever may be the indorsement on the ballot, or in whatever box it may have been placed or be found ; to make and forward to the officer who, in accordance with the provisions of section 3025, has been designated as the chief supervisor of the judicial district in which the city or town wherein they may serve, acts, such certificates and returns of all such ballots as such oflicer may direct and require, and to attach to the registry list, and any and all copies thereof, and to any cer tificate, statement, or return, whether the same, or any part or portion thereof, be required by any law of the United States, or of any State, Territorial, or municipal law, any statement touching, the truth or accuracy of the registry, or the truth or fairness of the election and canvass, which the supervisors of the election, or either of them, may desire to make or attach, or whieh should properly and honestly be made or attached, in order that the facts may become known. Their duties, summarized, are as follows : 1. To attend the registration of voters, who, being registered, would be entitled to vote for a Representative or Delegate to Congress. 2. To attend at the election held for a Representative or Delegate to Congress. 3. To guard and scrutinize such election. 4. To witness, inspect, and report thereon, with the right of chal lenge, and the right to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot, " to the end that each candidate for the office of Representa- tative or Delegate to Congress may obtain the benefit of every vote for him cast." Section 2022 provides that supervisors, in the absence of the mar- 36 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. shal and deputies, or if required to assist them, shall have the same duties and powers as is conferred upon deputy marshals by this act, which includes the power of arrest and the preservation of peace. The original purpose of the majority of this House was to repeal the entire body of the election laws, including that portion to which I have just called your attention. It is now proposed, under a more recent decree of the Democratic caucus, to strike down the deputy marshals only, and wrest from the supervisors the executive powers now vested in them. This modification is not important in itself, it is no concession in the interest of an honest election, but it is highly important and valuable in another view — that of the constitutionality of the law itself. During the brief discussion in the last House, the most distinguished leaders of the Democratic party habitually de clared the entire law, supervisors and all, wholly unconstitutional. They seem, since that time, to have read more carefully section 4 of Article I of the Constitution, which declares — The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Repre sentatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof ; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. Which constitutional provision confers upon Congress full and adequate power at any time to make or alter times, places, and man ner of holding elections for Representatives, and to make or alter such regulations. The Democratic party has thus abandoned the constitutional ob jection by allowing the sections in relation to supervisors of elections, with some limitations, to remain. They surrender the constitutional doctrine so strenuously urged against existing law. My distinguished friend from Ohio [Mr. Hurd], and the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle], who addressed the Committee yesterday, seem not to have been present at the last caucus of their party, for their argu ments are wholly based upon the constitutional question. Let me suggest to my friends that if the law is unconstitutional the courts are open to them, where that question can be judicially determined for all time ; and let me remind them that this law has been on the statute-book for now seven years, and the question they make, although decided adversely to their theory by an inferior court, has never found its way to the final tribunal in such cases— the Supreme Court of the United States. To that tribunal we invite them to go. I repeat, that permitting the supervisors' law to stand is a giving away of all constitutional objection to the entire body of the law. It ex- PREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 37 plodes the old dogma of State rights, and removes all necessity for any discussion upon that point. Enough of the law is left to recognize the principle always con tended for by the Republican party, that Congress had the power and that it was its plain duty to guard and protect elections where its own members were to be chosen to seats in this body ; but while admitting the constitutional right, they are careful to wipe out all the provisions which give such a law practical effect in securing an honest election and preventing force and fraud at the polls. They are in favor of the law, but opposed to its execution. Now, let us briefly review what is proposed to be stricken from the law. This statute provides for the appointment of special deputy marshals ; section 2021 prescribes the manner of their appointment, and section 2022 prescribes their duties. I call your attention to them at length, because their careful reading will dispose of much of the misrepre sentation which has been heaped upon them in debate, and correct much of the misapprehension which prevails concerning them : Sec 3031. Whenever an election, at which Representatives or Delegates in Congress are to be chosen, is held in any oity or town of twenty thousand inhabit ants or upward, the marshal for the district in which the city or town is situated shall, on the application in writing of at least two citizens residing in such oity or town, appoint special deputy marshals, whose duty it shall be, when required thereto, to aid and asssist the supervisors of election in the verification of any list of persons who may have registered or voted ; to attend in each election district or voting precinct at the times and places flxed for the registration of voters, and at all times and places when and where the registration may by law be scrutinized, and the naraes of registered voters be marked for challenge ; and also to attend, at all times for holding elections, the polls in such district or precinct. Sec 3032. The marshal and his general deputies, and such special deputies, shall keep the peace, and support and protect the supervisors of eleotion in the discharge of their duties, preserve order at such places of registration and at such polls, prevent fraudulent registration and fraudulent voting thereat, or fraudulent conduct on the part of any ofiicer of election, and immediately, either at the place of registration or polling place, or elsewhere, and either before or after registering or voting, to arrest and take into custody, with or without pro cess, any person who commits, or attempts or offers to commit, any of the acts or offenses prohibited herein, or who commits any offense against the laws of the United States ; but no person shall be arrested without process for any offense not committed in the presence of the marshal, or his general or special deputies, or either of them, or of the supervisors of election, or either of them ; and for the purposes of arrest or the preservation of the peace the supervisors of election shall, in the absence of the marshal's deputies, or if required to assist such deputies, have the same duties and powers as deputy marshals ; nor shall any 38 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. person, on the day of such election, be arrested without process for any offense committed on the day of registration. As in the case of the supervisors, they have nothing to do with the election of State and local officers, and can only be appointed at an election for Representative or Delegate in Congress. They are to aid and assist the supervisors of election ; to keep the peace at the polls ; to preserve order, and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties. They are to prevent fraudulent registration and fraudulent voting. What honest man can object to provisions of law looking to such important results ? They are to arrest and take iuto custody, with or without process, any person who commits, or at tempts or offers to commit, any of the acts or offenses prohibited in this act, or who commits any offense against the laws of the United States. Great exception is made to that part of the law which authorizes the marshals to arrest without process. The impression is sought to be made that this power is exceptional and without any qualification, while an examination of the law itself shows that the power is carefully limited and guarded. My colleague [Mr. Hurd] falls into this error, and would leave — unintentionally, I have no doubt — a wrong impression of the law. Here is the language of the gentleman, found in his speech of April 1st : The third objection is, that these supervising oiBcers are armed with author ity unknown in the history of the common law or State laws. They have author ity at the polls on the day of election to arrest, without warrant, any man whom they may suspect of being about to engage in a violation of the laws. There is no principle of common law or State law whioh can authorize the arrest of citi zens on suspicion of an intention to commit an offense. My friend has not read the law aright, as he will observe. Here is the language of the statute : " But no person shall be arrested with out process for any offense not committed in the presence of the marshal, or his general or special deputies." Arrest without process can only be made upon view of the crime committed in the presence of the officer, not upon suspicion or idle rumor, not upon informa tion, but upon actual view. There is nothing exceptional in this law. It is as old as the common law ; it is the common law, as old as criminal jurisprudence ; it prevails everywhere throughout the country. The lowest executive officer to the highest is authorized to arrest a person whom he sees committing a crime against the laws of the country. In some of the States this power is reposed in every citizen. It is tho power vested in every police officer of the land. And why should any distinction be made between the violators of FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 39 the general laws of the country and the violators of the election laws of the United States? This dangerous power, so called, is exercised by the police officers of the Capital City, yes, of the very Capitol itself. The deputy marshal stands in relation to this law as the policeman to the general laws against crimes and misdemeanors, and the same necessity exists for their appointment as for the mainte nance of a city police force. If crimes against the election laws are committed before his eyes, and in the immediate presence of the officer, it is his duty to arrest without warrant. What honest man will object to this? Such offenders ought to be summarily taken into custody, and the public sentiment of the country, the common law, and public morals approve and justify. It is no infringement of the constitutional liberty of the citizen. The party arrested is to be forthwith brought before the commissioner or judge for examination of the offense alleged against him. If guilty, he is held to answer by the court; if not guilty, he is summarily dis charged. This power, I admit, should be most carefully exercised, and only reposed in discreet and honest hands. The appointment of deputy marshals is conflned to cities of twenty thousand inhabitants or upward. They can not be appointed in any Congressional district where there is no city of that population or greater. The country districts are not immediately interested in this provision. In Ohio not more than one fourth of the Congressional districts can invoke this provision of law. In the country and smaller towns deputy marshals are not needed ; here an honest election is secured by the watchful interest of a large body of fair-minded citizens. Fraud is difficult to commit where everybody is acquainted with his neighbors and where the legal voters are known to every citizen. Yet the voter in the country districts, indeed every voter throughout the land, is interested in free and honest elections everywhere, for without them his vote loses its legitimate force. An honest election in the country is of little significance if its true force is to be overcome by fraud in the large cities. Herein the interest becomes personal and imme diate. In large cities the great bulk of the population are strangers to each other ; few citizens know their fellow-voters, and from neces sity this is the case. Fraud is easily accomplished, and is inevitable, I may say, without the most rigorous safeguards and the firm en forcement of law. I have tried fairly to meet and answer the principal objections urged to this law. Are there any others ? In the discussion had in 40 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the Forty-fifth Congress much stress was placed upon the great ex pense attending the execution of the law. I learn that at Cincinnati, in my own State, the expense of deputy marshals, in 1878, was less than $400, and they never had a fairer, purer election than at that time. But to this, in general terras, I answer, What signifies the cost, if thereby we can secure a free and fair ballot in this country ? Who will count the cost, if the enforcement of this law will prevent the repeaters and moonshiners from controlling the elections and sub verting the popular will ? For involved in this proposition is the existence of the Republic and the perpetuation of republican institu tions. If honest, fair elections can not be had, free government is a farce ; it is no longer the popular will which is supreme. Pree gov ernment can not be estimated by dollars nor measured by cost. We have long ago discarded that consideration. This objection has been urged many times before to the enforcement of great fundamental doctrines and principles. The same objection was urged to the pros ecution of the war for the preservation of the Union and free govern ment. Public sentiment did not listen then to the cry of cost ; it hesitated not, it faltered not then ; it ignored the cost ; it fought and successfully fought the great battle of freedom ; and public sentiment will not now pause to count the paltry cost, when free and fair elec tions, the foundation-stone of free government, are involved in the threatened danger. If I do not misjudge, the people who fought for free government and maintained it at so great a cost will now be found firm and invincible for a free ballot and fair elections. Let me remind the other side of this Chamber that supervisors and mar shals will not be needed, and therefore no cost will be incurred, whenever the party which employs tissue ballots and drives colored citizens from the polls shall do so no more forever, and whenever Democratic repeaters shall cease to corrupt the ballot — the great fountain of power in this country ; in a single sentence, whenever throughout this whole country, in every State thereof, citizenship is respected and the rights under it are fully and amply secured ; when every citizen who is entitled to vote shall be secure in the free exer cise of that right, and the ballot-box shall be protected from illegal voters, from fraud and violence. Federal supervisors of Federal elec tions will be neither expensive nor oppressive. Until then, the order-loving, patriotic citizen will insist, at any cost, upon some legislative measure or measures which will the more certainly protect the citizen in his right of suffrage, which is secured to him under the Constitntion and the laws. FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 41 My colleague [Mr. McMahon] urges another reason for the re peal of these laws. He says, in his speech in the last House : The marshal of the United States is the creature of the President. The spe cial deputies are the mere creatures of the marshal. There is no law nor any gen eral practice requiring them to be equally divided between the political parties. And if the Republican marshal selects so-called Democratic deputies, it is to keep them quiet, or with the express or implied agreement that they will vote for or pos sibly openly support the Republican ticket. What will the Democratic party think of this grave accusation from one of its party leaders : that for a consideration — and that, too, for an appointment as deputy marshal for a single day — Demo crats will break away from old party affiliations, surrender their con victions, and vote the Republican ticket ? Now, if this be the only objection, it can be avoided by an amendment, which the gentleman can offer at the proper time, prohibiting the appointment of any Democrat as deputy marshal, thus preventing the corruption of Democratic electors. [Applause.] Again, it is urged that the presence of supervisors and marshals intimidates the Democratic voter. Who ever heard of the presence of an officer of the law deterring anybody from doing what he has a legal right to do ? Their presence is a restraint upon no honest voter. They prevent no citizen who is a legal voter by the laws of his State and the United States from freely and peacefully exercising that right. Their presence is his safeguard and security. They disfran chise no man. They defraud no voter of his just rights under the law. Every legal voter is made safe in the exercise of his right of suffrage. In the practical operation of this law since 1872, 1 have heard of but one instance of injustice, the case of Peter Coleman, cited by my distinguished friend from New York [Mr. Hewitt], a member of the last House ; and although he alleges that four thou sand arrests were made on election day in the city of New York in 1878, he finds but one victim of oppression, and his restraint and imprisonment seem to have been self-imposed. I read from his [Mr. Hewitt's] remarks : Fortunately for the cause of liberty, out of these four thousand citizens thus summarily deprived of their freedom, . . . one man alone, so poor that he had no friends to become his bail, and so friendless that he seems not to have known that he might have walked away, was committed to jail, and allowed to lie there until by accident his case was made known in the proper quarter, and proceedings of habeas corpus were taken to test the question of the legality of these arrests. The name of that unfortunate citizen was Peter Coleman. 42 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. How carefully and discreetly must this law have been administered when there can be found but one instance of injustice or wrong ! Has any legal voter in the United States been prevented from ex ercising his right of suffrage by this law, or by the officers acting under it? This is the practical question. None that I have ever heard of ; while thousands, yes, tens of thousands of illegal voters have been deterred from voting by virtue of it. The honest voter has no fear of this law ; it touches him as lightly as the law of larceny touches the honest man, or the law of murder touches him whose hands are stainless of human blood. The thief hates the law of lar ceny, the murderer the law of homicide. They, too, can truthfully urge the cost of the execution of these laws ; both are expensive and onerous to the taxpayer. But I have never known such arguments seriously entertained as a reason for their repeal. The law is without terror save to wrongdoers. The presence of officers of the law only deters criminals from the commission of crime. They are no re straint upon the honest man. You can form no system of laws which will not be open to some criticism and abuse. These prove nothing against the importance and necessity of their maintenance. If any better method can be offered for preserving the ballot-box in its purity, I will cordially accept it and labor for its passage, but until such better method is proposed we should stand by existing statutes. We can not afford to break down a single safeguard which has been thrown around the ballot-box. Every guarantee must be kept and maintained. Fair-minded people everywhere are interested in honest elections. It is not a partisan measure ; it falls alike upon all political parties. The law recognizes no political creed, and those who execute it should carefully obey its letter and spirit. It protects Democrats and Republicans and men of all parties alike. This House, not content with prohibiting the use of soldiers to keep the peace at the polls, forbidding their employment by the President in any emergency, however grave, now seeks to remove every remaining safeguard to a fair and honest election. The better sentiment of the country. North and South, will not submit to such unbridled license upon the ballot-box. Mr. Chairman, what will the end be ? By an amendment to an army appropriation bill which was not connected with the subject matter thereof, peace at the polls can no longer be maintained by the Chief Executive, no matter how grave the emergency nor how pressing the necessity. Tumult and riot may hold high carnival at a Federal polling place, and the Federal arm is PREB AND PAIR ELECTIONS. 43 powerless to restrain it. This restriction of Federal power, this para lyzation of executive authority, ought to have satisfied the most ex treme State-rights Democrat ; but not so. Having forbidden the use of the executive force to keep the peace at the polls, they now de mand that the purity of the ballot and the freedom of the voter shall be subjected to the same lawlessness, with no power in the Govern ment to restrain it. Mr. Chairman, my purpose thus far has been to present this law, the repeal of which is demanded, upon its merits wholly. The prop osition, however, of the Democratic side of the House is to offer this amendment not to the sober, independent judgment of the House and the co-ordinate branches of the Government, but to rush it through, right or wrong, justly or unjustly, as a part of a bill making appropriations for the pressing and needful wants of the Government. It is an attempt to do by force what ought to be done, if at all, in the free exercise of the law-making power by each branch of the Govern ment acting in its proper functions under the Constitution. If force and coercion be not intended, then why not introduce and consider this legislation under the rules with deliberation and debate upon its own merits, independent and separate from an appropriation bill? This is the ordinary course of legislation, recognized by long practice, founded in wisdom, and never before abandoned for the purposes of coercion. Want of time can not be urged in favor of this course ; days of idleness have already been spent sufficient for the purpose. The resort to this method of legislation is a confession of the injus tice, wrong, and weakness of the proposed measure, and evinces a determination to accomplish wrongfully that which can not be right fully accomplished. One of the pretexts urged in favor of placing this amendment upon an appropriation bill is that the law itself was passed by the Republicans in the same way. This impression has be come so general throughout the country that it would seem necessary to state the facts in relation to the passage of the Supervisors' law. The law, substantially as it is now in the statutes, was introduced into the House, referred to the Judiciary Committee, considered by that Committee, and reported back to the House by its Chairman, where it was discussed, voted upon, and passed entirely independent of any appropriation bill. It took the same course in the Senate. It was not a rider to a bill appropriating money. It is true that the sections extending the supervisors to county districts and restricting their powers in such districts were passed June 10, 1872,, upon the Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill. 4 44 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Not to coerce the President or the Senate, not to obtain what could be obtained in no other way, for all of the branches of the Gov ernment were then in political accord. I have not stated it as strong as the gravity of the case justifies. The proposition is to grant no money for the necessary expenses of the (Government in its several departments unless the Executive affix his signature to a bill which he may not approve. This doctrine was boldly announced by the distinguished Senator from my own State [Mr. Thurman] in the closing hours of the Forty-fifth Congress. That I may do him no injustice, let me give you his exact language : But that countervailing influence, that countervailing power, was supposed to be found in the fact that all money bills must originate in the House of Rep resentatives ; that the House should hold the purse-strings, and should say, as our forefathers in England had said to the lords and king, " We will only grant supplies upon condition that grievances are redressed." I grant it may be an extreme measure for the House of Representatives to af&x upon an appropriation bill such provisions as are contained in this bilL We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England established after two centuries of contest, to say that we will not grant the money of the peo ple unless there is a redress of grievances. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] was equally pronounced, while in the House there seemed to be but one sentiment among the Democrats, which was, that these laws must be repealed or the machinery of the Government must stop. Mr. Southard, who was designated by the caucus of his party to present the proposition to repeal the law relating to supervisors of elections, declared in his speech, " Let the issue come now. Not a dollar of the appropriations should be voted until this most reasonable redress of grievances is conceded." And applause from his Democratic colleagues followed this revolutionary utterance. Another colleague [Mr. McMahon] was no less emphatic. He says : It is our duty to repeal these laws. It is not worth while to attempt the re peal except upon an appropriation bill. The Republican Senate would not agree to, nor the Republican President sign, a bill for such repeal. We have the power to vote money ; let us annex conditions to it and insist upon the redress of grievances. This states their position in the strongest light. He admits the repeal can not be accomplished except upon an appropriation bill ; that the Republican President would not sign it; and because he will not, the proposition is to starve the Government until he does sign it. Hon. Jere N. Williams, of Alabama, and Hon. J. D. C. Atkins, of Tennessee, Representatives from the South, speak to the same effect. PREE AND PAIR ELECTIONS. 45 Mr. Williams says : An appropriation bill is a necessary medium at this time, because we can secure a repeal in no other way. Let the work go on, and let those who heed the Constitution and truly represent their States and people stand with unalterable purpose in the position that we have here taken. Mr. Atkins says : The right of the Representatives of the people to withhold supplies is as old as English liberty. History records numerous instances where the Commons, feeling that the people were oppressed by laws that the Lords would not consent to repeal by the ordinary methods of legislation, obtained redress at last by re fusing appropriations unless accompanied by relief measures. I might multiply these utterances. North and South, all showing a settled purpose upon the part of the Democratic majority to have their own way in matters of legislation or they will paralyze the Gov ernment. We might well imagine we were back amid the stormy days of 1860 and '61, when this same party announced the same doc trine, evinced the same spirit, and pronounced in only another form the same threat. Restored, but not reconstructed, they are as intent upon controlling the Government absolutely, in defiance of the Con stitution, and in their own way, as they were in the old days of slavery. They controlled the Executive then ; thank God, they can not do it now ! [Applause on the Republican side.] This mode of legislation was severely condemned by the early statesmen of both political par ties, and when I have brought to your attention their recorded senti ments on this subject you will fully justify me in my characterization of this proceeding. In 1855 an attempt was made to place upon the Civil and Diplomatic Bill certain tariff legislation, which was resisted by distinguished Senators representing both parties. I first quote from Mr. Clayton, and read from the Congressional Globe (in the Senate), second session. Thirty-third Congress, page 1035. Mr. Clayton said : Now, sir, what must be the consequences hereafter of sustaining such a prop osition as the House have put into this bill ? Whenever a majority in one branch of Congress shall desire any great object, which they can not attain by a separate bill, they will move to put it on the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, and thus compel the other branch of Congress to accept the whole or none. ... It is a most dangerous precedent ; it is an example that has never been set to us before, and I hope will never be attempted again. Mr. Bayard said : Mr. President, I can hardly express in language the objections which I enter tain to the condition of things at which we are now arriving, resulting from the abandonment of all rules necessary for the preservation of order and the rights of 46 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the minority in reference to the legislation of the country. ... I am not will ing by my vote, to sanction the adoption of a general system of legislation on the appropriation bills for any and every purpose that a majority may see flt to place on them.— Congressional Globe, second session, Thirty-third Congress, page 1044. Mr. Seward said : Mr. President I regard the proposition to incorporate a new tariff system into the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation BiU as one of a revolutionary character. Let me state the question. The House of Representatives virtually says, that if the Senate will agree that certain modifications of the tariff in regard to wool shall be made, etc., then the President and other executive ofBcers of the Government, civil, judicial, and diplomatic, may receive their salaries secured to them by the Constitution and laws. But if the Senate will not consent to these modiflcations, then no officer of the Government, howevei- high, no servant of the people, however low, shall receive any compensation. — Congressional Globe, second session, Thirty-third Congress, page 1048. Mr. Douglas said : I should be against this measure at the flrst blush, on the ground that it is not a revenue tariff ; that it is not a free-trade measure ; that it is a retum to what I had hoped was the exploded doctrine of protection. In the next place, even if the bill were right in itself, if its provisions were correct, I could not consent by my vote to put it on this appropriation bill, for the reason that such a course is revo lutionary in its character. . . . Sir, if you begin to break through those safe guards which experience and wisdom in all free governments and legislative bodies have ereoted, you will have opened the gates to the floods which will flow in and overwhelm your appropriation bill. ... I say, therefore, that I can not give my sanction to a course of proceedings so dangerous, so revolutionary in its character as this, even if I were satisfled with the character of the tariff provision which is proposed to be retained in the bill. — Congressional Globe, second session, Thirty-third Congress, page 1060. Again, in 1856, the House sought to put upon the Army Appro priation Bill the following proviso : Pro-vided, nevertheless. That no part of the military force of the United States herein provided for shall be employed in aid of the enforcement of the enactments of the alleged Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, recently assem bled at Shawnee Mission, until Congress shall have enacted either that it was or was not a valid Legislative Assembly, chosen in conformity with the organic law by the people of the said Territory : And provided. That, until Congress shall have passed upon the validity of the said Legislative Assembly of Kansas, It shall be the duty of the President to use the military force in said Territory to preserve the peace, suppress insurrection, repel invasion, and protect persons and property therein and upon the National highways in the State of Missouri or elsewhere from unlawful seizures and searches. And be it further provided, That the Presi dent is required to disarm tho present disorganized militia of the Territory of Kansas, to recall all the United States arms therein distributed, and to prevent armed men from going into the said Territorj- io disturb the public peace or to aid PREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 47 in the enforcement or resistance of real or pretended law. — Congressional Globe first session, Thirty-fourth Congress, page 1969. This in the Senate led to resistance ; and I quote from the dis cussion then had. Mr. Cass said : 1 am utterly opposed to this mode of coercion by which provisions are to be inserted in appropriation bills. . . . The eflect of suoh a system must be that, instead of having a Government with two branches in the Legislature — a Govern ment composed of popular numbers and of State sovereignties, each a check on the other — ^you would have a Government of but one branch ; and it would, in fact, degenerate into a French Convention. . . . You may not call it revolution ary, but it will lead to revolution. — Congressional Globe, first session, Thirty- fourth Congress, page 2329. Mr. Douglas said : One word upon the principle involved. I hold that the proviso of the House is not only palpably unconstitutional, but directly revolutionary. — Congressional Globe, first session, Thirty-fourth Congress, page 2230. Mr. Mason said ; This House of Representatives, of which I speak with all respect, has tried on more than one bill, and now, after three conferences, insists to the latest hour on making the appropriation bills the vehicle of revolutionary measures. For one, I am prepared to try it before the American people. — Congressional Globe, first session, Thirty-fourth Congress, page 3330. Mr. Cass further said : The tendency of this principle is to concentrate all power in the House of Representatives ; to allow it to annex any provision it pleases, without reference to the subject of appropriation. Appropriation bills are intended to be bills to carry into effect pre-existing laws ; but this would be the establishment of a great fundamental unconstitutional principle, irreconcilable with the nature of our Government. — Congressional Globe, first session, Thirty-fourth Congress, page 3281. This attempt involves the overthrow of the Constitution. This is the lesson taught by the early statesmen whose warnings I have just cited. It would destroy the veto power of the President, one of the safeguards against bad legislation, one of the checks provided by the organic law. It in effect says you dare not exercise your veto prerogative even though you do not approve of our legislation ; if you do, the wheels of the Government must stop. It overrides one of the constitutional guarantees ; it attempts to take away freedom of action upon the part of the Executive ; it is the first step in the pathway of revolution. What are the powers of the several departments of the Government 48 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in respect to legislation? I read from section 7, Article I, of the Constitution : Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States ; if he approve, he shall sign it ; but if not, he shall retum it, with his objec tions, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objec tions at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such recon sideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House it shall become a law. And the same is true of every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary except on a question of adjournment. In the face of this provision my colleague [Mr. Hurd] says "he [the President] has nothing to do with the legislation of this country." By this provision the President becomes a part of the law-making power ; two thirds of both Houses alone can override his judgment of any measure which may be proposed. This proceeding ignores the fundamental law and sets at naught the veto power except at the cost of closing up the great departments of the Government. What does this mean ? Is it too violent a presumption, is it too strong a statement to say that the leaders who for four years sought to destroy free government by arms are now seeking by the more peaceful but less manly methods of coercion and intimidation to con trol the Government which they could not destroy ? If the Constitu tion is to be ignored, if free and honest elections can not be had everywhere throughout the country, free government is as effectively overthrown as though it had been done by the sword. The President must surrender this power vested in him by the Constitution, which he solemnly swore to observe and obey, or the whole machinery of the Government must cease to exercise its functions. The scope and necessity of this power are discussed in The Federalist, from which I extract the following, published March 31, 1788 : It [the veto power] establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body cal culated to guard the community against the effects of faction, of precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to infiuence a majority of that body. The primary inducement to conferring the power in question upon the Execu tive is to enable him to defend himself ; the secondary one is to increase the chances in favor of the community against the pa,tsing of bad laws through haste, inadvertence, or design. The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones. FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 49 It is evident that there would be greater danger of his not using his power when necessary than of his using it too often or too much. In the case for which it is chiefly designed — that of an immediate attack upon the constitutional rights of the Executive, or in a case in lehich the public good was evidently cmd palpably sacrificed — a man of tolerable firmness would avail himself of his constitutional means of defense, and would liston to the admoni tions of duty and responsibility. It is to be hoped that it will not often happen that improper views will gov ern so large a proportion as two thirds of both branches of the Legislature at the same time, and this, too, in spite of the counterpoising weight of the Executive. The veto power was wisely provided by the framers of the Constitution, and until now was never sought to be abrogated. It has more than once been eulogized by the Democratic party of the United States. In 1856 this party, in National Convention at Cin- -cinnati, commended this power as one of the great constitutional safe guards. Let me read its declaration : 9. That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities amply sufBcient to guard the public interest, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure the approval of two thirds of the Senate and House of Rep resentatives until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States and from a corrupting system of general internal im provements. This plank was reaffirmed in the Democratic Conventions of 1860, held in Charleston and Baltimore. It was a wise power then " to guard the public interest and sus pend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure the approval of two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives until the judgment of the people can be obtained " ; but now, in the language of my colleague [Mr. Hurd], who announces the new doctrine of the Democratic party, the right of the President to participate in legis lation is denied — " he has nothing to do with the legislation of this country." This proceeding is a violation of what was once a fun damental principle of the Democratic faith. Everybody knows the merits of this amendment can not secure the approval of two thirds of either House, much less of both Houses. That is well understood, and nothing is left in such an event, using the language of the plat form, but to wait and obtain the judgment of the people, and to this tribunal we invite the Democratic party in this House to go. The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Chalmers], in his speech in this House on April 1st, declares that these questions have 50 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. already been tried before the people. When and where? I ask. In what State or National platform was the repeal of the election laws demanded? In what political contest were they discussed? The issue is a new one, never tried before the people, and now for the flrst time pressed upon Congress by the Democratic leaders as a necessity to their political campaign in 1880. In the next Presidential contest there must be no safeguards to an honest ballot, no peace at the polls. Fraud and force, the great weapons of Democratic ascendency, must be unrestricted. The repeal of these laws is a Democratic necessity to the next Presidential election. We are willing to try before the people the question of the consti tutional powers of the President, and whether the election laws, passed iu the interest of a free and honest ballot, shall be maintained or re pealed. The great body of voters in this country want the Constitu tion preserved in full force, and want and will have, sooner or later, fair play at the elections both North and South. Repeating, ballot- box stuffing, the use of tissue ballots, fraud at the polls, intimidation, and restraint of a free ballot in whatever form, must cease. The public sense abhors them all, and the party which practices such methods or quietly suffers them to be put in operation will be swept from power by the irresistible force of an honest and enlightened public sentiment. [Applause.] Who is demanding this amendment, and in whose interest? Not in the interest of free elections — the honest citizen is not demanding it ; on the contrary, the general wish is for such legislation as will the more certainly and securely make the right of suffrage free and untrammeled. Mr. Chairman, on December 2, 1878, the President of the United States, in his annual message of that date, called the attention of Congress to this subject and its great importance, using the following language : The three Constitutional Amendments, which conferred freedom and equality of civil and political rights upon the colored people of the South, were adopted by the concurrent action of the great body of good citizens who maintained the authority of the National Govemment and the integrity and perpetuity of the Union at such a cost of treasure and life, as a wise and necessary embodiment in the organic law of the just results of the war. The people of the former slave- holding States accepted these results, and gave, in every practicable form, assur ances that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and laws passed in pursuance thereof, should in good faith be enforced rigidly and impar tially, in letter and spirit, to the end lhat the humblest citizen, without distinc tion of race or color, should under them receive full and equal protection in person and property and in political rights and privileges. By these Constitu- PREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. 51 tional Amendments the Southern section of the Union obtained a large increase of political power in Congress and in the electoral college, and the country justly expected that elections would proceed, as to the enfranchised race, upon the same circumstances of legal and constitutional freedom and protection which obtained in all the other States of the Union. The friends of law and order looked for ward to the conduot of these elections as offering to the general judgment of the country an important opportunity to measure the degree in which the right of suffrage could be exercised by the colored people, and would be respected by their fellow-citizens ; but a more general enjoyment of freedom of suffrage by the col ored people, and a more just and generous protection of that freedom by the com munities of which they form a part, were generally anticipated than the record of the elections discloses. In some of those States in which the colored people have been unable to make their opinions felt in the elections the result is mainly due to infiuences not easily measured or remedied by legal protection ; but in the States of Louisiana and South Carolina at large, and in some particular Congres sional districts outside of those States, the records of the elections seem to com pel the conclusion that the rights of the colored voters have been overridden and their participation in the elections not permitted to be either general or free. I respectfully urge upon your attention that the Congressional elections in every district, in a very important sense, are justly a matter of politioal interest and concern throughout the whole country. Each State, every politioal party, is entitled to the share of power which is conferred by the legal and constitutional suffrage. It is the right of every citizen possessing the qualifications prescribed by law to cast one unintimidated ballot and to have his ballot honestly counted. So long as the exercise of this power and the enjoyment of this right are common and equal, practically as well as formally, submission to the results of the suffrage will be accorded loyally and cheerfully, and all the departments of the Govemment will feel the true vigor of the popular will thus expressed. No ternporary or administrative interests of the Govemment, however urgent or weighty, will ever displace the zeal of our people in defense of the primary rights of citizenship. They understand that the protection of liberty requires the maintenance in full vigor of the manly methods of free speech, free press, and free suffrage, and will sustain the full authority of the Government to enforce the laws which are framed to preserve these inestimable rights. This invitation by the Chief Executive to Congress to devise some means for a fair and honest election, for greater security in the right of suffrage, "that every citizen possessing the qualifications prescribed by law can cast one unintimidated ballot, and to have his ballot honestly counted," is met with no favorable response or action. No additional safeguards to the ballot-box are proposed. No in creased security to the voter is extended to him, but in the face of this recommendation, and in the presence of facts upon which it is based, a Democratic Congress deliberately proposes to remove all ex isting safeguards to a free and honest ballot. The recommendation of the President is wholly disregarded ; the 52 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. fraud, force, and violence which marked some of the Congressional elections in 1878, to which our attention has been called in this sol emn manner, are utterly disregarded. Instead of new or additional legislation in the interest of a fair election, old legislation looking to that end is to be swept from the statute-books. The force and intimidation hitherto employed at polling places for carrying the elections are to continue without any restraint, and the same meth ods are to be used upon the President to coerce him to approve an amendment which will make fraud upon the elective franchise more easy of accomplishment and bulldozing beyond the power of correc tion. This party in Congress, so thirsting for power, is unwilling to await the will of the people. They seek in advance of that will to usurp all governmental powers. They are endeavoring to absorb all the constituti6(nal functions of the President by threat and coercion. They can not await, in their eagerness, for the voice of the people to call them to further power. I assure them that no other course will succeed. Let me suggest, in all kindness but with great plainness of speech, to the gentlemen on the other side, who so recently were en gaged in the work of trying to break up this Government, that they are getting along fast enough ; they already have too much power ; and this is made more and still more apparent day by day as we wit ness the use of the power now reposed in their hands. They have already entered upon their unholy work of striking the last vestige of our war measures from the statute-books ; they are engaged in it now. Only the other day, and while the Army Bill was being considered, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker], one of the able and distinguished men of this House, proposed an amend ment repealing section 1218 of the United States Statutes. What is the section, the repeal of which he demands ? Let me read it : No persons who have served in any capacity in the military, naval, or civil servioe of the so-called Confederate Statos, or of either of the States, in insurrec tion during the late rebelUon, shall be appointed to any position in the Army of the United States. The Army list is to be opened and revised, so that men who served in the Confederate Army, who for four years fought to destroy this Government, shall be placed upon that list as commissioned officers. Aye, more, the men who were in our Army before the war as com missioned officers, who were educated at the public expense, who took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and when the Nation was threatened with danger resigned their commissions FREE AND PAIR ELECTIONS. 53 and forsook the flag, are to be eligible for reappointment to that Army again. Are we quite ready for this ? This is not all. On February 13, 1878, the Chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions of the Forty-fifth Congress [Mr. Rice] reported to the House, with the sanction of a majority of that Committee, a bill repealing section 4716 of the United States Stat utes. Let me read the section to be repealed : No money on account of pension shall be paid to any person, or to the widow, children, or heirs, of any deceased person, who in any manner voluntarily engaged in, or aided or abetted, the late rebellion against the authority of the United States. And the same bill contained the following affirmative legislation : Sec 7. That the Secretary of the Interior be, and is hereby, authorized and required to restore to the pension roll the names of all invalid pensioners now living who were stricken therefrom on account of disloyalty, and pay them pen sions from the 25th day of December, 1868, at the rate which they would have been entitled to had they not been dropped from the pension roll. These are some of the war measures which are to be " wiped out " from the statute-book. These are some of the degrading badges which are to be torn off. These are only a foretaste of the war measures which are to be wiped out and of the peace measures which are to be enacted. I am not surprised that, speaking in the same spirit, the Southern States, a newspaper published in Okolona, Mississippi, should say : Let the Federal brigadiers take back seats in the work of restoration. The Republic has no further use for the Lincoln hirelings. By the way, Yankees, don't it make you feel queer to think that we've defeated you fellows after all, and captured the Capital ? Have they " after all " captured this country ? Have they " come back to rule"? The first fruits of their dominion are not assuring to the country, and will not, I am certain, incline the people to clothe them with still greater power. Threatened revolution will not hasten it ; extra sessions, useless and expensive, will not accelerate it. Threat and menace, disturbing the business interests of the country, will only retard it. It will come when your party have shown that you deserve it. When you have demonstrated that the financial, industrial, and business interests of the Nation are safer and wiser in your hands than in any other, and, more than all, when you have demonstrated that free government will not perish iu your keeping, it will come then, 64 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. and not before. I hope, Mr. Chairman, this amendment will not be insisted upon. It is wrong in itself ; it endangers free government. I believe the method proposed under the circumstances I have already designated is revolutionary. There is no necessity for sueh haste. The law can have no force and effect until 1880, except in the State of California. If the amendment must be passed, let it come in the ordinary course of legislation. There will be ample time at the regu lar session next winter, and before any other Federal elections will be held. The country is not asking for it. Business will suffer and is suf fering every day from the agitation of a continued extra session of Congress. Uncertainty in legislation is a terror to all business and commercial interests, and this uncertainty exists and will continue so long as we remain in session. Let us remove it. Let us pass the appropriation bills, simple and pure. Let us keep the Executive Department in motion. Let the courts of the United States go on and clear up their already overcrowded dockets. Let the representa tives of the Government abroad, upon whom our commercial rela tions with other nations so largely depend, be not crippled. Give the pensioners of the Government their well-earned and much-needed pensions. Let the Army be clothed, provisioned, and paid. Do this, striking out all political amendments from the appropriation bUls, ad journ speedily, and give the country that peace and rest which will be promotive of the public good. When we have done this we have evidenced the wisdom of statesmen and the work of patriots. [Great applause on the Republican side.] Let the people, then, the final arbiter, the source of all power, decide the issue between us. CEIMES AGAINST THE BALLOT. Speech as Tempoeaey Chaieman of the Republican State Convention at Columbus, Ohio, Apeil 28, 1880. Gentlemen of the Convention : I make my grateful ac knowledgments to the State Committee and this convention for the honor of presiding temporarily over the deliberations of so large a body of representative Republicans, coming from every section of the State. The duties with which you are charged are important and re sponsible, having relation not only to the local contest in our own State, but reaching out and beyond into National politics, and influ encing, in some measure at least, the great National contest which is so near at hand. In view of the peculiar condition of public affairs in this country, seldom have Republicans met in State convention at a more critical juncture than now, and rarely have they had a more important and delicate duty to perform. As the work here may promote or retard Republican success in the next Presidential race, our actions will be watched by Republicans everywhere with deep concern. We are to nominate a State ticket, announce the principles and purposes of our party in a platform of resolutions, and, what is of more importance, we are to choose four delegates to voice our sen timents in the great National Convention to be held in Chicago in June next. The whole work of the convention should be well and wisely done. The most capable men of our party in the State, true and tried Republicans, who will subordinate personal preferences and prejudices to party and public good, should be appointed as delegates. Happily for our State, we have no cliques or factions to control our deliberations or stifle the voice of the people, and in the work before us all can be assured that whatever is done will be in obedi ence to the will of the people, who stand behind you, their repre sentatives, in this convention. 56 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. This is no place for inharmony or dissensions, no forum for bickerings or domestic discord ; the highest and greatest good for the party and the country should guide the judgment of every indi vidual delegate and Republican and determine our concerted action. We have in the Democratic party an enemy strong and powerful enough, in the State and Nation, to demand of every Republican to stand shoulder to shoulder to secure Republican ascendency. The Democracy mean to win the next Presidency, by lawful means if they can, but failing by such means, they intend, I fear, to capture it, careless of methods, and indifferent to the instrumentalities employed. They are determined upon attaining power ; if by the will of the people, well and good ; if not, then in opposition to their will and in defiance thereof, if that can be accomplished. If you have any doubt of their purpose, permit me to remind you that in 1876, in the Presi dential contest of that year, when beaten fairly and honestly by a con stitutional majority, unwilling to acquiesce in the result, they sought to secure electors by unworthy means in the States of Florida, Loui siana, and Oregon, sufficient in number to reverse the result and defeat the will of the people as constitutionally expressed. In 1879 they attempted to usurp authority, and almost succeeded in wresting the State of Maine from the hands of the constitutional and legal government. With the popular will clearly and unmis takably against them, as expressed at the polls, with a RepubUcan Legislature elected by an overwhelming majority, with no pretext of fraud or force or undue influence contributing to the result, they sought to stamp out and annul the will of the people by a system of fraudulent practices hitherto unknown in any Northern State. They wanted the State, the people had adjudged it against them, and larceny to their consciences was no crime to possess it. This, it will be noted, was not in the South, but in New England, amid the best of American civilization; and though it was unsuccessful, thanks to the clear heads and courageous hearts of the Republicans of that heroic State, yet it teaches a practical lesson of the future methods to be employed. Again, this year Minnesota, a Republican State, for years reliable as part of the Republican column, must fall prey to Democratic greed. An additional State will be necessary to the election of a Democratic President, if the election should go to the House of Representatives, where every indication points it will go, in the event the popular elections are against the Democratic party. Washburn's seat must be vacated to give them that State ; he who CRIMES AGAINST THE BALLOT. 57 was elected in 1878 by a majority of 3,013, in a district which never gave a Democratic majority since its creation, and which only last year, in the State elections, declared for the Republican party by a majority of nearly 6,000. He must be dispossessed of his seat, be cause necessity, Democratic necessity, which recognizes no law of right, demands it. Again, in Florida, Mr. Bisbee, a Republican, was elected by an undoubted majority, was fraudulently counted out by a Democratic returning board ; a new canvass was ordered by the Supreme Court, which also gave the election to Bisbee. The Governor, charged with the duty of certifying the result of the election, requested the advice of the Attorney-General, a Democrat, as to whom he should issue the certificate of election, and although the Attorney- General gave an opinion to the Governor that Bisbee was entitled to the certificate, it was issued to another, who was never elected, but who is now occupying a seat in the House of Representatives, while three of the criminals, whose frauds, it is alleged, secured him his seat, are serv ing in the penitentiary, convicted and sentenced on account of those very frauds. I might multiply examples evidencing the purpose of the Demo cratic leaders to control this Government at any sacriflce of prin ciple or right, but these are sufficient to convince the most doubting of what awaits this country at the hands of that party in an emer gency such as I have described. They have succeeded in silencing the Republican voice of the South, and the Republican Representa tive in Congress from that section will soon be only a reminiscence. Whole districts have been disfranchised by the use of the shotgun and the bludgeon, and Republicanism has been hushed into the still ness of death. A few facts in this connection will not be without proflt : Take Georgia, and contrast the election of 1872 with that of 1878. In the Second District the Democratic vote in 1872 was 9,530 ; in the same year the Republican vote was 9,616. In 1878 the Demo cratic vote was 2,626, and the Republican vote was only six — a falling off of 9,620 Republican votes in a period of six years ; and it will be observed that this result is not due to a change of political sentiment, for the Democratic vote discloses no increase. In the Sixth District, in 1872, the Democratic vote was 9,993, and the Republican vote 6,196 ; in 1878 the Democratic vote was 3,192, and the Republi can vote only eighteen. In the Eighth District, in 1872, the Democratic vote was 7,437, and the Republican vote 6,330 ; in 1878 58 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the Democratic vote was 3,673, and the Republican vote had fallen to FiFTT-FOUE. Sevcuty-eight Republican votes were cast in three Con gressional districts in this State in 1878, against 22,042 cast in 1873. Go into Mississippi, where it is said peace reigns and protection is awarded to the humblest citizen, and we flnd that the Republican vote in the Third District fell from 15,047 in 1872 to 656 in 1878 ; and in the Sixth District from 15,101 in 1873 to 1,307 in 1878. In 1872 four districts in Mississippi gave over 60,000 Republican votes, and in 1878 these same districts gave less than 3,000. Fifty-seven thousand Republican votes have disappeared in six years, and that number of citizens have been shut out from participation in political control, absolutely deprived of the constitutional right of franchise. In North Carolina, in the Sixth District, the Republican vote in 1873 was 10,561 ; in 1876, 10,383 ; and in 1878 but 258. These are some of the lessons of self-government in the South ; a few examples only, gathered here and there, illustrating how the constitutional guarantees of equality in civil and political privileges are maintained in States where the Democratic party has exclusive control. Nobody has the temerity to assert that there has been any decrease or dimi nution of the Republican population to account for this change. No depopulation, no plague or pestilence has swept them from the face of the country ; but oppressed, bullied, and terrorized, they stand mute and dumb in the exercise of citizenship, politically paralyzed ; and Congress not only refuses to provide a remedy, but is seeking to break down existing guarantees. Is this system of disfranchisement to be further permitted ? Is the Republican sentiment thus to be hushed in the South, and how long ? Are the men who increase the representative power through out these States to have no representation ? Are free thought and free political action to be crushed out in one section of our country ? I answer No, no ! but that the whole power of the Federal Government must be exhausted in securing to every citizen, black or white, rich or poor, everywhere within the limits of the Union, every right, civil and political, guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws. Nothing short of this will satisfy public conscience, public morals, and public justice. Within the past twelve months Democratic leaders in Congress have avowed a purpose not to stop until they have torn every rem nant of our war measures from the statute-books. They are now en gaged, as at the extra session, in an effort to efface from our laws, or, failing in this, to nullify those wise provisions, essential to the pres- CRIMES AGAINST THE BALLOT. 59 ervation of the Nation, intended for the protection of all alike and equally in the enjoyment of their civil and political rights ; essential to the purity and integrity of the ballot, and to have that ballot honestly counted ; guarantees which the Republican party must never surrender — never, while the Government lasts ! At this very session of Congress a distinguished member of that body from our own State, in discussing the election laws, and advo cating a compromise amendment, said : But we find these laws upon the statute-book. We are not able to repeal. Let us cheapen their enforcement. These laws, having been declared to be con stitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, must be so treated pro tempore. Mark the language ! " Pro tempore " .' or, until such time as the Democratic party can reorganize the Supreme Court of the United States (for that is the clear declaration), and appoint to that high and honorable tribunal men who will be unfriendly to the execution of these laws, and pronounce them unconstitutional; or until they can get a President who will consent that these great guarantees of an honest ballot shall be torn from the statute-book. Pro tempore ! Prophetic and significant words. Equally appli cable to every law which protects the voter, which maintains the Gov ernment, which prevents the basest frauds upon the ballot, which is distasteful to treason, or which stands in the way of Democratic ascendency in this country. Power will wipe out the pro tempore existence of these laws, as it will every law which stands in the way of fraud and tissue ballots. If the power had been in their hands at the extra session, every election law upon our statute-books would have been repealed ; or, if they had the power now, a like result would follow. Their bold course at the extra session attracted public notice, disclosing, as it did, the real purpose of this revolutionary party. Their quiet at this session deceives nobody. The order has gone forth that they must not speak, and silence reigns on the Democratic side of the House. Their policy of frankness at the last session was a political failure, and they now hope their present policy of silence will be more suc cessful. It is a thin guise, and will deceive no one. It is the quiet of expediency, and, adopting the language of General Ewing, it is ''pro tempore.'" The Presidential election over, and their chronic condition of revolution will develop at once. It is the duty of the Republican party, therefore, to seek success 6 60 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in this contest by every honorable means, and the employment of ex traordinary individual and collective effort to that end. I congratu late the Republican party that the administration of President Hayes, by its spotless and consistent record ; its purity of personal and offi cial conduct ; its masterly achievements of the resumption of specie payments and the refunding of the public debt; its courageous course in resisting the encroachments of Congress at the extra session, and maintaining the Constitution and the laws, heedless of threats to starve the Government, has placed the party on the vantage ground of victory. We find ourselves stronger and more harmonious than in the can vass of 1876. The party has no dissensions now, as then, while con servative men everywhere, independent in politics, will act with us, believing that the business and material interests of the country are more secure with the Republican party than with any other. We recall with pride the work of the Republican party, which preserved the Nation against a dreadful war waged for its overthrow ; which proclaimed liberty and equality everywhere throughout the Union ; which has brought safety and security to our business enter prises and investments, has sent confidence and courage into the ave nues of trade, and given tone and vigor to every department of industry ; a work which has established a sound and stable currency, convertible into coin at the will of the holder, unvarying in value and everywhere equal ; which has secured credit at home and abroad, and placed us in the front rank of honest commercial nations ; which has enabled us to reduce the public debt more than seven hundred and seventy-six millions since the close of the Rebellion, and the amount of our interest charge over sixty-nine millions of dollars. With these achievements, nothing is required to continue this historic party in power but wise action here and at the National Convention. Among the distinguished names now mentioned in connection with the Republican nomination for the Presidency, we find an emi nent citizen of our own State, who in the past we have delighted to honor, and whose long and useful public career has made his name and fame Nation-wide. Four times elected to the National House of Representatives by his home district, three times chosen to the Senate of the United States, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of that honorable body, closely identified with all the great public measures in the past twenty-five years, and himself the author of much of the wisest legislation of the country within that period ; elevated in 1876 to the important position of Secretary of the Treasury, CRIMES AGAINST THE BALLOT. 61 his administration of the finances of the Nation has been char acterized by the highest skill, and his matchless achievements in that Department have commanded the admiration and wonder of the financial world ; to him the Nation owes a debt of gratitude which his elevation to the Presidency would fitly recognize, and Ohio would honor herself in honoring John Sherman with a hearty and cordial support at the Chicago Convention. But if the choice of the Convention shall fall upon the great soldier of the Republic, the leader of our armies, the " silent man of the cen tury," General Ulysses S. Grant ; or upon that pre-eminent citizen of New England, for years the great leader of the popular branch of Congress, now the peer of the foremost Senator in that body of master statesmen, who has always and everywhere boldly defended Repub licanism against the assaults of the Democracy, the peerless debater, the fearless statesman, James G. Blaine — let us unite in pledging Ohio's twenty-two electoral votes to the nominee of that Convention, whoever he may be. Nearly twenty years ago the Republican party attained National power in this country, and for the most part has held it without in terruption since. Its history records the most stirring events in the Nation's life, and there is nothing in its long and eventful career of which any patriot need be ashamed, or which any loyal American citizen would efface. Shall the old party be mustered out of power now? Has it done its work ? Thus far it has, and well. It came into power first to drive oppression out and save liberty from a cruel death. Its work is not yet done. Liberty was but half of the great undertaking ; after that, security to our institutions — civil and political equality — must be established firmly and forever. Its mission is, therefore, not ended, and can never end until every freeman is an independent citizen, with every privilege of citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution, and until there shall not be within the boundaries of any section of this great country one foot of ground over which our flag floats and upon which a citizen stands who may not speak and think and vote as he pleases. Appreciating, therefore, the overshadowing importance of the issues involved; impressed with the absolute necessity of another Republican triumph ; and measuring all the difficulties in our path way, let us summon the requisite energy and make another grand effort to place in power in this Republic the men and the party by whose fidelity and patriotism its life was preserved. Let this contest end in the supremacy of law and loyalty. THE CONTEST AGAINST JUDGE TAYLOR Speech in the House of Repeesentatives, Foett-sixth Congeess, Decembee 13, 1880. [From the Congressional Record.] The House having under consideration the right of Judge Ezra B. Taylor to a seat in the House of Representatives, recently vacated by James A. Garfield to accept the Presidency, Mr. McKinley said — Me. Spbakbe : I submit that the objection raised by my colleague [Mr. Hurd], certainly ought not to operate to prevent the swearing in of the member-elect on his prima facie case. If there be any force in the objection made by my colleague, such objection should go to the Committee on Elections, but the member-elect in the meantime should not be deprived of his seat on the floor of this House. And permit me to say that on the face of this certificate, which is regular in form, signed by the highest executive authority of the State, and accredited by the great seal of the State, there is nothing showing any such state of facts as those described by the gentleman who makes the objection here. It nowhere appears upon that cer tificate what counties in the State of Ohio elected Mr. Taylor for the unexpired term of the Forty-sixth Congress. So far as that cer tificate gives any light, we have just as much right to presume the election was held in the new Nineteenth District as that it was held in the old Nineteenth District ; and there is nothing declared by the certificate which makes inferable even any of the statements which have been given to this House by my colleague. Therefore, upon this certificate that comes here unquestioned, its integrity unassailed, no contestant here claiming the seat to which Mr. Taylor, the mem ber-elect, is entitled, no memorial from any citizens in the district, nobody claiming the right to a seat in the place of General Garfield except Mr. Taylor, and no objection coming from the constituency THE CONTEST AGAINST JUDGE TAYLOR. 63 from which Judge Taylor bears his certificate, it seems to me well established, under such circumstances, that, upon the prima facie case presented, Mr. Taylor must be at once sworn in as a member of this House. Upon this point I read from page 151 of McCrary on the Law of Elections, as follows : But, of course, a commission given by the Governor, or other competent authority, does not oust the jurisdiction of the proper tribunal in a contested election case. It is simply evidence of the right to hold the office ; gives color to the acts of the incumbent, and constitutes him an oflicer de facto. The election being set aside, or the person holding the' commission being held not elected by a tribunal of competent jurisdiction, the commission falls to the ground. The per son duly commissioned must exercise the functions of the office until upon an in vestigation upon the merits it is judicially determined otherwise. And again, upon page 157, we find the following : The principal and almost the only case in which the lower House of Congress has ever denied to a person holding regular credentials the right to be sworn and to take his seat, pending the contest, is the celebrated New Jersey case (1 Bartiett, 19). In that case one set of claimants held the regular certificate of election signed by the Govemor, and another set held the certificate of the Secretary of State that they had received a majority of the votes cast in their respective dis tricts. After along and angry debate the House (being yet unorganized) refused to admit either set of claimants to their seats. Subsequently, and after a partial investigation, the holders of the Secretary's certificate were admitted to seats pending the contest, and at the end of the contest these persons were confirmed in their seats. This precedent has never since been followed in a single instance. It is so clearly wrong, and as a precedent so exceedingly dangerous, that the House has not hesitated to disregard it entirely on every occasion when the ques tion has arisen. Now it seems to me that upon the prima facie part of the case these authorities ought to be decisive and conclusive ; and whatever this House may hereafter conclude to do with this case, whatever the Committee on Elections may conclude to do with the case, if it should be referred to them, it seems well settled by precedent that Judge Taylor is entitled to be sworn in at once, and to take his seat in this House pending any investigation. But I do not think that the facts in this case, admitting them all as stated, and disclosing them fully to this House, can in any way prejudice the right of Mr. Taylor to a seat on this floor. On the con trary, I believe that an understanding of those facts will only conflrm his right to the seat which he claims. I propose briefly to give to the House a statement of the facts. 64 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. After the last census— the one preceding the present — the Legisla ture of Ohio, in 1872, arranged the several counties in that State into Congressional districts for representative purposes. That law re mained until 1878, when the Legislature of the State repealed the act of 1872 and rearranged the several counties of the State into new Congressional districts. That was in February, 1878. That law was still in force in October, 1878, and the several dis tricts throughout the State created by that law, and, according to the territorial limits, flxed by that law, elected members to the present, the Forty-sixth Congress. General Garfield's district was one of the number. It was called the Nineteenth District under the act of 1878, and it is called the Nineteenth District under the act of 1880. Now, under that election and law. General Garfield, with every one of his associates from Ohio, took his seat in the Forty-sixth Con gress. They came here with the credentials of the Governor ; they were sworn in, and, with the exception of General Garfield, have since occupied their seats on this floor. In May, 1880, the Legislature of Ohio repealed the act of 1878, and in terms restored the Congressional districts as they were fixed by the act of 1873. In that law of 1880 no provision was made for a case like the present one, and nothing was said about any vacancy which might occur under existing law. The aot of 1878 was repealed without condition or qualification, and the districts as constituted by the act of 1873 were restored. In November of that year, after the passage of the act repealing the law of 1878, General Garfield resigned his seat in the Forty-sixth Congress. The Governor of the State of Ohio, after receiving such resignation, issued his writ of election to the five counties composing the Nineteenth Congressional District as created by the law of 1878. The writ of election was issued to those five counties. No objection was urged against it at the time ; no protest was made to it, and no election was attempted to be held anywhere else to fill General Gar field's vacancy. The two political parties in the Nineteenth District, as organized by the act of 1878, and in pursuance of the writ of the Governor of the State, proceeded to hold an election upon November 30, 1880, both parties having candidates in the field. The result of that eleo tion was to give to Mr. Taylor, the member-elect, whose credentials are now before us, a very large majority as a Representative from that district for the remnant of the Forty-sixth Congress. Mr. Wilson. Both parties took part in the election t THE CONTEST AGAINST JUDGE TAYLOR. 65 Both parties acquiesced. No question was raised at the time ; both parties put their candidates in the field, and both parties voted at that election. No question was raised by anybody, and Judge Taylor comes here with unquestioned credentials entitled to a seat on the floor of this House. Now, it does not seem possible that this House can take the view of my colleague from Ohio [Mr. Hurd] and hold that there is no vacancy in the representation of that State ; for if I understand his position, it is that there is no district in Ohio, neither the old Nine teenth District nor the new Nineteenth, which can fill the vacancy oc casioned by the resignation of General Garfield. If liis view be the correct one, then the State of Ohio, which under the law of Congress passed in 1872 is entitled to twenty Representatives upon this floor, will be represented by only nineteen members. The act of Congress of 1872, which declares that this House shall consist of two hundred and ninety-two members, also declares that " the apportionment shall be as follows," and gives to the State of Ohio twenty Representatives. Now, if, as is claimed by my colleague, there is no vacancy, then Ohio must be content with nineteen Representatives, when, under the laws of the United States, she is entitled to twenty, and when the people of the State of Ohio, under the mandate of the Governor of that State, the highest authority of the State, have undertaken to supply the vacant seat in this House and complete her legal repre sentation. The gentleman cites two cases, one from New Hampshire and the other from Louisiana. Now, if my friend will permit me to say it, both of those cases Are against his view of the law, as he will find by a careful examination of them. Both of those cases held that there was a vacancy. In the New Hampshire case, the Governor of the State, unlike the Governor of the State of Ohio, issued his writ to the new district, and not to the old. It was a case precisely like the present one, the only difference in the facts being the one which I have just stated, that the Governor of New Hampshire issued his mandate for an election to the new district instead of to the old. When that case came before this House and was referred to the Com mittee on Elections, the majority of that Committee, as well as the minority, held that there was a vacancy. In the Louisiana case both the minority and majority reports of the Committee on Elections held that, in a case like the present one, there was a vacancy, the two reports differing only as to the district which was entitled to fill that vacancy. 66 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. So that in any event the precedents which the gentleman himself quotes are wholly against his view of the case, for they find a vacancy, and so declare clearly there was a vacancy. The only other question, Mr. Speaker, is. What district shall fill the vacancy ? Shall it be the new district, created by the act of 1880, or shall it be the old district created by the act of 1878, which old district had elected General Garfield to a seat in the Forty-sixth Con gress, and which old district is to-day without a Representative here ? To say that the new district should elect, is to say that one county in the State of Ohio — the county of Portage — shall have two Representa tives in this body for the remainder of the Forty-sixth Congress; for Portage County is in the new district as created by the act of 1880, and is also in the district which I have the honor to repre sent in the present Congress, which district was created by the act of 1878. So that if you declare that the new district shall elect General Garfield's successor, then Portage County will have two mem bers upon this fioor, and the legal voters of Portage County will have participated in the election of two members to serve them at the same time and in the same Congress. Not only will this follow, Mr. Speaker, but it will follow that Mahoning County, which belongs to the old district and does not belong to the new, will be without any Representative in the National House of Representatives. It is proper for me to state in this connection that the only difference between the new and the old districts, so far as General Garfield's district is concerned, is the omission of Mahoning County by the act of 1880 and the substitution of Portage. Otherwise the new and old Nineteenth Districts are the same. In the one case, if you say that the election must be held in the new district, you give a double representation to one county ; if you say it shall be held in the old district, a constituency is unrepresented here, and will be so in that view all through this Congress. You say to them that they shall have no voice and no vote in this House. This, I say, is against the theory of our Government, the spirit of our political structure, and contrary to fair and just representation upon the part of the people; while the double representation which would arise in the former case is against positive statute. Section 23 of the United States Statutes provides that " no one district shall elect more than one Representative." And if no district can elect more than one Representative, no part of a district can participate in the election of more than one Representative. Mr. Speaker, this question is not new, although it is somewhat THE CONTEST AGAINST JUDGE TAYLOR. 67 interesting in some of its features. It was very fully discussed in the Thirty-first Congress by the leading men on both sides of the House ; and I want to read a single extract from the speech made at that time by Mr. Thompson, of Kentucky, upon the report of the Committee on Elections in the New Hampshire case. It covers this case exactly. It is found on page 185 of volume 23 of the Congres sional Globe. Mr. Thompson said : The erroneous notions of the Chairman of the Committee [Mr. Strong] as to the purport of the word " vacancy " have led him into many devious, strange, and unsafe paths in regard to this question. He regards a vacancy as a mere diminu tion of the numjDer of Representatives to which a State is entitled ; and he de duces from this assumption the dootrine that it matters not how the vacancy be filled so that the full complement of the State is restored. The Chairman says in his report that " each Representative is the representative of the entire people of a State." . . . The terms " representative " and " constituent " are correlative. A member of this House is the representative of his constituents — of the men who voted and constituted him their representative. What, then, is a vacancy? It is the fact that a portion of the people are unrepresented. When a member resigns his seat, the people whose representative he was have lost the power of being heard upon this floor, and are entitled by the Constitution to have it restored. Indeed, the Constitution of the United States, in section 2, Arti cle II, makes this declaration upon this subject : When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. This is the clause to which Mr. Thompson refers. In order to ascertain who ought to participate in an election to fill a vacancy, it is only necessary to inquire what constituency the late member represented. There is in this case a vacancy in the representation of that portion of the people who chose General Wilson to serve them during the whole of this Congress ; and when you have found that subdivision of the State whieh sent him here you have found where the people reside who are not heard in this House, and who, in the person of the contestant, demand their constitutional rights at your hands. If you refuse him admittance, you refuse to allow the people to be represented. Nature abhors a vacuum in space, and republicanism abhors a vacuum in popular representation. Taxation without representation was an assumption the opposi tion to which led our fathers into a war that lasted eight years, and has been called glorious. They were careful to provide against the maxim they abhorred in the Constitution of their adoption ; and it is to be hoped that we shaU not repudiate the sentiments which they defended at so much cost and cherished with so much affection. Mr. Thompson further says : It will not change the complexion of the House. That is true in this case. 68 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Neither party will suffer by it. It will manifest to the country and voters everywhere that we do not like this rotten borough system. The representation of classes, and towns, and parties can not be silently allowed thus. I commend this language to my distinguished colleague. Now, upon this same subject and in this same line, on the 12th of November, immediately after the Governor of Ohio issued his man date to the district constituted by the act of 1878, the Chicago Times ' spoke editorially upon this question, and put the case so well and so clearly that I beg to make the article a part of my remarks : Governor Foster, of Ohio, has received frora the President-elect his resigna tion of the seat he has occupied in the present House of Representatives, and has issued the executive mandate for a special election to fill the vacancy on Novem ber 30th. Sinoe the election of Mr. Garfield, two years ago, the Ohio Legislature has rearranged the Congressional districts. The present Ashtabula district has boundaries different from those of the Ashtabula district whioh elected Mr. Gfar- fleld in 1878. The Govemor's writ for a speoial eleotion to fill Mr. Garfield's seat is not directed to the counties composing the present Ashtabula district, but to the counties composing the former Ashtabula district, which the Legislature has abolished. Mr. Garfield's immediate successor is therefore to be chosen by a con stituency whioh apparently has no longer a legal existence, though it is the same constituency which chose Mr. Garfield for the period of two years. Govemor Poster holds that the legislative abolition of a constituency which elected a Rep resentative for a legally flxed term can not divest that constituency of the lawful right to choose a Representative for the unexpired remainder of that term. This view of the matter raises a novel question, though undoubtedly it is the correct view. It contemplates the Congressional district in the character of a political corporation, chartered by the National authority as States and counties are, for the administration of that authority to a particular purpose. In estab lishing such districts the National authority (expressed in the act of Congress requiring Representatives to be chosen by single districts) is administered by the provincial Legislatures. When the Ohio Legislature had administered the Na tional authority by erecting the Ashtabula district the electors of that district became a body politic and corporate by virtue of the National authority, clothed with the right of choosing a Representative in Congress for the t«rm of two years. Of that right, and the corporate capacity to exercise it, the Ohio Legisla ture could not afterward divest that corporation, as any act of the local Legisla ture for that purpose, or of that effect, would be a direct contravention of the National authority. Now, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that in the first instance Mr. Taylor is entitled to be sworn in ; and if my colleague insists upon any investigation of this case hereafter, let him prepare his objections and send them to the Committee on Elections of this House. It seems to me, further, that upon a plain, common-sense statement and view of the case, this House, if it should go into its merits, must, upon THE CONTEST AGAINST JUDGE TAYLOR. 69 a vote, award the seat to the member-elect from the Nineteenth Con gressional District. It can not be said that the law of 1880 was in tended to affect the Congressional districts as they were created in 1878 in their relation to the Forty-sixth Congress. The law of 1880 had reference to future Congresses; it had to do with the Forty- seventh Congress, and under the act of 1880 the people of Ohio elected Representatives to the Forty-seventh Congress. I assert that the districting act of 1878, and upon which all the people of the State acted in the Congressional elections of that year, must, for repre sentative purposes, continue through two years ; and so far as the Forty-sixth Congress was concerned, the law of 1878 had given to every district thus created a vested right of representation in that Congress during its whole existence, and no subsequent legislation can deprive that constituency of the vested right given them by that act, and none was intended by the Legislature. And if a vacancy occurs either by death or resignation, that vacancy must be filled by the district as organized by the act of 1878. I insist, therefore, that the member-elect, Mr. Taylor, is entitled to qualify at once and be accorded his seat here. Before yielding the floor to my colleague [Mr. Butterworth] I will append to my remarks the opinion of the Attorney-General of the State of Ohio, given to Governor Foster in pursuance of his re quest before the writ of election was issued : State of Ohio, Attobnet-Genebal's Office, Mvember 10, 1880. Dear Sir : Your favor of this date, in regard to the vacancy caused by the resignation of Hon. James A. Garfield, Representative in the Forty-sixth Congress of the tJnited States from the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio, has been received. That district, under the act of the General Assembly of Ohio, passed May 15, 1878 (O. L., vol. 75, page 582), was composed of the counties of Geauga, Lake, Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Mahoning. On the 26th of February, 1880 (0. L., vol. 77, page 11), the State of Ohio was divided into new districts for the pur pose of representation in Congress. Under that act the Nineteenth Congressional District is coraposed of the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Portage, Geauga, and Lake. The question now arises whether the vacancy caused by the resignation of General Garfield shall be filled by the counties composing the Nineteenth Con gressional District, as constituted by the act of May 15, 1878, or by the counties composing the Nineteenth Congressional District as constituted by the act of February 26, 1880. In my opinion, the Nineteenth Congressional District, as cre ated by the act of May 15, 1878, has become possessed of a vested right. That right is to have a Representative in the Forty-sixth Congress of the United States until Maroh 4, 1881. Subsequent legislation upon the part of the General Assem bly of the State of Ohio can not deprive this district of that right. I am there fore of the opinion that the Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio, as consti tuted by the act of May 15, 1878, has the right to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James A. Garfield as its Representative in Congress. Very truly, yours, George K. Nash, Attorney-General. Hon. Charles Poster, Governor of Ohio. THE TAEIFF COMMISSION. Speech in the House of Repeesentatives, Foety-seventh Congress, Apeil 6, 1882. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole for the consideration of the bill (H. R. No. 3,815) to provide for the appointment of a coramission to investigate the question of the tariff and internal revenue laws, Mr. McKinley said— Me. Chaieman : The tariff question has again forced itself into prominence. While it has never ceased to be a question upon which the political parties of the country have made some declaration, yet for many years other issues have in a great measure determined party divisions and controlled party discipline. The last Presidential cam paign brought recognition and discussion of this issue, and it may be fairly said that Republican advocacy of the protective principle con tributed in no small degree to the success of the Republican National ticket. It can safely be asserted that the doctrine of a tariff for rev enue and protection as against a tariff for revenue only is the domi nant sentiment in the United States to-day ; and if a vote upon that issue, with every other question eliminated, could be had, the majority would not only be large, but surprisingly large, for the protective principle. The Democratic majorities in the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-sixth Congresses, although committed by party utterances and by platforms as well as the pledges of leaders to a reduction of duties to a revenue basis, were unable, with all their party machinery and the free use of the party lash, to advance even a step in that direc tion. Every proposition for a change was met with the almost solid opposition of this side of the House, which, with the assistance of a few Representatives on the other side from Pennsylvania and the New England States, was strong enough to insure, and did insure, the substantial defeat of every measure looking to a disturbance of the existing tariff rates. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 7I Much criticism is indulged in by the Democratic party upon the enormities of our tariff, and yet with those years of power, in absolute control of the House, and a part of that time controlling the Senate as well, nothing was accomplished by way of removing the so-called enormities, and at last the party was compelled to confess that it was unable to make any progress in that direction. This is some evidence at least of the domination in this country of the protective idea, or else it demonstrates the infidelity of the Democratic party to its professed principles ; one or the other. I prefer to interpret the former as its meaning. The sentiment is surely growing. It has friends to-day that it never had in the past. Its adherents are no longer confined to the North and the East, but are found in the South and in the West. The idea travels with in dustry, and is the associate of enterprise and thrift. It encourages the development of skill, labor, and inventive genius as part of the great productive forces. Its advocacy is no longer limited to the manufacturer, but it has friends the most devoted among the farmers, the wool growers, the laborers, and the producers of the land. It is as strong in the country as in the manufacturing towns or the cities ; and while it is not taught generally in our colleges, and our young men fresh from universities join with the free-trade thought of the country, practical business and every-day experience later teach them that there are other sources of knowledge besides books, that demon stration is better than theory, and that actual results outweigh an idle philosophy. But, while it is not favored in the colleges, it is taught in the school of experience, in the workshop, where honest men perform an honest day's labor, and where capital seeks the de velopment of National wealth. It is, in my judgment, fixed in our National policy, and no party is strong enough to overthrow it. It has become a part of our system, interwoven with our business enterprises everywhere, and is to-day better entitled to be called " the American system " than it was in 1834, when Henry Clay christened it with that designation. Fixed as I believe the principle is, the details of an equitable and equal adjustment of a schedule of duties, recognizing fully this idea, fair to all interests, is the work of this House, either through its appropriate Committee, or calling to its aid primarily a commission of experts, as proposed by the bill now under consideration. My own preference would be that Congress should do this work, and delegate no part of it to commissions or committees unknown in this body. This, however, is a matter of personal judg ment, about which men equally intelligent and honest, equally devoted 72 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. to the principle of protection, may differ, and which from any point of view is in no wise essential or material. If we can get as good work, or better, from a commission of practical experts, all ought to be satisfied, and all will be. Then, again, this side of the House is in some sense committed to a commission. In the last Congress the minority of the Ways and Means Committee, consisting of Messrs. Garfield, Kelley, Conger, and Frye, in a report made to the House May 34, 1880, to accompany House Bill 6,188, recommended, as a substitute for the bill, the bill of Senator Eaton, " which provides for a tariff commission to report a comprehensive measure on the same subject." The business men of the country have spoken for a commission. The National Tariff Convention, which met in Chicago on No vember 15 and 16, 1881, declared for a commission in the following resolution : Resolved, That this convention recommends the passage of an act by Con gress providing for the appointment by the President, by and with the consent of the Senate, of a commission to revise our revenue system, including both the internal revenue and tariff laws, in the interest of protection and needed revenue. And the New York Convention, held November 39 and 30, 1881, passed the following resolution : Resolved, That in order to prepare for such an intelligent revision by the tariff laws as will give full and harmonious effect to the protective policy. Con gress is asked to pass a law authorizing the appointment of a civilian commis sion with power to investigate fully the cost of labor, manner of living, and efficiency of the laborers in this country and elsewhere, and the interrelations, condition, and needs of our industries, and to report the testimony, with the rec ommendation for sueh Congressional action as it may deem beneficial ; and that, pending this investigation, disturbing and destructive assaults upon protective duties or special industries shall not be perraitted. The manufacturers of my own State and district, without excep tion, favor it. Indeed, the sentiment of protectionists everywhere, so far as any expressions have been had, seems to be overwhelmingly in favor of a commission. I will vote for the bill now under consid eration, because, among other reasons, I have no fear of an intelligent and businesslike examination and revision of the tariff by competent civilians, who shall be known Americans, favorable to the American system. If this bill becomes a law it will not prevent consideration of some of the important questions demanding immediate attention, arising under interpretations of existing law. There are excrescences in the present tariff which should be removed. There are incongrui- THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 73 ties which should be corrected. There are wrongs growing out of decisions of the Treasury Department and the courts which ought to be remedied at once, commission or no commission ; matters which ought not to be delayed for the adjustment of a commission, and which, if they are to be postponed until a commission that we may create shall make its report and Congressional action be had thereon, ought to defeat the whole scheme of a commission. The free list might be enlarged without affecting injuriously a single American interest. I can not refrain from saying that we are taking a new and some what hazardous step in delegating a duty that we ought ourselves to perform — a duty confided to us by the Constitution, and to no others. It is true that a commission does not legislate, and, there fore, its work may or may not be adopted by Congress. This is the safety of the proposition. The information it will furnish will be important, and its statistics of rare value, but the same sources of information are open to Congress and to the Committee on Ways and Means as will be available to a commission ; and as the former will ultimately have to deal with the question practically in Congress, it has seemed to me, if that Committee were willing to undertake the task and had the requisite time to perform it, it would be the wisest and most certain course to the accomplishment of results desired by all. The argument that the proposition for a commission is the sugges tion of the protectionists to secure delay and to postpone present ac tion upon the tariff comes with bad grace from the party upon the other side of this House. It wasted six years and secured no revision of the tariff. It refused, in the Forty-sixth Congress, to pass the Eaton bill for a tariff commission, which required the report to be made on the 1st of January last, and which, if they had acted upon it during the closing session of the Forty-sixth Congress, the work of the com mission would now have been in the possession of Congress for imme diate consideration and practical action. My friend from Kentucky [Mr. Turner], in his speech of March 8, 1883, said : I regard it [a commission] like an affidavit filed in a criminal case, merely for the continuance of a bad cause. If a bad cause, why did not your party abate it when you were in power ? If it is an affidavit for a continuance, I beg to remind the gentleman that it was his party which prepared and filed it nearly two years ago, when it had the House and the Senate, and could have 74 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. disposed of it according to its own liking. Senator Eaton, a distin guished Democrat, high in the councils of his party, presented the original bill, and for many months it was on the Speaker's desk of a Democratic House, where it was left undisposed of, insuring still further postponement. The Democratic party, and no other, is re sponsible for the delay, and I charge any injury which delay has pro duced upou it. The fundamental argument for protection is its benefits to labor. That it enables the manufacturer to pay more and better wages than are paid to like labor and services anywhere else will not be dis puted. There is not a branch of labor in the United States that does not receive higher rewards than in any other country. Our laborers are not only the best paid, clothed, and educated in the world, but they have more comforts, more independence, more of them live in houses that they own, more of them have money in savings institu tions, and are better contented, than their rivals anywhere else. And this, aceording to my view, is the result of protection — of the protec tive system that was enacted by the Republican party. My friend from New York [Mr. Hewitt], who now does me the honor to listen to my remarks, was pleased, a few years ago, to an nounce an axiom in the school of protection which ought to be per petuated. He declared at that time, what I have never seen better stated ¦ anywhere, that " free trade will simply reduce the wages of labor to the foreign standard." Mr. Hewitt. Will the gentleman quote the authority for that? Yes, sir ; I will. Will the gentleman deny it ? Mr. Hewitt. I do not know ; I will tell you in a moment when I hear where it is. I did not expect to go into this so fully, but simply to make that single quotation. But as the gentleman from New York calls for the authority, I beg to invite his attention to a correspondence that took place between himself and Mr. Jay Gould in 1870, and which I found published in the Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association for February 4, 1880 ; and I am glad to read this corre spondence, because it so fully and clearly expresses the true ground upon which we base our advocacy of protection to-day. That was only twelve years ago. I read first a letter from Mr. Jay Gould to Mr. Hewitt. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 75 Office of the Ebie Railway Company, ffeiv YorJc, Janiiary SI6, 1870. Dear Sir : Herewith I send you a printed circular received by me this morn ing, requesting my signature to a memorial upon the subjeot of the duty on steel rails, forwarded with the circular, provided the views expressed were concurred in by me. It seemed to me that our policy should be to foster and encourage home prod ucts rather than open our markets to such a formidable competition as would inevitably result from the reduction so strongly urged in the EMmorial. By establishing extensively the manufacture of steel rails on our own soil and pro tecting their production by a tariff which would effectually prevent the importa tion of European rails to any great extent, we could, in my opinion, be largely the gainers in the long run ; for the capital invested would all be kept in the coun try ; our operatives would flnd constant and lucrative employment, and the gen eral effect upon our business could not fail to be beneficial. I am at a loss to perceive why we should contribute so large an amount annually to build up the trade and manufactures of foreign countries while our own interests are sacrificed by just so much. Entertaining these views, I do not feel at liberty to attach ray signature to the memorial. I should be pleased, however, to have your views on the subject ; and should you coincide with me in the opinion I have given, I shall feel strengthened in the conviction that the gentlemen whose names are attached to the circular have made a mistake. Respectfully, yours, Abram S. Hewitt, Esq., Jay Gould, President. No. 17 Burling Slip, New Yorh City. To which letter my friend from New York [Mr. Hewitt] made the following reply, as I find it in the Bulletin (I have never seen either of the originals, and they may not be the letters of the .gentlemen) : New Yokk, Januar-y g?, WO. Dear Sir : I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 26th instant, and to state that I not only fully concur in the views which you express in regard to the duties on steel and iron raUs, but am at a loss to add anything which will make them more forcible. And I venture to suggest that you will allow me to send a copy of your letter to the Committee on Ways and Means. The fact is that steel and iron rails ean be made in suitable localities in this country, and notably on the line of the Erie Railway, with as little labor as in any part of the world ; and the only reason why we pay more for American rails is because we pay a higher rate for the labor which is required for their manufac ture, but for no greater quantity of labor. Then comes the remark I quoted — Free trade will simply reduce the wages of labor to the foreign standard — The very language, it will be observed, I quoted from the gentle man — 6 76 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. which will enable us to sell our rails in competition with foreign rails. But as a matter of course — And I want gentlemen to note this — But as a matter of course the ability of the laborer to consume will be reduced and a serious loss will be infiicted on commerce, general industry, and the business of the railways especially. The only reason why a tariff is necessary is to supply the laborer with such wages as will enable him to travel and consurae not merely the necessaries but some of the luxuries of modem civilization. And yet, the other day, the gentleman declared on the floor of this House that protection had nothing to do with the wages of labor. Mr. Hewitt. Now, will the gentleman allow me Yes, sir ; right now. Mr. Hewitt. If you are through with the letter. There is another sentence : Besides, if we have free trade we oan not expect to procure our supplies from abroad by increased shipments of grain ; for already the European markets take from us all that they require, and no amount of purchases of goods from them will induce them to buy more food than they need, and which they now take as a matter of neoessity. Faithfully, yours. Jay Gould, Esq., President Erie Railway. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. Hewitt. If the gentleman frora Ohio will perrait me to interrupt him I will make the answer now ; otherwise I will wait until he gets through. Does the gentleman deny the letters? Mr. Hewitt. On the contrary, they are genuine. That is all I want to know. The gentleman can reply to me later. Mr. Hewitt. But in saying they are genuine allow me to say also they are In strict conformity with the principles I laid down in my speech : that if you desire to preserve the iron and steel business you can only do it by a compensa tory tariff. That is the exact doctrine which I laid down in my speech. Mr. Kelley. A compensatory tariff is not a protective tariff. Mr. Hewitt. I beg the gentleraan's pardon. However, I am trespassing upon the indulgence of the gentieraan from Ohio. I am glad always to be able to serve the gentleman from New York. Mr. Hewitt. The compensation required in order to enable the iron business to exist in this country, as stated in my speech, is that which provides for the difference paid in the price of labor less the cost of transportation. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 77 That is the gentleman's resolution. Mr. Hewitt. I have stated that doctrine in my resolution, and I adhere to it. And yet in that connection, if the gentleman will permit me, he declared in his speech made here the other day, and to be found on page 2,436 of the Record : Wages in this country are therefore not regulated by the tariff, because what ever wages can be earned by men in the production of agricultural products, the price of which is fixed abroad, must be the rate of wages which will be paid sub stantially in every other branch of business. . Mr. Hewitt. Certainly. That is what he said in his speech of but a week ago. Yet in the letter from which I have quoted he declared that the only need we have of protection is for the purpose of maintaining the rate of wages in the United States. Mr. Hewitt. As to the iron and steel business and protected industries, and in no other. What is true of the iron and steel industries is true of every other industry that comes in competition with pauper labor in Europe — I care not what it is, cotton or wool, pottery or cutlery. If we have to compete with the pauper labor of Europe, and with the products of that labor, we need just as much relative protection in one branch of industry as we need in another. Mr. Hewitt. Only as to the protected industries. Only as to the protected industries ? I do not care what the pro tected industries are or what you include in them. If we have to compete with foreign pauper labor and want to become successful manufacturers, we must have the same protection upon every other manufactured article as we have upon iron and steel. Mr. Hewitt. And that I deny. I know you deny it ; you have already denied it. But you have established a principle Mr. Hewitt. Yes. You have established a principle which must be general if it is worth anything. Mr. Bayne. It may make some difference whose ox is gored. [Laughter.] Mr. Hewitt. No ; it makes no difference. To resume my discussion, Sir Edward Sullivan declares a fact in 78 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the August number of the Nineteenth Century worthy of considera tion. He says : The position of the operative under protection in America is better in every respect than the position of his mate under free trade. Operatives from all parts of the world flock to Araerica, the land of protection ; not one ever comes to Eng land, the land of free trade. Mr. Chairman, the wages question as related to the tariff is well illustrated by the following from the Rice Association of Georgia : In the period between 1840 and 1860 the duty on foreign rice was absolutely needless as a protection to the American producer, and valueless as a source of revenue to the Govemment. The farmer was wholly independent of protection to an industry maintained by labor in cheapness second to that of Asia only, and in effectiveness unsurpassed. By reason of that cheap labor he was in a position to defy competition, and triumphantly met the almost free importation of East India rice, even in the English markets. The per diem of slave labor at that time did not much, if at all exceed twenty cents. This fact is the best argument that can be made, and needs no elaboration. It tells the whole story. With slave labor at twenty cents per day, or Asiatic cheap labor, we need no protection, and save for the purposes of revenue our customhouses might be closed. When the South depended upon the labor of its slaves, and employed little or no free labor, it was as earnest an advocate of free trade as is Eng land to-day. Now, that it must resort to free labor, it is placed upon the same footing as Northern producers ; it is compelled to pay a like rate of wages for a day's work, and therefore demands protection against the foreign producer, whose product is made or grown by a cheaper labor. And we find all through the South a demand for protection to American industry against a foreign competition, bent upon their destruction and determined to possess the American market. Then, under our system and social structure the male and adult portion of our population perform the farm and manufacturing labor to a greater degree than in any other nation in the world. This must be considered in treating the question of labor. Mr. Russell, of Massachusetts, in his valuable speech has compiled some figures, from which I make the following summary : In the United States, in 1870, there were engaged in agi'icultural pursuits fourteen males to one female. In Great Britain and Ireland, at the same time, there were engaged in the same pursuits six males to one female. THB TARIFF COMMISSION. 79 In manufacturing, mechanical, and mining industries here, there were engaged seven males to one female ; in Great Britain and Ire land, two males to one female. Children employed in the United States under sixteen years of age, twelve adults to one child ; in Great Britain and Ireland, four adults to one child. This contrast is creditable to our civilization, and if the complete census of 1880 on this subject was accessible, it would show even a more marked and more favorable contrast for us. I am enabled to furnish only statistics concerning our iron and steel industries. Mr. Swank says in his census report : The total number of hands employed in 1880 was 140,978. Of the whole num ber, 183,308 were men above sixteen years old, and forty-five were women above fifteen years old ; 7,709 were boys below sixteen years old, and twenty-one were girls below fifteen years old. The remarkably small number of sixty-six women and girls employed in the manufacture of iron and steel in 1880 will not escape notice. The comparatively small number of boys employed is also worthy of notice. And I beg also to read the following significant figures touching the savings of labor : Lowell, Massachusetts, is about twenty-five miles from the seacoast, with an area of about 7,000 acres. It has a population of 60,000, the largest in the State or in the United States wholly engaged in the manufacture of textile fabrics, and therefore well illustrates the condition of our industrial classes in our New Eng land manufacturing centers. Of the 60,000 inhabitants, 32,559 are employed in the various corporations and mills. There are seven banks of discount, with a capital of $2,500,000. There are six savings banks, with a total deposit of f 11,646,213 to the credit of 33,408 depositors. Of this number, 1,785 are depositors of amounts above $300, and 31,678 depositors of $300 and under ; showing how general the habit of saving has become among our people, and what a large proportion of the funds in the sav ings banks are the earnings of the wage laborers. I have it from authority that fully seven eighths of the deposits in these sav ings banks are the laid-by earnings of the wage laborers. In Lawrence, with a population of 43,000, grown up wholly out of manufac turing and now supported by it, we fiud a like result. There are 13,000 oper atives, three savings banks, with $5,000,000 deposits, and 13,728 depositors. Manchester, England, corresponds with these two eities in its occupations more nearly than any other. Let us contrast the condition of its people : Man chester, with a population of 341,508, has in its various savings banks £1,434,140, or $6,888,872 ; a city three and a half times as large as Lowell and Lawrence combined, and less than one half the amount of deposits in its savings institu tions. I commend these facts to the other side of this House, who claim that the 80 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. wage laborers in this country are no better off with our wages and cost of living than those in England. Our position, from an English standpoint, is thus set out by Mr. J. B. Cairnes, Professor of Political Economy in University College, London. He says : If only American laborers and capitalists would be content with the wages and profits current in Great Britain, there is nothing that I know of to prevent them from holding their own in any markets to which Manchester and Sheflield send their wares. But our laborers are not satisfied, and ought not to be, with the wages current in Great Britain. Against this there is universal dis approval. And this brings us to the heart of the question. Over a large portion of the great field of industry the people of the United States enjoy, as compared with those of Europe, advantages of a very exceptional kind ; over the rest the advan tage is less decided, or they stand on a par with Europeans, or possibly they are in some instances at a disadvantage. Engaging in the branches of industry in which their advantage over Europe is great, they reap industrial returns proportionately great, and so long as they confine themselves to these occupations they can compete in neutral markets against all the world, and still secure the high rewards accruing from their excep tionally rieh resources. How like a Democratic speech this sounds ; it might well have been made on the other side of the Chamber ! But the people of the Union decline to confine themselves within these liberal bounds. They would cover the whole domain of industrial activity, and think it hard that they should not reap the same rich harvest from every part of the field. And I may add that they are quite content with their success. They must descend into the arena with Sheflield and Manchester, and yet secure the rewards of Chicago and St. Louis. They must employ European conditions of production and obtain Araerican results. What is this but to quarrel with the laws of Nature ? These laws have assigned to an extensive range of industries carried on in the United States a high scale of return, far in excess of what Europe can command, to a few others a return on a scale not ex ceeding the European proportion. American enterprise would engage in all de partments alike, and obtain upon all the high rewards whieh Nature has assigned only to some. Here we find the real raeaning of the " inability " of Americans to compete with the " pauper labor " of Europe. They can not do so and at the same time secure the American rate of return on their work. The inability no doubt exists, but it is one created not by the drawbacks but by the exceptional ad vantages of their position. It is as if a skilled artisan should complain that he could not compete with the hedger and ditcher. Let him only be content with the hedger and ditcher's rate of pay, and there will be nothing to prevent him from entering the lists even against this rival. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 81 But our laboring men are not content with the hedger and ditcher's rate of pay. No worthy American wants to reduce the price of labor in the United States. It ought not to be reduced ; for the sake of the laborer and his family and the good of society it ought to be maintained. To increase it would be in better harmony with the public sense. Our labor must not be debased, nor our laborers degraded to the level of slaves, nor any pauper or servile system in any form, nor under any guise whatsoever, at home or abroad. Our civilization will not permit it. Our humanity forbids it. Our traditions are opposed to it. The stability of our institu tions rests upon the contentment and intelligence of all our people, and these can only be possessed by maintaining the dignity of labor and securing to it its just rewards. That protection opens new avenues for employment, broadens and diversifies the field of labor, and presents variety of vocation, is manifest from our own experi ence. Mr. Chairman, I was surprised, the other day, to hear my distin guished and learned friend from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle], in his ably constructed speech, declare that protection brought no blessings which could not be secured from a tariff for revenue only ; and he pointed to the period from 1850 to 1860 as the "golden era" in this country, when general prosperity prevailed and when unparalleled blessings were dispensed to all the people of every section. Now, lest I may do him injustice, I beg to read from his speech made on that day. He said : We are not without the benefit of experience upon this subject — not English experience, but American experience. There never has been such a period of general prosperity and growth in this or any other country as that extending from 1850 to 1860, when we had not free trade but a tariff for revenue, with such incidental protection as necessarily re sulted from the imposition of moderate duties upon imported goods, a tariff under which the average rates during the whole period on all dutiable artioles were less than twenty-three per cent, and on free and dutiable only nineteen per cent. It was the golden era in our history, notwithstanding the financial disturbances of 1857, from whioh the country recovered in a single year. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, the arts and sciences, the social condi tion of the people, and the advance in population and aggregate wealth made such progress as has never been made before or since. This was uttered on the 39th day of March of this year on this floor. Now, let us see what was our true condition between 1850 and 1860, the period when a revenue tariff prevailed in the United States. I believe that I shall be able to show that at no period in our history 82 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. were times ever so bad, was business so universally depressed, and the people at large so disastrously affected as during most of the period from 1850 to 1860. The low tariff of 1846 commenced its havoc upon business even before the year 1850. In December, 1849, a prominent manufacturing firm thus speaks of the condition of the iron trade : And, first, what is the real condition of the domestic iron trade ? This was December 36, 1849, the last week of the last month pre ceding the beginning of that " golden era " of which the gentleman from Kentucky spoke the other day. And, first, what is the real condition of the domestic iron trade ? Is it actually depressed and threatened with ruin, or does all the outcry proceed from men who, having realized " princely fortunes " annually, are now clamorous because their profits are reduced to reasonable limits, or from another olass who, having erected works in iraproper locations, desire not so much to raake iron cheaply as to build up villages and speculate in real estate ? Undoubtedly to some extent there are such cases, . . . but as to the great fact, that the great majority of establishments judiciously located and managed with proper skill and economy have been com pelled to suspend work throughout the land for want of remunerative work, there can not be a shadow of a doubt. Again, of fifteen rail-mills, only two are in operation, doing partial work, and that only because their inland position secured them against foreign competition, for the limited orders of neighboring railroads, and when these are executed not a single rail-mill will be at work in the land. This gloomy picture, I repeat, was drawn on the 26th of Decem ber, 1849 — only five days before the opening of that "golden era" described by the gentleman from Kentucky ; and this statement was not made by a wild enthusiast of protection from Ohio or Pennsyl vania, demanding an increase of the tariff, but by no less distin guished authority than the celebrated firm of Cooper and Hewitt, of which my distinguished friend from New York was and is the junior member. Now, let us go a little further. On the 12th of August, 1850, during the first year of this " golden era," Hon. Joseph Casey, then a Representative from Pennsylvania, declared in a speech on the floor of this House : The whole history of the manufacture of iron in Pennsylvania shows that in a period of seventy-five years there have been ereoted 500 furnaces, and out of thera 177 failures, or where they have been closed, or sold out by the sheriff. Out of this 177 failures, 124 have occurred since the passage of the tariff of 1846. This was said only four years later : THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 83 And out of 300 blast-furnaces in full operation when the tariff of 1846 was enacted into a law, 150, or fully one half, had stopped several months ago, and fully 50 more are preparing to go out of blast. This was the first year of the " golden era " referred to by my learned friend from Kentucky. But let me proceed further, Mr. Chairman, and call yonr attention to a message of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States, who was required by the Constitution to report to Congress the condition of the country. I ask attention to an extract from his message, to be found in the journal of this House, first session. Thirty-second Con gress, page 36. The date of this message is December 2, 1851. President Fillmore says : The values of our domestic exports for the last fiscal year, as compared with those of the previous year, exhibit an increase of $43,646,323. At first view this condition of our trade with foreign nations would seem to present the most flat tering hope of its future prosperity. An examination of the details of our ex ports, however, will show that the increased value of our exports for the last fiscal year is to be found in the high price of cotton which prevailed during the last half of that year, which price has since declined about one half. The value of our exports of breadstuffs and provisions, which it was supposed the incentive of a low tariff and large importations frora abroad would have greatly augmented, has fallen from $68,701,921 in 1847 to $26,051,873 in 1850, and to $21,848,653 in 1851, with a strong probability, araounting almost to a certainty, of a still further reduction in the current year. The aggregate values of rice exported during the last fiscal year, as compared with the previous year, also exhibit a decrease araounting to $460,917, which, with a decline in the values of the exports of to bacco for the same period, make an aggregate decrease in these two articles of $1,156,751. Will my friend listen to this ? The policy which dictated a low rate of duties on foreign merchandise, it was thought by those who promoted and established it, would tend to benefit the farming population of this country — And you all speak for the farmers as though you were their divinely constituted guardians — by increasing the demand and raising the price of agricultural products in foreign markets. The foregoing facts, however, seem to show incontestably that no such result has followed the adoption of this policy. If it did it not then, I ask you what assurance we have it will do it if you adopt it now, thirty years later in the history of the Govern ment? I now call your attention to another message of the same Presi- 84 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. dent, a year later, found in the journal of the second session of the Thirty-second Congress, pages 15 and 16 : In my first annual message to Congress I called your attention to what seemed to me some defects in the present tariff, and recommended such modifications as in my judgment were best adapted to remedy its evils and promote the prosperity of the country. Nothing has since occurred to change my views on this impor tant question. Without repeating the arguments contained in my former raessage in favor of discriminating protective duties, I deem it ray duty to call your attention to one or two other considerations affeoting this subject. The first is the effect of large importations of foreign goods upon our currency. Most of the gold of California, as fast as it is coined, finds its way directly to Europe in payraent for goods pur chased. In the second place, as our raanufacturing establishments are broken down by competition with foreigners, the capital invested in them is lost, thou sands of honest and industrious citizens are thrown out of employment, and the farmer, to that extent, is deprived of a home raarket for the sale of his surplus produce. In the third place, the destruction of our manufactures leaves the for eigner without competition in our market, and he consequently raises the price of the article sent here for sale, as is now seen in the increased cost of iron imported from England. The prosperity and wealth of every nation must depend upon its productive industry. The farmer is stimulated to exertion by finding a ready mar ket for his surplus products, and benefited by being able to exchange them, with out loss of time or expense of transportation, for the manufactures which his com fort or convenienoe requires. This is always done to the best advantage where a portion of the community in which he lives is engaged in other pursuits. But most manufactures require an araount of capital and a practical skill which can not be commanded unless they be protected for a time from ruinous competition from abroad. I will not detain the Committee with further reading from this message, but will ask your attention now to the message of the last Democratic President of the United States. I call attention to Mr. Buchanan's message, see journal of the first session. Thirty-fifth Con gress, pages 19, 30, 31, and 22. I shall not have time to read all of this extract, but shall take the liberty of putting so much as I may deem best in the remarks I shall publish. I read from page 19. A Member. What date ? December 8, 1857. Since the adjournment of the last Congress our constituents have enjoyed an unusual degree of health. [Laughter.] I suppose that is what the gentleman referred to as one of the blessings of the " golden era " from 1850 to 1860 ; and so it was, and we should be thankful for that. The earth has yielded her fruits abundantly and has bountifully rewarded the THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 85 toil of the husbandman. Our great staples have commanded high prices, and, up till within a brief period, our manufacturing, mineral, and mechanical occupations have largely partaken of the general prosperity. We have possessed all the ele ments of material wealth in rich abundance, and yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, our country, in its monetary interests, is at the present moment in a deplorable condition. In the midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in all the elements of National wealth we flnd our manufactures suspended, our public works retarded, our private enterprises of diflerent kinds abandoned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced to want. The revenue of the Governraent, whioh is chiefiy derived from duties on imports from abroad, has been greatly reduced, while the appropriations made by Congress at its last session for the current fiscal year are very large in amount. And this was during the " golden era " of my learned friend from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle]. Under these circumstances a loan may be required before the close of your present session ; but this, although deeply to be regretted, would prove to be only a slight misfortune when compared with the suffering and distress prevailing among the people. With this the Government can not fail deeply to sympathize, though it raay be without the power to extend relief. Again, in his next message President Buchanan says : In connection with this subject, it is proper to refer to our financial condition. The same causes which have produced pecuniary distress throughout the country have so reduced the amount of imports from foreign countries that the revenue has proved inadequate to meet the necessary expenses of the Government. To supply the deficiency. Congress, by the act of December 23, 1857, authorized the issue of $30,000,000 of Treasury notes ; and this proving inadequate, they author ized, by the act of June 14, 1858, a loan of $20,000,000, " to be applied to the pay ment of appropriations made by law.'' No statesman would advise that we should go on increasing the National debt to meet the ordinary expenses of the Government. This would be a most ruinous policy. In case of war our credit must be our chief resource, at least for the first year, and this would be greatly impaired by having contracted a large debt in time of peace. It is our true polioy to inorease our revenue so as to equal our ex penditures. It would be ruinous to continue to borrow. Besides, it may be proper to observe that the incidental protection thus afforded by a revenue tariff would at the present moment, to some extent, inorease the confidence of the man ufacturing interests and give a fresh impulse to our reviving business. To this surely no person will object. Mr. Carlisle. Has my friend from Ohio araong his notes any description of the condition of the country under the high tariff from 1873 to 1878? If he has not, I can furnish it to hira from the gentieraan frora Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley], the present distinguished Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. I shall come to that. 86 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Mr. Kelley. As the gentleman from Kentucky has alluded to me, permit me to say This does not come out of my time, I hope. Mr. Kelley. Of course not. Let the reasons I assigned for the depression also be printed, for they are the true ones. Mr. UpDEaBAPF, of Ohio. The loan was needed. Yes ; the loan was needed, as my friend and colleague suggests, and I will reach that later on. Now, I desire to call attention, as my friend from Kentucky invokes the authority of the distinguished Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means and begs to call my attention to it— I desire in this connection to give a little page in the history of that gentleman, touching the period from 1850 to 1860 ; and as I am somewhat worn out, if the Clerk will read what I have marked I will be obliged. This is a portion of the statement and the reasons assigned by the distinguished gentleman from Penn sylvania for abandoning the theory of free trade and adopting the principles of protection to American industries. The Clerk read as follows : Were we early revenue reformers worshipers at false shrines Mr. Kelley. If the Clerk will send me the volurae, and my friend from Ohio will permit, I will read the language, as I am familiar with it. I am very much obliged to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, and will gladly have him read the extract. Mr. Kelley (reading) : Were we early revenue reformers worshipers at false shrines, or did the sequel approve our faith ? History answers these questions with emphasis. It needed but a decade to demonstrate the folly of atterapting to create a raarket for our increasing agricultural productions, and to develop our mining and manufactur ing resources by the application of the beautiful abstractions disseminated by free-trade leagues. It was just ten years after the substitution of the revenue tariff of 1846 for the protective tariff of 1843 that the general bankruptcy of the American people was announced by the almost simultaneous failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Company and the Bank of Pennsylvania, and the suspension of specie payments by almost every bank in the country. In that brief period our steamers had been supplanted by foreign lines, and our clipper ships driven from the sea or restricted to carrying between our Atlantic and Pacific ports. At the close of that brief term, the shipyards of Maine were almost as idle as they are now when railroads traverse the country in all directions and compete with ships in car rying even such bulky commodities as sugar, cotton, and leaf tobacco ; and whilethe families of thousands of unemployed workmen in our great cities were in want of food, Illinois farmers found in corn, for whioh there was no market, the cheapest fuel they could obtain, though their fields were underlaid by an inexhaustible deposit of coal that is almost coextensive with the State. Capital invested in THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 87 factories, furnaces, forges, rolling-mills, and machinery was idle and unproduc tive, and there was but a liraited home market for cotton or wool. Taking advantage of this condition of affairs, foreign dealers put their prices down suf ficiently to bankrupt the Cotton States, to induce many of our farmers to give up sheep raising, and to constrain many thousand immigrants who could not flnd employment to return to their native countries. Eighteen hundred and forty- seven had been a good year for farmers, mechanics, miners, and merchants ; but 1857 was a good year for sheriffs, constables, and marshals, though few were pur chasers at their sales except mortgagees, judgment creditors, and capitalists who were able to pay cash at nominal prices for unproductive establishments, and hold them till happier circumstances should restore their value. Not one of the glowing predictions of political economy had been fulflUed, and the surprise with whioh I contemplated the contrast presented by the condi tion of the country with what it had been at the close of the last period of pro tection amounted to amazement. I am very much obliged to my friend from Pennsylvania. Now, I desire, as throwing some light upon the blessings resulting from the era referred to, to call the attention of the Committee to the question of wages, to which I believe the gentleman from Kentucky referred, and who declared that the wages of the laboring classes were as good during that period as at any other period previous or since. On the 14th day of February, 1859, the operatives of the Pembroke mills, in the State of Massachusetts, in convention assembled, passed the following resolution : That we, the spinners, etc., have long enough endured the low prices for our hard labor — wages whioh are too low to live by — All this during the " golden era," remember — too low to live by, as we can not meet our bills for the necessities of life with such a contemptible compensation for our labor as has been paid us for the last year. Let this example suffice of the universal distress among the wage- earners of that period. Hundreds of such could be adduced — and yet " the half not told " of the misery that prevailed among all classes and conditions of skilled and unskilled American workingmen. Now, coming down to December 17, 1860, the last year of the last month of this halcyon period, I find an act of Congress, passed De cember 17, 1860, authorizing the issue of certain Treasury notes. Treasury notes were issued redeemable at the expiration of one year from date; and this shows the financial condition of the country during the concluding year of that decade, after a tariff for revenue only had had full opportunity to produce its best results, and to demonstrate, if it could, its highest good. I find these Treasury notes 88 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. were sold under that act as follows, and the percentage shows the discount : At 6 per cent $70,200 At 7 per cent 5,000 At 8 per cent 24,500 At 8i par cent 33,000 At 8f per cent 10,000 At 9 per cent 65,000 At 9i per cent 10,000 At 9J per cent 160,000 At 9f per cent 77,000 At 10 per cent 1,027,500 At lOi per cent 366,000 At lOi per cent 633,000 At lOf per cent 1,867,000 At 11 per cent 1,433,700 At 13 per cent 4,840,000 Total $10,010,900 Which shows that during the closing year of that free-trade period, that has been denominated one of exceptional prosperity, the finan cial credit of this Government was so bad that our Treasury notes sold from six to twelve per cent discount. I come now to February 8, 1861, the beginning of the second month of the next year, when Congress authorized a loan of 125,000,- 000 of bonds bearing six per cent, and having twenty years to run. There were disposed of, in amount, only $18,000,000, for the Govern ment could not dispose of the remainder of the loan, and what were sold were sold at a discount of $2,019,776. Six-per-cent bonds sold for 89.1 cents on the dollar, at the very close of that glorious period when all, as we are told, was blazing in the splendor of prosperity. So low had the credit of the Government fallen at that time that the Secretary of the Treasury, in January, 1861, suggested to Con gress as a financial resource that the several States be asked, as secu rity for the repayment of any money the Government might find it necessary to borrow, to pledge the deposits received by them from the Government under the act for the distribution of the surplus revenues of 1836 ; the Secretary believing that a loan contracted on such a basis of security, superadding to the plighted faith of the United States that of the individual States, could hardly fail to be acceptable to capitalists. Thus was this Government driven by your revenue policy to the brink of financial ruin, with neither money nor credit ; a condition THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 89 that necessitated a Democratic Secretary of the Treasury to solemnly suggest to Congress that the States should be asked to indorse the paper of the Government of the United States. Think of our Gov ernment going out and asking somebody to go her bail that she might borrow money in the money centers of the world, and of her own citi zens ! We have no such trouble now. Twenty years of protection have given us a good credit, have given us a good currency, an overflow ing Treasury, and universal prosperity, enabling us to borrow all the money we want at three and a half per cent, and the lender must pay a premium to get it at that. Contrast that period with the " golden era " described by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle], when the tariff policy he advocates led this Government to the condition which I have described. I thank God that policy does not prevail to-day, and protection needs no other defense. [Applause.] There are some industries in the United States, notably that of tin plate manufacturing and the manufacture of pottery, which are inadequately protected. Of the former, the Secretary of the United States Iron and Tin-plate Company says : About eight years ago, when the tin-plate industry was entirely dead in this country, the prices of tin plate were so high that some enterprising citizens came to the conclusion that they could invest their money profltably by building tin- plate works. At first the prospects were favorable, but the prices of imported plates went down lower and lower, until our home manufacturers were compelled to abandon the business and leave their works standing idle, yet the agitation for better protection has been kept up, and by that the price of tin plate has been kept down. But if Congress refuses again to lend an ear to the urgent appeals we have made so many times, the agitation on the subject will die out, and the price of tin plate will go up, and instead of making English manufacturers pay a rev enue for dealing in our markets, we shall have to submit to their laying a heavy tax upon us beoause we did not protect ourselves. This condition should no longer be permitted. Legislation which will revive this palsied industry should be enacted at once. The manufacture of pottery, although early started, is among the new industries in the United States, and none more worthy. Its growth has not been rapid, but substantial. It has made progress against the fiercest opposition of British manufacturers. It has been forced to fight prejudice at home and unscrupulous rivals abroad. It has happily triumphed over all. Its annual products have reached five millions of dollars, and are not excelled in quality anywhere, while the price to the consumer has been largely diminished. In the days of the gold premium the tariff was moderately protective. Since resumption it has been wholly inadequate. The price paid to labor 90 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. is 100 per cent more than is paid in the Bnglish potteries, and 90 per cent of the cost of the product is labor. With labor equal, or made equivalent by the duty, they can successfully compete with the best potteries of the world. We have good raw material, skilled labor, new and valuable improvements. Our decorated ware is not excelled anywhere. All that is needed is a just and fair protection, and we will fail in our duty if it is not accorded. Forty per cent ad valorem is wholly insufficient. I shall in this connection, without taking the time of the Commit tee to give it in detail, put in my remarks a statement of the cereal productions in 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. We produced in 1850 100,000,000 bushels, in round numbers, of wheat ; we produced in 1880, 459,000,000 bushels of wheat. We produced, in 1850, 592,000,- 000 bushels of Indian corn; and in 1880 we produced 1,754,861,535 bushels. And I might go through this contrast with oats, and bar ley, and buckwheat, etc., taking in all the cereal products, and show that the like of it was never before known in the industrial history of any country in the world. The following is the table in detail : Articles. Bushels produced in 1850. Bushels pro duced in 1860. fci Bushels pro duced in 1870. Bushels pro duced in 1880. li Wheat Rye 100,485,944 14,188,813 502,071,104 146,.584,179 5,167,0158,956,913 173,104,934 21,101,380 838,792,742 173,643,185 15,825,898 17,571,818 Per ct. 72 48 41 17 206 96 287,745,626 16,918,795 760,944,549283,107,157 29,761,305 9,821,731 459,479,505 19,831,595 1,754,861,535 407,858,999 44,113,495 11,817,327 Perct. 6017 Indian corn. . Oats 130 AA. Barley ,.. . Buckwheat.. . 48 20 Total 867,453,967 1,239,039,947 42-8 1,387,399,153 2,697,963,456 98-4 They talk about the farmer not being protected. Why, sir, he is protected in nearly everything he grows or raises, and protected just as much as he wants to be ; just as much as he asks to be. He is pro tected in his horned cattle, in his hogs, in his sheep, in his bacon, in his hams, in his cheese, in his pork, in his corn, in his wheat, in his cotton, his tobacco, his sugar, and his wool. My friend from New York [Mr. Hewitt] proposes to take the duty off wool ; indeed, he proposes to take the duty off all raw materials. When he does that, the farmer in the United States will be compelled to dismiss his flocks, sheep husbandry will fall into decay, and the woolen manufactures will go down. Mr. Updegbafp, of Ohio. But the farmer will vote first. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 91 Yes, as my friend suggests, the farmer will vote first, and he will vote for that party and that individual who will stand by him in pro tecting the products of his labor and his farm from the cheaper labor of the products of the Old World. The farmer is protected by the levy and collection of duties on his products as follows : Hogs, horned cattle, horses, sheep, and all other animals, pay a duty of 20 per cent ; bacon and ham pay a duty of 2 cents per pound ; beef, 1 cent per pound ; butter, 4 cents per pound ; cheese, 4 cents per pound ; condensed milk, 20 per cent ; lard, 2 cents per pound ; pre served meats, 35 per cent j mutton, 10 per cent ; pork, 1 cent per pound ; tallow, 1 cent per pound ; glue, 20 per cent ; barley, 15 cents per bushel ; bread and biscuit, 20 per cent ; Indian corn, 10 cents per bushel; cornmeal, 10 per cent; oats, 10 cents per bushel; rye, 15 cents per bushel ; wheat, 20 cents per bushel ; wheat fiour, 20 per cent ; all other small grain, and other preparations of breadstuffs for food average 18.56 per cent ; fruits, from 10 to 35 per cent ; flaxseed or linseed, 20 cents per bushel ; wool, hay, hops, rice, tobacco, pota toes, sugar, all pay a duty. I need not further amplify. The condition of American farmers to-day is better than at any other time in our history, while the condition of the farmers of Eng land was never so deplorable as now. We have a protective tariff ; England has a tariff for revenue only. Every country has its peculiar conditions which must be recog nized by its lawmakers. Each nation must legislate for its own, study its own interests, take care of its own industries and its own people. When this is done, American statesmen have discharged their highest duty, and can with safety leave to other nations the duty of legislating for themselves. England's boasted free trade is Eng land's protection and profit if she could induce the world to enter upon the same policy. Her seaports, open only partially even now, were not open until after years of practical prohibition. At last she conceived her power to profitably manufacture for the world and an nounced it, but at the present time she levies and collects duties on imports, producing to her a large revenue — duties not upon luxuries but upon articles of the highest necessity, like tea and coffee. Her tariff is a tariff for revenue only ; the same which is advocated on the other side of this House, and which was announced in the last Democratic National platform. With all her boasted professions and her invitation to the world fo accept her theory of universal brother hood, Great Britain has not free trade within her own borders and in her own possessions. 7 92 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. George Baden Powell, an English author and free trader, declares, in his book on Protection and Hard Times : It is, however, a raatter of notoriety that many of our colonies at the present do impose duties for avowedly protective purposes. The colony of Victoria is a notable instance, more especially as she holds to her position in spite of the tend encies of the surrounding colonies toward free trade. It may well be asked, Why have any of the provinces of the British Erapire the right, how have they the license, to adopt other than free-trade principles ? It would be well for the distinguished author to look after Can ada, which in March, 1879, adopted a high protective tariff and is prospering under it to-day. In a word, by the iraposition of duties for purposes other than those for rev enue, a province of the empire at once invades the domain of imperial interests, at once challenges the control of the imperial authorities. There are but two or three colonies [says the same author] that avowedly im pose duties on imports for the purpose of protecting their industries. There is nothing impracticable in the prospect of the various provinces of the British Em pire banding theraselves together and jealously maintaining as secure a freedom of intercourse among themselves, as close a commercial union, as that rigorously maintained by the citizens of the United States. So that the free trade which England teaches and cajoles us to follow she fails to practice at home, and looks forward with fond ex pectancy to the time when that same freedom of intercourse, that close commercial union, shall exist in all the British Empire as is rigorously maintained by the citizens of the United States. Here we have unrestricted trade among ourselves, no impost duties, no dis criminating tax between the States. The markets of California are open to the manufactures of Maine. Ohio sends her manufacturing and other products, freely and without restraint, to every State of the Union. The products of one State are as free to the citizen of an ther State as those of his own. We impose duties only on the prod ucts of foreign labor and capital. The early history of Great Britain upon the tariff has been often told, but loses none of its force by repetition. England declared her self not only " the sole market for American products," " the sole storehouse for American supplies," but also " the workshop of the world." Parliament enacted that — The colonies must not only sell exclusively in British raarkets, but they must also buy exclusively in British markets. It was intended that no commodity of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe should be imported into Brit ish plantations but such as are laden and put on board in England, Wales, or THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 93 Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in English-built shipping, whereof the master and three fourths of the crew were English. The preamble to this statute, which was supplemental to the Navigation Act, declares : The raaintaining a greater correspondence and kindness between the subjects at home and those in the plantations, keeping the colonies in a firmer dependence on the mother country, making them yet more beneficial to it in the further em ployment and inorease of English shipping and in the vent of English manufac tures and commodities, rendering the navigation to them more safe and cheap, and making this kingdom a staple not only of the commodities of the plantations but also of the commodities of other countries and places for their supply ; it be ing the usage of other nations to keep their plantation trade exclusively to them selves. In 1710 the House of Commons declared that " the erecting of manufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." In 1732 the importation of hats from province to province, and the number of apprentices, was limited. In 1750 the erection of any mill or engine for slitting or rolling iron was prohibited. In 1765 the exportation of artisans frora Great Britain was pro hibited under a heavy penalty. In 1781 utensils required for the manufacture of wool or silk were prohibited. In 1782 the prohibition was extended to artificers in printing calicoes, muslins, or linens, or in making implements used in their manufacture. In 1785 the prohibition was extended to tools used in iron and steel manufacture, and to workmen so employed ; in 1799 it was extended so as to embrace even colliers. This is the early record, rigorously adhered to and enforced with an iron hand. British free trade is the voice of interest and selfish ness, not principle. American protection is the voice of intelligent labor and American development. Its benefits must be manifest to the most casual student of industrial history. No man will be found who would declare that our present advanced position of manufac tures could or would have been reached without the aid afforded by a wise system of protection. Commencing without capital or experi ence, we have grown to such extent as to be the wonder of the civilized world. Even Mr. Hewitt, although differing from my conclusions, is forced to say that to any one studying the condition of this country at the present time three things are evident : first, that we are the most prosperous people in the world ; secondly, that we are paying the highest wages of any people in the world ; lastly, that we have the highest tariff duties of any nation in the world. Why, sir, in 1858 the United States received a great majority of its manufac tured articles from England; to-day we manufacture for ourselves, and as exporters have but one equal. From thirteen States we leap 94 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. to thirty-eight; from three millions of population we now number fifty-one millions. It would be impossible [says Mr. Mulhall, an English statistician, whom Mr. Hewitt quotes approvingly] to find in history a paraUel to the progress of the United States in the last ten years. Wealth and property have everywhere in creased ; comforts, education, the schoolhouse, the church, are within the reach and enjoyment of every citizen of the Republic. In this connection permit me to call the attention of the Commit tee to the following exhibit of the export and import trade of the United States for the last few years, taken from the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury : The exports as contrasted with the imports during the last fiscal year (1881) are as follows : Exports of domestic merchandise $883,925,947 Exports of foreign merchandise 18,451,399 Total $903,877,346 Imports of merchandise 643,664,628 Excess of exports over imports of merchandise $259,712,718 Aggregate of exports and imports $1,545,041,974 Compared with the previous year, there was an increase of $66,738,688 in the value of exports of merchandise, and a decrease of $25,390,118 in the value of im ports. The annual average of the excess of imports of merchandise over exports thereof for ten years previous to June 30, 1873, was $104,706,932 ; but for the last six years there has been an excess of exports over imports of merchandise amount ing to $1,180,668,105— an annual average of $196,778,017. The specie value of the exports of domestic merchandise has increased frora $876,616,473 in 1870 to $888,935,947 in 1881, an increase of $507,309,474, or 185 per cent. The imports of merchandise have increased from $485,958,408 in 1870 to $642,664,628 in 1881, an increase of $206,706,220, or 47 per cent. This remarkable showing, which is under our present protective system, inspired my friend from Tennessee [Mr. Whitthorne], a Democratic Bepresentative, to say in his recent able speech upon another subject : This is a most gratifying exhibit of commercial progress and prosperity. And when we corapare this aggregate of exports and imports with that of the principal commercial powers of the world, and see from that comparison that we are now the peer of the greatest, save and except only the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ; and reflecting that under the control and administra tion of that Government there are quite two hundred and flfty millions of people, we have just cause of pride in the miraculous growth and progress of the trade of our people. We have, indeed, just cause of pride in the wonderful growth of THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 95 our trade. Why enter upon a new policy, I ask ? Would any busi ness man whose ledger showed such results embark in new and doubt ful experiments ? He would pass unheeded the allurements of the dreamer and the theorist. He would pursue the old way, which had secured him success, and discard all new theories which experience had not proved sure and beneficial. The same conservatism should guide the Nation as controls the individual citizen in the conduct of his business. The aggregate of American industries [says Mr. Mulhall, the English author] has risen thirty-five per cent in the last ten years ; the ratio per inhabitant to the population has increased one third in the interval ; the actual increase of Ameri can industry, $2,541,000,000; whereas the maximura among European nations, that of Great Britain, was only $1,631,080,000. Ten years ago the balance of trade was against this country, but now the exports are thirty-one per cent over imports. Ten years ago we lagged far behind France or Germany as regards steel, but now produce more than both those countries combined. We make more than one fifth of the iron and more than one quarter of the steel of the world. In mining we have increased ninety per cent in the last decade, and to-day we represent thirty-six per cent of the mining industries of the world. Great Britain thirty-three per cent, and other nations thirty-one per cent. Agriculture shows a healthy increase. Farming stock increased thirty-three per cent. In ten years we have built 42,000 miles of railroad — an increase of one hundred per cent. Taxation has been reduced from thirteen and a half per cent of income in 1870 to nine and a quarter per cent in 1880, being now only half of what it is in France, and one fourth less than in Great Britain. The reduction of the principal of our public debt since 1870, and up to March, 1882, has averaged $116,560.22 per day, including Sun days and holidays. The ratio of debt per inhabitant has fallen forty-two per cent, that of interest fifty-four per cent, in ten years. Population has in creased thirty-one per cent since 1870. We produce thirty per cent of the meat and thirty per cent of the grain of the world. These figures illustrate our growth and pros perity, and include the disastrous year of 1873 and the subsequent years of depression. In my State the growth of the iron industries has been most grati fying. The first furnace built in Ohio was in 1803-'04, located in Poland Township, Mahoning County, constituting a part of my pres- 96 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ent district. That county to-day is practically peopled with furnaces, mills, and factories, and tunneled with mines, while their products are renowned the country over ; and like evidences of prosperity in agriculture, manufacturing, and mining are found in Carroll, Colum biana, and Stark, the remaining counties which compose the district I have the honor to represent. The State now ranks second in iron and steel manufactures in the Union. Her thrift and energy, her great natural resources, aided by protection, have enabled the State to take the position which she now holds. She wants no legislation which shall disturb her present prosperity or curtail her future growth. There is perhaps no better exponent of our progress than the in creased production of coal, the great motive power of industry and of commerce. Who has demanded a tariff for revenue only, such as is advocated by our friends on the other side? What portion of our citizens? What part of our population ? Not the agriculturist ; not the laborer ; not the mechanic ; not the manufacturer ; not a petition before us, to my knowledge, asking for an adjustment of tariff rates to a revenue basis. England wants it, demands it — not for our good, but hers ; for she is more anxious to maintain her old position of supremacy than she is to promote the interests and welfare of the people of this Eepublic, and a great party in this country voices her interests. Our tariffs interfere with her profits. They keep at home what she wants. We are independent of her ; not she of us. She would have America the feeder of Great Britain, or, as Lord Sheffield put it, she would be " the monopoly of our consumption and the carriage of our produce." She would manufacture for us, and permit us to raise wheat and corn for her. We are satisfied to do the latter, but unwilling to concede to her the monopoly of the former. Much idle talk is indulged in about manufacturing monopolies in the United States, and everything is called a monopoly that prospers; everybody who gets ahead in the world is, in the minds of some peo ple, a monopolist. We have few, if any, manufacturing monopolies in the United States to-day. They can not long exist with an unre stricted home competition such as we have. They feel the spur of competition from thirty-seven States, and extortion and monopoly can not survive the sharp contest among our own capitalists and en terprising citizens. There may be some here and there, but as a rule we have none ; and yet the gentlemen who shout the loudest against monopolies are found advocating a doctrine which, if carried into practical operation, would break down American manufactures and THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 97 give England the unbridled monopoly of American markets. Eng lish monopoly does not disturb them ; it is American monopoly that distresses their souls. Under the cry of a " bounty-fed monopoly " they would transfer manufacturing from American citizens to foreign citizens. For one, Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself, I declare that I would rather America and American manufacturers should have the monopoly of American consumption than that England should have it ; and I would infinitely prefer that the American laborer and the American mechanic should have the monopoly of supplying the American markets than that English laborers and mechanics should have it. No man can outdo me in opposition to monopolies ; but the manu facturers of this country should not be thus characterized. They have no princely fortunes ; in general they have no independent means. Their all is in the brick and mortar of their establishments, in the machinery, in the organization, in their trade. And how many of them to-day would be willing to sell out for first cost, and below first cost, if they could do it ! He who would break down the manu factures of this country strikes a fatal blow at labor. It is labor I would protect. My friend from New York [Mr. Hewitt] told us about the uncer tainty of business the other day, when he assured us that in six years, from 1873 to 1879, he lost $100,000 a year in the manufacture of iron. He knows that it is not all profit. It is work of the brain ; it is work of the nerve forces ; it is work of the hands ; and it is worry, worry all the time. And yet gentlemen would howl down a protective tariff because there are, in fact or imagination, manufacturing monopolies in the United States. The effect of protection upon the price of products to the Ameri can consumer has been often stated, and can be illustrated by taking any of the protected articles which are manufactured in the United States. It will be observed that the price not only diminishes, but in nearly every case the quality of the product has been improved. There is no department of manufacture in this country which has re ceived protection sufficient to encourage capital to embark in it and enable it to compete successfully with foreigners for the trade of the United States, but has resulted in the falling of prices to the con sumer. Cast steel fumishes a marked illustration of this statement. It has been stated to me that consumers of the higher gi-ades of crucible best cast steel in England pay higher prices for best cast steel of Eng- 98 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. lish manufacture than is paid by our consumers of the same grades from the same manufacturers, showing that the Bnglish manufac turers of cast steel are conceding more than the amount of duty in favor of the American market. Another important point should not be lost sight of, that when the Bnglish manufacturers of crucible best cast steel were receiving from the American consumer thirty-eight per cent over and above what they are willing to sell at the present time, they were better able to furnish our people steel at the present reduced price than they are now. A large quantity of best cast steel in the shape of circular-saw plates is consumed in this country, and to the lumber interest it is an important article. Before the passage of the present tariff laws, when this class of steel was not made in the United States, the saw- makers of this country depended upon the English manufacturers for their supply, and were forced to pay 35 to 40 cents per pound in gold for the large sizes. These plates of the same size are now fumished at 26 cents per pound, being a saving of 30 per cent, or more than double the rate of the tariff to the saw manufacturers of this country. I am informed that one of the most extensive manufacturers of saws in the United States estimates the gain to the lumber interest since the passage of the tariff of 1864, of a sum exceeding 87,000,000 on saw steel. A like advantage has been gained by the same lumber interest by the saving of money in the cost of axes. Before the present law was enacted best axe steel, manufactured in England, sold at 17 cents per pound, gold. The price is now 10^ cents per pound. In the manufacture of reapers and mowers (a large and valuable industry in my own district), one thousand tons of section crucible best cast steel is now used annually in this country. Before the pres ent tariff law went into effect, this article of English manufacture was sold at 17 cents per pound in gold, and now is furnished at 10 cents or under, producing a saving to the farmers of this country of more than 40 per cent, or twice the rate of tariff on the article, and a saving in the aggregate since 1864 of more than $1,250,000. This is one of the ways that the agriculturist is taxed for the benefit of monopolies. The prices of steel plows, hay. rakes, grain drills, har rows, and other agricultural implements have been reduced to such low figures that but few if any are imported ; and the farmers have saved millions of dollars by the provisions of the present law. Again, crucible tool best cast steel used in the manufacture of all descriptions of tools, drills, sledges, etc., employed in mining, before the enactment of our protection laws, of English manufacture, brought THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 99 17 cents in gold per pound, and now it can be bought at 10 cents, fully equal in quality to that for which 17 cents was paid per pound, making a saving of 38 per cent, equal to more than twice the sum charged as duty. From a careful estimate, it seems that about 20,000 tons of this description of cast steel are consumed in this country annually, saving to the carpenter, the miner, and the machinist, $2,500,000. We produce over three quarters of the crucible cast steel used in this country. The effect of protection in reducing the price of cast steel is not confined alone to this article, but applies to nearly every description of manufacture. Take, for example, the cotton manu factures ; the same kind and quality of goods are now in the market which were first made in this country, and therefore an exact com parison can be made, which in many other branches of the textile in dustry can not be made. The tariff act of 1816 imposed on cotton goods a square-yard duty of 6^ cents. The effect of the protection is seen in the prices of heavy sheetings, stated by Mr. Nathan Appleton, as follows : Price in 1816, 30 cents per yard ; 1819, 21 cents per yard ; 1826, 13 cents per yard ; 1829, 8^ cents per yard ; 1879, according to Keece's Dry Goods Chart, the average price was 7.8 cents per yard. To-day the price is 8 cents per yard. The goods of 1816 and 1882 are the same in quality. The manufacture of prints or calicoes was not successful until 1825. According to Mr. Appleton, the average price per yard in 1825 war 23.07 cents ; 1830, 16.36 cents ; 1835, 16.04 cents ; 1840, 12.09 cents; 1845, 10.9 cents; 1850, 9.24 cents; 1855, 9.15 cents; in 1860, according to Eeece's Chart, 9.50 cents; 1878, 6.09 cents; present price, 6-^ cents. According to Reece, the prices of print cloths, or plain undyed cot ton cloths for printing, were, in 1860, 5.44 cents ; 1878, 3.44 ; Feb ruary 14, 1882, 3.75. Bleached shirtings were first made in 1838, of a weight of 2.80 yards to the pound. Prices, in 1860, according to Reece, 15.50 cents ; 1878, 11 cents. Brown drillings, an article of American invention, sold by package in 1828 for 15.50 cents. Price in 1860, according to Reece, 8.92 cents ; 1878, 7.65 cents. Jeans, a lighter twilled fabric than drillings, was first introduced by our mills, in 1826. No article of the kind could then be bought in our stores for less than 30 to 35 cents. The flrst American article. 100 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. better in quality than any foreign make imported, was sold for 23 cents. The prices in 1860 were 6J to 9 cents. The manufacture of printed lawns commenced about 1846. Both foreign and American lawns were sold in our market in 1847 for from 12 to 15 cents. The market price in 1881 was a little below 10 cents. It is more difficult to make a comparison of prices of woolen goods illustrating the effect of the tariff. Hon. John L. Hayes, Secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, says : Reliable returns of the two leading agencies of flannel wools in the country, representing more than twenty different establishments, show that the selling prices in 1869, after the tariff of 1867, were in one house 20 per cent less m gold than in I860. On the other hand, the books of a mill producing cloths more ex tensively than any other establishment in the country, and employing 2,500 oper atives, show an advance of wages in gold from 1860 to 1869 of 37 per cent for female operatives and 50 per cent for male operatives. These facts show con clusively that the protection to the woolen industry, if to no others, has been a boon to laborers and consumers. Certain cashmerets which brought 46 cents per yard in 1860 were rated at 38J cents per yard in 1880. If you would warm a free trader into wrath and excite him to violent denunciation, exhibit an American blanket made in an Amer ican factory, of American wool, by American labor. This article above all others is seized by the free trader as an illustration of the vice and enormity of our tariff. Now, what are the facts? A oertain flxed style of blankets of medium grade sold in 1860 as follows: A 9-7 blanket for $1.87i, a 10-4 article for $2.37i to $3.50. Sales of precisely the same goods were for the former at $1.75 and for the latter at $3.25, with wools at 3 to 4 cents higher in 1880 than in 1860, and labor in the mills from 15 to 20 per cent in advance of 1860. Those most familiar with the markets, of whora I have raade careful inquiries, estimate that ordinary woolen goods, constituting the great bulk of consumption, are now obtained by consumers at prices from 12^ to 25 per cent less than goods of the same quality could be purchased for before the war. The same is true of the rice industry, as shown by the following, taken from the report of the special committee of the Savannah (Georgia) Rice Association, which shows the effect of protection on the rice industry of the United States : It is only left to infer that the effect of the import duty has been extraordi nary increase in the production of American rice and correspondent reduction of price. In sixteen years the crops have increased more than tenfold, and prices have declined from 100 to 150 per cent. It has induced active competition with foreign importation without reducing its volume. THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 101 It seems, then, evident that the average profits on American rice are at pres ent dependent on the maintenance of the import duty, and if the latter is re moved or materially reduced the cultivation of the former must be abandoned as a staple product and the lands returned to Nature. There are now cultivated in rice more than 155,000 acres, affording livelihood to more than 160,000 persons. Another instance in point is in the price of pottery. Goods in that line are selling 50 per cent cheaper than in 1860 under the old 24-per-cent duty. These examples, and more which I might present, demonstrate that protective duties are not a tax upon the consumer, but universally cheapen the price of consumption to the people. There is one other subject to which I want to refer briefly, be cause it has been drawn into this debate. The Treasury rulings interpreting existing tariff laws are alarm ing the industries of the country. Already some industries have been disastrously affected, and others will follow in their train if Congress does not intervene with positive legislation to prevent. The parts of the statute known as the omnibus clauses, under which these deci sions are made adverse to the interests of American manufacturers of iron and steel, are as follows : " Manufactures of steel, or of which steel shall be the component part, not otherwise provided for " ; " steel in any form not otherwise provided for " ; " manufactures, articles, vessels, and wares of iron, or of which iron shall be the component material of chief value, not otherwise provided for " ; " metals manu factured not otherwise provided for," and " castings of iron not other wise provided for." These give the officials of the Treasury Depart ment such latitude of construction that with the constantly increas ing new forms of iron and steel and other manufactures the true in tent of the law becomes virtually a dead letter and without force. By the employment of new names for old forms of construction, and new designs not specially named in the statute, the articles not enu merated in the law are transferred from specific to ad valorem rates, thus evading the duty applicable to snch classes of manufacture. To illustrate : Hoop-iron pays a duty of 1\ cents per pound. If a piece of hoop-iron is cut into lengths, say eleven feet, and fastened with a buckle, under the Treasury rulings it is no longer hoop-iron, but becomes a manufacture of iron not otherwise provided for, and is dutiable at 35 per cent ad valorem, or about three quarters of a cent a pound instead of 1^ cents. It is estimated that there were 5,500,000 bales of cotton raised last year, which would consume thirty thousand tons of hoop-iron. Nearly every pound of this is of foreign manufacture, imported here under the favorable decisions of the 102 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Treasury Department. I have never been able to understand how the length of the piece of hoop-iron or the riveted buckle, or any other contrivance, should remove this article from the special desig nation of " hoop-iron," and relieve it from a like duty. It is hoop- iron, and nothing else. The iron or steel, of whatever length, five feet or twenty, should bear the same duty. A recent decision of the Treasury Department permits barrel-hoops to come in under the same clause, practically shutting out the hoop-iron manufacturer of the United States from the American market. That no manufactured article should pay any less duty than the .duty chargeable upon the material of chief value out of which it is made, is the principle of the Iron and Steel Bill about which there has been so much criticism and discussion here and throughout the country ; a principle which is right and should form the basis of all tariff legislation knd be the rule of all Treasury interpretations upon this subject ; a principle which every one concedes is right and thor oughly just, and which in the main has been recognized in every tariff law since the foundation of the Government. It may be said that the duty is too high upon the material of chief value. If that be true, reduce it. But so long as that duty remains I insist thatthe intent of the law shall be sacredly preserved. It should not be the mere form, but the substance, of the article which should regulate the rate of duty. The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Aiken] takes occasion in his recent speech to characterize the Hoop-iron Bill, so called (which is now in the hands of the Ways and Means Committee), as an effort to rob the many for the benefit of tbe few. He says : » Mr. Chairman, how insatiate is the greed of humanity ! Not content with their already dazzling incomes through the bounty of the Government, these iron men are attempting to increase, and doubtless will increase, the tariff upon that class of manufactured iron in which is included " cotton ties," a description of iron that affects the pockets of the greatest number of the poorest laborers of this country. These laborers are, however, all farmers, who seldom feel the helping hand of a paternal government. The duty on cotton ties some years ago was 70 per cent ad valorem. Por some reason, not pertinent at this moment, this duty was reduced to 35 per cent ad valorem, which is about three fourths of 1 cent per pound. The bill familiarly known as the McKinley Bill proposes to restore the 70 per cent tax or increase the duty three fourths of one cent per pound. Certainly such a tax is only a mite when imposed upon an individual farmer, but what is it when aggregated upon a cotton crop numbering millions of bales t Each bale usually has six ties around it, and they weigh ten pounds, hence the levy upon caoh bale is 7i cents. The crop of 1882 will doubtless aggregate 6,000,000 bales, and hence the tax on the 86,000,000 ties that bind them will amount to the sum THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 103 of $450,000. Now, sir, if this amount could be collected at our customhouses and be then covered into the Treasury, not a farraer in the South would complain of the tax. But when we know from past experience that it will all go— or, at least, $449,000 of it — into the coffers of less than a half dozen cotton-tie manufac turers of this country, we can but denounce the proposition as an effort to rob the many for the benefit of the few. But, sir, the cotton farmer is blandly told he should not complain, for inas much as he buys these ties at 3i cents per pound or less by retail, he sells them around his bales at the net price of cotton, 9, 10, or 11 cents per pound. This plausible argument does not warrant an unjust tax. But, however plausible the proposition, it is not true in fact. Let us see if it is not true in fact, and if the proposed measure will put into the coffers of the iron manufacturers of the United States the enormous amount alleged by the gentleman, or any other amount which in justice they ought not to have. I find in a Southern newspaper — the Telegraph and Messenger — published in Macon, Georgia, under date of February 18, 1882, a state ment in reply to a criticism of the Hoop-iron Bill that appeared in another Southern paper called the Atlanta Constitution, which shows who receives the money from the cotton-tie trade, who bears the burdens, and who pockets the profits. It will be observed that it is not the iron manufacturer, not the laborer in the cotton field, but the thrifty planter. I quote this Southern authority as an answer to my friend from South Carolina :' The Constitution does not confine itself to any injury or inequality in the present law, but travels outside to take up a bill, introduced by Mr. McKinley, to increase the duties on cotton ties, according to the Constitution, $19.19 per ton. The Constitution is very unfortunate in its selection of an article to demon strate a species of protection as " robbery pure and simple." It is a fact well known to every negro who raises one bale of cotton, that the most profitable feature connected with the whole transaction is the difference in price that he buys at and the price at which he sells his cotton ties. The price of the latter the past season averaged about $1.75 per bundle. There are forty bundles to the ton, and hence the price per ton of ties to the cotton planter was $70. This is the long ton of 3,240 pounds. These ties are sold at the price of cot ton, and at ten cents per pound they bring $324 per ton. As they cost only $70 per ton, the net profit on every ton of ties sold by the planters of the South was $154. This, according to the Constitution's flgures of the quantity consumed, shows they make a clear profit of $4,636,000 on their annual consumption of cotton ties. If this is true, there is no class of people in the country who can better afford to see such a rate of duty levied upon cotton ties as will enable our manufacturers to produce thera at fair profit. From this it appears that the cotton planter of the South is not the oppressed and burdened individual described so graphically by 104 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the gentleman from South Carolina. On the contrary, he seems to be the monopolist, if he buys the cotton ties at 2^ cents per pound and sells them for cotton at 10 or 11 cents per pound, making a clean profit of more than $4,500,000 on the annual consumption of cotton ties. My friend exclaims, " How insatiate is the greed of humanity ! " ^ I answer. How insatiate is the greed of the cotton planter, if this •' Southern authority be true ! He is quite content with his dazzling income, and is unwilling to share it with the manufacturers and laborers in the hoop-iron industry. My friend, in the same speech, expresses himself as quite willing to protect the rice planter of the South, and, I doubt not, the sugar grower of the same section. If the principle is worth maintaining at all, its application should not be sectional or awarded to any single industry, but all should share in its benefits and blessings, and feel the life-giving force of its influence. Under the Treasury rulings the cotton-tie trade has gone from the United States, from its mechanics and manufacturers, to the foreign manufacturer, to enrich the latter at the expense of the former. The cotton planter, not content with his profit on ties at the expense of the consumer, insists upon depriving American labor and capital of its just rewards and its legitimate profits. While the present tariff laws need some revision, any wholesale change would be unhealthy and unwise. A large part of our indus tries has been built up under their fostering care; trade has con formed to them, and has been prosperous and progressive, and no genuine American interest wants them overthrown or materially dis turbed. If we could secure some slight changes, conceded by all as necessary, which would endanger no existing interests in the United States, and then establish a clear and unmistakable rule of construc tion, to guide our customs officers in their interpretation of the law, any general revision of the tariff might well be left for many years to come. Certainty and stability are essential elements to the suc cess of trade, and as long as we are doing reasonably well experiments should be avoided. Manufacturers, farmers, laboring men, indeed all the industrial classes in the United States, are severally and jointly interested in the maintenance of the present or a better tariff law which shall recognize in all its force the protection of American producers and American productions. Our first duty is to our own citizens. Free trade may be suitable to Great Britain and its peculiar social THE TARIFF COMMISSION. 105 and political structure, but it has no place in this Eepublic, where classes are unknown, and where caste has long since been banished ; where equality is the rule ; where labor is dignified and honorable ; where education and improvement are the individual striving of every citizen, no matter what may be the accident of his birth or the poverty of his early surroundings. Here the mechanic of to-day is the manufacturer of a few years hence. Under such conditions, free trade can have no abiding place here. We are doing very well ; no other nation has done better, or makes a better showing in the world's balance-sheet. We ought to be satisfied with the progress thus far made, and contented with our outlook for the future. We know what we have done and what we can do under the policy of protec tion. We have had some experience with a revenue tariff, which neither inspires hope, nor courage, nor confidence. Our own history condemns the policy we oppose, and is the best vindication of the policy which we advocate. It needs no other. It furnished us in part the money to prosecute the war for the Union to a successful termination ; it has assisted largely in furnishing the revenue to meet our great public expenditures and diminish with unparalleled rapidity our great National debt ; it has contributed in securing to us an un exampled credit ; it has developed the resources of the country and quickened the energies of our people ; it has made us what the Nation should be, independent and self-reliant ; it has made us industrious in peace, and secured us independence in war ; and we find ourselves in the beginning of the second century of the Eepublic without a superior in industrial arts, without an equal in commercial prosperity, with a sound financial system, with an overflowing Treasury, blessed at home and at peace with all mankind. Shall we reverse the policy which has rewarded us with such magnificent results? Shall we abandon the policy which, pursued for twenty years, has produced such unparalleled growth and prosperity ? No, no. Let us, Mr. Chairman, pass this bill. The creation of a commission will give no alarm to business, will menace no industry in the United States. Whatever of good it brings to us on the first Monday in December next we can accept ; all else we can and will reject. [Great applause.] THE TAEIFF OF 1883. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Forty-seventh Congeess, January 27, 1883. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole for the consideration of the bfll (H. R. 7,313) to impose duties upon foreign imports, and for other purposes, Mr. McKinley said — JtlR. Chairman : I shall occupy but little time in this debate. It was not my purpose until to-day to participate in the general dis cussion on this bill, intending to reserve whatever I might have oc casion to say until the bill should be read section by section for the final action of the Committee of the Whole. In what I shall say to day I will not speak on the general propositions showing the benefits of a protective tariff and the evil results of the doctrine of free trade, for upon that subject at the first session of this Congress I expressed myself very fully. I have seen nothing since to change my convic tions then uttered, but have witnessed much in the consideration of this question before the Committee on Ways and Means to confirm and strengthen them. There is a general demand, Mr. Chairman, for a revision of the tariff. All parties agree that the present tariff laws require revision, amendment, and simplification, and the majority of this House at its first session, conceding the necessity of a revision, created a Commis sion of men of learning and business experience, and required that Commission to make its report to this Congress on the first day of the present session. All phases, then, of tariff sentiment believe in a revision of the tariff ; the only question upon which there is any dif ference of opinion in this House or throughout the country is the question upon what principle that revision shall be made. On this side of the House it is insisted that the revision shall be made not upon the principle which recognizes revenue and revenue only, but upon the principle which shall recognize a fair and just protection to THE TARIFF OF 1883. 107 American interests and to American labor ; while the minority on the other side of this Chamber, conceding that revision is necessary, insist that the revision shall be made upon the basis of a recognition of revenue and revenue only ; and it is there that the two parties practically divide in the House and throughout the country. The majority sentiment in this House is in favor of the former principle, and believes not only in a tariff for revenue but in a tariff for protection as well. The Committee on Ways and Means as at present constituted represents that dominant sentiment, and the bill which that Committee has brought to this House and recommends for its adoption recognizes fully — and I desire to make no conceal ment — recognizes fully the doctrine of protection. While the bill is protective in its character, yet recognizing the reasonable demand of the country for a reduction of the revenues of the Government, the Committee has in its bill, wherever it could be done without injustice to existing interests, made reductions in the interest of a diminished revenue. While these reductions may not be all that every member of this House, or of this side of the House, could desire, still it must be borne in mind that in approaching the National revenues members of Congress, the representatives of the people, should be cautious and conservative. It must be remembered, Mr. Chairman, that it is much easier to reduce duties than it is to impose them ; and we ought to be very sure of what the necessities of this Government will be in the near future, and how much less of the present revenues will be required, before we make any very radical reduction in the revenues derived from the existing tariff. And in this connection it is proper I should say that we are justified in believing that the Senate of the United States will send back to this House the Internal Revenue Bill that we passed at our last session — a bill which reduces internal revenue taxation more than $26,000,000 — with still greater reductions, which, together with the reductions made by the Tariff Bill, now before the Committee, will aggregate more than $50,000,000. Much comment has been indulged in concerning the reductions made by this bill. But if gentlemen have taken the pains to exam ine the schedule of reductions, as shown by the figures of the experts of the Treasury Department, and which have been provided for members in a form convenient for reference, they will find that in every single schedule, from the first to the last, saving and except two, to which I will hereafter refer, there is a reduction of duties and therefore a corresponding diminution in the revenues. These two 8 108 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. exceptions are cotton and cotton goods, earthenware and glassware, and excepting these very considerable reductions have been made in every schedule of the tariff list, and the aggregate will exceed, in my judgment, more than $23,000,000. I believe, too, that if this bill shall be enacted into a law it will be found in its administration to very considerably increase these reductions. Another thing will be ob served, Mr. Chairman, that we have followed very closely the sched ules recommended by the Tariff Commission. I have no desire to follow gentlemen upon the other side who have discussed this ques tion, in their criticism of the personnel of that Comraission, nor of the personal views and interests of the gentlemen who constituted it. It is sufficient for me to say that, so far as my knowledge goes — and it extends to a number of those who constituted that Commission * — they are intelligent, conscientious, capable men, and peers of the best men on the floor of this House. Their work was well and, I believe, conscientiously performed. I say we have followed the Commission's schedules largely. We have made some increases, it is true, but in the large majority of cases where any deviation has been made from the suggestions of the Tariff Commission they have been in the direc tion of reduction of the duties, and not of increase ; and if you will run over the different schedules of the bill as brought in by the Commit tee and compare item for item with the report of the Tariff Commis sion, you will find in a considerable number of cases that the Com mittee on Ways and Means have recommended a reduction below the report of the Commission. It seems to me that from the standpoint of the other side of this Chamber any reduction should be hailed with approval rather than opposition. If we have honestly decreased the revenues twenty-two millions of dollars by tariff reductions, we have certainly made a step in the right direction ; and if we have not made all the reductions which should have been made, with experienc'e and a knowledge of the necessities of this Govemment to be learned here after, the next Congress, or some subsequent Congress, can make still further reduction. * This Commission was appointed by President Arthur, June 7, 1883, con firmed by the Senate, and, as flnally constituted, was as follows : John L. Hayes, of Massachusetts, Chairman ; Honry W. Oliver, Jr., of Pennsylvania ; Austin M. Garland, of Illinois ; Jacob A. Ambler, of Ohio ; Robert P. Porter, of the District of Columbia; John W. H. Underwood, of Georgia ; Duncan P. Kenner, of Lou isiana; Alexander R. Boteler, of West Virginia; and William H. McMahon, of New York. William A. Wheeler, of New York ; John S. Phelps, of Missouri ; Hugh MoCulloch. of the District of Columbia ; and Abiel A. Low and Erastus Corning, of New York, were severally offered appointment, but declined. THE TARIFF OF 1883. 109 Again, it will be found that the present law has been greatly sim plified, classifications have been carefully made, and every safeguard has been raised to prevent evasions, and make undervaluations diffi cult and hazardous. The Customs Court provided for will save the Treasury Department from its long docket of contested cases, will give all interested parties a speedy hearing, and secure uniformity of decision. No tariff bill can be made without defects and errors, and none can be framed which will satisfy every interest. This never has been the case, and never will be. This bill is no exception to the rule, but I believe that with all its imperfections it will prove easy of ad ministration, equitable in its ratings of duty, and as nearly just to American interests as possible. Much criticism has been indulged in because of the increase of the duty on cotton ties, and gentlemen who have heard this discussion would be led to believe, and gentlemen who have participated in it on the other side have presumed, that the only people in the United States to be consulted as to the rate of duty to be levied are the sugar and cotton planters of the South. They have spoken freely and com plained continually of the enormity of the increase upon cotton ties and the iniquity of the reduction upon sugar. Cotton ties must be reduced, and sugar, which is the necessity of every household, must pay a high duty. This is the Democratic doctrine of a revenue tariff. Now, what is this cotton-tie question? For I think it is very much misunderstood. The cotton tie is a piece of hoop-iron, a piece of ordinary hoop-iron cut into a length just long enough to go round a bale of cotton. Under existing law hoop-iron, which is used in the making of cotton ties, pays a duty of one and a half cents a pound. The Treasury Department of this Government held that a piece of hoop-iron cut into lengths of the size sufficient to go around a bale of cotton, with a loop attached to fasten it, was not hoop-iron, but was a manufacture of iron not provided for, and held it to be dutiable at thirty-five per cent ad valorem, which was equivalent to about three fourths of one cent a pound. Now, all this bill proposes to do is to declare that hoop-iron in any length employed for any purpose shall pay the same duty that is levied upon the plain article known as hoop-iron ; and that is all there is in the outcry about an increase of the duty upon cotton ties which has been raised by the cotton planters of the South, and repeated in nearly every speech yet made by gentlemen on the other side. I would like any gentleman on the other side of the House to 110 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. give me any substantial reason why a cotton tie made of hoop-iron should not pay the same duty as the hoop-iron itself. It costs the same amount of labor and requires the same material. It is hoop- iron ; it is nothing else ; and the device of cutting that hoop into lengths the size to go around a bale of cotton and punching the holes in the end of it or putting a buckle at the end is only to avoid the duty imposed by law ; and now that we propose to correct that, and place this article in its proper relation with hoop-iron, the cry is set up on the other side that we are trying to destroy the cotton industry of the South. There is another thing. These gentlemen who cry about the insatiate greed of the manufacturers of hoop-iron, who denominate them robbers — these same poor cotton planters who pay four cents a pound for iron to bale their cotton sell the hoop-iron that goes about that cotton not as hoop-iron, but they sell it as cotton. They pay four cents a pound for the iron and they sell it to cotton manufac turers as cotton at eleven cents a pound. Mr. Carlisle. Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question t Yes, sir ; with pleasure. Mr. Carlisle. Does the gentleman make that statement of his own knowl edge? I make that statement upon information and belief. And I invite my friend from Rhode Island [Mr. Chace], whom I see sitting before me, a manufacturer of cotton goods, to state what the truth is about it. Mr. Chace. There is no question about it. Mr. Aiken rose. The Chairman (Mr. McCook). Does the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. McKin ley] yield to the gentleman from South Carolina ? Mr. Aiken. I deny the gentleman's assertion. I say, sir — I yield only for a question. Mr. Aiken. I simply want to correct the statement of the gentleman. The Chairman. If the gentleman from Ohio yields for that purpose, the gentleman from South Carolina will be heard. Mr. Aiken. The price of cotton is settled beyond the Atlantic. It is set by the English and not the Rhode Island manufacturer, and the Englishman in set ting that price takes off the tare, amounting on a bale of cotton to twenty-two pounds, which is the exact weight of the bagging and ties. Thus when he re ceives a bale of four hundred and twenty-two pounds, he pays for four hundred pounds of cotton. He buys cotton ; he buys lint, and every colored raan who puts up a bale of cotton in the South is defrauded out of the amount of money THE TARIFF OF 1883. HI he pays for his ties. I ask the gentieraan in whose interest it is he desires to raise the duty on the cotton tie three quarters of a cent to one and a half cents per pound ? Is it in the interest of the American laborer i Is it in the interest of the wards of this great Nation ? [Applause.] I ask my friend from Rhode Island [Mr. Chace], who is a cotton manufacturer and who buys cotton, to answer the question. Mr. Chace. This is a very simple question. The cotton raanufacturers of the United States buy about 1,200,000 bales of cotton per annura. They pay for it the market price, and they buy the hoops as cotton. Mr. Aiken. Who sets the price ? Mr. Chace. They pay for those hoops as cotton. You gentlemen of the South buy the hoops for 8^ cents to 4 cents a pound, and you sell them to us at frora 10 to 11 cents a pound. That amounts to 70 cents per bale, or $840,000 per annum that goes into your pockets frora our pockets. And yet you complain. Mr. King and Mr. Cook rose. The Chairman. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. McKinley] is entitled to the floor. I do not care what they do in England — Mr. BJNG. The gentleman is entirely mistaken, and I want to set him right. The gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Chace], who is a manu facturer of and buys cotton, declares on the floor of this House that for the cotton tie which you buy at three and a half cents a pound you charge him ten to eleven cents a pound. Mr. Crapo rose. Mr. Kasson. Let us hear from Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Crapo] to bear his testimony. Mr. Crapo. The bale of cotton is put upon the scale and it is weighed, cotton, iron, hoops, and all ; and on that total gross weight we pay 10 or 11 cents a pound. Mr. Aiken. I ask to be permitted to say one word in reply. I can prove my assertion by witnesses all about me, who tell me they do precisely what I have said. Mr. Aiken and Mr. Carlisle rose. I do not yield for further interruptions. The gentlemen in the galleries who applauded my friend from South Carolina are not interested in American manufacturers and American labor. Mr. King, Will the gentleman allow me a word? There is a lobby here from the other side wanting to get legisla tion from the Democratic side of this House to enhance English 112 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. manufacturing, enrich the coffers of Bnglish lords, destroy American industries, and degrade American labor. Mr. King rose. The Chairman. Does the gentleman from Ohio yield? I decline to yield. I have said so already, and I trust I am under stood. This debate must be closed at five o'clock. The other side have had more hours of this general discussion than we have had on our side. They should be content. Mr. King. I do not want false statements to go uncontradicted. They are not false statements; but when I stated a fact about cotton ties I was not making any complaint against the cotton planters of the South. I do not want to interfere with their business regulations or their proflts. I do not care how much they get for the hoop-iron that goes around their cotton bales. But when they come here and call American manufacturers robbers because they want a cotton tie to pay the same duty as hoop-iron out of which it is made, it comes with a poor grace from men who buy iron from robbers of the North at four cents a pound and sell it to the New England factories as cotton for eleven. [Applause.] Yes, to the same robbers of the North. And that is all there is in this cotton- tie proposition. It is to make hoop-iron of any length, under any name, in any disguise, pay the same duty that the hoop-iron you buy in your stores at home, which is imported, is now required to pay. The proposition is just, logical, and unanswerable, and should be maintained by this House. Ah, but, they say, you have increased the duty on earthenware ! Bvery speech that has been made on the other side of the House has cried out against the increase of duty on the earthen and glass ware used in the United States. Now, let us look iuto that matter. We admit there has been an increase ; nobody denies that. But it will be found, upon investigation, that the increase has been grossly ex aggerated by gentlemen on the other side of the House. What is the increase ? The present duty on plain white granite ware and on painted, decorated, and printed ware is forty per cent ad valorem. The proposed duty upon plain white granite ware is fifty-flve per cent ad valorem, and on plain white granite ware painted or decorated sixty-flve per cent ad valorem. That looks upon its face like a great increase, in the one case flf teen per cent, and in the other case twenty-five per cent ; but it will be found upon examination that the increase is not real. THE TARIFF OP 1883. II3 Let me show you, for you want the facts and only the facts. In the bill which is brought to this House by the Committee on Ways and Means there is a proposition to repeal what is denominated in Heyl's Digest, section 516. Now, this bill proposes to repeal that section. Let me read it : In determining the dutiable value of merchandise hereafter imported, there shall be added to the cost, or to the actual wholesale price or general market value at the tirae of exportation in the principal market of the country from whence the same has been imported into the United States — Now here are the items which are dutiable under that section — the cost of transportation, shipment and transshipment, with all the expenses in- eluded, from the place of growth, production, or manufacture, whether by land or water, to the vessel in which shipment is made to the United States ; the value of the sack, box, or covering of any kind in which such merchandise is contained ; commission at the usual rates, but in no case less than two and a half per cent ; and brokerage, export duty, and all other actual or usual charges for putting up, preparing, and packing for transportation or shipment. Under our bill that section is to be repealed. There is to be no duty on commissions ; there is to be no duty on inland charges ; there are to be no dutiable charges whatever. The duty is to be assessed upon the actual cost of the merchandise. Now, what difference does that make in the cost of a crate of crockery ware ? Let me call attention to an actual invoice which I have before me. I will take first an actual invoice of four average crates of the common white ware used by the people of this country generally. Of this grade of ware four crates cost in England $117.85, or, with the discounts that are given to the American buyer, the four crates will cost $79.77. The common earthenware which the ma jority of the people of this country use on their tables will cost on the average in England $19.94 per crate. That is the cost in England to the American importer. Now, add to that the various items mentioned in the section which I have just read. The package costs $3.97 ; inland freight and charges, $2.04 ; marine insurance, consul fees, and certificates, 54 cents ; mak ing a total of $6.73. Now, add to that the commission of two and a half per cent provided in this section which we propose to repeal, and we will have 60 cents more, making the total duty and the cost of the goods in cluding charges amount to $27.33 per crate. Now, that is the whole amount which is dutiable under the existing law. 114 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY, The present duty is forty per cent, and forty per cent of $27.33 is $10.93. That is the duty which the importer would pay under the present law upon a crate of common earthenware. What will he pay under the proposed law ? The duty under the proposed law is fifty-five per cent. On what? On the actual cost of the goods in England. What is that? It is $19.94; and fif ty-five per cent of $19.94 is $10.97. So that the duty under the proposed law will be $10.97, while under the present law it is $10.93. Now, in the light of that actual invoice, what becomes of the howl from that side of the House about the extravagant duties upon the plates of the poor people of this country ? Does anybody in this House know what one hundred and twenty- five pieces of cream-colored crockery ware, such as is used by the masses in this country, are sold at by retail now ? A dinner-set of one hundred and twenty-five pieces costs the consumer the enormous sum of $10. And take the iron-stone china, a still higher grade, and it will cost the consumer for the same number of pieces $12.50 to $14. Before we had a forty-per-cent duty in the United States, before our pottery manufactories had started, the consumers of the United States were paying to the English potters at Staffordshire, England, flfty per cent more than they are paying to-day. The result of the competition by American potters has brought down the price of com mon crockery ware to the low rate at which we find it to-day. It never was so cheap to the consumer as now. Now, I appeal to this side of the House, and to the protectionists of the other side, to stand by this young industry in the United States. It is not twenty years old to-day. We practically manufactured no white ware in this country until 1862 and 1863, and the only way that our potteries were then established was by the aid of the gold premium before resumption, which added a large incidental protec tion to that interest. It can not continue unless the duty asked for by this bill is granted. I admit that on the higher class of goods, those that are painted, decorated, or printed, and which the rich and luxurious use, the pro posed duty in the bill is an increase over existing rates. But that in crease is necessary. We are developing the art industry in the United States, and it must be fostered and nourished. Art schools are spring ing up all over the country. We have one in Cincinnati that decorates nothing but plain earthenware. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, the distinguished THE TARIFF OF 1883. 115 Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, has a notable one in his own city. It is in the interest of art, it is in the interest of the women and the girls who are pursuing this art for a livelihood, that I appeal to this House to stand by the duty proposed in this bill. The bill makes painted and decorated earthenware pay the same duty as decorated china ware, and this is right. It costs just as much of labor, skill, and materials to decorate earthenware as china ware, and it is often very difficult to detect the difference between the one and the other. It is surprising the amount of labor required and the number of hands through which this ware must pass before completion. In the growth of a single plate there are twenty-one processes ; each of these is a distinct department, operated by different workmen, and in each it has several handlings ; and this regular, every-day size, good quality plate is sold for five cents, or sixty cents per dozen. The imperfect ones, of which there are about one half, are sold at a large reduction from this price. Mr. Chairman, I wish to show from a paper published in Stafford shire, the city of the great potteries of England, how they are seeking to take the American market, and how the rivalry is ruinous to the industries of the United States. I read now from the arbitration between the workmen and the potters of Staffordshire, concerning a request of the workmen for increased wages. The manufacturers before the arbitration were showing why they could not pay the de manded rates. Let me read an extract or two. This is from Mr. Akerill, secretary of the employers : The potting trade was divided into several kinds — Amerioan trade, general foreign and colonial trade, and continental and home trades. In the evidence given by the employers in 1879 it was stated that there was very small prospect of their being able to get an advance in selling prices in the American trade. Owing to the increased price in coal, borax, and other materials, those engaged in that market endeavored in the spring of this year to obtain the moderate advance of flve per cent on selling prices on this account, and also because their bnsiness was unremunerative ; but after a struggle of some months' duration they failed in their efforts, as the supply of goods was more than equal to the demand, and they found that American manufacturers were taking their trade, as they con tinued to sell at old prices, while their English competitors were asking for an advance. The position of the Bnglish manufacturers was worse now than it was when the award of 8J per cent was made in their favor, as they had had to give more for coal, borax, and oxide of cobalt, with the prospect also of being unable to get an advance in selling prices. In the employers' evidence on the last occa sion it was said that they had no desire to reduce wages, except it was mutually advantageous ; and they contended that such had been the result, for it had as- 116 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. sisted the master to flnd more work, and for the workman to earn more wages. They further contended that to the majority of workmen the reduction of 8i per cent had not been a serious loss, if any ; for by increased diligence they had been enabled to earn fair wages, if not quite equal in amount to what they did prior to the award ; and manufacturers engaged in the American trade thought it would be most unwise at the present time to disturb the condi tions of labor, more especially as many of the manufacturers were selling goods to-day at lower prices than they were doing when the award was given by Lord Hatherton. If the business of the eountry and of the world generally should improve dur ing the next year, and the manufacturers at Martinmas next flnd themselves able to obtain better prices than they could now do, they would not hesitate to let the men share in that advance, without troubling an umpire to deoide the question. But to force up labor, and, in consequence, the selling prices of goods just now, could not but have a disastrous result for both masters and meu. In this, as in the American trade, the foreigners were their rivals, and they only waited for the labor market to be forced up here to take again the orders which should come to this district. That is to say, on the other side they have reduced the wages of their laboring people in order to capture the American market; and they do not want to increase wages, because, if they do, our American potteries will have a portion of our own market. We have only forty per cent of it to-day ; sixty per cent of the American market, as to pottery, goes to England, while we ought to control the whole of it, and will with proper protection, and to the ultimate benefit of the consumer. Then Mr. John Maddock, one of the most extensive Bnglish manufacturers of pottery, says that he has a brother over in New York watching the American trade, and if they can get a reduction of the duties on pottery, then they will be able to capture and hold the American market. I am told — indeed, I know — that this brother has been in the city of Washington ; and I have no doubt he is in some of these galleries to-day ; and I doubt not that a speech to be made hereafter — not by my friend from Illinois [Mr. Morrison], who stands before me, for he said in his speech yesterday that he conceded on crockery there was about seventeen and one half per cent growing out of these dutiable charges for commissions and inland transporta tion — but there will be inspired for somebody else a speech to be made to show why in the interest of American consumers, not in the interest of Bnglish potters (of course), this duty should be reduced. Hear what Mr. Maddock says : Mr. John Maddock was the flrst witness called on behalf of the manufactur ers, and was examined by Mr. E. Powell. He said he was a manufacturer of THB TARIFF OP 1883. HY white granite, engaged in the American trade. In his opinion the trade at the present time was better as regarded the men and worse as regarded prices ; that was to say, that in consequence of his having more work to do the men were kept more fully employed than they were a year ago, while the prices obtained for the ware were unremunerative. It was a fact that he was selling these goods now, in order to meet American competition, at a less price than he was doing at this time last year, and he thought it was the duty of manufacturers to continue sell ing their goods at the present price in order to keep the trade. At the beginning of last year he was a member of a committee of white granite manufacturers, and at a meeting called to consider the position of the trade it was resolved, in consequence of certain increases in the cost of production, to make an effort to increase the selling price of goods. The manufacturers then resolved to reduce their discounts 2i per cent. As one of that committee he had endeavored to carry out that resolve, but faOed to accomplish his objeot. Indeed, not only did he fail in reducing the discount to the amount stated, but he was aotuaily com pelled to lengthen the discount a further 2^ per cent. He had two manufactories engaged in this particular trade, and from the fact that he had a brother living in New York and was consequently kept familiar with the trade of that country, he concluded that they would feel more and more the competition they were sub jected to. They had been looking toward the probability of having a President in favor of free trade, but as the result of the recent election they were doomed to disappointment, though they might eventually obtain some relief from the pres ent heavy tariff. How the English manufacturer is looking to the Democratic party for help, and how he sighs for a free-trade President ! They want to keep our trade for the better prices which are to come with a reduc tion of duty. They are selling at a loss, upon their own confession, to keep the trade for future profits. Our friends on the other side of the House say that reduced duty means reduced cost to the consumer. This is not the opinion of their English allies. Reduction of duty means their profit and a corresponding injury to our consumers. Mr. Chairman, I must hasten on. I believe that it is the duty of American Congressmen to legislate for American citizens, and not for foreign manufacturers. Let us take care of our own interests, and look to the well-being of our own citizens first. [Applause.] Let me show you how England is watching the growth of free-trade senti ment in the United States. I read in the Pottery Gazette, published in England, in its number of May 7, 1882, that they have sent a special agent over here to look into our industries. That gentleman says that while in New York he attended the meeting of a free-trade league ; and I wish gentlemen to hear what he says about it. He says: I was informed by an importer [of course, by an importer] that a large publie meeting was to be held in Chickering Hall to " consider the necessity of an imme- 118 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. diate reform in the unjust, unequal, and iniquitous system of taxation called a protective tariff." This meeting was called by the New York Free Trade Club. I attended this meeting, and since doing so my hopes of the eventual aboli tion of the tariffs on raw materials and the considerably reducing of the duties on manufactured goods have been increased tenfold. The trouble which we had in England some thirty-flve years ago is now commencing in real earnest here. The work of the Cobden and Bright Corn Law League is repeating itself through out the States. It would be impossible in England to have found a more intelli gent and enthusiastic audience, and composed exactly of the class most interested in this question— manufacturers, importers, and the working-class consumers. A Senator from North Carolina was present, and gave one of the best speeches on the subject that it was ever my pleasure to listen to. The Club is disseminating literature, organizing lectures, and at the next Presidential election this can not fail to be felt. Sorae argue that the tariff benefits the manufacturers but is prejudicial to the working classes ; others argue that the working classes are alone benefited, and some again that it benefits both equally. It is not for us now to discuss who are most benefited. The vital part of the question lies far above that. The consumers are vastly in the majority, and it is unjust to tax the many for the benefit of the few. The processes of educating the working classes on the subjeet itself are more diflBcult than they were in England. The immensity of the country and the m- difference of the working classes to politics are serious drawbacks in the way, but nevertheless the work is rapidly advancing, and these trades, in conjunction with other leading industries in England, will at no very distant date see, I be lieve, a change. The question is one of suoh great importance to English manu facturers that it is impossible for us to give too much attention to it, and we shall closely watch the progress of events and the work of the New York Free Trade Club to which subscriptions are pouring in for providing the sinews of war. " The sinews of war," subscriptions of money, flowing in to defeat the doctrine of protection in the United States, to overturn the American system founded by that great Whig leader, Henry Clay ! But more : It will be for some years irapossible for Araerican manufacturers to produee all that is required by her 50,000,000 people, and the market lying so near us and being an offshoot of our own people, and speaking our own language, is for these reasons a market that must be closely watched. I may mention incidentally, as an evidence of the warm feel ing toward England, that the British national anthem was played on the large organ after the first leading speech was concluded. [Laughter and applause.] And if we could only have had the Marine Band of this city here yesterday upon the conclusion of the speeches of my honored friends from Virginia and Texas [Messrs. Tucker and Mills], and had theni play the " British national anthem," how beautifully appropriate such concluding service would have been ! [Laughter and applause.] But, in the absence of that, there were THE TARIFF OF 1883. 119 ripples of applause from every free trader on that side of the House, and murmurs of approbation from the agents of every importer who held places in the galleries of this House. Mr. Chairman, let me show, briefly, the condition of the work ingmen in some of the districts of England, which the other side of this House seems willing to transfer here. Hear me while I read the vivid description of the degradation of English labor furnished by Mr. Porter, correspondent of the New York Tribune, which appeared in that great paper last Monday. He tells how women and children work from early morn until late at night in the iron furnaces and foundries in the Black District, and the compensation they receive : The most startling aocount of the degradation of a branch of English labor comes from the Back country, a region which I shall not reach for three or four weeks. The facts, however, whioh I shall present in advance of going there are from the most trustworthy source, and were actually witnessed a few days ago. It takes one back to the days before Parliamentary interference compelled the white slave drivers of the manufacturing districts of England to stop using women as beasts of burden in the coalpits of this same region. I had expected to find poverty and distress and squalid misery in these great centers of industry, for we have that at home, in a land where the laborer is not obliged to work for ten or twelve shillings a week. I did not expect to read such a recital of man's greed as one that has just been made public as " a simple narrative of truth" from the Blaok Country. It appears that to-day, in spite of " factory act " and " school board," thousands of females, old and young, mothers and daughters, with their little children by their sides, toil by day and by night, in a locality about seven miles from the great free-trade city of Birmingham — the home of Bright and Chamberlain. In this gloomy district about 24,000 people are engaged in making nails and rivets. If they were men and boys the lowness of the wages would not seem so bad. But this account brings out the fact that 16,000 females are engaged day after day in the occupation. They are not all raature women ; daughters work by the side of mothers — daughters who, in their tender years, ought to be at home, if they have any home, or in bed, instead of working their weary arms in shaping, in the still, small hours of the morning, molten iron into the form of nails. Here is the pic ture drawn by a writer in the London Standard, who actually witnessed it, two or three nights ago : " In the middle of the shed which adjoins a squalid-looking house there is a whole family at work in the production of these nails— father, mother, sons, and daughters— daughters, too, very young in years, but with that sad look of premar ture age which is always to be noticed in the faces of child-workers. The gayety of youth, its freshness and its gentleness, seem to be crushed out of thera. In the center of the shed, with its raftered ceiling— a bleak and wretohed building, through the walls of which the wind readily finds its way— there is a ' hearth,' fed by ' gledes ' or breezes. Probably there is a girl or woman blowing at the bel lows, while the strips of iron from which the nails are made become molten. " In one of these forges was a mother and several children. The mother was 120 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. a woman probably forty years of age ; her youngest daughter, a fiaxen-haired girl with a sweet and winsome face, was certainly not more than twelve years of age. By the side of the hearth there was what is technically called the "Oliver" — a barrel-like construction, on the top of which is fixed the stamp of the particu lar pattern and size of the nail required to be made. The workmen and work women, by means of a wooden treadle — an industrial tread mill it ought more strictly to be called — shoot out the nails from the slot in which they are fixed. They have previously hammered the top of the incandescent metal with mascu line firmness so as to form the head of the nail." So inured do these poor women and girls become to this work that it is said they seem to work with more vigor than the men. — very often, indeed, they sup port their husbands and their fathers, who may have fallen into drunken habits. But the flrst question that will naturally be asked by those who demand cheap goods, even at this fearful degradation of woman, is, How much ean they earn? Again I quote frora the man who has witnessed the spectacle : " The remuneration they reoeive is incredibly small. It is no unusual thing — on the contrary, it is quite the usual custom — for a family of three or four per sons, after working something like fourteen hours a day, to earn £1 ($5) in a week. But out of this money there has to be deducted Is. Sd. for carriage to convey the nails to the ' gaffers,' as they are termed in the district ; then there is aUowance to be made for fuel and the repairing of machinery, which reduces the £1 to about 16s. dd. ($4.18) for three people who have coramenced to work every mom ing at half past seven or eight, and who have worked on through all the weary day, with no substantial food, until late at night." These poor laborers rarely or never taste meat from one week's end to the other. In the expressive but simple language of one workwoman, this is how they fare : " When the bread comes hot from the bakehouse oven on Saturday we eat it like ravenous wolves." The scenes of misery — misery so deep and dread ful that the most graphic pen can only faintly convey its depth of sorrow— that are witnessed in this region would hardly be believed in the United States ; and were I not quoting from English authority, of the highest character, I should be fearful of laying myself open to the charge of prejudice, so frequently made against those who would rather elevate than degrade labor, and who do not want cheapness at such a fearful cost. Women, it is said (and in a few weeks I shall go through this entire region and verify the words of ray informants), within a few days of their oonflnement, have been to work in the agony of exhaustion, in order to earn a few pence at the " hearth "—not the " hearth " of home, which Eng land, especially at this season of the year, so fondly boasts of, but the " hearth " of the forge. They have been known to return to work iu a day or two after childbirth, " emaciated in constitution, weak and weary for the want of simple nourishment," Their children, ragged and ill-fed, have had to lead miserable and wretched lives, with no hope before them but a life of wickedness and vice. What more dismal picture can be drawn than the following description of the cheerless homes of these poor creatures ? " The houses, if they deserve to be dignified with the word, are wretched in construction ; in raany instances they are more like hovels than human dwell ing places ; they seem to be devoid of all those ordinary conveniences which are to be seen in houses occupied by a better class of workpeople; they certainly THE TARIFF OF 1883. 121 shelter, and that is all, the toilers who for a few hours rest within their rickety waUs." This picture needs no comment or elaboration. Happily it has no counterpart in American civilization, and its introduction here would be abhorrent and un-American. The laboring men of this country understand this question and its relation to their wages. I beg to read from one of the petitions •from my district signed by the men engaged in the mills, mines, fac tories, and furnaces, and I have many of them ; and the Record daily shows like petitions from all sections of the country. They want no free trade ; they want no revenue reform which means reduced wages, and they declare it with no uncertain sound : To the Senate and House of Bepresentatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled : The petition of the undersigned workingmen, employes of the Ohio Iron and Steel Company at Lowellville, Ohio, respectfully sets forth the following facts : In common with other workingmen they have been prepared to acquiesce in the schedules of duties on foreign products recommended by the Tariff Commis sion, although not approving of all of the provisions of the schedules, their principal reason for accepting the schedules arising from a strong desire to see the tariff question settled upon a basis that would offer some hope of perma nence, and that would also offer some hope of stability to the industries of the country. They have, however, viewed with alarm the effects upon general business of the mere proposition of the Commission to reduce duties, and of the widespread apprehension that Congress may go even further in the work of reduction than the Commission has recommended, and they point to the recent stoppage of mills and factories and workshops, to the enforced idleness of many workingmen, to the shrinkage in values and the deoline in prices, to the largely increased number of financial failures, to the tendeney toward lower wages for labor, to the hesita tion of capital to engage in new enterprises, and to the withholding of orders for supplies by railroad companies and other great corporations, as conclusive proofs of the depressed condition of many of our leading industries and of the great shock which our whole industrial system has experienced. They believe that this serious and threatening condition of our industrial in terests can only be changed, and confidence and prosperity be restored to the country, by the firm refusal of Congress at its present session to do anything that will tend to increase the importation of foreign goods, or that will make competition between the manufacturers of this country and of other countries for the supply of our markets so severe that the wages of American workingmen must be still further and permanently reduced. Duties, therefore, should not be seriously decreased on any articles of iron or steel, and they should be increased on tin plates, steel wire rods, steel blooms, pig iron, cotton ties, and all " nonenumerated " articles. To decrease the duties on many iron and steel products whioh could be named could only result in an 122 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. increase of importations and a consequent increase of revenue, or else in a great reduction of wages, to be followed by general distress and discontent. The workingmen, whose names are appended, therefore pray that Congress will adopt no lower rates of duties on any foreign manufactured products than are recommended by the Tariff Commission ; and they further pray that Senators and Representatives in this crisis of our raanufacturing industries, which have done so rauch to develop the resources of the country and to increase and extend its prosperity, will take counsel of the experience of the past, whioh tells a warn ing story of the effeots upon American industries of a too-ready acceptance of the economic views of our foreign rivals. Shall their appeals go unheeded ? This side answers No, thrice NO. The fine-spun theories of the free traders weigh lightly with me against the hard facts gained by these men in the school of experi ence. Many of them know from realization the hardships which re sult to labor from free trade, and their voice has been steadily against its inauguration here. Mr. Chairman, we can have the Democratic doctrine of free trade whenever the Democratic party can make slaves of our laboring men, but not until then. [Applause on the Republican side.] Why, if labor was degraded on this side the Atlantic like the other, we might compete with the best manufactories of the world in any market. No lover of his race, no friend of humanity, wants reduced wages. I do not speak for capital. Capital can take care of itself. Rob it of its profits in any of the so-called protected industries, and it will seek other avenues of investment and profit. I speak for the workingmen of my district, the workingmen of Ohio, and of the country. Mr. Springer. They did not speak for you very largely at the last elec tion. Ah, my friend, my fidelity to my constituents is not measured by the support they give me! [Great applause.] I have convictions upon this subject which I would not surrender or refrain from advo cating if 10,000 majority had been entered against me last October [renewed applause] ; and if that is the standard of political morahty and conviction and fidelity to duty which is practiced by the gentle man from Illinois, I trust that the next House will not do, what I know they will not do, make him Speaker of the House. [Laughter and applause.] And I trust another thing, that that general remark, interjected here, coming from a man who has to sit in the next House, does not mean that he has already prejudged my case which is to come before him as a judge. Mr. Springer. Your constituents have done that for you. THE TARIFF OF 1883. 123 For if he has, then he would be subject to be taken from the panel of jurors, because he had already expressed an opinion in the case which was to be tried before him. [Applause.] No interest in this country is asking for a revenue tariff. Not a single petition has come to us for a tariff bill to be based upon Demo cratic principles. The farmers, for whose special interests the Demo cratic party assumes to speak, have not asked for it. They want to produce, and want the laboring men in the factories to consume their products and pay a good price for them. They have no desire to break down manufacturing, and transfer the vast army of men who are consumers and who work in the shops to the ranks of producers, to become competitors with them. They want a market, and pro tection enables them to have it. The wool grower wants no free trade or revenue tariff. He wants and should have full and adequate protection with all other interests. All interests want a settlement of this question, and it would be an irreparable wrong to permit this Congress to adjourn without passing a tariff bill recognizing fully the principles I have announced. Agitation is paralyzing business, creating uncertainty and distrust of the future, and the highest states manship will be illustrated and enforced by a prompt and speedy disposition of this whole question. Now, Mr. Chairman, I close, not with my own words, but the words of one whose memory we revere ; with the last words that were ever uttered on the floor of this House on a tarifE bill and in a tariff discussion by the lamented Garfield, whose successor [Mr. Taylor] sits on my left. Standing there where the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Haskell] sits to-day, that magnificent man closed his great speech on the Wood tariff debate with these patriotic words, which sounded out through this chamber and thrilled us all : For the present the world is divided into separate nationalities, and that Di vine command still applies : " He that provideth not for his own household has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." And until that era arrives de scribed by the gentleman from Virginia, patriotism must supply the place of uni versal brotherhood. For the present Gortchakoff can do more good for the world by taking care of Russia. The great Bismarck can accoraplish more for his era by being, as he is, a German to the core and promoting the welfare of the German Empire. Let Beaconsfield take care of England ; let MacMahon take care of Prance ; and let Americans devote themselves to the welfare of America. When each does his part for his own nation to promote prosperity, justice, and peace, all will have done more for the world than if all had attempted to be cos mopolitans rather than patriots. [Loud and prolonged applause.] JAMES A. GARFIELD. Address accepting the Statue of Garfield, presented by the State of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, Forty-Ninth Congress, January 19, 1886. [From the Congressional Beeord^ Mr. Speaker : Complying with an act of Congress passed July, 1864, inviting each of the States of the Union to present to National Statuary Hall the statues of two of its deceased citizens " illustrious for their heroic renown, or distinguished by civic or military serv ices " worthy of National commemoration, Ohio brings her first con tribution in the marble statue of James Abram Garfield. There were other citizens of Ohio earlier associated with the history and progress of the State and illustrious in the Nation's annals who might have been fitly chosen for this exalted honor. Govemors, United States Senators, members of the supreme judiciary of the Nation, closely identified with the growth and greatness of the State, who fill a large space in their country's history; soldiers of high achievement in the earlier and later wars of the Republic ; Cabinet Ministers, trusted associates of the martyred Lincoln, who had de veloped matchless qualities and accomplished masterly results in the Nation's supreme crisis ; but from the roll of illustrious names the unanimous voice of Ohio called the youngest and latest of her historic dead, the scholar, the soldier, the National Representative, the United States Senator-elect, the President of the people, the upright citizen, and the designation is everywhere received with approval and acclaim. By the action of the authorities of the State he loved so well and served so long, and now, by the action of the National Congress in which he was so long a conspicuous figure, he keeps company to-day with " the immortal circle " in the old Hall of Representatives, which he was wont to call the " Third House," where his strong features and majestic form, represented in marble, will attract the homage of JAMES A. GARFIELD. 125 the present and succeeding generations, as in life his great character and commanding qualities earned the admiration of the citizens of his own State and the Nation at large, while the lessons of his life and the teachings of his broad mind will be cherished and remem bered when marble and statues have crumbled to decay. James A. Garfield was born on the 19th day of November, 1831, in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and died at Elberon, in the State of New Jersey, on the 19th day of September, 1881. His boy hood and youth differed little from others of his own time. His parents were very poor. He worked from an early age, like most boys of that period. He was neither ashamed nor afraid of manual labor, and engaged in it resolutely for the means to maintain and educate himself. He entered Williams College, in the State of Massa chusetts, in 1854, and graduated with honor two years later, when he assumed charge of Hiram College, in his own State. In 1859 he was elected to the Senate of Ohio, being its youngest member. Strong men were his associates in that body, men who have since held high stations in the public service. Some of them were his colleagues here. In this, his first political office, he displayed a high order of ability, and developed some of the great qualities which afterward distinguished his illustrious career. In August, 1861, he entered the Union Army, and in September following was commissioned Colonel of the Forty-second Ohio Infan try Volunteers. He was promoted successively Brigadier and Major- General of the United States Volunteers, and while yet in the Army was elected to Congress, remaining in the field more than a year after his election, and resigning only in time to take his seat in the House, December 7, 1863. His military service secured him his first Na tional prominence. He showed himself competent to command in the field, although without previous training. He could plan battles and fight them successfully. As an officer he was exceptionally pop ular, beloved by his men, many of whom were his former students, respected and honored by his superiors in rank, and his martial qual ities and gallant behavior were more than once commended in general orders and rewarded by the Government with well-merited promotion. He was brave and sagacious. He filled every post with intelligence and fidelity, and directed the movement of troops with judgment and skill. Distinguished as was his military career, which in itself would have given him a proud place in history, his most enduring fame, his highest renown, was earned in this House as a representative of the people. Here his marvelous qualities were brought into full activity, 126 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. here he grew with gradual but ever-increasing strength, here he won his richest laurels, here was the scene and center of his greatest glory. Here he was leader and master, not by combination or scheming, not by chicane or caucus, but by the force of his cultivated mind, his keen and farseeing judgment, his unanswerable logic, his strength and power of speech, his thorough comprehension of the subjects of legislation. Always strong, he was strongest on his feet, addressing the House, or, from the rostrum, the assembled people. Who of us having heard him here or elsewhere, speaking upon a question of great National concern, can forget the might and majesty, the force and directness, the grace and beauty of his utterances. He was al ways just to his adversary, an open and manly opponent, and free from invective. He convinced the judgment with his searching logic, while he swayed his listeners with brilliant periods and glowing elo quence. He was always an educator of the people. His thoughts were fresh, vigorous, and instructive. In running over his public service here, covering a period of nearly eighteen years, crowding page after page of the Congressional Eecord, I have sought to settle in my own mind the question or questions in which he was greatest, and with which his name will be best remem bered. I confess it is no easy task. He was not a specialist in states manship. The subjects which he debated covered all the leading issues of the parties and the political policies of his time. He limited himself to no one topic and was confined to no single range of Na tional legislation. His thoroughness upon every question he touched was marked and habitual. The Congressional debates show him prominent in discussion of the military affairs of the Government in time of war, when mighty armies were to be mustered and the means provided for their maintenance ; the emancipation of the slave, and the problem of his future ; the reconstruction of the seceded States ; the amendments to the Constitution giving suffrage to the newly en franchised race ; the tariff ; refunding of the National debt ; general education ; the resumption of specie payment ; silver coinage ; the civil service ; the independence of the several branches of the Fed eral Government. He brought to this wide range of subjects vast learning and com prehensive judgment. He enlightened and strengthened every cause ho advocated. Great in dealing with them all, dull and common place in none, but to me he was the strongest, broadest, and bravest whon he spoke for honest money, the fulfillment of the Nation's promises, the resumption of specie payments, and the maintenance of JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 127 the public faith. He contributed his share, in full measure, to secure National honesty and preserve inviolate our National honor. None did more, few, if any, so much, to bring the Government back to a sound, stable, and constitutional money. He was a very giant in those memorable struggles, and it required upon his part the exercise of the highest courage. A considerable element of his party was against him, notably in his own State and some parts of his Congres sional district. The mad passion of inflation and irredeemable cur rency was sweeping through the West, with the greatest fury in his own State. He was assailed for his convictions, and was threatened with defeat. He was the special target for the hate and prejudice of those who stood against the honest fulfillment of National obligations. In a letter to a friend on New Year's eve, 1867-'68, he wrote : I have just returned from a tedious trip to Ashtabula, where I made a two- hours' speech upon finance, and when I came horae, came through a storm of paper-money denunciation in Cleveland, only to flnd on my arrival here a sixteen- page letter, full of alarm and prophecy of my political ruin for my opinions on the currency. To the same friend he wrote in 1878 : On the whole it is probable I will stand again for the House. I am not sure, however, but the Nineteenth District will go back upon me upon the silver ques tion. If they do, I shall count it an honorable discharge. These and more of the same tenor, which I might produce from his correspondence, show the extreme peril attending his position upon the currency and silver questions, but he never fiinched, he never wavered ; he faced all the dangers, assumed all the risks, voting and speaking for what he believed would secure the highest good. He stood at the forefront, with the waves of an adverse popular sentiment beating against him, threatening his political ruin, fearlessly contend ing for sound principles of finance against public clamor and a time serving policy. To me his greatest effort was made on this floor in the Forty-fifth Congress, from his old seat yonder near the center aisle. He was at his best. He rose to the highest requirements of the subject and the occasion. His mind and soul were absorbed with his topic. He felt the full responsibility of his position and the necessity of averting a policy (the abandonment of specie resumption) which he believed would be disastrous to the highest interests of the country. Unfriendly criticism seemed only to give him breadth of contemplation and boldness and force of utterance. Those of us who were so fortunate as to hear him can not efface the recollection of his matchless effort. Both sides of this Chamber 128 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. were eager listeners, and crowded galleries bent to catch every word, and all were sensibly moved by his forceful logic and impassioned elo quence. He at once stepped to the front without rival or contestant, secure in the place he had fairly earned. The press and the people received the address with warm approval, and his rank before the country was fixed as a strong, faithful, and fearless leader. No one thing he had ever done contributed so much to his subsequent eleva tion; no act of his life required higher courage; none displayed greater power ; none realized to him larger honors ; none brought him higher praise. Something of his real character and high aims as a legislator and public servant is disclosed in his private correspondence, from which I quote a single sentence : You know that I have always said that my whole public life was an experi ment to determine whether an intelligent people would sustain a man in acting sensibly on each proposition that arose, and in doing nothing for mere show or demagogical effect. I do not now remember that I ever cast a vote of that latter sort. His experiment, although a perilous one and fraught with ex treme danger, was yet successful, and that it was so is a high tribute not to him alone but to the justice and intelligence of the old West ern Eeserve district and the whole American people. He was sus tained, triumphantly sustained, over and over again by his immediate constituency. His State sustained him, and at last a Nation of fifty millions of people rewarded his courage and consistency with the highest honors it could bestow. Although elected. General Garfield never took his seat in the Senate of the United States. His legislative career ended here, where it had practically begun eighteen years before. His nomina tion for the Presidency occurred soon after the Legislature of Ohio had chosen him Senator, and came to him, as did all of his honors, because deserved. Although unsought, no mere chance brought him this rare distinction. His solid reputation rendered it not improbable at any time. He had the qualities which attached his great party to him and the equipment which filled the fullest measure of public and party requirement. From the stirring scenes at Chicago to the succeeding election he bore himself like a statesman and patriot fit for the highest trust. He advanced iu public confidence, aud when ever he met with or addressed the people he enlarged the circle of his admiring followers and friends. His brief term in the Presi dency, so tragically ended, gave promise of large usefulness to the JAMES A. GARFIELD. 129 country in the realization of the true American policy at home and abroad. His death filled the Nation with profound and universal sorrow, and all lands and all peoples sympathized in our overshadow ing bereavement. In General Garfield, as in Lincoln and Grant, we find the best representation of the possibilities of American life. Boy and man, he typifies American youth and manhood, and illustrates the benefi cence and glory of our free institutions. His early struggles for an education, his self-support, his " lack of means," his youthful yearn ings, find a prototype in every city, village, and hamlet of the land. They did not retard his progress, but spurred him on to higher and nobler endeavor. His push and perseverance, his direct and un deviating life purpose, his sturdy integrity, his Christian character, were rewarded with large results and exceptional honors ; honors not attainable anywhere else, and only to be acquired under the generous and helpful influences of a free government. He vvas twenty-three years of age when he confronted the more practical duties and the wider problems of life. All before had been training and preparation, the best of both, and his marvelous career ended before he was fifty. Few have crowded such great results and acquired such lasting fame in so short a life. Few have done so much for country and for civilization as he whom we honor to-day, stricken down as he was when scarce at the meridian of his powers. He did not fiash forth as a meteor; he rose with measured and stately step over rough paths and through years of rugged work. He earned his passage to every preferment. He was tried and tested at every step in his pathway of progress. He produced his passport at every gateway to opportunity and glory. His broad and benevolent nature made him the friend of all man kind. He loved the young men of the country, and drew them to him by the thoughtful concern with which he regarded them. He was generous in his helpfulness to all, and to his encouragement and words of cheer many are indebted for much of their success in life. In personal character he was clean and without reproach. As a citizen, he loved his country and her institutions, and was proud of her progress and prosperity. As a scholar and a man of letters, he took high rank. As an orator, he was exceptionally strong and gifted. As a soldier, he stood abreast with the bravest and best of the citizen soldiery of the Eepublic. As a legislator, his most enduring testimonial will be found in the records of Congress and the statutes of his country. As President, he displayed moderation and wisdom. 130 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. with executive ability, which gave the highest assurances of a most successful and illustrious administration. On the 19th day of December, 1876, the State of Massachusetts presented the statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams as her offerings to Memorial Hall. On that interesting occasion General Garfield said : As from tirae to time our venerable and beautiful hall has been peopled with the statues of the elect of the States, it has seemed to me that a Third House was being organized within the walls of the Capitol, a House whose raembers have received their high credentials at the hands of history and whose term of office will outlast the ages. Year by year we sec the elect of their country in eloquent silence taking their places in the American Pantheon, bringing within its sacred circle the wealth of those immortal memories which made their lives illustrious. And year by year that august assembly is teaching a deeper and grander lesson to all who serve their brief hour in these more ephemeral Houses of Congress. And now two places of great honor have just been most nobly filled. Mr. Speaker, another place of great honor we ffll to-day. Nobly and worthily is it filled. Garfield, whose eloquent words I have just pronounced, has joined Winthrop and Adams and the other illus trious ones, as one of "the elect of the States," peopling yonder venerable and beautiful hall. He receives his high credentials from the hands of the State which has withheld from him none of her honors, and history will ratify the choice. We add another to the immortal membership. Another enters " the sacred circle." In silent eloquence from the "American Pantheon" another speaks, whose life-work, with its treasures of wisdom, its wealth of achieve ment, and its priceless memories, will remain to us and our descend ants a precious legacy, forever and forever. THE MOEEISON TAEIFF BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Forty-eighth Congress, April 30, 1884. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 5,893) to reduce import duties and war-tariff taxes, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : I do not intend to be drawn into any extended discussion of the two systems of levying duties upon imports, upon which the two political parties of the country are in conflict, except as such discussion may be necessary to the consideration of the bill now before us. It is gratifying to know that at last the true sentiment of the Democratic party of the country dominates the party in which it has so long been in the majority, and no longer submits to the dictation of a factious minority within its own ranks. It is gratifying because the people can no longer be deceived as to the real purpose of the party, which is, to break down the protective tariff and collect duties hereafter upon a pure revenue basis, closely approximating free trade. Patent platforms and the individual utterances of Democratic states men will no longer avail, and false pretenses can no longer win. The bill reported from the Committee on Ways and Means is a proposition to reduce the duties upon all articles of imported mer chandise, except those embraced in two schedules, to wit, spirits and silks, twenty per cent. It is to be a horizontal reduction, not a well matured and carefully considered revision. Its author makes no such claim for it, but confesses in his recent speech, that while a revision and adjustment are " essential," " they are believed to be unattainable at the present session of Congress." It admits of no exception or discrimination, except only that the proposed reduction shall not operate to reduce the duty below the rate at which any article was 132 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. dutiable under the tariff act of 1861, commonly called " the Morrill tariff," and in no case shall cotton goods pay a higher rate of duty than forty per cent ad valorem, and wools and woolens a higher rate than sixty per cent ad valorem, and metals a higher rate of duty than fifty per cent ad valorem. With these exceptions and qualifications only eighty per cent of the duties now imposed by law are to be col lected under the bill we are now considering. The friends of this measure have felt called upon in advance to apologize for the smallness of the proposed reduction, and attempt to conciliate that large majority of their party which is in favor of the English system by declaring that this is only a step, and the first step, in the direction of the ultimate enactment of a pure revenue tariff. It is the first move toward the destruction of that system of tariff duties which has been recognized in this Government from its foundation as essential to its revenues and the proper care of its own industries. It is not because they are favorable to protection, even incidentally, that only twenty per cent reduction is proposed, but because, believing this is all they can accomplish this year, they invite all the friends of tariff reform to join them, with the assurance that next year, and for the following years, additional steps wiU be taken which will ultimately bring our tariff taxation to a strictly revenue basis ; which means a tax upon tea and coffee and such other articles as we can not produce or manufacture in the United States, and the release of all others from customs duties. My distinguished friend, the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, shakes his head in disapproval of that proposition. Why, this theory of taxation is as old as the Democratic party ! In the Forty-sixth Congress my distinguished friend and colleague [Mr. Hurd], who is one of the most conspicuous leaders of the free-trade party here to-day, introduced into this House a joint resolution a copy of which I have in my hand, in which he distinctly declared in the ninth section of his joint resolution, that to the end that the present tariff shall become one for revenue only the following changes should be made : 1. Upon all dutiable articles producing little or no revenue to the Govern raent the duty should be returned to a revenue basis or they should be placed on the free list. 3. The duty on tea and coffee should be restored. And that is what a revenue tariff means. It means collection of revenue upon the fewest possible articles, chiefly of necessity, that are consumed by the people of this country. THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I33 Mr. Hammond, Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question? Certainly.Mr. Hammond. What became of that resolution ? It was not passed by the Forty-sixth Congress. It was undertaken to be passed, but no vote was ever had thereon. A Member. That was a Democratic Congress. Yes, the Democrats were in control ; but that Democratic Con gress failed to do a great many things which it believed ought to be done. It lacked the courage of its convictions. The truth is, that has been a great trouble with the Democratic party for the last twenty-flve years ; failing to enforce its true convictions. Mr. Hammond. That was the argument or the opinion of one man, but not of the party. It was not only the opinion of one man, permit me to say, but that resolution was reported to the House by the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, upon which Committee was found such gentlemen as the distinguished Speaker of this House and the eminent gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker]. Whether it was the voice of the House or not, it was the voice of that great Com mittee which was the organ of the House on all economic questions. So that, before we enter fully upon the discussion of this particular measure, we might as well understand that this is but the first assault, which is to be followed by a succession of assaults, to the total over throw of the protective system ; and that the fight we now make is not against this bill only, but is directed as well against that which will surely follow if we permit this incipient step to be taken. This apprehension is fully justified by the report of the majority and by the utterances of the advocates of the bill, who do not hesitate to say that this is only " a measure of partial relief." " It is," says the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, " but an advance toward a more complete revenue reform." " It is," says the gentle man from New York [Mr. Hewitt], "a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. It does not touch the heart of the question. It is the entering wedge." While my friend from Texas [Mr. Wellbom], who concluded his speech a moment ago, declared this to be the initial step which doomed protection. This is notice of Democratic purpose without cover or conceal ment, and the friends of protection therefore know what this bill means. The issue is made up. The gage of battle is thrown down; 134 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. we cheerfully take it up, and appeal to the people, whose servants we are and to whose will, legally expressed, we will give cordial acquies cence. My first objection to this bill is that it is too ambiguous and un certain for a great public statute. It will involve dispute and con tention upon nearly every invoice, and will lead to frequent, expen sive, and annoying litigation. It will be difficult, if not impossible, of execution, requiring mathematical experts to determine the assess able duty upon practically every bill of imported goods. It will not only require mathematical experts, but it will require a judge familiar with the interpretation of law, to give construction to and harmonize if possible its several inconsistent and conflicting provisions. I doubt if any member of the Ways and Means Committee would be bold enough to venture upon its administration ; certainly my friend from Texas [Mr. Mills] would not be willing to undertake its execution ; and I am sure that the Chairman, if himself required to give it force and construction, would never have brought it into this House, and would be the first to pray for its repeal. On a large number of articles under the bill the duties will be de termined by the Morrill tariff of 1861. Under the cotton schedule there will be four classes; flax, four classes; metals, twenty-one classes ; books and sugar, one class each ; wood, two classes ; earthen ware, two classes ; provisions, four classes ; chemical products, six classes ; sundries, twenty-three classes, the duties upon which the act of 1861 will determine and control, so that the Morrill act will be in constant requisition and use in the determination of duties. It would have been better legislation upon the part of the majority, more cer tain and statesmanlike, to have proposed a re-enactment of the Mor rill tariff, taking it as a whole, than the uncertain and incongruous bill they now offer. Again, where an article pays an ad valorem rate under one act, and a speciflc or compound rate under the other, difficulties at once arise. Of these there are one hundred and eighteen classes, of which only four pay a speciflc duty under the act of 1861, and only three pay an ad valorem duty, and four pay compound duties under the proposed bill ; the remainder pay specific duties. These represent cases only where there is no doubt of the effect of the bill, and this is the legis lation which the statesmen of the Forty-eighth Congress offer us. Mr. Morrison. Would the bill commend itself to the favor of the gentleman it the Morrill tariff clause was stricken out ? Would the gentleman then give the bill his support ? THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 135 I will answer my distinguished and honorable friend by saying that I would not support this bill if it was a straight 20-per-cent re duction of the duties of 1883, and I will tell him why I would not. Some articles of imported merchandise can better stand a reduction of twenty per cent than others. A 20-per-cent reduction will destroy some of the great manufacturing industries of the United States, whUe a few others might live. It would be death to some and only distress to others. That is why I would not vote for a simple 20-per- cent reduction, horizontally applied to every article imported into this country. There are other articles not included in either enumeration. There will be found many difficult and perplexing questions arising from the various rates of duties under the two acts. It will be diffi cult, if not impracticable, to conform the rates under the act of 1861 to the classification and description of articles and the rates under the act of 1883. Where the description or classifications are different, how will you ascertain the dutiable rate ? The mode of levying either the ad valorem, specific, or compound duties is so confusing, requir ing so much calculation, that it is almost impossible to disclose in the time allotted to me the difficulties to be encountered in the endeavor to administer the proposed bill. To illustrate, take iron ore; an article subject under the act of 1861 to an ad valorem rate, and un der the proposed bill to a specific rate. The rate under the present law is 75 cents per ton, and by the bill under consideration is subject to a reduction of 20 per cent, making it 60 cents per ton. Under the act of 1861 it is subject to a duty of 20 per cent ad valorem. There was imported in the year 1883, 609,322 tons of iron ore, at an average cost of $2.61 per ton. The average price of $2.61 per ton is an exceptionally low price. A large proportion of the importations of this article the last year must have cost more than $3 per ton. If there should be none costing above $3 there will be no difficulty, but if it should cost over $3, say $3.05 per ton, the 20 per cent will be 61 cents, and the duty under the proposed bill would, instead of 60, be 61 cents, and so on, varying in every instance where there is any ex cess above $3 per ton. By a reduction of one ninth of the proposed specific rates or its equivalent ad valorem, 22.73 per cent, w'e reduce it below the act of 1861, and in every case where the value exceeds one sixth or more of the present value of $2.61 per ton the rates would have to be readjusted ; so that in a cargo of 1,000 tons, or less, there might be a dozen diflerent rates. Take files, rasps, and floats. The difficulties are greatly increased. 136 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Under the act of 1861 these are dutiable at 30 per cent ad valorem-, under the act of 1883, at so much per dozen, according to length. There are four classes, namely, four inches and under ; from four to nine inches ; from nine to fourteen inches ; and over fourteen inches — all at different rates. You must ascertain the exact value of each per length, and calculate upon each to find the precise reduction or rate, so as not to be below the rate of 1861, or above the maximum rate, as provided in the proposed bill. A similar difficulty is found as to wood screws, where the rates are so much at variance. I would like some of the advocates of this bill to sit down and make a calculation upon the articles I have named and give their dutiable rates. I am sure before they have finished their work they would pronounce this bill too complicated for human ingenuity and too uncertain for public law. The bill is full of just such complications and abounds in incalcu lable inconsistencies and confusion, is indefinite and indeterminable, and is the work not of experts, is the outgrowth not of knowledge or information or study of the subject, but rather of the desire to do something — to take one step, no matter where it leads or what results may follow. Sulphur under the act of 1861 paid a duty of 20 per cent. Under the proposed bill, $8 per ton — equal to 20.56 per cent. A slight rise of one fortieth of the present cost would have the effect of changing the proposed rates, and the rates would be different upon every in voice valued in excess of $40 per ton. Take brass sheathing or yel low metal, gold leaf, metallic pens, grindstones, chloroform, hops, magnesia (calcined), sal soda, etc. : the change in values (and values are constantly changing) would make the duties different and the difficulties of ascertaining them greater. In every instance where the specific is substituted for the ad valorem rate, or vice versa, the value of each invoice would have to be ascertained to find out the equivalent specific for the ad valorem rate of 1861, and perhaps in one single cargo there would be a dozen or more different rates upon the same article, though these articles might vary only slightly in value. The absurdities of this bill, says an officer conversant with the revenue law, will be apparent to any one at all familiar with the prac tical workings of our complicated tariff. By law the collector is charged with deciding the rate of duty and the appraiser with deter mining the value. Practically, however, the appraising officers in dorse upon the invoice both the statement of value and the rate of THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I37 duty which in their judgment the goods should bear. At the larger ports of entry, like Boston and New York, this work is generally done by the grade of officers known as examiners, and their returns are generally accepted by the collector as the basis for liquidating the en try. We will then see what work an examiner would have to do in computing the rates of duty, taking first, say, cotton goods. Under the tariff of March 3, 1883, cotton thread and cotton yarn pay eight different rates of duty dependent on value, the duty rang ing from 10 cents to 48 cents a pound. The examiner will have first to determine the value of the merchandise, and which of the several eight different rates of duty it has to pay. Then he will have to take 80 per cent of the rate applicable and see what ad valorem rate it amounts to. Then, if the rate is higher than 40 per cent ad valorem, all his labor has gone for naught, for the goods are to pay no higher duty than 40 per cent ad valorem, except such 40 per cent may be lower than the duty imposed by the Morrill tariff of 1861. So he examines the Morrill tariff and finds that spool and other threads of cotton pay 30 per cent ad valorem; that cotton yam and cotton warps were not mentioned therein, and so probably fall into the classi fication of manufactures of cottons not otherwise provided for, which also pay 30 per cent ad valorem ; so once more he raises the duty up again to 40 per cent. He next takes an invoice of cotton cloth and attempts to classify it. The rates of duty on cotton cloth are depend ent upon various criteria : First, upon the number of threads to the square inch; second, whether the goods are unbleached; third, whether they are bleached ; fourth, whether they are dyed, colored, stained, or painted. These complex conditions have to be ascertained and the rates of duty per square yard first applied by the act of March 3, 1883. When the amount of duty on this basis has been ascertained, the appraiser strikes off 20 per cent, making the 80 per cent under the Morrison bill. Then he has to appraise the goods for value, and if 80 per cent of the rates imposed by the act of March 3, 1883, does not exceed the 40-per-cent restriction of the Morrison bill the examiner may rest contented, unless he again finds that his work is overruled by the remaining conditions found in the act of 1861, which may determine the whole thing. In the act of 1861 the rate of duty was dependent upon, first, whether the goods exceeded 140 threads to the square inch ; then from 140 to 200 ; then for goods having more than 200 threads to the square inch. In the act of 1883 the duty is dependent, first, upon goods having less than 100 threads to the square inch ; then between 138 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. 100 and 200 ; and then exceeding 200 ; so that the conditions and classification of the two acts are not the same. Now take Schedule K, relating to wool and woolens. By the Morrison bill 80 per cent of existing duties are to be imposed, pro vided that none of the goods contained therein shall pay a higher duty than 60 per cent ad valorem, coupled again with the check found in the Morrill tariff. The duties imposed by this schedule have been carefully adjusted with reference to the various qualities of goods, their position in the trade, and to a large extent with reference to the position they occupy in the various branches of American manufactures. It is now symmetrical, and easily understood. To say that no goods under that schedule shall pay any more than 60 per cent, as does the Morrison bill, is to do violence to whatever principle there may be in the schedule. Besides, in comparing the wool tariff in the act of March 3, 1883, with that in the Morrill tariff, it is found that the groups and classifications are so entirely different as to make comparison in many cases impossible. Now, turn to the iron tariff. Eighty per cent of the existing duties are to be imposed on articles in Schedule C, provided that none of the articles shall pay higher duties than 50 per cent ad valorem. If there is any merit whatever in the tariff as it now stands as a protection to American manufacturers in their competition with the cheap labor of Europe, by which they have been enabled to develop the various branches of American manufactures, a reduction to a common level of 50 per cent ad valorem is neither sensible nor just. By such a rule there are many articles on which the duties have been carefully adjusted, where the ad valorem duty of 50 per cent would increase the trouble consequent upon undervaluations. Then, again, the bill provides that when under existing law any of said articles are grouped together and made dutiable at one rate, noth ing in that act shall operate to reduce the duty below the highest rate at which any article was dutiable under the Morrill tariff. What is meant by " grouping together " is not explained by the Chairraan of the Committee, and will prove a constant source of contention and litigation. In the act of 1883 iron or steel wire of various dimensions have separate classifications. The rates have been carefully adjusted. In the Morrill tariff, wire not less than one fourth of an inch in diam eter is classified with steel in ingots, bars, and sheets, and is dutiable at various rates, according to value, beginning with 1^ cents per pound or 2 cents per pound, according as the value is over or under THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 139 7 cents ; but then, again, taking the tariff of 1883, we find that iron or steel wire above No. 5 is not enumerated, and pays 45 per cent ad valorem duty, so that we have to ascertain whether the 45 per cent ad valorem, less the 20 per cent reduction, is more than the 1^ cents per pound or 2 cents per pound imposed by the Morrill tariff. The changes in trade or commercial designations of the various manufactures of metal since the Morrill tariff was enacted have been so great that the present tariff can not be compared with it. There fore it would be in many cases difficult if not impossible to tell to what group many of the articles should be assigned. The ambiguity and uncertainty in the tariff seriously embarrass all branches of trade as well as the administrative officers of the De partment. If a person is intending to engage either in the manufac ture or importation of any article affected by the tariff, he naturally wants to know beforehand the rate of duty he will have to pay or the amount of protection he will find in the existing tariff. He gets no light from this bill. He must grope in the dark. In ascertaining the rate of duty on an article that pays a com pound duty — that is, a duty upon both quantity and value — under the proposed bill, and an ad valorem or specific rate under the act of 1861, a mathematical calculation i^uld be necessary in each case to ascertain what rates to assess ; first, to ascertain whether it is at or above the rate named in the act of 1861, or as to the restric tion of the proviso in the proposed bill touching cottons, metals, and woolens. And all these absurdities, complications, and incongruities a ma jority of this House are asked to solemnly enact into public law, which the people of this country are asked to submit to, because there are gentlemen who are unwilling to sit down and carefully mature a dis criminating tariff act. The advocates of this bill criticised the Eepublicans of the last Congress because they created a Tariff Commission, asserting that such action was a confession of the incapacity of a majority of the Committee on Ways and Means to revise the tariff. By reason of in capacity, as they declared, the Committee " farmed out " the subject to a Commission of nine experts. Much opprobrium was sought to be put upon the majority because of its alleged abrogation of a constitu tional duty. What can be said of the capacity of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means as evidenced by the bill now before us ? It is a confession upon its face of absolute incapacity to grapple 10 140 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. with the great subject. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] The Morrison bill will never be suspected of having passed the scrutiny of intelligent experts like the Tariff Commission. This is a revision by the cross-cut process. It gives no evidences of the expert's skill. It is the invention of indolence, I will not say of ig norance, for the gentlemen of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means are competent to prepare a tariff bill. I repeat, it is not only the invention of indolence, but it is the mechanism of a botch workman. A thousand times better refer the question to an intelligent Commission which will study the subject in its relations to the revenues and industries of the country than to submit to a bill like this. They have determined upon doing something, no matter how mis chievous, that looks to the reduction of import duties ; and doing it, too, in spite of the fact that not a single request has come either from the great producing or great consuming classes of the United States for any change in the direction proposed. With the power in their hands they have determined to put the knife in, no matter where it cuts nor how much blood it draws. It is the volunteer surgeon, un bidden, insisting upon using the knife upon a body that is strong and healthy ; needing only rest and release from the quack whose skill is limited to the horizontal amputation, and whose science is barren of either knowledge or discrimination. And then it is not to stop with one horizontal slash ; it is to be followed by another and still another, until there is nothing left either of life or hope. And the doctri naires will then have seen an exemplification of their pet science in the destruction of the great productive interests of the country, aud " the starving poor," as denominated by the majority, will be found without work, shelter, or food. The sentiment of this country is against any such indiscriminate proposition. The petitions before the Ways and Means Committee from twenty to thirty States of this Union appeal to Congress to let the tariff rest where it is, in general, while others are equally importunate to have the duties on two or three classes of American products raised. The laboring men are unanimous against this bill. These appeals should not go unheeded. The farmers for whom you talk so eloquently have not asked for it. There is no appeal from any American interest for this legislation. It is well, if this bill is to go into force, that on yesterday the other branch of Congress, the Senate, passed a Bankruptcy Bill. It is a fitting corollary to the Morrison bill ; it is a proper and necessary companion. The Senate has done wisely, in anticipation of our ac- THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 141 tion here, in providing legal means for settling with creditors, for wiping out balances, and rolling from the shoulders of our people the crushing burdens which this bill will impose. The Chairman of the Committee reporting the bill falls into a grave error, not intentionally of course, in his use of the table fur nished by the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, which, if not ex plained, may mislead. It will be found that the reduction secured by the bill of last year was not as small as is alleged, but far greater, as I will show. It will appear from that statement that there has been a reduction in receipts of duties amounting to $14,752,371, notwithstanding an increase of rates upon earthenware and china and on still wines, on champagnes, which are included in the importations under the head of " all other dutiable goods." The small difference of 1.74 per cent shown by the table exhibited by the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in his report accompanying this bill between the old law and the act of March 3, 1883, is delusive, and arises from the low price of sugar and other merchandise since the new law went into effect, and therefore does not fairly disclose the actual percentage of reduction. In the year 1882 there was imported 976,099,448 pounds of sugar, valued at $44,432,310 at a specific rate of 2.37 cents per pound, equal to 52.17 per cent ad valorem at an average value of 4.55 cents per pound ; while in 1883, 1,205,893,322 pounds, valued at $46,793,822 at an average specific rate of 1.95, equal to 50.26 per cent ad valorem at an average value only of 3.88 cents per pound, being 14.72 per cent less than cost of 1882. The difference between 2.37 cents per pound in 1882 and 1.95 cents per pound in 1883 is forty-two hundredths of one cent per pound less, or a reduction of 17.72 per cent on sugar. The importation of sugar in 1883 was one fifth of the value of the entire importations, and it is fair to assume that the exceptionally low price of other imported articles will fully account for the small apparent reduction shown by the table of the Chairman of the Com mittee. The bill will not secure the results claimed for it by its advocates in decreasing the revenues of the Government. The history of all tariff legislation is that a decrease of duty increases the imports tem porarily and therefore swells the revenue from that source. The honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] said, in a speech in this House on May 8, 1878, that " a decrease of duty will increase the imports still more," and of course add to the revenues. 142 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Eaton], in his speech made on March 25, 1884, said of this bill : The theory of my friend from Arkansas, like the bill of my distinguished friend the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, has not been quite sufliciently well considered, beoause that bill, if it ever becomes a law, will increase the surplus in the Treasury, and not decrease it. Mr. Hewitt said, March 26, 1884 : But what I fear in regard to the bill reported from the Committee on Ways and Means is, it may be delusive in that particular, and, so far from being a meas ure of reduction of revenue, it may turn out to be a measure for increase of rev enue. I do not say that it will be so. I hope that it will not ; but if the free Hst is made larger, if it is extended, then it is certain that the revenue will be re duced, but it is only by enlarging the free list that we ean be sure of any such result. Mr. Mills said that " this bill would increase importations " and correspondingly increase the revenues against which every interest is opposed. Failing to accomplish that, where is the virtue of this measure ? What eflect can it have except to disturb the business of the country, diminish values, and decrease the price of labor ? The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills] was greatly mistaken in opening his speech on April 15th, when he declared the demand for a reduction of duties upon imports was universal throughout the United States. He omitted to state from what source he derived his information and from what quarter this demand came. I have been unable to find a single petition presented to this House or referred to the Committee on Ways and Means by the House suggesting, much less demanding, the reduction of import duties proposed by this bill, or any other reduction of customs duties. On the contrary, the petitions have been uniformly in opposition to the enactment of this measure. I have been unable to find any sentiment in the United States, except in the utterances of the Democratic majority in this House, and outside of the city of my distinguished friend [Mr. Dorsheimer] who sits before me, being the free-trade clubs of his and the neigh boring city ^Brooklyn, any sentiment in favor of the passage of this bill. There is where it exists, and it is a remarkable fact that that class of gentlemen " neither sow nor reap, and do not gather into barns." Mr. Kasson. And the lilies? Yes, the lilies. " They are like the lilies of the field ; they toil ?ot, neither do they spin." [Laughter.] THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I43 They have fixed incomes, belong to the independent and wealthy classes, who now buy most of their goods abroad, and hope to buy them cheaper if the duties are reduced. The gentleman from Texas justifies his advocacy of this measure on the ground that it is in the interest of the farmers of the United States, and a large portion of his speech was devoted to showing that with this reduction the markets of the world would be open for the competition of our food producers. Why, sir, they are open now. He announced the startling doctrine that a foreign market was better than a home market for the farmer ; that is, it was better that the farmer should ship his products to other nations rather than to sell them to consumers at home, and that the tarifl.was a restraint and obstruction to the sale of our products abroad. He did not disclose how or in what way. I take it the farmer will send his products abroad when there is a demand for them, and only then. He did not show us in what way the benefit was to accrue. He did not demon strate that the price received by the producer would be larger if sold to a foreign consumer than if sold to our own people. It has always seemed to me that it was infinitely better that the farmer should have a market at home, a market at his very door, than to be compelled to seek a market in distant countries and among dis tant populations. As long as there is a demand at home it is a self- evident proposition that it is better than to seek consumers abroad, and that the home demand is safer, more reliable, and more profitable than any foreign market can possibly be. American buyers are the best in the world. He did not tell the Committee what is the fact, that ninety per cent of the food products of the United States is con^ sumed at home, and that only about ten per cent has to find a market abroad. He diflers, too, from his colleague [Mr. Hewitt], who said in his speech, March 26th : Now how can the farmer be benefited? What does he want? He wants to sell his productions at a higher price. Ami how is he going to sell his products at a higher price as the grain trade stands to-day? The markets of Europe are overcrowded with food products. To-day the farmer is met at Liverpool and London by the food products of India, and that competition, so far from being less, is going to increase. Therefore the farraer has reached the lirait of the de mand for his products in foreign lands. Where, then, is he to find his market for them? He, hi ust find his market at horae ; and how is he going to get it at home ? Whyy'only by one method — manufactures must be fostered and grow, and not be djininished. Mr. Moj4eison. What per cent is consumed by the raanufacturing people ? Theylconsume all that they need and no more ; and the gentle- 144 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. man's proposition would drive these workingmen, who are the con sumers of the products of the farm, out of the factories and force them into the great fertile lands of the West, and instead of their being the consumers of the products of the farmer they would become his competitors. This foreign market, for which every tarifl idealist and every Democratic free trader longingly sighs, is only mythical in the present condition of our country. We should capture the home market first, and get full control of it, before we seek the foreign market. We can not command a foreign market until we can control our own. It seems to me that proposition is so plain and simple that it must commend itself to every intelligent man. The talk about free raw material and the necessity for our having it in order to compete with the markets in other lands is wholly ideal. Eaw materials are partially free now when manufactured for export purposes, and any citizen of the United States can import a large number of materials and manufacture them, and if he exports he receives back from the Government ninety per cent of the duty he paid upon such article or material. Sections 3019, 3020, 3021, 3023, 3024, and 3026 of the Eevised Statutes of the United States declare in their several provisions that on certain materials imported here for manufacture, when put into the finished product and exported, the manufacturer is entitled to a return of all the duty paid less ten per cent. So that if we are ready now for the foreign market, if we are ready to compete with Eng land and France and Belgium by the use of free raw materials from the other side, we have them in a large measure now, and no further legislation is needed to encourage our export trade. When we get able to supply ourselves with all the articles we use and employ, we can then address ourselves more intelligently to the foreign trade. This bill will aid in diminishing our great market for agricultural products. The market which consumes 90 per cent of our farm products is worth preserving, and is infinitely more im portant and valuable thau any other. Let me pause here to say that free raw material has nothing to commend it to legislative favor which is not common to every other American product. The same necessity for protection, within reason able limits, applies to what are commonly called raw materials as to the finished or more advanced manufacture. There is nd such thing as raw materials distinguished from other products of labor. Labor enters into all productions, the commonest as well as the higl'ier forms. THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I45 The ore costs something to mine it ; the coal, to take it from the ground ; the stone, to quarry it ; much labor enters into the produc tion of wool ; leather costs something to tan ; and to the extent that labor enters into their preparation, what are usually termed raw materials should have ratable protection with the completed product. Pig iron is the raw material for bar iron, and yet no one has been heard to advocate free pig iron. Cloth is the raw material for the tailor, the finest steel is the crude material of the watchmaker, and so on interminably. There can be no just line drawn, and no reason exists for such a discrimination. When the country is ready for free trade let us have it in all things without exception or restriction. We forget in all our discussions the growth of the population of the United States. We forget that about every twenty years a nation of people comes to our shores, whose labor we employ and whose wants we supply. Our population in the last fourteen years has increased fully 17,000,000 — half of the entire population of Austria, three times the population of Belgium, seventy per cent more than the entire population of Brazil, equaling the population of Egypt, and one half of the population of Great Britain and Ireland. These become the consumers of the products of the farm and increase them, and en large our market. They are the best customers and the most certain and reliable. The farmer is best off with a home market. The farmer himself knows this, and no amount of rhetoric can deceive him. The gentle man from New York [Mr. Hewitt], himself a practical business man, recognizes it. The fathers of the Eepublic saw it and proclaimed it. We can only have a profitable home market by encouraging ihanu- facturing industries. " Plant the forge by the farm " is the' old doc trine, and it is as true now as it was when uttered. Thoraas Ewing, of Ohio, a distinguished United States Senator, expressed the necessity for manufacturing and its benefits to agri culture in the following language, on February 17, 1832, the tariff then being under consideration in the Senate : In short, every portion of the world was searched by our intelligent inerchants, and all combined did not furnish a market adequate to our surplus productions. Every farmer in Ohio long knew and felt the pressure consequent upon this state of things. Year after year their stacks of wheat stood unthrashed, scarcely worth the manual labor of separating the grain frora the straw ; so low was it reduced in comparison with manufactured articles, that I have known forty bushels of wheat given for a pair of boots. Such was the state of things in the Western country prior to and at the time of the revision of the tariff in 1834. Then, sir, at the period of which I am speaking — 1833, 1833, and 1824 — which 146 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. I refer to as the season of the greatest agricultural depression, especially in the West, we had supplied and were supplying every country upon the globe with our products to the extent that they would receive, and even beyond it. We had glutted every market, and by the excess of the supply which we furnished we less ened the aggregate sum whioh we received in retum. This was the case with every article of our products, whether of the forest or the field ; everything which we had to export or which our labor would produce, and which could be made the subject of exchange, was sent abroad and exchanged for foreign manufactured articles. The state of things which I have dwelt upon somewhat at large was that of our whole country in 1828-'34. It was the situation of the farmer, with his ten boys, who could find employment for but eight ; and such more especially was his situation in the Middle and Western States. The low state to which our farming interest was reduced, the low price to which our fine lands and the products of our lands had sunk, produced unexampled pecuniary distress and called aloud for relief. Our statesraen were not slow in discovering the cause of the evil and in applying the remedy ; hence their united support of the tariff of 1824, the merit of which I claim for the members from the Middle and Western States. The honorable Senator graphically describes the effect upon agri culture of the low tariff prior to 1834, and subsequent history and experience are only confirmatory of what he so strikingly said then. And to such a feast the controlling wing of the Democratic party in vites you again ! We invite your attention to another and better picture. The growth of this country in the last twenty years is the wonder of the world. Our manufacturing products have increased from $1,885,- 000,000 in 1860 to $5,369,000,000 in 1880. Our agricultural develop ment shows a like gratifying progress. There was an increase in the acreage in farms from 407,000,000 acres in 1860 to 536,000,000 acres in 1880, an increase of thirty-two per cent ; and in the value of farms an increase from $6,645,000,000 in 1860 to $10,197,000,000 in 1880. We started in 1830 with. 23 miles of railway. In 1860 we had 30,635 miles ; in 1880 we had 84,393 miles ; in 1881 we had 94,147 miles ; and now we have about 120,000 miles. Our material wealth has increased beyond parallel in everything which goes to make the Nation strong and self-dependent. The energies of our people have opened up new avenues of industrial development, have overcome what seemed in superable barriers. The finances of the country were never in better condition than to-day. Our exports during the last fiscal year were over $804,000,000, as against $733,000,000 during the preceding year, an increase of nearly $71,000,000. The value of the exports of manu factures from the United States during the last year was $112,000,000 in round numbers, as against $103,000,000 during the preceding year, / THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I47 and exceeded the exports of any previous year in the history of the country. Our exports have exceeded our imports over $100,000,000, so that the balance of trade is in our favor. We are rapidly reducing the National debt, and have been doing so for years at an unexampled rate. Our interest charge has been reduced, and we present the spec tacle of a Government, in less than twenty years from the close of a great, destructive, and wasteful war, with unprecedented credit and a surplus of revenue in the Treasury. This has all been accomplished during an era of protective tariffs, which the free traders characterize as extortion and robbery upon the people, destructive of their energies, and obstructive to industrial progress and National development. How it contrasts with the low tarifl period from 1847 to 1860, when we had practically a revenue tariff, such as is advocated by the Democratic party of to-day ! It was a period of universal business depression, deficiencies in the public Treasury, when both Nation and individuals were compelled to bor row money at the most exorbitant rates of interest ; and it was in this condition that the Eepublican party found the country when it came into power on the 4th of March, 1861. The Democratic policy of the tariff was immediately reversed ; and the splendid achievements in every department of industrial activity, the large revenues of the Government, its improved credit, and its present fiourishing monetary conditions are the highest vindication of its policy. Every class in the country has beeu benefited. The necessities of life have been cheapened to the consumer. Every article of merchandise that has been made possible of manufacture in this country by reason of pro tective duties has been cheapened, and none have been enhanced in price. England is more concerned to-day for the passage of this bill than any citizen or class of citizens of the United States, unless it be the importers. She is watching with the deepest concern the progress of this bill, and she does not refrain from saying that if it becomes a law it will put money into the pockets of her manufacturers. She does not hesitate to declare that from selfish motives she wants the full success of the Democratic party in this measure. Here is what her trade papers say. The London Iron and Coal Trades Eeview for December 7, 1883, Our best customer for iron, steel, hardware, and. many other goods has long been the United States, notwithstanding the very heavy duties that are there levied, and the greatest interest is always manifested by our business men in 148 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. American politics where they are likely to affect the tariff. It is pretty evident that the protectionists are no longer to have it all their own way. The Machinery Market, a London publication, said, in Januury last: The year is likely to see important political changes on the other side of the Atlantic whioh will have their influence on business here. Events move rapidly in Araerica, and the coraing triumph of the Democratic party there means the triumph of the free-trade movement in the States. It is not to be supposed that there will be free imports into the States, but " a tariff for revenue only, which is the leading cry of the Democrats, wiU open an immense additional field for the sale of English manufactured goods in the States. The same journal said, in March last : It appears, therefore, on the whole, we are buying nearly as much in the way of manufactures in iron and steel, machinery, etc., from the States as we are sell ing to thera. The result must be looked upon as miserable, and is not equal to our position as a manufacturing country. The United States is a producing country, not a raanufacturing, in the sense to which we apply this term to our selves. It is high time we turned our attention actively elsewhere for a better customer, not forgetting all the same to watch the opportunities which the tariff reduction in the States will open out to us. The London Iron and Coal Trades Eeview for February 8, 1884, Though our tr^e with the United States has fallen off very much of late, that oountry still oocuples the position of our leading customer, and every change in its condition yet nas'its influence upon our market. It is therefore important to notice that the intelligence frora the other side has been of a rather more en couraging character during the last few days. At present, and for some time past, there has been little chance of supplying English pig iron at a profit in the States, owing to the very low prices of native iron. But the raost satisfactory news is that on Monday Mr. Morrison, the Chair man of the Ways and Means Comraittee, introduced another tariff bill in the House of Representatives. Considering that it was only last year that a tariff bill was passed, whioh considerably reduced the duties on a large number of articles. the introduction of another bill so soon affords a sign that the protective doctrine is a good deal " played out." The new bill proposes a reduction of 30 per cent in the duties, to take eflect from July 1st. Mr. Morrison and his colleagues, who have drawn up the bill, have shown their wisdom in placing in the free hst a number of raw materials, suoh as copper and iron ores, slack, and coal. They had not seen the amended bill when this article was writ ten ; for iron ore, etc., have been loft out of the new revision. Mr. Morrison. I would be glad if it was in. I have no doubt you would be glad if it was in ; and I am only surprised the distinguished gentleman should have permitted his own THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I49 convictions to be overruled by that little factious element in his own party that would control legislation. [Applause.] Though the bill may not pass without considerable modification, it will prob ably result in a substantial reduction. To these opinions we may add the following blunt but frank ad mission by the London Spectator on the 8th of December last : Of course the north of England holds that American free trade would be greatly to the interest of British manufacturers. And this from the Pall Mall Gazette : The progress of the Morrison bill will be watched with considerable interest by English exporters to the American market, inasmuch as it can hardly fail to tend in their favor. This deep solicitude of our English friends is of course unselfish and philanthropic ; it is all for our benefit, for our good, for our pros perity. It is disinterested purely, and arises from the earnest wish of the Bnglish manufacturers to see our own grow and prosper. They want this market. It is the best in the world. They can] not get it wholly while our tariff remains as at present. They can not get it so long as our manufactures can be maintained. They must be destroyed, their fires must be put out, and this Congress is to-day engaged in an effort to help England, not America, to build up Eng lish manufacturers at the expense of our own. The foreign manufacturers do not conceal their deep interest in the success of the Democratic party. They do not conceal the rea son for such interest. It is because the party stands for a doctrine which will break down American competition and open up the mar ket of this great Nation to the products of English skill, Bnglish labor, and Bnglish capital. Why, sir, they saw the first glimpses of the realization of their theories in the elections throughout this coun try last fall. They heralded as the dawning victory for free trade the triumph of that sentiment in the organization of this House in De cember last. That victory was welcomed everywhere upon the other side and by the importers on this. There was not a manufacturer in England who did not see in that overwhelming defeat of the protec tion sentiment in the Democratic party, in the setting aside of one of its oldest and most trusted leaders, gain and prosperity to him, distress and loss to his American competitors. They rejoiced and were made glad. One firm of importers celebrated that free-trade victory by chris tening a line of Bnglish goods with the significant trade-mark, " The 150 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. CarUsle Shape " [laughter and applause], and published it as " the coming thing" [applause], named in honor of Speaker Carlisle, to whom that country looked to reduce the present outrageous tariff on crockery. [Applause.] This Democratic House is now employed in the direction of this suggestion under the leadership of my distin guished friend, Mr. Morrison. This line of goods, named for one of the ablest and purest Democrats in the House or the country, comes from his representative capacity. He stands at the head of a great political organization committed to the English system, which all England believes will increase her prosperity and enrich her manu facturers. These goods, made in a foreign pottery with foreign materials, foreign labor, and foreign capital, are fittingly crowned with the head of the British lion. [Applause.] Pass this bill, and you will all have " shapes " and be honored with like manifestations of approval. [Ap plause.] I know my honored friend, the Speaker, craves no such distinction ; I know he would shrink from such public demonstra tions of approval, and I believe he will not feel fiattered by this well- intentioned compliment ; but they could not avoid expressing in some public way their appreciation of his victory. This is but an advanced manifestation of the joy which will be felt on the other side should the bill pass. This bill is a progressive measure ; you can discern that at a glance. It commences where we started in 1861, and occupies the ground we broke twenty-three years ago and which we abandoned long since. It has none of the virtues of originality, and its chief claim to merit is the fact that it is something a little like what we approved in 1861, forgetful of the fact that in 1861 we were legislat ing for 30,000,000 of people, and now have 55,000,000, and that all our economic and industrial conditions have changed. It was a good thing then, wise and necessary. Your party then opposed it, and now that we have outgrown it, advanced from it, you are ready to adopt it. We are glad even at this late day to have your approval of that great measure, which served its purpose at the time — and it was a high and noble one. We would have been more gratified could you have seen its merits a generation ago, when it was alive and in force, and suited to our needs and essential to our then revenue necessities and indus trial development. There is a remarkable exhibition of free-trade confusion and con tradiction in the speech of my learned colleague [Mr. Hurd] made in this House on April 7, 1884, in his discussion of the Wool Bill. First. He asserts that the manifest effect of an increase of the THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 151 duty upon wool is to increase the price of woolen goods, because it adds to the price of the wool, to which he is unalterably opposed be cause it imposes new burdens upon the consumers of wool, who use it " as a shelter to the houseless and a covering to the shivering." Second. He asserts that a high duty upon foreign wool means a low price for American wool ; the logic of which is that the higher the duty upon the foreign article the lower the price of the domestic one. Now if cheap wool be the real necessity of the manufacturer, as my colleague states in his first proposition, to the end that the laboring man may have cheap goods, then, according to his second proposition, the way to secure it is to increase the duty. If he would do that the wool grower would be satisfied, and the consumers for whom he speaks ought not to complain. He does not stop with the mere assertion that protective duties have lowered the price of wool to the consumer, but he gives histor ical facts. He says : " During the low duties on wool from 1847 to 1861 the farmers got five cents per pound more for their wool than they have received from 1867 until now under the high protective tariff adopted in the year last named." He enforces his argument by invoking the experience of England and France, and if his proposi tion be true, then protective duties are not added to the cost of the imported goods, and if he wants cheap wool for his shivering con sumers, the course to pursue is not to reduce the duty on wool, as proposed in the Morrison Bill, but to increase it, as provided for in the Converse Bill ; and according to his second proposition the latter would secure cheap wool. I was glad, too, to find my colleague conceding, as he did, " that it is the American manufacturer who makes the market for the American farmers, and just as he is prosperous or depressed is the price of wool high or low," and the same must be true of every prod uct of the farm. So that if we would bring prosperity to the Amer ican wool grower and the American farmer, we must foster and encourage and maintain our woolen and other manufactures at all hazards, and this can only be done by adequate duties levied upon foreign goods which compete with our own manufactures. Free trade or a revenue tariff will glut this market with foreign woolens made by foreign labor cheaper than our own, and the effect will be to break down our woolen factories, " which make the market for our own farmers." This is the proposition of the Morrison Bill, plain and simple, or else this market will be overcrowded with foreign wools admitted at low duty, the eflect of which will be to force ruinous 152 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. prices upon our own producers, and eventually destroy this valuable production in the United States. I warn you that every assault made upon the woolen manufac turer, no matter how slight, is directed alike at the wool grower. You can not cripple the one without diminishing the business of the other. The woolen manufacturers do not want free wool. They so declared before the Ways and Means Committee. They require our wools, and it will be to their serious disadvantage to curtail the production in the United States. The wool grower does not want woolen goods to come into this country free of duty. They want a market. They know that when the manufacturer thrives the price of wool is good and firm. Agriculture and manufactures should go hand in hand ; the one enriches the other ; the one trades with the other — they are mutually dependent one upon the other. There is no conffict of interest. Agriculture increases in. its products and its wealth with the growth and increase of manufactures. Prices are better, steadier, and more reliable to the farmer, with prosperous manufacturing industries em ploying labor which consumes and does not compete with his prod ucts. Impair or destroy our ability to manufacture, strike down any of our great manufactures, and the farmer would be the first to seri ously feel the loss. Dismiss the army of operatives from the work shop and send them to the great unoccupied and fertile lands of the West, and the farmer would not only lose just so many consumers or customers, but, more than that, he would find them as his competitors in the field of production. Finally, and of greater importance than all else, the effect of this bill will be to reduce the price of labor in the United States. My friend, the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, indicates dissent by his manner. Mr. Morrison : We are doing that every day. Yes ; it has been done. If the gentleman will remember, there has been general depression all over the world, and wages have stood some reduction. But the proposition you make to-day, if it goes into operation, will inevitably reduce the price paid labor in the United States. This is the inevitable logic of the bill, and no amount of argument can escape it. Said an intelligent manufacturer, Mr. Day, of Ohio, in his statement before our Committee : No reduction of duty can be made without crippling our manufactures. There is no point on which we can make a reduction of cost, except on our skilled THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I53 labor, unless we are compelled to cut down the wages of common labor and all. We get our common labor at the market price, which is fixed not by us but by the price of common labor in the neighborhood. We get our coal as cheaply, of course, as we can. We get our sand as cheaply as we can. We get our materials of all sorts as cheaply as we can. And there is nothing on which there is a range, or on whieh we can make a reduction, except skilled labor. Therefore, whatever reduction of duty is made must of necessity, to a very large degree, fall upon our skilled labor. I am not here to justify or defend Mr. Day. I am not here to de fend any manufacturer or his methods. But I am here to say that just to the extent you reduce the duties on imports to that extent, the prices of labor must come down in order to enable us to compete with the manufacturers on the other side. That is the inevitable logic. Give us as cheap labor as they have in England (which I do not want) and we need no protection. [Applause]. Let me call a witness from the ranks of the advocates of this bill. Said Mr. Theodore W. Morris, of New York, an importer and free trader before the same Committee : Mr. McKinley. Do I understand you to say that the reduction proposed by the pending bill would not affect the rate of wages.? I thought you said it would. Mr. Morris. I said that that was the usual tendency ; not that it necessarily would do so. Mr. McKinley. What do you say about it now ? Mr. Morris. That has been usually the tendency. I think that has been the experience ; but I do not admit that it is a necessity by any means. Mr. McKinley. What would be the effect of a reduction of duty upon im portation ; would the importation increase ? Mr. Morris. I think that if we could possibly dissipate these false and un- business ideas (in regard to special legislation) that any people go into business from philanthropic motives and in the great interest of American labor, and if you could put them closely and fairly on a business basis, there would be very much less of these troubles. I have no disposition to go into abstract propositions. We are meeting at this time an exceptional, phenomenal condition of affairs. We have an unusual and exceptional price paid for labor, which is, in ray judgment, beyond all wisdora. If I cared to do so, I could mention facts which would show how absurd these conditions of aflairs are, and how frequently and how naturally they follow special legislation. Mr. Kelley, State wherein the absurdity of the prices which we pay to labor consists. Mr. Morris. That demands, perhaps, an extended answer, and is also an ab stract proposition which I do not feel corapetent to answer, except so far as my individual convictions go. Mr. Kelley. That is what we want. Mr. Morris. Because it establishes, first of all, a basis for legislation, and because all admit that is a very dangerous thing in this country. It establishes a basis for legislation, because in all the debates that take place in Congress 154 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. we shall have brought up to us this illustration, how magnificently American labor is paid [the free traders do not like this form of discussion]— we shall have brought up to us the fact that we pay American labor 200 or 300 per cent more than is paid to the pauper labor of Europe. These will be established as prece dents to forra the basis of many arguments. You will naturally see that the con dition is an exceptional condition, an unhealthy condition. Another very serious dilBculty about it, and which I think an absurdity, is that it is the creation of an additional obstacle to anything like an uniformly just price for labor, when nor mal conditions exist, because, these men, receiving (as I understand they'are re ceiving) a large advance over their average compensation, will not be content, when the conditions of the market readjust themselves, to accept a reduction of wages ; and anything in the shape of economy wiU be repugnant to them. That is another reason why 1 think the condition unfortunate. Manufacturers are cre ating for themselves an obstacle which in the future will be a severe trial to them. On the other hand, Mr. Thomas Williams, a workingman who appeared before the Committee, said : He had been asked to come here and state how the workingmen looked at the matter of the proposed tariff reduction, and how it affected workingmen. He was aware that it was often said that the tariff upon imported goods was of no benefit to the workingmen. He was not a public speaker, and had never been accustoraed to anything of the sort. He worked in the mill and earned his own living by boiling or puddling, and he thought he knew something whereof he spoke. He happened to have been bom on the other side of the Atlantic, and he had worked in an iron raill in England for some time, so that he could tell the Committee from his personal experience how the matter was in free-trade Eng land, and how it was in America. He had worked in England five years in what was known as the Dowlais works. He had been puddling there for five years, and the wages which had been paid to him were about 5s. 6d. a ton, or at the rate of $1.25 for puddling iron. And even at that the men did not get very steady work. At the end of the week, whon they got their pay and paid out of it for their living, there was not very much left for theraselves. He was aware that it was often said that living was cheaper in England than in this eountry, but he de nied that stateraent. He had lived or lodged (as it was called there), paying so much a week for his room and letting the landlady buy his food for him. He did not live there as workingmen lived in this country. For instance, in the morning when he got up to go to work he got a cup of tea and a piece of bread and butter. At dinner time he got perhaps a little meat, but not always. He generally managed to eat meat at dinner three or four times a week, but never except at dinner. In the evening, for tea, as it is called, he sometimes got bread and butter, and if he wanted to be extravagant he might eat an egg or two, but that was accounted a great extravagance. The women earned in the Dowlais works about nine pence a day, or eighteen cents. They were employed in unload ing coal and in throwing coal out of the cars, and otherwise doing the coarse work of men. If one of them got a shilling a day it was considered good wages. He contrasted the condition of affairs in that country under free trade with the condition of things in Araerica; and what did he find? He found that the pud- dler or the boiler in this country was paid $5.50 a ton. He was aware that in THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 155 some parts of the country men were working for less than that, but in Pittsburg and west of Pittsburg they were receiving $5.50 a ton for puddling ; and what was the result ? The raen in the old country got only $1.35 per day at the high est average, while here they got $3.35 or $3.50 a day. It occurred to him, as an American citizen, that it was not right for American lawmakers to go to work and say to the men who had left England and corae to this country with the in tention of benefiting their own condition that they must now compete with that same system of labor which they had in England. He ventured to say (and he thought the facts would bear hira out) that if the proposed tariff were enacted into a law the time was not far distant (if workmen had any work at all here) that they would have to compete with English labor and would have to live just as workmen lived in the Old Country. As an Amerioan citizen he objected to that. He did not believe that the workingmen of America should be compelled to compete with the pauper labor, or the comparatively pauper labor, of England or of any part of Europe. He had a somewhat extensive acquaintance with workingmen in that country. At the Dowlais works, where he had worked, there were employed altogether about 15,000 men, including the iron-ore miners, coal miners, the blast-furnace men, and the men who worked in the mills. And of all that number he did not know more than two or three men who owned their own homes. Said Mr. A. C. White, another workingman : He had corae to request that the pending measure be not passed, believing that it would not only injure the workingmen, but the public at large. He be lieved that at the present time any tariff legislation would be injurious to the best interests of the country. The workingmen protested against further action being taken in the matter until the tariff bill of last winter should have been suflB ciently tried. It was yet an experiraent, and it was not known whether that bill would be for good or for evil. A great many of the workingmen held that the tariff legislation of last winter was unnecessary, uncalled for, and unwise. They believed that this country should have a good protective tariff for various reasons. The workingmen of this eountry did not desire to be brought down to the level of English workingmen. They believed that workingmen, being American citi zens, were entitled to all the rights and privileges belonging to them. They had a right to live decently and respectably, and to be able to clothe and educate their children, to send them to college and fit them to be merabers of Congress and Senators if need be. The workingraen were part of the people, and they believed that legislation should be for the benefit of the people as a whole. Said Mr. D. T. Williams, another workingman : The impression seemed to have gained ground that manufacturers who came here came all the time for their own benefit merely. He wanted to impress upon the Committee the fact that it would be a benefit to the workingmen as well as to their employers to let the tariff remain as it is, and not to lower it, because if the tariff were lowered their wages would be lowered on the 1st of June next. The officers of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Association made like statements, enforcing them with facts and figures ; and I notice 11 156 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. by the public press that a few days ago the officers of one of the leading labor organizations of the country met in the city of Pitts burg, as is the rule of their order, to agree upon the rates of wages to be submitted to their employers for the ensuing year, and after discussion agreed upon a schedule of prices to be insisted upon, pro vided the Morrison Bill was not enacted into law ; and if it was, then they would be compelled to submit lower rates. The workingmen themselves, without exception, recognize the inevitable reduction of the wages of labor under the operation of this bill. The reduction of labor in any branch of industry, or the diminution of the power to employ labor, leads to a reduction in the labor price in every field of employment. Not only do the workmen recognize this hard fact, but the manufacturers as well. Said Mr. Hewitt, in his speech on March 26th last : Now coraes the question. How can you make manufactures grow? How can you enlarge their area ? You must therefore cheapen cost. How can you cheapen the cost of manu factures? In only one of three ways. The cost of manufactures consists in capital, labor, and materials. Can you cheapen capital ? To-day capital is cheaper in the United States than in any other country in the world. Can you cheapen labor ? Where is the man who is going to run next fall for Congress who will get up here and say he will advocate any polioy which wiU reduce the wages of labor ? Then you are brought down by the very necessities of the case to cheapen raw materials. Now, how can you cheapen raw materials ? Only by removing the duties which press upon them. And when you have taken the duties off raw materials you have protected the manufacturer, because he can produce his ware cheaper ; you have protected the laborer, because the necessity for reducing his wages, which otherwise would exist, is avoided. But this bill does not give the raw materials required by the gen tleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt], so that the reduction of the labor is inevitable to cheapen the cost of production. This conclusion can not be avoided under the bill now before us. The difference in the cost of labor in other countries and this, which enters into the product which competes with ours, must be equalized by the tariffs or the higher wages must come down. Mr. Hewitt admits this difference. My friend from Illinois [Mr. Morrison] seemed to dis sent a moment ago when I said there was a difference in the rate of wages. Mr. Morrison. I did not, sir. There is a great difference in the rate of wages in some industries, and some difference in all. THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. 157 I beg the gentleman's pardon. The gentleman from Illinois, in view of the statements I have made within the last five minutes, now admits there is a difference. I thank him for the frank confession. Mr. Morrison. I have never denied it. The gentieraan knows he is mis taken. I have adraitted it in every speech I ever made in this House. I have some of the gentleman's speeches here ; I do not care to go into them ; but I have always understood from the gentleman that, while there might be some small difference in the wages between the two countries, the wages brought more on the other side, would buy more of the necessities ; while there might be a little difference in the sum total of pay received, there was practically no difference when the purchasing power was taken into account. Mr. Morrison. That is a different question, and one about which I have not spoken. Well, if the gentleman never said it, it certainly has been said by those who advocate this bill. I would not do him any injustice. I know that it has been said over and over again that this difference in the cost of labor which we talk about is wholly visionary. Our wages are higher here than in any other nation of the world, and we are all proud and grateful that it is so. I know it is denied, but experience outweighs theories or misleading statistics. One thing we do know is, that our work people do not go abroad for better wages, and every other nationality comes here for increased wages and gets them. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt] does not seek to escape this difficulty by a denial, but frankly said, in a speech made in the first session of the Forty-seventh Congress : " But the difference in wages does exist, and there are branches of industry which can not be carried on without an equivalent compen sation in the form of protective duties or of a bounty from the public treasury. In Great Britain and the United States the rate of wages is on the average about fifty per cent higher here than there." He puts it much too low. We are confronted with this problem at the very threshold of this discussion, and we must meet it. The proposition of the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means will result in reducing the wages of labor or the destruction of many of our most valuable in dustries, and the deprivation of employment to thousands. The one or the other alternative must come ; either will be most disastrous, and attended by business depression and individual suffering. We must not reduce the price paid to labor ; it is already sufficiently low. 158 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. We can only prevent it by defeating this bill, and it should be done without unnecessary delay. The sooner the better, and remove this menace which hangs over all of our industrial life, and threatens the comfort and independence of millions of American workingmen. The bill strikes down the duty upon wool ; under its provisions the duty on wool valued at over twenty-four cents is to be only nine cents per pound. The duties under the present law are, on wool valued at thirty cents or less, ten cents per pound, and over thirty cents, twelve cents per pound. This enormous reduction is proposed in the presence of a universal sentiment among the farmers of the United States for an increase of duties upon foreign wools, and in the face of Democratic assurances in at least one State of the Union (Ohio) that the duties should be increased. Great solicitude is displayed by our opponents for the farmers of the country. And yet in this case, where they can be directly benefited by a protective duty, it is proposed to wipe it out. They are rich in professions to this great producing class, bnt barren of fulfillment. Every one of the leading industries of this country wiU be in juriously aflected by this proposed change, and no man can predict the extent of it. The producers of cottons and woolens, of iron, steel, and glass, must sufler disastrously if this bill is enacted into law ; and the proprietors of these establishments are neither robbers nor highwaymen, as the free traders love to characterize them. They have been real benefactors, and while some of them have grown opulent, in the main they do not represent the rich classes of the country. Their entire capital is in active employment. Many of them are large borrowers. Your proposed action will affect the values of their plants, useless except for the purposes employed, will diminish the value of their invested capital, will decrease their sales and the ability of their customers to buy, and in many cases result in total over throw and bankruptcy. You can do this, if you will. You have the power in this House to accomplish this great wrong ; but let me beg of you to pause before you commence the work of destroying a great economic system under which the country has grown and prospered far in advance of every other nation of the world. A system estab lished by the founders of the Government, recognized by the first Congress which ever sat in deliberative council in this Nation, sanc tioned in the second act ever passed by Congress, upheld by our greatest statesmen, living or dead, vindicated by great results and justified by all our experience, achieving industrial triumphs without a parallel in the world's history. Its maintenance is yet essential to THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL. I59 our progress and prosperity. The step proposed is a grave one. No man on this floor can determine its consequences or predict its results. It is a leap in the dark. No interest is pressing it. No National necessity demands it. No true American wants it. If it is a party necessity to enforce Democratic doctrines and discipline a little seg ment of the party, you can afford to wait, or clear your decks of mutineers in some other way ; let the ship be saved, and punish your insubordinate associates without endangering great interests tem porarily conflded to your care. The interests of this great people are higher and greater than the ambitions or interests of any party. The free traders have already demonstrated that they are in control of the Democratic party, that they are a large majority of that polit ical organization ; but they are happily in the minority in the country. They may dictate the policy here by party caucus, they may disturb the business of the country while yet in power, but they will not, under the policy they are now pursuing, be long permitted to domi nate the popular branch of Congress, happily the only branch of the Government which they now control. [Great and continued ap plause.] THE WALLACE-McKINLEY CONTEST. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Forty-eighth Congress, May 27, 1884. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration the contested election case of Wallace tis. McKinley, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : I had intended to discuss this controversy in detail and with some elaboration ; but two days have been already occupied in a most careful and painstaking discussion of all the propositions involved in this contest, and owing to the lateness of the hour and my desire that this case may be concluded to-night, I shall content myself with occupying not to exceed five or ten minutes. It would be useless for me within that time to undertake to review the testi mony in the record or the law which should govern all of the ques tions involved. I only ask from this House, the majority of which is opposed to me politically, to administer in this case the law and the precedents which they have always administered in the past, and with those precedents determine whether the contestant or the contestee has a majority of the votes in the Eighteenth Ohio district. Follow ing the precedents long ago established by the Democrats in former Congresses and in other cases, and conceding to the contestant all he claims and much more than is allowed him by a Committee of his party friends, and my majority and election to the Forty-eighth Con gress is as certain and sure as that of any gentleman occupying a seat in this House. I rise more particularly to say — and indeed it is about all I desire to say — that I claim nothing upon technicalities. I would not if I could retain my seat one hour upon a mere mistake or technicality or inadvertence of election officers. And I say to this House, that if it be necessary to find that I am entitled to my seat to throw out the ten votes in Carroll County which upon the face of the returns appear to be an error in the count against the contestant — if to give me my THE WALLACE-McKINLEY CONTEST. 161 seat you must invoke those ten votes, and deduct them from the con testant, then I do not want my seat in this House. Although there is no legal proof that this is not an error, and although my friends have argued that part of the case in the light of the law, I desire here to say to the majority and to the minority, if it becomes necessary to deduct those ten votes from the contestant to give me the seat, then I do not want it and would not have it. I desire to say another thing, Mr. Speaker, and that is, if my right to a seat in this House depends upon the rejection of the seven votes which appear upon the face of the retums as cast for " John H. Wal lace," " W. W. Wallace," or " W. H. Wallace," no matter what the law in its strictness might hold, then I do not want my seat on the floor of this House. For although there is no testimony whatever to show that these names, differing from the name of the contestant as they do, the names of different persons designating different indi viduals, are entitled to designate the contestant, yet in my judgment the citizens of the Eighteenth district who polled those seven votes intended that they should be cast and counted for Jonathan H. Wal lace, the contestant in this controversy, and I want them, notwith standing the absence of any proof to that effect, added to his vote, and the will of the voter, as I believe it, thus subserved. Nor, Mr. Speaker, do I make any point as to the odd spelling of the names found in the ballot-box in Fairfleld Township to the num ber of eleven — the Wolac, the Walce, the Waal. If this House shall decide, if the judgment and consciences of members on this floor shall determine, that that recount is of value and shall have weight in this controversy, then I make no point that the voters misspelled or failed to spell properly the name of the contestant. So I say, Mr.' Speaker, that in all this controversy — I say to my friends on this side, I say to my friends on the other side, I say to my political opponents on the other side, that I invoke no technicality or legal quibble to retain my seat in this House. But I insist that, con ceding every one of these votes, conceding the entire twenty-three votes which appear upon the face of the return, conceding that there was no error in Carroll County, and even conceding the eleven votes in Fairfield Township, and every other claim of the contestant, I still have an unquestioned majority of the votes cast in the Eighteenth district of Ohio on the 10th of October, 1882, and am justly entitled to retain my seat. Now let me for a single moment revert to the Fairfield township recount, for it is a matter in which you are all interested. You will 162 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. establish a precedent to-day that may be for good or that may be for ill — a precedent which may come back to harass you in the future. Why, sir, what is a recount ? A recount is counting over again the very sarae ballots that were cast by the voters and found in the box the night of the official count. That is what a recount is ; that is what a recount means. It is counting again the identical ballots ; because if you have not the identical ballots, identical as to names and identical as to numbers, then there can be no virtue in a recount. Now, how was it with Fairfield Township ? Why, sir, everybody ad mits — the contestant in his brief, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Adams], and I believe the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Turner], the Chairman of the Committee on Elections, in their arguments, all ad mit that there were five fewer votes in the box on the night of the recount than there were on the night of the official count Does not that destroy the virtue of the recount? There are five ballots gone nobody knows where. Those five bal lots stand unexplained. Nobody undertakes to account for them. The very confession that the contents of that box on the day of the recount differed from the contents of the box on the night of the offi cial count — that very confession makes a recount absolutely valueless and without effect. I beg gentlemen to remember that fact, which is sufficient to wholly destroy the pretended recount if there were no other discrepancies in the contents of that ballot-box. But in addi tion to that there were four more ballots for the Greenback candidate for Congress found in the box on the night of the recount than were in it on the official count. There was one less ballot for me found at the recount than was given to me by the official count. For whom were these five votes cast that were missing ? Were they for the con testant ? Were they for the contestee ? One of them evidently was for me, because the recount finds one less ballot in that box than the judges of the election gave me on the night of the election. Then, in addition to that there was one vote that all the witnesses, judges, and clerks identify as a ballot with the names of the contestant and con testee both upon it, found in the box on the night of the official count, and not found in the box on the night of the recount. So that the whole virtue and weight and integrity of the recount was destroyed. But the distinguished Chairman of the Committee seems to rely not so much upon the recount in giving these eleven ballots to the contestant as he relies upon the testimony in the case. He says that a number of witnesses testified there were ballots in that box not THB WALLACB-McKINLEY CONTEST. 163 counted for the contestant. Carpenter puts it from seven to thirteen. Now, let me ask the judges on this floor, the men who are to act upon this case, shall it be seven or shall it be thirteen ? Por the wit ness says there were from seven to thirteen. Which number will you adopt ? Mr. Holloway says there were three or four. Shall it be three or shall it be four? You are to be the judges, and how will you determine it? Crooks swears there were six ballots in that box not counted for Wallace. And so, all the way through, the witnesses disagree as to the number, only one of them putting it as high as thirteen, and one as low as three. No two of the witnesses agree ; and you, gentlemen, are to determine from that kind of testimony how many ballots are to be added to the contestant and how many taken from the contestee. I submit to you that it would be unsafe, that it would be unwise, in any election case to permit such testimony to overthrow the solemn findings of the official count. I care not whose case it is, to undertake either upon a recount such as I have described, or upon the testimony of a character such as I have disclosed, to de termine, as it might in this case, whether the contestant or contestee is entitled to a seat on this floor, would be establishing a dangerous precedent even as a party necessity. In every one of the recounts which we invoke the number of ballots found in the box was exactly equal to the number of names on the poll sheets. There is no discrepancy whatever, no suspicious or con tradictory circumstances manifest, none raised by the proof. And yet, if you will give me the votes shown by the recounts made in accord ance with law, made from boxes kept in strict accordance with the statute ; if you will give me the ballots that have not a taint of sus picion upon them, and then take from the contestant the unques tioned illegal votes that were cast for him, giving to him every vote that he claims, I will then have a certain and fixed majority as a Bepresentative in the Forty-eighth Congress. I will not stop to review what my colleague from the Cincinnati district [Mr. Follett] has dragged into this case ; I will not rake up the fouling dust of the campaign. But I was surprised that the gen tleman, after nearly an hour's discussion of this important case, upon which he was to pass as a judge, could give no better reason for unseating me than that at some time and somewhere, upon some public rostrum, I had declared that I had voted to seat Eepublicans, and that my record for nearly eight years in this House showed that I had voted to seat Eepublicans and to unseat Democrats. I will not stop to pay any attention to that sort of argument ; it is beneath the 164 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. dignity and consideration of a tribunal like this. The record I have made in this House upon that and all other questions is a part of our public records, and I am not ashamed of nor would I blot out any portion of it. [Great applause on the Eepublican side.] Now, Mr. Speaker, that ends all I have to say, for I want the vote to be taken and this case to be decided. I thank this House, the members on both sides of it, for the attention and courtesy with which they have listened to me. [Great applause on the Eepublican side.] EQUAL SUFFEAGE. A Campaign Speech at Ironton, Ohio, October 1, 1885. My Fellow-Citizens: For the first time in twenty-four years we open a campaign in Ohio with the Executive branch of the National Government in the hands of our political adversaries. We have only one branch of the National Congress under Eepublican con trol, the Senate of the United States. We can not, before 1888, change the Executive, but we can this year insure the continuance of a Ee publican Senate, by the election of a Legislature which will not per mit the seat so long and honorably filled by John Sherman to be sur rendered or vacated to another. We enter the contest without Executive patronage or power, carry ing our principles to the people, and upon them, and them only, invit ing support. With no control of the offices, with little voice in shap ing the policy of the General Government, with the State administra tion Democratic, we address the citizens of Ohio as they were ad dressed thirty years ago by the fathers of the Eepublican party, ap pealing to their unprejudiced judgments and inviting their co-opera tion in securing needed reforms and in suppressing the grossest wrongs against popular rights. While it is only a State campaign in which we are contending, its results will influence National questions, and their discussion is therefore as important and pertinent as though we were engaged in a great National contest. The right to vote is the concern of the whole people, and must be secured at all hazards to every citizen in every part of the Republic. This is the declaration of the Eepublican party of Ohio, made at its recent State convention, and it represents the convictions and moral sense of good men North and South. Free and impartial suf frage in one section of the country is of little value if it be withheld, denied, or suppressed in another section. An honest expression of the will of the people in Ohio is of no avail in a general election, if in Georgia and Mississippi no such honest expression is attained. The 166 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. equality of citizenship at all elections is the bed rock upon which our institutions rest, the rock of National safety, and safeguard of the future of the Eepublic. The free enjoyment of the ballot to be cast for the party of our choice and for tlie principles in which we believe, and to have that ballot correctly counted and returned, is a right that should be cheerfully accorded to every citizen in every State of the Union ; and if not so accorded by the local authorities then it must be enforced by the General Government exercising all its constitu tional powers, and supported and sustained by a firm and enlight ened public sentiment. While the people generally will subscribe to these propositions as right, and as just and desirable, far too many, rather than investigate, prefer to acquiesce in the continu ance of a great wrong. Some profess to believe that the discussion of this question is reviving the memories of the war, and keeping alive that unfortunate struggle which was concluded more than twenty years ago. As if we should close our eyes to Southern out rages and view them with supreme serenity, if we would prosper as a people and be united as a Nation ! To my mind this senti ment is not sound in morals ; not a sufficient defense. It neither jus tifies the people of any State in violating the constitutional rights of citizenship, nor is it an adequate excuse for the people of other States submitting quietly to crimes against free and equal suffrage. I have no desire or purpose to reopen a discussion of the war and its bloody engagements ; that is of the past, and should remain so. The bitterness and resentments of that terrible period have long since been effaced ; with them we are not now dealing, but the results of the great conflict, which have been embodied in the Constitution of the country, are in your keeping, and in that of all patriotic citizens, to be forever preserved and enforced. If the guarantees are not admin istered impartially by all to all, it is the business of every good citizen to see to their enforcement in letter, spirit, and intent. What the public most wants is information and awakening upon this subject. The people want to know that substantial rights are denied, freedom of political action forbidden, and then a sentiment will be created that will find a way to repress the wrong and secure the right. Let me ask your patient consideration of a few facts in connection with the recent election, touching this question. Take a number of States in the South and contrast them with States of the North that are equal in population and representation in Congress. I have selected the following, for the purpose of illus tration : Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 167 North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, in the South, having a population by the last Federal census of 12,990,246, with eighty-four Eepresentatives in Congress ; and Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio, in the North, with a population of 12,673,601, and having eighty-four Representatives in Congress. The Constitution provides (Article XIV, section 2) that — Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. The present apportionment is one Representative for every 154,000 people, counting white and black. In 1884, at the last Congressional election, the Southem States I have named polled for Eepresentatives to Congress 1,855,483 votes, while the five Northern States polled 2,989,675 votes ; that is, 1,134,192 more votes were cast for the same number of Congressmen in the North than in the South. In other words, it took nearly 3,000,000 votes to elect eighty-four Congressmen in the five States of the North, and less than 2,000,000 to elect a like number in eleven States in the South. Eleven hundred thousand votes in these eleven Southern States were either not cast, or if cast were not counted and returned. This vast number of votes, sufficient to have changed the results in several of the States, either voluntarily or by coercion, remained away from the polls in a fierce Presidential contest, or if present vot ing, their ballots were unrecorded and uncounted. All this in the interest of " peace, reconciliation, and harmony between the different sections of the Union," declare the sentimentalists of the North and the ballot suppressors of the South ! The Democratic vote in the main was out in full force, and always when required, and in every case was fully counted and returned. These Southern States, whose official election returns I am examin ing, had by the Federal census of 1880 a white population of 7,622,- 852 and a colored population of 5,360,298, and upon this united population they have apportioned to them eighty-four Eepresentatives in Congress. The colored people are more than forty-one per cent of the whole, and thirty-five members of Congress are secured by their population alone. Yet only two colored men were declared elected last year to the Forty-ninth Congress, and they will not retain their seats if their Democratic opponents have filed notices of con test, which they invariably do, and these 5,000,000 of colored people will then be without a single Eepresentative of their own race to speak for them in the American Congress. 168 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. There is some reason for this remarkable condition of affairs. It is neither normal nor spontaneous. It can not be possible that forty- one per cent of the population voluntarily consents to be unrepre sented or basely misrepresented. It would naturally and logically assert itself, if not prevented by force or fraud. Even if it did not always select men of its own race to represent it, it would unite with the white Eepublicans in choosing white men who would voice its political sentiments and stand for the principles with which it is identified. But we look in vain for any manifestations in that direc tion. Out of eighty-four Congressmen chosen from these States we find but six white Eepublicans who have been returned by the election boards as elected. There are tens of thousands of white men in these States who are fearless Eepublicans, willing to serve the party, and who have fought its battles yqar after year against fearful odds ; but these, with the large colored vote, which in some of these States is in the majority, only secure eight Eepublican Eepresentatives to the next House. These facts make one thing manifest, that suffrage in the South is suppressed, and that the theft of the ballot, the free enjoyment of which is the most sacred of all our civil rights, is openly and glaringly practiced, and that the States in which this crime pre vails will not remedy the evil nor punish the crime. The white and colored voters residing in these States who are Eepublicans are fairly entitled to one half of their eighty-four Congressmen, and would secure them at any fair election, such as we hold in the North. In deed, if it had not been prevented by force or fraud, we would now have forty-two Eepresentatives instead of eight — enough to change the political complexion of the next House and give it to the Eepub licans, to whom it rightfully belongs, under any fair, free, and unre strained expression of the people. But that is not all : the States which have the eighty-four Eepresentatives also have one hundred and six Electors, whose votes in the Electoral College select the Presi dent and Vice-President of the United States. The Constitution declares that each State shall be entitled to such number of Presidential electors as is equal to the whole number of Senators and Eepresentatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress. In the eleven Southern States the voting population in 1884 was fully 3,000,000, the colored vote at least 1,200,000 ; and yet with the white Eepublican vote of those States, which in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia is quite large, Blaine received but 777,000 votes. The colored vote alone, if it had been all out and voting for him, would have equalled Cleveland's entire vote in the eleven States, EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 169 and with the white Eepublican vote would have greatly exceeded it. If the Democratic vote was not all out, it was for the sole reason that it was not deemed necessary ; the majorities would be large enough without it. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina the colored population exceeds the white by many thousands. In Louisiana the white population is 454,954 « " colored " 483,655 Colored in excess of white 28,701 In Mississippi the white population is 479,398 " " colored " 650,391 Colored in excess of white 170,893 In South Carolina the white population is 391,105 " " " colored " .... 604,332 Colored in excess of white 213,227 With these figures it is too apparent to need argument that in these three States if the voters were permitted to cast their ballots according to their convictions each would be overwhelmingly Eepub lican. Yet all three States were returned for Cleveland at the elec tion in 1884. He "carried" Louisiana by over 16,000 majority, Mississippi by 33,000, and South Carolina by 48,000, thus securing twenty-six electoral votes, which, if the popular will had been free, would have been given to Blaine, and secured him the election by fifteen majority in the Electoral College. Let me give you further demonstration. Take the State of Ohio : It has a population of 3,198,062, and sends twenty-one Eepresenta tives to Congress. Take the three Southern States, Alabama, Louisi ana, and Mississippi, with a population of 3,334,048, which united send twenty-one Eepresentatives to Congress. In October, 1884, Ohio cast in the aggregate for the candidates for Congress 781,011 votes, while the three States just enumerated in November, 1884, cast only 344,322 votes— not half as many. They polled 436,000 votes less than were cast in Ohio to elect the same number of Eepresentatives. The colored population of these States is in round numbers 140,000 in excess of the white, and yet the Democrats elected, or rather se cured, twenty out of the twenty-one Eepresentatives to Congress, gen erously giving the Eepublicans one solitary member. Again, South Carolina under the Congressional apportionment is entitled to seven members of Congress, and New Jersey, with about an equal popula tion, is also entitled to the same number. The vote for Congress men in New Jersey last year was 260,134, and in South Carolina only 170 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. 90,689. We polled last year in two districts — Judge Ezra B. Taylor's, the Nineteenth, the old Garfield district, and the Twentieth, which I have the honor to represent — within 6,000 votes of the entire Con gressional vote of South Carolina. That is, 84,000 votes elected two Eepresentatives in Ohio, and 90,000 selected seven Eepresentatives in South Carolina. Let me state another fact of gi-eat significance : The States of Ala bama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina had under the cen sus of 1870 a joint population of 3,257,435, and in 1872 the Eepub licans polled 316,400 votes. By the census of 1880 they had a popular tion of 4,329,625, and in 1884 the Eepublican vote was only 171,033. The population increased between 1870 and 1880 fully twenty-five per cent, and the Eepublican vote diminished nearly fifty per cent. This diminished Eepublican vote has not gone over to the Demo cratic party. You can not account for it in that way. What is the answer to this exceptional condition of affairs, this outrage upon the rights of the people ? An outrage not only upon those who person ally suffer, but upon every honest voter elsewhere. It is not whoUy a question of the equality of the white and colored voter of the South, but of the equality of the white voter in the North with the white voter in the South. Shall the vote of a citizen of the South, whether he be Union or Confederate, count twice as much as the vote of a citizen of the North ? It will not do to say to these startling figures, " The war is over," that is not a sufficient answer ; nor will it lessen the force of these facts to reply, "You are waving the bloody shirt." All such re joinders are inadequate to quiet public conscience and stifle public discussion. We are not talking of what occurred during the war, or immediately after, but what took place only last year, and what is of official record and can not be denied. Either these men are enti tled to vote, and to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship to the fullest extent, or else the Constitution and laws are a dead letter, and the Government powerless to protect its citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights. They must have these rights, or we must acknowledge that free government is a failure. If all this be true, this plain rehearsal of official facts, the war not only is over, but it would seem to have determined nothing, to have settled noth ing. Donelson, Antietam, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg accomplished nothing but the needless slaughter of brave men ; the surrender at Apporaattox was an idle ceremony ; and the Democratic declaration at Chicago, in 1864, that " the war is a failure," is painfully true. Are EQUAL SUFFRAGE. I7l we ready to admit it ? I trust in God that we are not ! The settle ments of the war must stand as the irreversible judgment of his tory, the inflexible decree of this Nation of free men. They must not be shaken, they must not be misinterpreted, they must not be weakened nor shorn of their force by any subterfuge or device under auy pretext or for any purpose, but be acquiesced in freely and fully without reservation, avoidance, or evasion. It must not be equality and justice in the written law only, but equality and justice in the law's administration, alike aflorded in every part of the Eepublic, and literally secured to every citizen thereof. The war is over, the flag of the lost and wicked cause went down at Appomattox more than twenty years ago ; but that does not prevent us from insisting that all that was gained in war shall not be lost in peace. The contest is over — we pray never to be re sumed; but that which was secured by so much blood, suffering, and sacrifice must be cheerfully accorded by every patriotic citizen. The struggle cost too much human life and public treasure to be apologized for, or frittered away, under any pretext. The results ad mit of no compromise. The standard of patriotism and the respect for law must not be lowered ; the hideous specter of a wicked conspiracy need not be veiled. Patriotism and obedience to the Constitution, the old as well as the new, must be kept to the forefront. Weak and sentimental gush must not be permitted to conceal disobedience of the law, or protect the flagrant violators of the rights of citizen ship. The country's enemies were forgiven — long ago, liberal and magnaniraous pardon was extended to them. Mutual forbearance should be cultivated, honorable concessions were made upon both sides, but the freedom and political equality of all men must be fully and honorably recognized wherever our flag floats. You may ask, " What is the remedy?" A complete remedy may be difficult for the moraent, it may not be apparent at once, but among free men a remedy is always found against oppression, and sorae one always rises great and wise enough to discover an unfailing remedy to correct what the consciences of a free people have corae to condemn and abhor. Fortunately, those who were in charge of pub lic affairs during the Eeconstruction period provided a partial solu tion. The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Con stitution provides: But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial OflBcers of a State, or the Members of the Legislature 13 172 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. thereof, is denied to emy of the male inhabitants of said State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Here is full power to abridge the representation in Congress and in the Electoral College in proportion as the right of suffrage is de nied or abridged in the several States. It is a power resting in Con- gi-ess to see to it that in every State where voters are denied the right of participation in elections for any cause except for crime or rebel lion, the number of Congressmen and Electors shall be reduced to the precise extent which such disfranchisement bears to the whole population and in the same proportion. It distinctly declares that no State shall count its entire population for the purposes of represen tation and to increase its political power and then deny any part there of full participation and free choice at elections. If Congress will curtail the power of these States, if it wiU reduce their representation numerically, they will soon come to respect the constitutional rights of their fellow-citizens if from no higher motive than the selfish desire for power. As the States of the South are now controlled and the elections conducted, they have more political power than in the days of slavery, when they owned the men who are now under the law equal and independent citizens. They then counted a slave three fifths of a man in securing Eepresentatives in Congress and in the Electoral College. Now they count the old slaves as full men — no fraction of a man for the purposes of Congressional apportionment — but they are as politically barred from the free ex pression of opinion as when they were only chattels. If the immo rality of slavery quickened public conscience and advanced pubhc sentiment to a moral height which led to its complete overthrow, what will the present equally abhorrent and immoral situation accom plish ? There was found some palliation for slavery. It was recog nized in the Constitution, and came down as an inheritance from the fathers ; but no excuse either of law or tradition can hide this new slavery. No palliation can be found for the wicked and willful sup pression of the ballot, and unless it be checked it will sap the very foundations of the Eepublic and destroy the only nation approxi mating self-government. This question, my fellow-citizens, is at the foundation ; it underlies all other political problems. Nothing can be permanently settled until the right of every citizen to participate EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 173 equally in our State and National affairs is unalterably fixed. Tariff, finance, civil service, and all other political and party questions should remain open and unsettled until every citizen who has a constitu tional right to share in their determination is free to enjoy it. It will not do to say that these outrages are in another section of the country and far removed from the people of Ohio. We are as much affected by them as though they were coraraitted in our very midst. They are growing in extent and enormity every year. Acqui escence will only broaden and extend them. We witnessed in Cincin nati last year a similar outrage. One hundred and fifty-two colored citizens were dragged from their homes at midnight preceding the election, without excuse, provocation, or warrant, incarcerated in a prison, and held until the polls closed. Good and respectable citizens whose right to vote was unquestioned were imprisoned without charge, for the sole reason that they were Republicans and on the fol lowing day would in all probability exercise their undoubted right of franchise. Such an invasion of the rights of American citizens in a Northem city must shock the moral sense of our people, even if the scenes at Copiah in Mississippi and Danville in Virginia are passed by without serious thought or protest. You can not confine these outrages ; you must banish them. The Democratic police officer who led in this un-American proceeding was indicted, convicted upon his own confession, openly pleading guilty, sentenced by the Federal Court, and then pardoned out by a Democratic President upon the recommendation of Governor Hoadly. From his prison cell, with a Presidential pardon as his credentials, he was admitted to the recent Democratic State Convention to aid his benefactor to a renomination, and he will be found this year joining the Democratic chorus in its song of " peace, harmony, and good will between all sections of our common country." But the contest for an untrammeled ballot will go on. The friends of equal citizenship will not relax their efforts, but multiply in ear nestness and endeavor, until everywhere within the National jurisdic tion every citizen, high or low, native or naturalized, black or white, shall exercise fully and freely without fear or favor his right to vote and to have his vote honestly counted and correctly returned. The platform of the Ohio Democracy this year, while indorsing the administration of Mr. Cleveland in general terms, has not a word commendatory of his efforts to execute the civil-service law enacted by the Republican party. It is an open secret that such approval was intentionally omitted, and had there been any declaration upon the 174 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. subject it would have been one of condemnation. The Democrats of Ohio are not now, and never have been, in favor of civil service re form or the present civil service law. Their Representatives in Con gress opposed the enactment of the law, and it has not grown in favor with them since. The Democratic convention in the city of Cleve land demanded its open violation in the more speedy removal of Repub lican officials and the appointment of their partisan spoilsmen. The Democrats of Stark County ventured to assure Mr. Cleveland that he would have the favor of Divine Providence by more speedily " turn ing the rascals out," and so all over the State the county conventions, more frank but less discreet, openly disapproved of Mr. Cleveland's attempt to obey a plain public statute. With little confidence iu the professions of tbe present adminis tration touching civil service reform, it yet has my best wishes and shall have my earnest support in all its efforts to accomplish true and genuine reformation. Whatever Mr. Cleveland's individual pur poses may be, I have never believed he could rise higher than his party or do anything else but register its will. The party is intent upon spoils and little else. It has no policy of a National character ; it has few aspirations higher than patronage. It has shown itself incapable of dealing with great questions, and it has never measured up to the demands of the times or the emergency. Its professions of reform are insincere and hypocritical, and under the false cry of " offensive partisanship " it is doing what it has not the manliness to do openly and aboveboard. It does this by talebearing and false wit ness of neighbor against neighbor, at the expense of an open, frank, and dignified course. For a pronounced and emphasized Civil Service Administration the present executive department has been peculiarly unfortunate in its appointments. In some instances its civil favors have been be stowed upon criminals awaiting trial or serving out their sentences ; in others they have fallen upon men who have but recently served the State, against their will, and by the verdict of a jury ; and there are still others where the law failed to convict. Driven distracted after such painful experience, it is not to be wondered at that the Presi dent, at last, in sheer desperation, revoked one appointment — that of one of the chief conspirators in the murder of Matthews in Missis sippi — and declared that he must draw the line somewhere, aud he would do it at murder. Upon the great question of the tariff, the Ohio Democrats are this year singularly silent in their platform. AVith the threat openly EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 175 proclaimed by the revenue reformers headed by Colonel Morrison, the author of the " horizontal " tariff bill in the last Congress, that the House that assembles next December, and which is overwhelmingly Democratic, will reduce the duties upon foreign products and mer chandise, they make no sign of protest. They offer no opposition ; they enter no appeal for the maintenance of our industries. They reaffirm the free trade Njitional platform, made at Chicago last year, thus assuming full fellowship with the free-trade majority of their party. They discard the teachings of Converse and Randall and accept the leadership of Hurd and Carlisle. They abandon the American laborer and espouse the cause of the British manufacturer. They send cheer to the free traders of Europe and our own country, and despondency to our struggling industries and their now poorly employed artisans. Hereafter no help can be expected from the Ohio Democracy to maintain protective duties. The wool grower of Ohio, whose special friend and champion they have professed to be, can find no comfort in their platform this year. They have turned their backs upon him. Two years ago they demanded the restoration of the wool duty of 1867, and repeated it last year. This year, with a Democratic House strong enough to give the wool growers full relief, they make no such demand, and fail even to enter a respectful request for suitable relief. They do say in the eighth blank that " they have always been and are now the party of the agricultural and wool growing interests," when they know that in the entire history of National legislation they have never framed or passed a law in the interest of this large and growing class. They never, in all the years of their power in the National Government, gave protection to American wool growers against their foreign competitors. They stood almost solidly against the enactment of the wool duty of 1867 ; they voted as a party, with some individual exceptions, for its reduction and repeal in the Forty-seventh Con gress. They sought through their leaders repeatedly, from 1867 to 1883, to destroy the wool tariff of 1867. They voted to scale down the duty still lower in the Forty-eighth Congress. They defeated the Converse Bill by an overwhelming majority in the House, with its seventy-six Democratic majority, which proposed the restoration of the duty of 1867. They did not stop here ; they defeated its author as a candidate for renomination to Congress only last year. They deceived the wool growers of Ohio in the campaign of 1883, and won thousands of them over to vote for Hoadly under a solemn compact that the old duty should be put back, and with the power in their 176 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. hands refused to keep their pledge. Yet with this record and these facts against them they have the hardihood to declare that they are now and always have been the friend of the wool growing and agri cultural interests of the country ! The profession is shallow pretense, and at this late day can deceive no one. They congratulate the country upon " the revival of prosperity." Have you seen it— have you realized it ? God knows I wish it was here, in abounding fullness. No party will welcome it more cheer fully, or aid its coming more zealously, than the Republican ; but a Democratic platform will not secure it, and where it exists only in the platitudes of a political party it will not fill your horaes with contentment nor bless your families with a plenteous table or even a frugal board. They congratulate the country further upon " the increase in the value of property," as demonstrating the beneficence of Democratic principles. If this be so, that the value of property has enhanced, can it be counted as cause for genuine congratulation ? With an increase in the value of property and no corresponding increase in the value of labor, can it be said that an era is reached so general in its benefits as to be the subject of party congratulation? If property has advanced in price, the wages of labor surely have not. The advance of the one without the equal upward march of the other is neither helpful nor encouraging, but tends only to one end, that of making " the rich richer and the poor poorer." If property has risen in value rents have also risen, and the price of money must be higher. Everything, declares the platform, is beneficently rising, but labor and muscle. They do not even maintain the old prices, but are gradually and steadily diminishing them. The capacity of labor to buy is cur tailed by reduced wages, the property in the hands of the nonpro- ducer leaps beyond the laborer's power to purchase, and over this con dition of affairs the Democratic party invites us to rejoice and give humble thanks to the wisdom and beneficence of a Democratic ad ministration. I see in this alleged situation nothing to rejoice over, nothing to be thankful for, but rather much to be deplore^ and cor rected. The value of property should always be measured by the cost of labor in producing it. Labor should be the foundation of all values, and it is a shocking political code which teaches that prosperity is at hand when property is incommensurately higher than labor. They should keep apace, and the former adjust itself to the latter. It is a wretched condition for any cpuntry when " lands are dear and human blood so cheap." EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 177 The Democratic press and the leaders of the Democratic party do not approve of the Republican platform made at Springfield. This is not to be wondered ati It is not a Democratic platform. If it was it never would have bee(n adopted by a Republican convention. It was made as an expression of Republican principles and purposes, and there is nothing in it harmonious with Democratic ideas or Demo cratic tendencies. It 'is wholly Republican, and evidences the courage of Republican convection and the determined spirit of the party. It is criticised in the same spirit, and in much the same phrase, as was the Republican platform of 1856, and every subsequent official utter ance of the party since. The Republicans never made a party decla ration which was not severely denounced by the opposition. It has always stood as the party of resistance. Right or wrong, it has always resisted. It was as bitterly opposed to our platforms in war as it is and has been to our platforms in peace. It is the old objection with no added force, no novelty of expression, and will frighten no one. What is wrong with the Republican platform that they so antago nize it ? It declares for equal political rights and their free and full exer cise; for a protective tariff which shall promote manufactures and give profitable employment to labor. It is for a system of general education, supported by the public revenues, wherever the same is needed ; it favors the establishment of a National Bureau of Industry ; it is for such legislation as will produce a better understanding be tween labor and capital and secure to each a just share of the joint profit. It is for the restitution of the wool duty of 1867 ; and for the continuance of the civil-service law with such amendments as will better promote this wise reform inaugurated by the Republican party. It declares for the repeal of the limitation contained in the Pension Arrears law of 1878, thus placing all disabled soldiers and their widows upon an equal footing. It is for the best attainable legisla tion under the present Constitution for the regulation and taxation of the liquor traffic. In this summary of Republican belief, to what do you object, my Democratic friend ? Where is it wrong ? Point it out, that we may meet you in open discussion. You will not do it. Your objections are general, and apply to the whole platform. You find in it noth ing to commend — everything to condemn ; of course you do. We would not be compelled to announce our position upon these ques tions and then battle for them but for the Democracy. It is because they are against these great principles- that the Republican platform 178 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. is made. It is because of their reactionary policy and destructive measures, that the existence and success of the Republican party are so essential to the welfare and safety of the country. No political party but the Democratic would have lowered the flag to honor the late Secretary of the Interior, Jacob Thompson, the defaulter and conspirator ; no other party would have desired to appoint un reconstructed rebels to office. No other party would have promised the wool growers adequate relief, and then refused to grant it. Only the Democratic party would have pledged itself to abolish the contract labor system in the State penitentiary, and then estab lish a system more odious to the free labor of the State. No other party would have proraised the liquor interests of Ohio to repeal the tax law if it attained power in both branches of the Legislature, and then, when it secured a majority, refuse to keep faith. No other party would seek to introduce British free trade in the United States to the detriment of our industries and the labor of the country. No other party could live and stand as it does in opposition to the best interests of the people and the orderly observance of law. Its record would have utterly wrecked any other party. Its vaga ries, its inconsistencies, its infidelity to public trust, its violation of oft-repeated pledges to the people, its disloyalty in war and its disre gard of public faith and public credit in peace, would have disinte grated any other party in any country of the world. It attained power in 1884 under false pretenses. It charged upon the Eepub licans maladministration, peculation, and embezzlement. It wanted to get into power to look at the books, when it would disclose whole sale robbery of the public moneys. It has had its hands upon the books for six months, it has had expert accountants searching for false entries, but it has signally failed to find anything but the most magniflcent management of the official business of the country. After it had inspected the books it counted the money. Here would be found the Eepublican shortage. The result surprised them : It was at flrst reported that the Eepublican party, which had been in power twenty-four years, receiving and disbursing millions upon millions of money, was short two cents. What a record — but even this shortage was soon found ! The Democratic examiners had overlooked the two cents. Their carelessness, and not ours, accounted for the supposed loss. They had lost in their examination, more than the Eepublicans had lost in twenty-four years, and, after the most careful scrutiny, with a purpose to besmirch Eepublican officials, they were forced to report EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 179 that the books had been properly kept and that the money was all there. What a vindication of Eepublican fidelity to official trust, what a stern rebuke to the Democratic orators, who had shouted themselves hoarse over Eepublican delinquencies ! Never did a re tiring administration leave to its successor better credit, a cleaner, larger balance, or a more hopeful outlook for a prosperous future — in marked contrast with the condition in which the Democrats left the National treasury on March 4, 1861. Then its vaults were empty and no count was necessary. They left neither money nor credit, and the future involved in certain war. The Republican party, thus finding the country, parts with its control after long years of rule, at peace with all mankind, rich and prosperous, with the best credit of any country on earth, with an overflowing Treasury, honored and re spected among all nations. If the Democratic party can leave it in 1889 in the matchless condition in which they found it in 1885, they will indeed deserve the congratulations of their countryraen. The National Republican party stands to-day, as it has always stood, battling for the right and for the accomplishment of the great est good for the greatest number. It is alive to the issues and the demands of the hour. The defeat of last year by a scratch in the North, and intimidation in the South, has neither disheartened nor discouraged it, but leaves it full of hope and courage, and determined upon future triumphs. It has every incentive to a vigorous warfare and every encouragement for a glorious victory. " Offensive parti sanship " may not be in favor with the present administration, but it is abroad in the Republican ranks, and is in no wise subdued ; for Republicans this year, as of old, will wage an offensive warfare against its ancient enemy, the Deraocratic party. We believe in offensive Republicanism — the Republicanism that fearlessly strikes for principle — that keeps its face always to the front, moving on, and sweeping aside every obstacle that impedes the onward march of progressive ideas. The Cleveland administration likes inoffensive Re publicans. We do not ; we have no use for them ; they are only use ful to the enemy ; they only retard the movement of our advancing columns ; they are the stragglers moving with the baggage train — enrolled among us, but never ready for duty and always ready to sur render without resistance. We like aggressive Republicans — the class who founded the party ; the Republicans of 1856, who, although in a hopeless minority, planted their stakes, took their bearings, and moved with steady step against the Democratic party, strongly intrenched in power. The Republic- 180 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. ans of 1860, who, undismayed by the defeat of Fremont, their first Presidential candidate, retreated not a single inch, but advancing ag gressively from their position of four years before, achieved their first National victory in the election of the immortal Lincoln. Inoffensive Republicans, now in such favor with Grover Cleveland, were not in that heroic band who snatched victory from an arrogant foe. The Republicans from 1861 to 1865 were made of the same material — offensive enough, when the Democrats of the South sought to destroy the Government, to fight and struggle, to die for the Union to save it, and blot forever from the Republic the crime of human slavery. It was this kind of Republicanism that took the enormous debt in 1865, at the close of the war, and reduced it from $2,757,000,- 000 to $1,700,000,000, in 1885 ; that resumed specie payments and turned the dollar of promise into the coin of fulfillment ; that placed in the Constitutiou civil and political equality ; and it is the kind of Republicanism that will make that enactment respected and obeyed in every part of the Union. This is the Republicanism of 1885, and it will conduct the present contest to a victorious end. We have an important duty before us in Ohio. We are the first of the great States to vote — the first to pronounce judgment upon Democratic aims. Let us not be diverted from the chief issues by any side questions irrelevant to the contest. Let us see to it that the party and State which gave Blaine a majority of over 30,000 last year, does not fail to give to Judge Foraker and his associates upon the ticket an equal victory on the second Tuesday of October. WHAT PEOTECTION MEANS TO YIEGINIA. A Campaign Speech at the Academy of Music, Petersburg, Virginia, October 29, 1885. [As reported for the Virginia State Committee.] My Fellow-Citizens : I come to your State upon the invita tion of the Chairman of the Eepublican State Committee [General Mahone], to talk to you about the country and its condition, and the relation of the two political parties to our present and future. I do not come to tell you the splendid story of the Eepublican party in the past, for with that you are all familiar. I come rather to talk to you of the future, of that which concerns your labor, your material interests, and your individual as well as the general prosperity. I come to say in Virginia precisely what I have said in Ohio, for there is one thing that can always be said about the Eepublican party — it is a National party. It advocates the same principles in Ohio and Massachusetts, in New York and New Jersey, that it advocates in Virginia, Mississippi, and North and South Carolina ; for wherever you find Eepublicans, whether it is in one of the States of the North, or in one of the States of the South, you find them always standing upon the same platform, always carrying the same flag, always in favor of National unity and National prosperity. Senator Sherman, our distinguished Senator, who has for more than thirty years been in public life, and whom the people of Ohio this very month, in their election, declared they wanted still longer in the Senate of the United States [applause] to flll the seat he has so long and honorably fllled, has met the accusation that has been made against Northern speakers, and men who are engaged for the Eepublican party and in the Eepublican cause in the North, touching the " waving of the bloody shirt." That seems to trouble the Demo crats of the State of Virginia a great deal. [Cries of " Talk about it ! "] Now, I do not know for the life of me, my fellow-citizens, 182 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEt. what the Democrats mean by " waving the bloody shirt." [A voice, " Nor anybody else."] I do not know whether you know what they mean or not, but if they mean by " waving the bloody shirt " that the Eepublican party of Ohio has insisted that every man in this country is the equal of every other man politically, then I want to confess before a Virginia audience that we have " waved the bloody shirt." [Applause.] If that is what it means, we have not only waved the bloody shirt, but the Eepublican party of this country, and the good men of this country of every political party, will continue to wave it until every citizen of this Eepublic shall enjoy every right guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States. [Great applause, and cries of " Talk about it ! "] I have said that in Ohio. I say it in Virginia, in sight of the battlefields upon which we fought. We say it in the North, and we say it in the South, that not only shall the black man, but the white man, the native-born and the naturalized, enjoy equally every right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States wherever the American flag floats [applause] ; and when we say that, my fellow-citizens, we say nothing about the late war except its eternal settlements. I came down here to Virginia to speak for two ex-Confederate soldiers. I fought for the Union in our mighty Civil War. [Ap plause.] I was all over the Valley of Virginia during the "recent civil struggle." I know the stuff of which the Confederate soldier was made, and I know that no braver men ever drew sword than these Confederate soldiers of the State of Virginia [applause] ; and I believe that the Confederate soldiers of the State of Virginia are too honorable and too high-minded to demand anything except complete acquiescence in every part of the Union of the great settlement made between Grant and Lee at Appomattox [applause], and afterward embodied into the Constitution of the United States. I come to speak for Captain Wise [applause], an old Confederate soldier, and for General Mahone, another Confederate soldier. [Applause.] I come to speak for them because they stand as representatives in the State of Virginia of the National Eepublican party, which stands for the Union here and everywhere. [Great applause, and cries of " Good ! "] And while blood is an excellent thing (I like good blood), yet, my fellow-citizens, do not forget that brains are safer, more to be relied upon, than blood. [Applause.] They will serve you better, and every man in this country, as Senator Sherman has told you, must " stand upon his own bottom," every man must " blaze his own way " in the United States. We might just as well commence to under- WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 183 stand that now. [Cries of " That's it ! "] There is no royal blood among us ; there are no descended titles here ; there is no way in the world of getting on and up, or earning money, except by work. [Ap plause.] There are just two ways in the United States to acquire money : one is to steal it, the other is to earn it, and the honorable way is to earn it ; and you earn it by labor, either the labor of the hand or the labor of the brain. [Applause.] And the industrious labor of the hand, and the careful labor of the brain — the possessors of these are going to be the men of the future, whether they are in Virginia or in Ohio. [Applause.] There is no use of sitting down under your ancestral tree and talking about the past. That is secure. That has all been achieved. What we want to do, as a people having the same destiny, is to determine what will accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number within the limits of our great country [applause] ; and whatever does that, and whatever party advocates that, is the party to which all should yield willing allegiance. Now, a great question, my fellow-citizens, before this country — a question of the now and a question of the hereafter — is whether we shall have maintained in the United States a system of protection to American labor and American development, or whether we shall have practical free trade with all the countries of the world, and im pose no duties except for revenue upon articles of merchandise, and products that may be brought into the United States. [Several voices, " No free trade."] No, we want no free trade. Now, flrst of all, we want to know which party, if any, is in favor of free trade? [A voice, " The Democratic party."] And which party is in favor of a protective tariff? [A voice, " The Eepublican party."] You say that the Democratic party is in favor of free trade, and the Eepublican party in favor of protection. But there are a good many Democrats who say they are in favor of protection — a good many of them, I say. There are two ways of determining the position of a political party : one is by its platforms, the other is by its record and its votes in the Congress of the United States. So, if you want to determine what the Democratic party believes, or what the Eepublican party believes, you must flrst go to their platforms, and then you must go to their record in Congress to see if they concur, each with the other. [Cries of " That's it ! "] Now let us try the Democratic and Eepublican parties by this test for a moment, because I would not do the Democratic party any injustice upon this subject if I could ; and I assert here to-night, and I challenge contradiction by any gentleman in this audience, or else- 184 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. where, that since 1840, and before, with just two exceptions, the Democratic party of the United States in National conventions and in National platforms, from 1840 to 1884, has declared in favor of a revenue tariff closely approximating free trade. They did it in 1840, they did it in 1844, they did it in 1848, they did it in 1852, they did it in 1856, they did it in I860, and again in 1868, with a sugges tion of " incidental protection," and they omitted it in 1864 and 1872. And why did they omit it ? They omitted it in 1872, because in that year the Democratic party nominated for its Presidential candidate the old Eepublican leader, Horace Greeley, who had taught the younger men of this country the great doctrine of American protection, and they did not, therefore, that year dare to declare in favor of free trade with a protectionist standing on their platform. So they said, and they committed Mr. Greeley to that proposition, that this question of the tariff should be under the control of Congress, and there should be no Executive interference. So if Congress passed a free-trade law they committed Mr. Greeley to the proposition that he should not veto such a bill. But in 1876 they declared again in favor of free trade with the other countries of the world ; so again in 1880, and again in 1884. Now, that is their platform record. Go to the Con gress of the United States, and you will find that in 1846 they re pealed the protective law of 1843, one of the best protective laws we ever had. Under it our country built up and prospered, industries were inaugurated, laboring men were contented and happy. They repealed it in 1846, and it remained repealed, substituting therefor the Walker tariff of that year, which remained upon our statute- books (with subsequent amendments more and more approximating free trade) until 1860. In 1861 the Eepublican party made a pro tective tariff law, but ever since 1868 the Democrats in Congress have sought to break down that great system. Colonel Morrison tried it in the Forty-fourth Congress ; Fernando Wood, of New York, tried it in the Forty-fifth Congress ; Eandolph Tucker, of your own State, who became the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House in the Forty-sixth Congress, upon the death of Mr. Wood, also tried it ; and they have tried it in every Congress since. The last attempt was in the Forty-eighth Congress, when Colonel Mor rison's " horizontal " tariff bill was beaten by the Eepublican party. So that their platform record and their record in Congress both concur in making that party a free-trade or revenue-tariff party. Now look at the Eepublican party. The first National platform of the Eepublican party was made in 1856, and they put in that WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 185 platform a declaration in favor of a protective tariff ; and in every platform it has made since, from 1860 to 1884 inclusive, without a single exception, the National utterance has been in favor of the maintenance of a protective tariff which shall give encouragement to American development and furnish employment to American labor. Then go to the records of Congress, and you will find, as I have already said, that the Eepublicans passed the protective law of 1861, that they have maintained the protective system ever since, and they have maintained it always in spite of the bitterest opposition of the Democratic party. They have had but little help from the Demo cratic party of the United States. Occasionally a Democrat in Penn sylvania, and now and then a Democrat in New Jersey, would vote with the Eepublicans against the reduction of duties. But I do not know of a single Eepresentative from the State of Virginia — I mean a Democratic Eepresentative — save one, since 1868, who has not voted in favor of every free-trade proposition made by the free traders of the country — every one of them — from Eandolph Tucker down. There is just one exception, and that, I believe, is George D. Wise, who voted last year with the Eepublican party to defeat the Morrison Bill, which would have closed up thousands of the great industries of the United States. Well, now, if George D. Wise believes in protection, he doesn't belong to the Democratic party. He had to come over to us, to join us, to carry out his views ; that's all there is of it. When he wanted to prevent free trade, he had to come over to the Eepublican party and vote with it, for his old party stood almost solidly against him and in favor of free trade. Now, my fellow-citizens, what is this tariff ? It is very largely mis understood, or rather it is very little understood ; and if I can to-night make this audience, the humblest and the youngest in it, understand what the tariff means, I will feel that I have been well paid for my trip to Virginia. What then is the tariff ? The tariff, my fellow-citizens, is a tax put upon goods made outside of the United States and brought into the United States for sale and consuraption. That is, we say to England, we say to Germany, we say to France, " If you want to sell your goods to the people of the United States, you must pay so much for the privilege of doing it ; you must pay so much per ton, so much per yard, so much per foot, as the case may be, for the privilege of selling to the American people ; and what you pay in that form goes into the public treasury to help discharge the public burdens." It is just like the little city of Petersburg, for example. I do not know what 186 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. your custom may be, but in many cities of the North if a man comes to our cities and wants to sell goods to our people on the street, not to occupy any of our business houses, not being a permanent resi dent or trader, not living there, but traveling and selling from town to town, if he comes to one of our little cities in Ohio, we say to him, " Sir, you must pay so much into the city treasuiy for the privilege of selling goods to our people here." Now, why do we do that ? We do it to protect our own merchants. Just so our Government says to the countries of the Old World ; it says to England and the rest : " If you want to come in and sell to our people, and make money from our people, you must pay some thing for the privilege of doing it [a voice, 'That's true '], and pay it at the Treasury and at the customhouses," and that goes into the Treasury of the United States to help discharge the public debt and pay the current exjjenses of the Government. Now, that is the tariff ; and if any man at this point wants to ask me any questions about it, I want him to do it now, for I don't want when I am gone, to have some Democrat say, " If I could only have had an opportunity to ask him a question, I would like to have done it, because I could have exposed the fallacy of his argument." So I want him to do it now. [Applause. No one responded to the invitation.] What is the difference between the Democratic party and the Ee publican party about this tariff ? The Democratic party believes in a tariff — that is, a revenue tariff. The Eepublican party believes in a protective tariff, that not only raises the requisite revenue but does something else for our own people. Now, let me explain that. What is a revenue tariff ? A revenue tariff is a tax, such as I have been describing, that will raise the most revenue — the largest num ber of dollars — upon the fewest number of articles. The Demo cratic idea is to put the tariff on the goods that we can not make in the United States, aud the products that we can not raise in the United States. Do you understand me? If there is anything we can not manufacture in the United States, and we mnst have, the Democratic party says put the tax on that, because from necessity we can not grow it at home, we can not manufacture it at home, and our very necessities impel us to import, and that swells the importa tion and at the same time swells the revenues. Now, the Eepublican idea is just the opposite. The Eepublican plan is to put no tax upon any goods that we can not manufacture in the United States — put no tax upon any product that is brought from other countries that we can not raise in the United States ; but put WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 187 taxes upon products which come from foreign countries like those we do raise in the United States, and on goods that are made abroad like those that we do manufacture in the United States. Now, what will that do ? First, it will raise a revenue, just as the other system will. Then, it does more than that : it not only raises the revenue, but the tax that is put upon the kinds of foreign goods that are manufactured here protects the men who manufacture them in the United States. [Applause, and cries of " Now you're talking ! "] Now, why do we put a tax on foreign wool ? Por two reasons : it brings a revenue to the Treasury, and at the same time protects the men who grow and raise wool in the United States. [A voice, "That's so."] Now, we put a tax on sumac. That is a Virginia industry [a voice, " Yes, it is"], and it furnishes employment to a great many people. We put a tax upon foreign sumac. We say to those people on the other side who would ship it over here and com pete with what we produce, " If you want to bring your sumac into the United States and sell it to our people, you must pay so much for the privilege of doing it " ; and that not only gives a revenue to the Government, but it protects the men who are engaged in producing it in the State of Virginia. [Applause.] The Democratic idea is. Don't put any tax on sumac, because we can produce it in the United States, and therefore let all the foreign sumac come in free and compete with our sumac. We say. No ; just put the tax right on that thing, and if importers must bring foreign sumac here let them pay for the privilege of doing so. [Ap plause.] Then we put a duty upon peanuts. [A voice, " Now you're hitting it ! "] It is a very little thing. They speak of the peanut business as being a very small business, but I have discovered, in riding about your city with Senator Mahone to-day, that it is a very large production about Petersburg. The Democratic idea is to take off all the duty on peanuts ; let them come in free, or pay a very small duty at the customhouse ; let them come in and reduce the price, if you please, of American pea nuts, and reduce the price of American labor that is engaged in pro ducing them. We say. No ; stop at the customhouse ; if you want to bring them in, pay something into the Treasury. [Applause.] Less duty might cheapen the peanut for a time, but it would only be temporary ; when the foreign article had broken down our production the price would go up and be higher than ever. We put a duty of $6.60 on a ton of pig metal— a great industry in the United States which furnishes employment to thousands and 13 188 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tens of thousands of laboring men. We tell every man in Amer ica who wants Scotland's pig iron, if he thinks it is any better, and does not want the American pig iron — we tell him, if he must have the Scotch, " You must pay for the privilege," and in that way we maintain that great industry. We make pig iron, and we keep up the price of American labor. What else do you grow or produce in Virginia ? I care not what it is, tobacco, and every other one of your great products, is fully protected, and they are protected because the Eepublican party has decreed and ordered it; for you never had a protective-tariff law under the administration of the Democratic party. [A voice, " No, nothing else."] If they had the Senate of the United States, as they now have the House, three months would not elapse after the con vening of the Forty-ninth Congress next December — three months would not elapse, I say — until they would overturn and destroy the protective tariff of the Eepublican party, and substitute in its place a revenue-free-trade law in harmony with the principles of the Demo cratic party ; and therefore I am interested — as every man who loves his country and her development is interested — in preserving the Sen ate of the United States from the hands of the Democratic party. [Applause.] I said to the people of Ohio, when we were making our canvass this year, " Elect a Eepublican Legislature, so that we may send John Sherman [applause and cheers] back to the Senate of the United States, and thereby preserve a Eepublican majority in that great par liamentary body." And I say to the citizens of Virginia, I do not care what your politics are, I do not care where you stood during the great Civil War — if you are interested in the development of a new and progressive order of things in Virginia, I say to you, as I said to the people of Ohio, " Elect a Legislature that will send to the Senate of the United States a man who will vote for a pro tective tariff," and who has done it over and over again [applause] ; and if you do that, the Eepublican party will preserve its majority in that great body, which is the only Eepublican citadel we have left. The House is Democratic; the President is Democratic, or they think he is. They thought he was [applause and laughter], but I do not know how he is going to turn out. [Laughter]. They have the House and the President, and if General Mahone is defeated in Virginia, I do not know that it is possible for the Eepublicans to preserve the Senate during the entire administration of Grover Cleveland [applause]. WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 139 Now, my fellow-citizens, a little more about the tariff. It is a very dry subject, I know [voices, " No it isn't "], but it is a subject which affects your purse, your dress, your living, and your homes; it affects your every-day interests, and your ability to live in com fort, and to keep your family from want. One step further upon that subject. In the early days, when the great Whig leader, Henry Clay, advocated a tariff, he put his advocacy of the protective tariff upon these grounds : That this was a new country, and that we had not developed our great resources; that we had no capital in the United States to compete with the accumulated capital of Europe, and that we had no skilled labor in the United States, and must have a protective tariff until we developed our resources, until we had accumulated capital, until we had put skill into the hands of our laborers ; for you know when our forefathers came over here they did not bring skilled labor with them. They came here to fell the forests and prepare this country for the coming civilization. And so the old Whig leader advocated a protective tariff until we should accumulate capital, develop our hidden treasures, and educate our laboring men to be skilled mechanics. Now, these grounds no longer exist so forcibly and clearly to-day. We have developed our country to a considerable extent, certainly in some of the States. You have not in Virginia to the same extent as in other States, and I will tell you why, after a little. But we have capital in the United States. There is no trouble about money. Any man who has a successful enterprise can get all the money he needs, and he can get it at a low rate of interest, and capital, therefore, can take care of itself. So, if we are to maintain a protective tariff, we must maintain it upon some additional grounds than those advocated by the Whig party. The chief ground upon which we can justify a protective tariff to-day is that it is in the in terest of American labor — American black labor as well as American white labor — and the protective tariff we want is a tax sufficient to make up the difference between the prices paid labor in Europe and the prices paid labor in America. Now, that is all the duty we want. Whenever the workingmen of the United States — I mean skilled and unskilled laboring men — ^whenever they are ready to work for the same wages, the same low wages that are paid their rivals on the other side, their rivals in England, in Germany, in Belgium, and in France, en gaged in the same occupation — whenever they are ready for that, which I hope and believe will never be, then we are ready for the free-trade doctrines of the Democratic party. [Applause.] It is a question that 190 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. addresses itself to the bone and sinew of the United States ; it is a question for the workingmen to determine. I don't care what your color is, you are not paid as much for your labor in Virginia as we pay for labor in Ohio. [A voice, " You are right, too."] We do not want our labor in Ohio to be brought down to your standard, and we don't intend it shall be. [A voice, " Good enough ! "] We want to bring your standard up to ours [applause] ; and whether we live in the North or in the South, we are opposed to the policy of the Democratic party which wonld bring American labor down to the standard of the poor white labor of Europe [cries of " Talk about it ! "] ; and if I were not a Eepublican for any other reason than that, if I did not care what I believed about anything else, I would be a Eepublican, because Eepublican protection believes in America as against the world. [Great applause]. That is the policy and doctrine of the Eepublican party. The Democratic party, my fellow-citizens, is in alliance with the manufacturers and the traders of England, who want the American market. It is the pro-British party. Why, they call me a high protectionist ! I am a high protection ist ; I do not deny it, and I would not be seriously disturbed in mind if the tariff were a little higher. [A voice, " That's right."] Do you know of any reason in the world why Americans should not make everything that Americans need ? There is, indeed, no reason. We have the capital ; we have the skill ; we have all the elements of Na ture ; we have everything we need, and I would make the duty so high that there would be fewer English goods coming into the United States and more American goods consumed at home. [Applause.] Do you think there would be an idle man in America if we manufac tured everything that Americans used ? [A voice, " No."] Do you think if we didn't buy anything from abroad at all, but made every thing we needed, that every man would not be employed in the United States, and employed at a profitable remuneration? Why, everybody is benefited by protection, even the people who do not be lieve in it — for they get great benefit out of it, but will not confess it ; and that is what is the matter with Virginia. Heretofore she has not believed in it. You have not had a publio man that I know of in Washington for twenty-five years, save one, except the Eepub licans, wlio did not vote against the great doctrine of American pro tection, American industries, and American labor; and do you imagine that anybody is coming to Virginia with his money to build a mill, or a factory, or a furnace, and develop your coal and your ore, WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 191 bring his money down here, when you vote every time against his in terests — and don't let those who favor them vote at all ? No. [Ap plause.] If you think so, you might just as well be undeceived now, for they will not come. Why, old John Eandolph, I don't know how many years ago, said on the floor of the American Congress, in opposing a protect ive tariff, " he did not believe in manufactories." " Why," said he, " if you have manufactories in Philadelphia, you will have cholera six months in the year." That was what the " Sage of Roanoke " said ; and Virginia seems to be still following the sentiments he ut tered years and years ago. I tell you, manufactories do not bring cholera — they bring coin, coin ; coin for the poor man, coin for the rich ; coin for everybody who will work, comfort and contentment for all deserving people. [Voices, " It does that."] And if you vote for increasing manufac tories, my fellow-citizens, you will vote for the best interests of your own State, and you will be making iron, and steel, and pottery, and all the great leading products, just as Ohio and Pennsylvania are making them to-day. Tell me why your land in Virginia in 1880 was worth an average price of but $10.92 all over the State, while over in Pennsylvania the average price per acre was $49. Virginia has just as good soil as Pennsylvania. [A voioe, " Yes, she has."] Virginia has just as rich minerals as Pennsylvania; and what makes the difference between the $11 and $49 is, that you have little development in Virginia — and your old policy will never bring more. Stand by new Virginia, and stand by your new leader, Senator Mahone. [Applause and cheers.] That is good sense and good policy. Talk about the war ! Who talks about the war ? Who talks about it, except the men who want to keep its bitterness and passions alive for their own political ends ? I do not know how it is down here in Virginia, but the men who are eternally talking about the war over in my State (Ohio) are the men who were not in it. [Applause, and cries of " That's so ! "] They are the fellows. General Mahone, who are " invincible in peace, but invisible in war." [Applause.] They are the most magnificent warriors on the street corners that Ohio ever saw, but they never drew swords for their country. It is the same crowd, precisely the same crowd, who told the Southern people to " Go in, and there are hundreds of thousands of Democrats who will stand by you." Did any of them ever do it ? [Several voices, " No."] That same crowd old Virginia is following to-day. They 192 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. never brought you any good in the past, they will never bring yon any good in the future. Why, Kentucky is very much such a State as Virginia in that par ticular. The average price per acre for land in that State is $13.80, while it is $44 per acre all over the State of Ohio. There is nothing but the river that divides us. The Ohio washes the banks of both States. The same sun shines upon both. The same gentle rain comes to moisten both. The same industrious laborers toil in both, yet Ohio can sell her lands, from her poorest to her best — her rough hill lands and all — at an average of $44 per acre, while Kentucky lands will bring but $14. What is the reason for it? Kentucky believes in the Resolutions of 1798, and in the free-trade reaction ary policy of the Democratic party, and hence she has no manu factories. My fellow-citizens, I would like to talk to yon further, but a dis tinguished gentieraan from Illinois [General Green B. Raum] is pres ent, who I want you to hear. I want you to hear from two of " the invading States." We came down not in large numbers ; there are only three of us here, hardly a corporal's guard ; it can not fairly be called " an in vasion." [Laughter.] There are no cavalry, we have no martial music, no brass bands, and I know Senator Sherman did not bring along with hitn the saddle of his illustrious brother. [Applause and laughter.] I do not know what you think about it, my fellow- citizens, but I will venture to advise you that brains wiU make an infinitely better Governor than any saddle, whether it was mounted by General Grant or General Lee. Stick to brains, and let the sad dle go ! [Applause.] What in the world has Grover Cleveland done ? Will you tell me? [A voice, "Nothing."] You give it up? I have been look ing for six weeks for a Democrat who could tell me what Cleveland has done for the good of his country and for the benefit of the people, but I have not found hira, and I thought I might find him in Virginia, for I have a chromo for that fellow. [Laughter.] What has he done ? He has been in power eight months. He says himself, in his order issued yesterday, that two thirds of his time has been uselessly spent with Democrats who want office, and he is going to stop that ; and I give notice — because you may hot have read it in the papers — I give notice to the Democrats of Virginia, that under Cleve land's recent order, promulgated yesterday, you can not see him about an office during the whole month of November. Now, he has WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. 193 been so occupied in that way that he has not done anything else. Yes, he has ; I want to give Mr. Cleveland credit for everything he has done. He has closed up the great American shipbuilding estab lishment of John Roach, and shut out 2,500 men from the oppor tunity of earning a living. He has done another thing — issued a new postal card. The old postal card that we have had for a good many years went through the mails very well — reached its destination usually. Our old postal card had a vignette of the Goddess of Lib erty upon it. Grover Cleveland has changed that postal card, and he has blotted out the Goddess of Liberty and put in its place the head of Thomas Jefferson — taking the youth of America back to 1798. What I am down here for is to advise you to let 1798 go, and look to 1888 ! Why, my friends, Grover Cleveland and his party said when he got into power " good times were coming." Do you remember that ? [Several voices, " Yes."] Why, every man was going to have all he wanted to eat, and, in some localities where the revenue laws do not prevail, all he wanted to drink [laughter] — and all he wanted to wear. He has been in eight months, and I subrait to you whether the tiraes are as good to-day as they were the day Chester A. Arthur vacated the Presidential chair ? [Cries of " No ! no ! "] I will ask any raan here, Democrat or Republican, whether times are better to-day ? [A voice, " They are harder."] I teU you, times will never get better through the Democratic party. Times, I think, will get better after a while [a voice, " I be lieve you "], but if they do, they will get better in spite of the Demo cratic party, and because the Democratic party can not help it. I tell you, free-trade Democracy does not mean prosperity, because when free trade comes, and everything made on the other side comes in here to compete with what we make on this side, either one of two things must happen — either the American manufacturer must quit business, put out his fires, discharge his employes, or go to his pay roll and cut that pay roll down low enough to compete with the cheap labor that makes the product on the other side. [Cries of "That's it!"] You will never have prosperity so long as the Demo cratic party remains as a standing menace to the industry, growth, j and advancement of the United States. But, I have talked too long. [Cries of " Go on ! go on ! " « Talk a httle more ! "] I thank you, my fellow-citizens. If you will this year elect John S. Wise Governor [great applause and cheering], and make it possible for General Mahone to go back to the Senate, I will come down just 194 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. as often and " go on " just as long as you want me to. [Tremendous applause, and cries of " Now you're talking!"] Stand by your interests — stand by the party that stands by the people. [A voice, " You are right, we will do it."] Because in the Republican party there is no such thing as class or caste. The humble, poor colored man in the Republican party, the humble, poor white man in the Republican party, has an equal chance with the opulent white or colored Republican in the race of life. And so with every race, and every nationality, the Republican party says, " Come up higher ! " We do not appeal to passions ; we do not ap peal to baser instincts ; we do not appeal to race or war prejudices. We do appeal to your consciences ; we do appeal to your own best interests, to stand by a party that stands by the people. Vote the Republican ticket, stand by the protective policy, stand by Araerican industries, stand by that policy which believes in American work for American workmen, that believes in American wages for American laborers, that believes in American homes for American citizens. Vote to maintain that system by which you can earn enough not only to give you the comforts of life but the refinements of life ; enough to educate and equip your children, who may not have been fortu nate by birth, who may not have been born with a silver spoon in their mouths ; enough to enable them in turn to educate and prepare their children for the great possibilities of American life. I am for America, because America is for the common people. [Ap plause.] We have no kings ; we have no dukes ; we have no lords. Every man in this country represents the sovereign power of this great Government, and every man has equal power with every other man to clothe that sovereign with his will. I believe in America, because we have no laws in this country like the old laws of primogeniture, where everything goes to the first-born; and I like this country for another thing. When the rich man dies he can not entail his property. [A voice, " That's true."] Often the boy he leaves behind him, reared in luxury and wealth, if raised to do nothing, can not take care of the property left him. [Cries of " That's so ! "] I will tell you how it is up in our country, and I want it so down here in Virginia. In less than twenty-five years the son of a poor man has a part of the wealth which the opulent ancestor left that will not stay with his unworthy descendant. And so everybody gets a chance after a while. The wealthy men of our country to-day were poor men forty years ago, and the future manu facturers are the mechanics of the present. Make that possible in WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO VIRGINIA. I95 Virginia, and you will win. Make it possible to break down the prejudices of the past. Get out from under your ancestral tree. Recognize and give force to the Constitution, permit every man to vote for the party of his choice, and have his ballot honestly counted. Push to the front where you belong as a State and a people. Be assured that the Republicans of the North harbor no resent ments — only ask for the results of the war. They wish you the highest prosperity and greatest development. They bid you, in the language of Whittier : " A school-house plant on every hill, Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence, The quick wires of intelligence ; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought ; In peace a comraon flag salute, And, side by side in labor's free And unresentful rivalry, Harvest the fields wherein they fought." [Long and continued applause.] LABOE AEBITEATION. Speech in the House of Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, April 2, 1886. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 7,479) to provide for the speedy settlement of controversies and dif ferences between common carriers engaged in Interstate and Territorial transpor tation of property or passengers and their employes, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : I rise to oppose the amendment of the gentle man from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge]. The whole purpose of the amendment is to destroy whatever good results may be expected frora the passage of this bill ; and I can readily see why a gentleman who is opposed to this system of settling differences between employer and employe should offer the amendraent which is here proposed. I am opposed to the amendment, because I believe in the principle and tendency of the bill. It confers no rights or privileges touching arbitration which are not now enjoyed by common carriers and those engaged iu their service. It leaves them where it finds them, with the right of voluntary arbitration, to settle their differences through a peaceful and orderly tribunal of their own selection. It only follows the principle recognized in many States of the Union, notably in Ohio and Massachusetts, and gives National sanction and encourage ment to a mode of settlement of grievances between employer and employ^ which is approved by the best judgment of the country and the enlightened sentiment of all civilized peoples. While the bill does not compel arbitration, its passage here will not be without in fluence as a legislative suggestion in commending the principle to both capital and labor as the best and most economic way of compos ing differences and settling disagreements, which experience has uni formly shown, in the absence of an amicable adjustment, results in loss to all classes of the community, and to none more than the LABOR ARBITRATION. 197 workingmen themselves. If by the passage of this simple measure arbitration as a system shall be aided to the slightest extent or ad vanced in private or public favor, or if it shall serve to attract the thoughtful attention of the people to the subject, much will have been accomplished for the good order of our communities aud for the welfare and prosperity of the people. I am in favor of this bill for what it is, and only for what it is. It does not undertake to do impossible things or cross the line of safety. I will regret if it shall deceive anybody; and if it is the purpose of anybody to make believe that its passage is a cure for the evils and dis content which pervade society, I must disclaim now any part or share in such purpose or expectation, for it will not and can not, and nobody supposes it will. It simply provides that when the railroad com panies operating through two or more States or in the Territories, and their employes, shall agree upon and consent to an arbitration, this bill will aid, encourage, and assist the parties concerned to get at the truth, to probe to the bottom, ascertain the facts of the situation, by which the board will be enabled to act intelligently and justly to all interests involved. This is the whole of it in scope and extent, and it can not and will not deceive any one. It is said there is no way to enforce the judgment of the arbitra tors, and therefore it is a nullity. I have the least concern on that score. I have no fear that, after the railroad corporation and its em ployes have united in an arbitration, its judgment will be disobeyed, or not acquiesced in as final and conclusive. Neither will venture in the absence of fraud to ignore the award of a tribunal of their own selection, in which both have voluntarily confided for the settlement of their differences. We need borrow no trouble on that account. Refusal to obey the judgment of the arbitration would be the excep tion, and not the rule, and an award honestly reached will be sacredly observed. Nor am I troubled because there is no compulsion to arbi trate in the first instance. Either party provided for in the bill, be lieving it has a genuine grievance, and inviting the other to arbitrate, will occupy a vantage ground whioh the other can not long successfully defy. There is a sense of fair play among the people which, when crystallized into public judgment, is as potent — aye, more potent — than statute or judicial decree. No railroad corporation, no labor union, no body of laboring men could long hold out against a fair and equitable demand, backed by a willingness to submit the justice of that demand to a board of competent arbitrators. In any view there is no harm in trying this experiment ; and in this effort, small 198 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. and inconsequential as it may seem to be, I am confident we are moving in the right direction, and that nothing but good can result. There is another feature of this bill which I regard of great prac tical value — that feature which provides for subpoenaing and com pelling the attendance of witnesses and the payment of the necessary expenses of the arbitration. It places both parties upon an equality in pursuing the investigation. A lack of means upon the one hand or the other will not impair the fullest consideration. The humblest and poorest can send for persons and papers without incurring an expense which very often they can illy bear. As the compensation of the board comes out of the public treasury, neither party is subject to the expense of the investigation, and the laboring men will not be required to draw from their scanty savings or assess their fellow- workmen to meet actual expenses. This overcomes the disadvan tage of limited means on the one hand, and avoids any advantage which might occur from bounteous means on the other. It equalizes their condition for a thorough investigation and a coraplete disclosure of the true situation. That provision alone is worth to the cause of arbitration much more than it will cost the National Treasury. Then, in case of disagreement after arbitration the testimony in full can be published for the information of all. The great public is put in possession of the grievances, and can judge who is right and who is wrong ; and the public judgment, whatever it may be upon the one side or the other, will be more forceful, more commanding, more certain of considerate attention than any penalty we could im pose by legislative enactment. I have listened patiently to this debate from its beginning, and have heard no good reason given why the House should not pass this bill. I am not troubled about its consti tutionality. I do not believe it is open to constitutional objection. I believe that a Constitution which gives Congress control of the rail roads operating through two or more States to regulate the rate of freights is broad enough to justify us in taking cognizance between these same railroads and the employes upon their lines, and furnish the machinery for a peaceful arbitration, voluntarily agreed upon among themselves, of any differences or disagreements which may arise between them. If the one is constitutional the other surely is. Both are important problems demanding solution, and both, I trust, will be dealt with by this Congress, with fairness and justice to all. I believe, Mr. Chairman, in arbitration as a principle ; I believe it should prevail in the settlement of international differences. It rep resents a higher civilization than the arbitrament of war. I believe LABOR ARBITRATION. 199 it is in close accord with the best thought and sentiment of mankind ; I believe it is the true way of settling differences between labor and capital ; I believe it will bring both to a better understanding, uniting them closer in interest, and promoting better relations, avoiding force, avoiding unjust exactions and oppression, avoiding the loss of earn ings to labor, avoiding disturbances to trade and transportation ; and if this House can contribute in the smallest measure, by legislative expression or otherwise, to these ends, it will deserve and receive the gratitude of all men who love peace, good order, justice, and fair play. THE PAYMENT OF PENSIONS. Speech in the House of Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, June 22, 1886. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration the report of the Committee on Rules, proposing an amendraent to Rule 38, relative to the payment of pensions, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : If this proposition coming from the Committee on Rules, representing the majority of this House, means anything, it means that we have not revenues enough now on hand to pay the pensions of deserving soldiers. If it means anything, it is a confes sion before the House and the country that our revenues are inade quate to meet the just demands of the disabled soldiers of the Republic. Now, if it means that, Mr. Speaker, then the action of this House, and the conduct of certain members of the House, are quite unesplain- able. We have witnessed here within the last six days an effort on the part of a majority of the leading Committee of this House to reduce the receipts of this Government from customs about $26,000,000 — a proposition coming from the Committee on Ways and Means to so adjust the tariff as to diminish the annual income of the Government $26,000,000 ; and now, immediately after the failure of that Commit tee to have accorded to it even the courtesy of a consideration by the House of that measure for the reduction of the revenues, immediately following that, we have this proposition frora a member of the Com mittee on Rules, himself the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House which reported that tariff measure — we have a proposition from that distinguished gentleman which amounts to a confession that we have not and will not have within the next twelve months revenue enough in the Treasury to meet the honest and just demands of the soldiers of the Union. What strange inconsistency! What is the matter? What can THE PAYMENT OF PENSIONS. 201 account for these contradictory positions within a week ? Now, Mr. Speaker, if we have not revenue enough to meet these demands to day, then why did you want to reduce revenues $26,000,000 last Thursday? What has been done with that surplus since then? And not only does that proposition come from the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means, but, if the newspaper reports are correct, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall], who on this occasion at least seems to be in harmony with the majority on the other side of the House, has himself a bill that he is about to in troduce in the House, reducing internal taxation some $20,000,000, and customs duties about $6,000,000. Yet these two leading gentle men of the same political faith, each proposing to reduce the annual incorae of the Governraent, come here and say to the House : " We have not money enough to pay our pensioners ; and if you intend to vote pensions you must provide a way to get the money. There is enough, and a surplus, for all other purposes." I say that is not fair; that is not frank; that is not manly. If we have no money in the Treasury to pay the pensions of our worthy and dependent soldiers, let us put some there ; let us provide means to increase our revenues, let us increase taxation. If it is neces sary that we should resort to an income tax in order to give to the soldiers of this country what we pledged them they should have when they went forth to fight and suffer, then I am in favor of an income tax. But it would not seem necessary to resort to any extraordinary taxation, so long as the Ways and Means Committee of the House re port a surplus of 130,000,000 in the Treasury which they feel called upon to diminish by a revision of the tariff. Mr. Ryan. An income tax for general purposes ? For general purposes ; for there is no reason in the world why a discrimination should be made against the just clairas of the soldiers of the Union. The only purpose of such a movement must be to make the payment of pensions odious. It is virtually saying that the House will provide money for every other purpose in the ordinary way through its appropriate Committee, but for the deserving soldiers, if you would keep your promises to them, you must find the money. Why do not the gentlemen on the other side apply such a require ment to the appropriation to pay their salaries and allowances ? It would be just as sensible and equally appropriate. Why not fix that limitation and condition upon every bill which requires the expendi ture of money ? Why not make the River and Harbor Committee 202 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. bring in a tax bill as a rider to provide for the $14,000,000 which it proposes to expend for the fiscal year ? Why not make the Public Buildings Committee carry on every bill for the erection of a public building a tax bill to pay for the proposed expenditure, and so all the way through ? Why single out the soldiers, the maimed and crip pled defenders of the Union, and require that their claims, the most sacred and obligatory which rest upon us, shall be paid from a dif ferent fund ; aye, more, that before they shall have the relief they deserve the money must be raised by special taxation, differing from all other claims against the Government? This is not right, and should be firmly resisted by every real friend of the soldier and of good legislation. THE SUEPLUS IN THE TEEASUEY. Speech in the House of Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, July 14, 1886. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under consider ation the joint resolution (H. Res. 136) directing payment of the surplus iu the Treasury on the public debt, Mr. McKinley said— Mr. Chairman : This resolution, coming as it does from a Dem ocratic majority in one branch of the Government addressed to a Democratic Executive in control of another branch of the Govem ment, is, to say the least, very exceptional and most remarkable. It is a proposition coming from a majority of the Committee on Ways and Means, which is in political accord with the present President of the United States, and will undoubtedly receive the approval of the majority on the other side of the Chamber. It is a proposition to compel the President of the United States and his Secretary of the Treasury to do that which they have always had the power to do, that which they now have authority to do, under section two of the act of March 3, 1881. The administration, which is in accord with the Committee that reports this resolution, has been in power sixteen months. When it carae into power it found the following section on the statute-books of the country : That the Secretary of the Treasury may at any time apply the surplus money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, or so much thereof as he may con sider proper, to the purchase or redemption of the United States bonds. Not only has the Secretary of the Treasury the power to call in and pay off the bonds the moment they are redeemable, but he haa the power, under that section of the statute, to go into the money markets of the world, wherever our bonds are held, and buy them, even if they have not yet matured. And yet in sixteen months a Dem- 14 204 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ocratic administration, with the expressed and confessed authority to do it, has called but $58,000,000 of Government bonds for redemption, and leaves outstanding to-day $140,000,000 or more of the five-per- cents extended, now known as the three-per-cents, which are redeem able at the pleasure of the Government. It is not to be wondered at, Mr. Chairman, that with a record like this, in view of the professions that have heretofore been made by the Democratic party, in view of their declarations in platforms and upon public rostrums in favor of the distribution of the surplus for the payment of Government bonds, characterizing the Republican party, as they have repeatedly done, as dishonest for keeping the surplus in the public treasury — I say it is not surprising, in view of the record made by its own administration, that the majority of the Ways and Means Committee, under the leadership of the leader of one wing of the Democratic party, should insist that the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury should keep the pledges which they made to the people. And it is all the more suggestive and trying to these Democratic friends of ours, Mr. Chairman, when they look back at the record made by the Republican party on this very subject, a record that we commenced making from the very close of the war, and of which all of us are justly proud, which the gentleman from Pennsylvania was frank enough to say had paid over $1,200,000,000 of public indebted ness since the conclusion of hostilities and the reign of peace. I say it is not surprising, looking at the record the Republican party had made, and then looking at the first sixteen months of record made by a Democratic administration, that the two wings of the Democratic party on this floor — in the language of the gentleman from Pennsyl vania — should " flap together " and demand that the President should pay out some of this surplus on the public bonds of the country, no matter what consequences would follow. Look at the record. In 1881, two years after the resumption of specie payments, the Republican Secretary of the Treasury called in $121,000,000 of Government bonds, and paid them off. In 1883 the Republican Secretary of the Treasury called in $173,000,000 of Gov ernment bonds and paid them off. In 1883 the same Secretary called in $86,000,000; and in 1884 over $70,000,000 of the Government bonds were paid off and canceled. In your first sixteen months you have paid off $58,133,000. We averaged in the last four years $153,- 000,000 every sixteen months, and you have made a record of but $58,000,000 in the same length of tirae. It is not to be marveled at that the Democratic majority here smart under such a contrast, and THE SURPLUS IN THE TREASURY. 205 have become impatient with their own administration, and distrust ful of its capacity for financial management. There is another remarkable feature to which I desire to call attention in this connection. When a Republican Secretary of the Treasury was calling in these enormous sums and canceling the bonds, we had no such surplus in the public treasury as you have to-day. In 1880 we had but $141,000,000 ; and in that $141,000,000 were included $26,000,000 of fractional silver coin which is not in cluded in the surplus reported by the present Secretary of the Treas ury, although he reports as on hand more than $29,000,000 of such coin, which he does not regard as available. In 1881, when we called in $173,000,000 of bonds, in November of that year, there was but $100,069,000 in the Treasury remaining after that vast payment. In November, 1883, we had $166,000,000 of a surplus, including the fractional coin, and during that year we called in $86,581,000. In November, 1883, we had a surplus of $134,000,000, and during that year called in $70,000,000. To-day, according to the report of the Treasurer of the United States, we have exclusive of fractional silver coin, over $75,000,000. Why does not the administration of Grover Cleveland pay out that balance upon the public debt? There are $140,000,000 due and payable. Secretary Folger said, in his annual report of 1883, if the estimated receipts should continue, all the three- per-cents could be paid off in three and a half years, and before the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1887. One hundred and forty millions are yet outstanding, and but six months of these three and a half years are yet remaining. Why they have not been paid some one on the other side, close to the administration, should be able to tell us. Some gentleman of the majority in the confidence of the admin istration ought to explain to us why the Secretary does not exercise the discretion given him by the statute and distribute the surplus. There must be some valid reason for it, some controlling reason, which those charged with the management of our financial affairs know and realize better than we can. The Secretary has the power to do it now, full and complete, as I have shown you by public law. I believe that discretion ought to be left with the executive officers of the Government. I believe it to be a wise discretion. I believe it to be a judicious thing to give the officers charged with the management of the financial aflairs of the Government, charged by the people, the power to call the bonds or withhold a call for bonds whenever the condition of the Treasury will permit the one or the other. The hands of the President and Secretary should not be tied ; 206 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. they should have full power to act under the laws as they are, and then be held to the highest responsibility and strictest accountability. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, unless the amendment I offered at the beginning of this discussion, and another amendment which will be offered by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Reed], and still another which will be presented by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Long], shall be adopted by this House, I shall feel constrained to give a negative vote on the resolution presented by the Committee on Ways and Means. Of course, we can not help, I can not help, no gen tleman on this side can help, the Democratic party voting to-day a want of confidence in its own administration. We can not prevent you from passing a vote of condemnation on the President of the United States and his Secretary, and that is what this resolution means if it becomes a law, and that is what you are doing when you vote for it. Why, think of it, Mr. Chairman ! A Republican Secretary of the Treasury presided over the financial aflairs of this Government from 1861 to 1885, a period of twenty-four years, and no such proposition as this was ever passed. A Republican Secretary of the Treasury was in charge from 1875 until 1885, covering the years of resumption, a period of more than ten years ; eight years of that time the Demo cratic party had control of this House. The Republican Secretary of the Treasury exercised discretion under the act of March 3, 1881, and a Democratic House, with a majority larger than you have to day, never thought of taking that discretion away from the Eepub lican President or the Republican Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Morrison. Oh, the gentleman is mistaken ! Did you ever pass a resolution to compel the Secretary of the Treasury to pay out the surplus ? Mr. Morrison. I introduced the proposition and sent it to the Committee on Ways and Means, and I never could get it out. [Laughter.] Exactly. Mr. Morrison. I offered it in the House of Representatives and had the sup port of the gentieraan from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall] in an attempt to pass it, but was kept from passing it by a point of order coming from the Republioan side of the House. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Yes ; but you never passed it. You had control of the House ; you had the Committee on Rules ; you could have fixed a time for considering it, just as you fixed a time for considering it in this Con gress ; you had a larger majority then than yon have now. But, what- THE SURPLUS IN THB TREASURY. 207 ever you may have done in the Committee, whatever you may have attempted to do on the floor of the House, one thing is certain, you never did pass a resolution taking away that discretion from the Re publican President and the Republican Secretary of the Treasury. [Applause on the Republican side.] Mr. Morrison. I was prevented by the co-operation of Democrats with that side of the House. That is, the two wings of the Democratic party were not in har mony, and one wing, with the aid of the Republicans, prevented you from taking away that statutory discretion from the Republican Secretary of the Treasury. But now that you have the Executive, now that you have the administration of the Treasury Department, both wings of the Democratic party "flap together" in denouncing a Democratic Secretary and a Democratic President of the United States for not calling in the bonds and absorbing the surplus. And this is not to be wondered at, Mr. Chairman. Why, the campaign of 1884 was waged and won upon the howl raised all over this coun try that the Republicans had $400,000,000 idle surplus in the Treas ury, and would not pay the honest debts of the Govemment. Governor Hendricks, it is alleged, said that all over the West. I have no doubt that my Greenback friend from Iowa [Mr. Weaver] said it all over his State. I know that the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall], in his famous speech at Nashville, Tennessee, when he was making that triumphal tariff march through the South [laughter], when he was making that grand march from Atlanta to the sea [renewed laughter], carrying the banner of pro tection, said there were $300,000,000 of surplus in the Treasury, and that the administration of Grover Cleveland would take it out and pay the public debt with it. Mr. Randall. I am beginning in that direction now. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Yes, you are beginning ; but you are beginning sixteen months after your administration has failed to do it [applause on the Repub lican side], and you have not got very far yet. [Laughter.] Sup posing this resolution passes the House, supposing it passes the Sen ate, to give it any force it must have the approval of the President of the United States ; and by this resolution you are asking that the President shall do what for sixteen months he has refused to do. He will lay down the pen, which with him within the last few weeks has been " mightier than the sword " [laughter], and will refuse 208 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. to sign your resolution, or he will take up a fresh and newly sharp ened pen and use it ; he will veto your joint resolution, if half the disturbance would follow its execution which the officials in the Treasury predict, and the surplus will still reraain in the Treasury, to be paid whenever and in such sums as in his wisdom and that of the Secretary will be within the line of safety. I hesitate to join even with the Democrats in taking away from their administration a dis cretion which Republican administrations have always enjoyed. I would want that discretion continued if we still had the administra tion ; and if it is to be taken away from yours without qualification or condition, it must be your act, not mine. If this is a mere play of politics, if it is a mere play for position, you are welcome to it, gentle men. When your own Secretary of the Treasury solemnly tells the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, in an official com munication, that if this resolution passes it will irapair the public credit, will shake public confidence, will destroy the good financial name which we have enjoyed so long, thanks to Republican fidelity, that it will leave no working balance for the great transactions of the Government, if that is any solace or comfort in your affiiotion, we cheerfully grant it to you. When he says another thing — that this res olution means trenching upon the $100,000,000 which is kept as a redemption fund for the legal-tender notes of the country, and asks his Democratic friends not to do it for the sake of our public credit and our financial honor, we give you the benefit of aU the polit ical advantage there is in it. It is your quarrel, not ours. Yet you do it ; you heed not the warnings of your own officials, whom you should trust, and, in fact, this Congress seems to be given to doing just what the President does not want it to do. If there is anything upon which the raajority of this House and the President are in accord, I would like to know it. Several members (on the Republican side). Vetoing pension bills ! In that, they may be a happy family. Why, Mr. Chairman, in the annual message of the President of the United States, and the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, this Congress was asked to do three things : First, to retire the green backs, to get them out of circulation, to pay them off ; second, to suspend the coinage of silver. The fact is, the President asked that before he became President. [Laughter.] He could not wait until he was inaugurated; he so feared calamity from its continuance. He therefore repeats in his formal message to Congress the statement that, unless this Congress shall suspend silver coinage, the financial THB SURPLUS IN THE TREASURY. 209 situation of the country will be very much disturbed. Then finally he asks you to revise the tariff. What have you done in the way of carrying out these recommendations? You have not retired the greenbacks; you have not suspended silver coinage; you have not revised the tariff — at least you have not revised it under the leader ship of my friend Colonel Morrison. I do not know what you may do under the leadership of " Colonel " Randall. [Laughter.] What a delightful situation ! [Laughter and applause.] The gentleman from Pennsylvania about three or four weeks ago showed his con tempt for the tariff bill of the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means ; and only the other day the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee showed his positive contempt for the attempt of the gentleman from Pennsylvania to make a tariff bill. [Laughter.] So it goes. There is not a single thing upon which the members of the Democratic party in this House agree and are in positive ac cord except in getting the offices. [Applause.] Mr. Morrison. And we are only doing middling well at that. [Laughter.] Yes ; and in that particular you are getting along very slowly. [Laughter and applause.] But my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall] and my friend from Indiana [Mr. Holman], impatient with the delay in getting offices when they had an appropriation bill before this House a week or two ago, undertook to break down the civil-service law by a rider on that bill. It seems that the gentleman from Pennsylvania and his " wing " are for the spoils. I was glad to find my honest and honored friend from Illinois [Mr. Morrison] standing against that covert attempt to nullify and destroy a public statute. [Applause.] Mr. Morrison. Now the gentleman is getting on my side. After what I have stated, and much more which I might state in the same connection, is it to be wondered that Secretary Manning, weary of the burdens of his office, indites a letter to the President of the United States, dated May 20, 1886, in which he says : The reforms in our fiscal policy which you have maintained — That is, keeping up the credit of the Government and keeping up the surplus in the Treasury — and which have been commended to the wisdom of the legislative branch — None of which the legislative branch has paid any attention to — are reforms necessary to our safety, binding in honor, obligatory in the traditions of the Democracy, set down with promises in our statute-book ! 210 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. That is what Mr. Manning says to President Cleveland, in giving notice of his intention to retire from the Treasury. Listen to what the President says in his response to the Secretary : I have hoped that the day was at hand when the party to which we belong, influenced largely by faith and confidence in you and in the wisdom of your views, would be quickened — Quickened ! — in the sense of responsibility, and led to a more harmonious action upon the im portant questions with which you have had to deal. That is the way the President felt May 28, 1886. Mr. Sessions. The hope of the ungodly shall perish. How will the President feel after this resolution of condemnation, this resolution of censure, this resolution of disapproval, this resolu tion of want of confidence? As the gentleman from New York told you this morning, he can not resign and go to the country; but every one of you, and every one of us, will go to the country ; and the issue will then be made up. If President Cleveland vetoes your reso lution, you can go to the country on that. You will then have an issue with your own President. The $400,000,000 that it is charged Mr. Hendricks said was in the Treasury, the $300,000,000 which the gentleman from Pennsylvania said was in the Treasury, will in the meantime remain there, unless the Secretary exercises the discre tion he now has and pays a part or the whole of it out. I only wish to say in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that I hope the amendment I have submitted, and others which I have indicated, will be adopted. It seems to me absolutely demanded that they should be, if this resolution is to pass. Let us save that reserve, the $100,000,000, from encroachment, so that the $346,000,000 of promises of the National Government shall be kept sacred and at par, as they are to-day. Let us maintain the old Republican policy; let us keep our proinises; and in adopting my amendment we maintain the Republican position and Republican precedents. If we will do this, and will adopt an amendment giving the Secretary of the Treas ury a fair working balance, which any business man or corporation would keep — if we will do these two things, then your resolution will be harmless, and it may be spared the veto of the President. [Loud applause.] [Here follows the tabular statement of the Treasurer of the United States, of June 30, 1886.] In connection with this statement I want to read a dispatch which THE SURPLUS IN THE TREASURY. 211 I sent to the Acting Secretary of the Treasury this morning, and his reply. It will make clear the wisdom of the araendment offered by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Reed]. I invite for it the serious consideration of members of this House, and especially those of the party faith of the Secretary. It comes from the Democratic Secre tary of the Treasury, whose means of knowledge can not be ques tioned, and whose statements should have great weight with the ma jority : Hon. C. S. Fairchild, Acting Secretary of the Treasury : If balance of seventy-five millions, as shown by Treasurer's report of June 80th last, should be used to pay bonds, what would the Treasury have left for working balance besides fractional silver coin ? An immediate answer will oblige. To that dispatch I received but a few moments ago the following reply : Treasury Department, July 14th. Hon. William McKinley, House of Bepresentatives : In reply to your telegram of this date, asking what the Treasury would have left for working balance besides the fractional silver coin if the balance of seventy- five millions, as shown by the Treasurer's report of June 30th last, should be used in paying bonds, I beg to state that nothing would be left but trust funds, which it would be dishonorable and dishonest to use for that purpose. C. S. Fairchild, Acting Secretary. [Laughter and applause on the Republican side.] THE DEPENDENT PENSION BILL VETO. Speech in the House of Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, February 24, 1887. [From the Congressional Becordi] The House having under consideration the veto message of the President on the bill (H. R. 10,457) for the relief of dependent parents and honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who are now disabled and dependent upon their own labor for support, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : If I believed, as the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Bragg] believes, that the beneficiaries under this bill were " good-for-nothing shirks," " scoundrels," and " vagabonds," I should not vote for the passage of the bill over the veto of the President, nor should I have voted for it when it first came to the House ; but I do not believe, with the gentleman from Wisconsin, that the beneficiaries of this bill are either " shirks " or " vagabonds " or good-for-nothing " scoundrels." I do believe that there are thousands scattered all over this country who fought as bravely as the gentleman from Wisconsin fought, although they are not here to tell of their heroic deeds, their lofty courage, and glorious achievements. (Laughter and applause on the Republican side.) And although they never " rode down the line amid the huzzas of their corarades," as the gentleman tells us it was his wont to do — for these brave men were generally afoot, and without horses, and foot-sore and weary marched to the coramand of duty — they were the soldiers of the country, the rank and file, fight ing for the maintenance of the Union. These are the men that the bill applies to. Now, there are two questions involved in this bill. First, Is it right in principle — an act of justice to these proposed beneficiaries — and does the financial situation of the country and the present con dition of the Treasury justify it? That is the first question ; and the second question is. Does this bill fairly represent the legislative pur- THE DEPENDENT PENSION BILL VETO. 213 pose of Congress ; and is that legislative purpose as expressed in this bill susceptible of practical execution by the administrative officers of the Government ? That is all there is in it. Let us in the briefest manner consider these questions. The first section of the bill, which provides for dependent parents, seems not to be objected to by the President, so I assume that he finds no serious defects in its provisions. The second section alone receives his atten tion. What is it ? That all persons who served three months or more in the military or naval service in any of the wars in which the United States has been engaged, who are suffering from mental or physical disability, not the result of their own vicious habits or gross careless ness, which incapacitates them from the performance of labor in such a degree as to render them unable to earn a living, and who are dependent upon their daily labor for support, and who have been hon orably discharged from the service, shall, upon due proof, etc., under such regulations as the Secretary of the Interior shall prescribe, be placed on the list of invalid pensioners, and be entitled to receive for such total inability $12 per month. It gives to every honorably dis charged soldier or sailor unable to earn a living, and who is dependent upon his daily toil for bread and shelter, whose inability is not self- inflicted, the right to draw a pension of $12 per month. Between private charity or the poorhouse this bill says neither, but in lieu of both the generous bounty of the Government. Is that not right ; is it not a simple act of justice ; is it not humane ; is it not the instinct of a decent humanity and our Christian civilization ? Where is the wrong? Wherein is the robbery of the Treasury? These soldiers are cared for now by private or municipal bounty. They are cared for by the communities and the counties in which they reside, in some instances by taxation, in others at the hand of charity. What course so fitting as the way pointed out by this bill, by the Nation they served, from its own Treasury ; and upon whom or what does the obligation rest so strongly and urgently as upon the Nation itself ? It is but discharging an honorable obligation upon the part of the Government, and expresses its gratitude to its volunteer de fenders upon land and sea. It seems to me that the bill is in every way warranted by duty and our situation. That it takes much or little money does not affect its righteousness or justice ; that consid eration can only apply to our condition and our ability to meet the contemplated expenditure. The larger the class thus dependent and totally disabled only appeals the stronger to our patriotic feeling and duty, and makes greater and more commanding the necessity for this 214 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. measure, and the greater the disgrace and inhumanity to withhold it. This bill is justified by precedents over and over again, in acts passed by both Houses of Congress in 1816, in 1818, in 1825, and in 1832, which received the approval of James Madison, of James Monroe, of John Quincy Adams, and of General Jackson. And I want now to set off as against my colleague, Andrew Jackson Warner, who speaks for the new Democracy in opposition to this bdl, what the first Andrew Jackson, the soldier statesman, representing the old Democ racy, said on December 8, 1829 : I would also suggest a review of the pension law, for the purpose of extend ing its benefits to every Revolutionary soldier who aided in establishing our liberties, and who is unable to maintain himself in comfort. These relics of the War of Independence have strong claims upon their country's gratitude and bounty. [Applause on the Republican side.] Mr. Warner, of Ohio. That is what we want now — a review of the law. That is what was advocated by the leader of the Democracy of the past. Not so with the Democracy of the present ; they have wandered away, arraying themselves in opposition to generous treatment to the saviors of the Union. OUE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Address at the Dedication of a Public School Building AT Canal Fulton, Ohio, August 30, 1887. Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Education, Teachers, Pupils, and Friends : An open schoolhouse, free to all, evidences the highest type of advanced civilization. It is the gate way to progress, prosperity, and honor, and the best security for the liberties and independence of the people. It is the strongest rock of the foundation, the most enduring stone of the temple of liberty; our surest stay in every storm, our present safety, our future hope — aye, the very citadel of our influence and power. It is better than garrisons and guns, than forts and fleets. An educated people, gov erned by true moral principles, can never take a backward step, nor be dispossessed of their citizenship or liberties. What a marvelous conception is the public-school system of Ohio ! Permanently ingrafted upon the policy and legislation of the State, it is free to all ; to it all are invited and welcome, without money and without price. It is supported with boundless generosity by the people of the State, open to the children of the humblest citi zen or exiled sojourner within our gates, as freely and ungrudgingly as to the native-born, or the children of the most opulent. Within its jurisdiction all distinctions, social, political, and religious, are ban ished ; all differences hushed ; all barriers removed. It recognizes neither party nor church, creed, condition, nor station, but, free as the air we breathe, its bounties and benefits fall in equal measure upon all. I fear sometimes that we do not appreciate these advantages and blessings. The older men and women before me realize the disparity between the educational facilities of their childhood and those enjoyed by the present generation. The log schoolhouse is gone ; in its place stands the stately modern edifice, built and sustained by the thought ful generosity of a great State. The few weeks, or at best months, of schooling in a whole year, with, long distances to travel to secure even the meager advantages of the earlier times, have given place to full 216 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ten months' instruction at every cross-roads, within easy reach of the children of every hamlet. The simple studies of reading, writing, and arithmetic, which constituted the entire curriculum of bur fathers, and to which they so diligently applied themselves, while still re tained, have been supplemented by a course of study which rivals even that of the colleges. One marvels not that it includes scientific and historical studies, the higher mathematics, the ancient languages — all within grasp of the Ohio boy and girl, all of use to the mental equip ment of every-day life, all essential to the higher and greater duties which every American citizen may be called to perform. These advantages should be sacredly cherished, never lightly re garded. The time to enjoy them is in youth ; no other time is so opportune. If neglected then, they are reasonably certain to remain forever unimproved. Few men or women ever acquire an education after they are twenty-five years of age. There are, of course, excep tions, but the exceptions are so rare that they but enforce the rule, and are only noted in men and women of exceptional character and great mental endowments. It is said that no man learns to spell after he is forty, and that only a limited few learn to read or write when beyond that age. The rudiments must be acquired when we are young, or they are never acquired ; this is the common experience of mankind. There is no time for study when the active, busy, strug gling period in every man's life sets in. The fight for bread and but ter shuts out all inclination for it. Our daily round of duties com mands our time and faculties, often to the exclusion of even current reading, and always of hard mental labor and close thought. We have no tirae to waste in this short, hurrying life. The early years are the golden ones for preparation ; not a moment should be squan dered. It might be otherwise could we realize the sentiment of the old rhyme : „ n n v •' " Could a man be secure That his days would endure As of old, for a thousand long years — What things might he know, What deeds might he do, What reap and what sow, And all without hurry or care ! " But it is otherwise ordained ; " our brief span " admits of no idle ness, no loitering by the way. The to-morrows are too full to be crowded with the yesterdays. We must move on and forward. We must learn that every day is a new day, with its own distinctive and commanding duties, and can not atone for the yesterdays unim- OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 217 proved. To-morrow's tent must be pitched in new fields ; to-mor row's thought in advance of yesterday's. We must keep up, or be crowded out. I congratulate you most heartily upon the grand op portunities to which you are invited and the matchless age in which you live. I enjoin you to improve the one and appreciate the respon sibilities and inspiration of the other. Never country had such a fortune, as men speak of fortune, as this — in its resources, its history, and majestic possibilities. Make every effort to put yourself in the line of your country's possibilities. Make every sacrifice to embrace the advantages so freely afforded you by the State, and in after-life you will not account them as sacrifices, but turn to them as genuine blessings ; for they will spare you many conflicts, many blunders, many heartburnings, and remove many hindrances in your onward path. You can afford to appear here in any department, from the pri mary to the high school, poorly dressed, if your necessities require it. You can face the sharp and sometiraes humiliating contrast with your more fortunate and better-dressed classmate, for be assured that attention to your studies, thought and industry in your work, and a hearty realization of your advantages and duties, will remove these diflerences in a few years. With your growth and progress your patched and shabby clothes will be wholly forgotten, or if recollected, remembered only to your honor, and your independence will stand as an example worthy of emulation by the struggling boys who are to follow you. The poor and shabbily clad boy, with clean face and clear head, seeking and appreciating the advantages of the public school, will win his way against all opposition. His future is assured. The want of the time is manly men, men of character, culture, and courage, of faith and sincerity ; the exalted manhood which forges its way to the front by force of its own merits. Self-earned stations are the best and most secure ; self-earned reputations the most lasting. What you have acquired fairly by your own brain and con science and mind belongs to you. It is your throne, from which you can not be displaced ; your scepter, which you alone have the right to wield. It is your priceless possession. A man may get rich in a day or an hour, by the quick turn of fortunate speculation, but the only wealth which lasts and wears is that which builds steadily up through honesty, industry, and sacrifice. Nothing can supply neglected opportunities. You can not learn for one another. You can not borrow other men's mental equip ment. You can not make progress with a substitute. Every man must do his own fighting. Individual labor and effort can alone 218 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. supply your mental storehouse with the seed and fruit of learning. You can no more meet your duties and your destiny with other men's brains and energy, than you can meet your bill at the tailor's or the butcher's with other men's assets. There is no substitute for work yet discovered, either in the physical or intellectual world. Every labor-saving invention only imposes a higher form of labor and skill upon man, aud every invention is the proof of increased intel ligence. Indolence will not bring you new and worthy thoughts, any more than it will bring the husbandman rich fruit and golden grain. It requires digging and subsoiling and enrichment in both cases. The old New England minister had the true philosophy, as you will observe. It was one of the old-time customs to call in the minister in the springtime to invoke the blessing of Divine Provi dence upon the piece of land which was to receive the seed for the autumn harvest. The old minister, being brought to the spot, paused, and, looking intently and thoughtfully about him before opening his prayer for a blessing, said : " No ! this land does not want a prayer; this land wants manure ! " Avoid the dangerous tendency of the times toward superficial knowledge, which accepts shallow show rather than real acquirement. This tendency is in part accounted for by the mad spirit for gain and riches which is so prevalent in American society — not gain and riches acquired in the old-fashioned way, by industry and economy, but by gambling in stocks, speculation in wheat, by " corners " and " mar gins." The old business habits, marked with caution and conserva tism, are too slow for many of the present generation. Exact knowl edge is the requirement of the hour. You will be crippled without it. You must help yourselves. Luck will not last. It may help you once, but you can not count on it. It is not permanent. Labor is the only key to opportunity. You are all here to do something, to work out a destiny, to discover the forces of Nature and make them serve man's uses and God's purposes. Morse sent his first telegraphic message from Washington to Baltimore in 1844, and these were the significant words he employed, " Wliat hath God wrought ! " This grand man and matchless in ventor, using the force of Nature which God had wrought, gave to all raankind that which has bound the earth in electric network and raade the nations almost as one family. Some one has said, " Of the more than 200,000 plants which grow around and about us, the largest majority are still accounted weeds." We call them such in our darkness and ignorance ; but, my OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 219 friends, what is a weed ? " Only a plant " (in the words of another) " whose virtues are yet undiscovered." It is more than probable that every one of these 200,000 plants will yet be turned to man's blessing ; that the power and purposes of all will be fully discovered. One thing essential to " getting on in the world " is to have a purpose. Life without it will prove a failure, and all your efforts barren of results. Drifting will not do. You must have a port in view, from which storms and tempests, while they may divert your course for the time, can only delay, not defeat, your ultimate landing. Seek the calling to which you seem best adapted, and then do not expect too large results. Bvery legitimate calling is honorable, if we make it so, and leads to honor. Every young man should not enter what is called the "learned professions," for all are not fitted to prosecute them successfully. The avenues to useful employment, just as honorable and lucrative, are open upon every hand. The " learned professions " are no longer the exclusive stepping-stones to official honor and the State's highest trusts. I would rather be able to shovel sand well than be a blundering doctor, a pettifogging lawyer, or an unsuccessful preacher, whom no congregation would welcome. It is far better to be at the head of any honorable occu pation, however lowly, than to be at the foot of the highest, no matter how exalted. Go at that which will secure you the front rank aud give you a place in the front row. The rear rank and the back seat are doubtless indispensable in the march of mankind, but let the man occupy them who can do no better. Public instruction wields a power vast and far-reaching in its results. It was true, as the military attache wrote to his raaster, the lesser Napoleon, that "the schoolmaster, not the needle-gun, triumphed at Sadowa." Knowledge, ideas, convictions, guided by a good conscience, win more battles for maukind than bullet or shell. Prussia was regenerated, under the lead of Von Hardenberg and Von Stein, by the system of common-school education. In the United States, education has always been tbe National instinct ; an enlightened citizenship is now, as ever before, the hope of the Ee public. Our country owes much, immeasurably more than aught else, to her educational system, and we must appreciate more and more, as her growth continues and her power increases, that the hope of the Eepublic is in an educated and enlightened citizenship, which fears God and walks uprightly. I congratulate you upon the cora pletion of this imposing structure, and still more upon the grand uses to which it is dedicated. 15 PEOSPECT AND EETEOSPECT. Address before the Mahoning Valley Pioneer and Hls- TORiCAL Association, at Youngstown, Ohio, September 14, 1887. Mr. President : It gives me very great pleasure to meet with the Pioneer Association of the Mahoning Valley — a pleasure which, in other years, I have been compelled to deny myself. Your annual meetings are occasions of genuine pleasure to yourselves and your descendants, as well as instructive to those who, in the course of Nature, must soon take your places. We can not get on without a knowledge of the past; it is so closely related to the present and connected with the future ; it is the foundation upon which rests our possessions and possibilities, what we are and what we hope to be. The efforts and aims, the struggles and achievements of those who have gone before are our inspiration and guidance; and they should be sacredly cherished and pondered, as we move along the pathway of destiny. There are two periods in the life of an individual, a community, or a nation : the one of activity, the other of reminiscence ; the one is the period of building and construction, the other of pause and retrospect ; the one accompanies youth and sturdy manhood, the other is the companion of well-ripened age and purpose realized. Both mingle here to-day. The older the nation, the community, or the individual, the richer and more varied the theater of reminis cence. Our history is beginning to have age. The first actors are gone, or dropping by the wayside. The early struggles of the pioneers are passing from individual memory into the field of fable or tradition, thereby deepening our interest in the past and in those who were associated in its trials and triumphs. These frequent anniversaries manifest our growing love for reminiscence, and are elevating in tone and purpose, for they tell of work well done, and increase our pride for the men who wrought so excellently, in spite of trials and hard- PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT. 221 ships from which the present generation would intuitively shrink. They recall to our minds the high character and courage, the lofty purpose and great sacrifices of our sturdy ancestors, and bid us imitate their virtues. Every anniversary. National or individual, thoughtfully and seriously observed, accomplishes positive good. It emphasizes the ties of home and country. It appeals to our better aspirations and incites to higher and nobler aims. Our Centennial Celebration of 1876 was a National pause ; it was a halt and a retrospect ; it was the picture of our beginning ; of the little we started with ; the much we then possessed and had accom plished ; and suggestive of how much more we had yet to secure. It was the counting of the sheaves which we had garnered in the har vest of the past. A hundred years of effort, of industry, economy, and activity were placed before the eyes of mankind, and who will be able to portray the blessings and benefits, the new thoughts and higher aims which came from that great scene of reminiscence? After all, it was little more than the homage of the present generation to the Nation's early pioneers, a generous and hearty testimonial to their wisdom and work. It was at once their eulogy and their monument. To-morrow, at Philadelphia, commences another great centennial reminiscence, another memorial to the pioneers, the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of that majestic conservator of liberty and civilization, the Constitution of the United States, that great charter, which now, as at the time of its adoption, represents, more than any other human instrument, the best hopes and aspirations of mankind. It will be an occasion, too, for emphasizing the love and veneration we have for the fathers of the Eepublic, and our gratitude and obligation to them for the glorious inheritance we enjoy. This annual gathering, in a local and narrower sense, testifies our affection and love for the brave men and women who, moving be yond the border line of civilization, opened up this rich valley to our possession, and dedicated it as a habitation for ourselves and our de scendants, forever. To them we owe much, and these meetings per petuate their memory, while our hearts go out in boundless gratitude for their courage, conscience, and achievement. History is only biography enlarged. The biographies of the first settlers of this valley make up the history of the 'time, the establish ment of what has grown to be this prosperous city, and the founda tion of the splendid industries which border your river, and which 222 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. give to this valley its strength and glory. A biography of Colonel James Hillman, commencing in 1786 ; of Mr. Young, for whom this city is named; of Mr. Wolcott, his colleague and friend, beginning in 1796; of Mr. Brown, from 1797; of Uriah Holmes and Titus Hayes, of old Litchfield, Connecticut, would give the full history of the first settlement of this city and its environments; and the biographies of those who later came to strike hard blows for progress and civilization, many of whose names are well known among you, familiar names borne by their descendants, who have proved " worthy sons of noble sires," would complete the early and unwritten history of your birth and beginnings. In 1846 this city was a village of about 1,000 ; the capital invested in iron manufactures less than $20,000, the entire output of your coal 160 tons per day. One hundred tons, it is said, came from the mines of David Tod, and sixty tons from Crawford, Carap & Co. Your population has grown to upward of 25,000; your capital invested in manufactures has reached between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000, and your products find a market in every State and Territory of the Union. You have made marvelous growth in the past thirty years, and attained a high industrial developraent and commercial rank ; your business men are the highest and best types of commercial enterprise and integrity. Bvery step you have taken is but the confirmation of the wisdom of the fathers ; every advance an acknowledgment of their foresight and direction. Your progress and prosperity is their highest testi monial, their most lasting memorial. The pioneer made and left his impress wherever he halted or raised his cabin. It was the impress of a sterling, sturdy manhood. His history is written in human ac tivity and human progress. He thought and acted with courage and independence. He stands as the representative of a great age, the sturdiest oak in the great forest of man. " Like the peak which first catches the morning light is crowned monarch of the hills," so the sturdy pioneer, who struck the first blow, is the crowned monarch of our civilization. Our general progress is simply wonderful. Few could have fore seen it. Whittier pictured it in poetry, but subsequent advancement has made even that inadequate : " Behind the soared squaw's birch canoe The steamer smokes and raves ; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves." PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT. 223 We have been surprised so many times with progress and inven tion that wise men have come to regard nothing as impossible. Eighty-two years ago, Herman Husband, of Somerset County, Penn sylvania, declared that the road, then only a pack-horse path over the mountains, would yet be paved all the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. He was jeered at by the foolish and wise alike. Within the lifetime of many who listened to him the road had been made and become obsolete ; the canal dug beside it became too slow for the demands of coramerce, and the steam railway displaced them both. A statesman conspicuous in public life for more than half a cen tury, Mr. Fernando Wood, of New York, when Mr. Morse, the invent or of telegraphy, asked of Congress a small appropriation to enable him to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, sneeringly op posed it, characterizing it as visionary and the scheme of a disordered brain. Mr. Wood lived to witness this visionary scheme encircle the earth with its electric network and gather the nations of the world almost into one family. " Fulfillment follows so closely upon the heels of prediction, that the croakers are getting afraid to throw stones at the prophets and philosophers and scientists." They, too, are often " hit in the face by the facts themselves, while they are still doubting and protesting." The old men — I mean the older here assembled — have witnessed the most remarkable progress in the world's history within the circle of their own lives. They have seen us go from the pack-horse to the stage-coach ; from the canoe to the canal boat ; from the slow-sailing vessel to the steamship which swiftly and proudly rides the lakes and seas ; from six miles or less an hour in the old hack (and I re member, the ancient one which ran from this city to Enon Valley by way of Poland, my old home) to the splendid railroad coaches which smoothly glide through the country at forty miles or more an hour. You have witnessed the wonders of electricity — how man has taken the wasting elements of Nature and turned them to the grand uses of civilization, making them illuminate our streets, rivaling almost God's sunlight, and carry, in almost an instant of time, words across the continent and beneath the seas to foreign lands; and, more wonderful yet, have seen the same mysterious force bear the human voice a hundred miles or more with natural tone and inflection. All this and more has been accomplished within the brief span of many of my hearers' lives, and you are to be congratulated upon the mar velous age in which you live. We can hardly conceive that the next generation will be so rich 224 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in fruitage, so prolific in invention, so marvelous in achievement, so wonderful in its work ; but who can tell ? There seem to be a brain and a conscience and a manhood always ready to rise up and discover, at the appropriate moment, the forces and elements necessary in the onward march of mankind. The things you and I have seen, great as they are, may be insignificant contrasted with the things unseen and yet to be developed. The axe and the rifle, the courage and the conscience, the brain and the brawn, the faith in God of the pioneer, laid the foundations of the splendid institutions which make possible our matchless achievements. , The New England schoolhouse, which came simultaneously with his cabin and stockade, was our flaming torch, which, carried grandly through the century, has filled the whole world with its light. To your own goodly heritage a gifted songstress of this valley, at one of your meetings, paid a beautiful tribute, which we may adopt as expressive of the love its sons and daughters feel for their old homes among you : " 0 sweet Mahoning, like a queen Set crowned and dowered in the West, The wealth of kingdoras gleams between Thy jeweled brow and jeweled breast. " 0 valley rich in sturdy toil. In all that makes a people great. We hail thee Queen of Buckeye soil. And fling our challenge to the State ! " We hail thee queen, whose beauty won Our fathers in their golden years 1 A shout for greater days begun, A sigh for sleeping pioneers." I bid this Association, which is organized to perpetuate the names and memories of the pioneers of this valley, and their heroic work, long life and abounding prosperity, and count myself most fortunate to be one of its members. THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTEATION. A Campaign Speech at Dayton, Ohio, October 18, 1887. Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : This is an especially good time for thoughtful consideration of the political situation — a good time to look into the future, and determine, if possible, what policies will best secure the progress and prosperity of the country and the welfare of the people. We are now one hundred years from the promulgation of the Constitution of the United States — a Con stitution founded in the wisdom and patriotism of the fathers, which neither foreign wars nor internal conflicts have been able to destroy. It is therefore not only a fitting occasion for retrospect and thankful ness, but a suitable time to take our bearings, make sure of our foun dations, that we may pass along to the century which is to come with the Constitution unimpaired and strengthened, and the liberties which it guarantees firmly secured, and so demonstrate our fitness to preserve the Government which has accomplished so much for human progress and human rights in the first century of its existence. The Eepublican party as a National organization dates its history from 1856. It came into power on the 4th day of March, 1861, con tinuing in control of the Executive branch of the Government until the 4th day of March, 1885. How well it discharged its long and dif ficult trust mankind everywhere know, for no history of the country could be written without recounting the story of its splendid achieve ments. It was born in the inspiring sentiment of Pree Soil and Free Men, and has been faithful to its cause and steadfast to its principles — unyielding and unwavering in its devotion to the Union, to free dom and equality, from that time until now. It has always been in the lead ; it never reversed its steps or turned its back upon the cause which inspired it, or the sublime purposes which brought it into ex istence ; it has never turned aside from principle or duty. In war, or in peace, it has been firm, faithful, vigilant, and patriotic. It meets new questions with its old-time sturdy courage ; it grapples new con- 226 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ditions, and keeps abreast with the wants and highest aspirations of the people. This is a State campaign, but the issues are National. The prin ciples of the Eepublican party recognize no State lines, but are ap plicable to all the States ; they recognize that whatever is good for the whole country benefits each of the several States. The questions of State policy and the administration of State affairs by a Eepub lican Governor and Legislature have been so fully presented by Governor Foraker, in his admirable speech at Caldwell in opening the campaign, as to make it unnecessary for me to more than com mend his comprehensive and conclusive statements to the careful consideration of the people of Ohio of all political parties ; confi dent that none can read without being convinced of their truth. The platform made at Cleveland by the Democratic party wholly ignores the question of the taxation of the liquor traffic — a question of mere State policy, it is true, which never should have been made a party question, but which in former years and campaigns was forced by the Democratic party into a prominent issue. And so we obseiTe that the Dow liquor taxation law, in the latest utterances of the Dem ocratic party of Ohio, is passed over without a word of the condemna tion which lately animated it, even to denunciations of iniquity and unconstitutionality. It was bitterly opposed to such legislation for a series of years. The party, in the fury of its passion, appealed from the people to the Legislature, and from the Legislature to the Su preme Court, but now has come to acquiesce in and silently approve the law as a wise and judicious disposition of this vexed and trouble some local question. All this but serves to demonstrate, with added force, what we have often said of the Democratic party — that it makes some progress, slow, to be sure, and, while reluctant to accept the sit uation, after years of defeat and tribulation, yields to the march of ideas and surrenders to accomplished results. That the Eepublican party in its management of State affairs, all through its long years of control, has shown its fitness and capacity, will nowhere be controverted. It has met every question with courage, accepting defeat rather than surrender a position based upon princi ple. It has discharged every obligation with fidelity ; called the State back to honest ways and clean methods ; lifted her finances from dis honor ; raised her credit to the very highest ; it has reduced her ex penses, aud given to Ohio the highest financial and commercial rank in the sisterhood of States. So far, therefore, as State matters are concerned, we have no local issues confronting us ; those which ex- THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 227 isted in the past have been wisely abandoned by our adversaries ; while in the conduct of the present administration we have nothing to explain or defend — everything to approve and commend. In the field of National politics the division between the two parties is wide ; their divergence is great and clearly defined ; and the intelligent discussion and understanding of the questions whicli divide them is just as essential to a State campaign as to a National one. The only diflerence is that the former is a contest by single detachments of the two great political parties, while the latter is a contest which engages the combined forces of both. We are engaged this year in a confiict of ideas and sentiments in a local field, but it is closely and inseparably connected with the wider and broader contest which next year will be waged on the same questions for su premacy in the Nation. On the foremost question of the time — the integrity, security, and purity of the ballot — that is, the right of every citizen to vote, and to have his vote honestly counted — the position of the two parties is as widely separated as the, poles. The Eepublican party, which ex tended the suflrage and enlarged the power of the people, giving to every citizen a voice in the conduct of the Government, maintains that this great prerogative and right is inviolable, and must be re spected everywhere throughout the Nation ; that the privilege of voting and having the vote truly counted and ascertained, must be afforded and secured to every citizen in every section of the country. The Democratic party, although in some of the States, like Ohio, this year, by platform declaration, pronounces for " the fullest safeguards to the ballot," yet in practice shamelessly violates its sanctity, dis franchises majorities in communities and States, and boldly seizes and enjoys the fruits of these outrages and crimes. If called to ac count before the bar of public sentiment, they neither deny nor justify ; like the highwayman who attacks you at night and robs you of your purse, they answer your helpless protest by asking, " What are you going to do about it ? " or they answer with that worn-out cry that " we are reviving the recollections of the war," and still continue to " wave the bloody shirt," as though such replies could be dignified into a defense or tolerated for a moment as a justification. Neither of them will much longer be accepted by an intelligent and conscien tious people as a cover to these willful violations of constitutional rights. The remedy for the wrong may not come at once, but the Republican party will not be deterred in its determined purpose to right it. It is confessed and nowhere denied that in sections of 228 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the country, and notably in some States of the South, this practice is carried on openly and defiantly, and whole districts and States are deprived of their legal Representatives in Congress, and robbed of their rightful votes in the Electoral College. This has been open and notorious for eleven years ; it has occurred in every National election within that period ; it is both an old grievance and a new one ; it has not corrected itself, as some statesmen vainly hoped it might ; it is present with us now ; it was more manifest at the election last year than it was in 1884, or at any preceding Congressional election. This situation is not alone hurtful to the voter and the community thus deprived of its constitutional rights; it is not purely a per sonal or a local grievance, but touches every voter of the Republic wherever situated ; it poisons the true sources of power, and over turns the very fundamental principle upon which our political fabric rests. In many localities it substitutes the will of the minority for the majority ; it takes all consent and participation from the gov erned. It manifests its greatest power in the elections for the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. All the people are counted in all the States to determine the State's representation in the popular branch of Congress, and in the Electoral College which makes the President ; the whole population is commanded to rise up and be registered and counted by the census-takers every ten years, to be reported to Congress, tbat it may determine upon that count the number of Representatives to which they are entitled and the number of Electors which during that decade they shall choose. When this is done, and these same people who have been thus counted, seek to participate in the choice of Representatives and Electors, they are commanded by these violators of the Constitution to retire from the polls, and are wholly shut out from any participa tion in the election. How long will this outrage continue ? How long will the people of the other States suffer this gross inequality of citizenship to prevail — an inequality which deprives every Repub lican in the Gulf States of his legitimate force in Government con trol ? I answer : It will continue only until the people of this country, quickened in conscience and moral sense, shall elect a Congress of the United States honest enough, courageous and just enough, to employ its constitutional power, and control the mode and raanner of electing Representatives to Congress, and take supervision of the whole sub ject, to the end that no citizen shall anywhere be deprived of this priceless constitutional privilege and to the further end that this republican Government shall rest on the free and unrestrained con- THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 229 sent of the governed. And when I say this, my fellow-citizens, I am not recalling the bittemess of the war. In the language of our platform, we have placed the war with its hates and revenges behind us ; we are looking alone to the present and the future, and only insisting that the settlement made between Grant and Lee, at Appomattox, and which afterward found voice and recognition in the Constitution of the United States, shall stand irrevocable, and be respected and obeyed in every part of the Republic. If this is reviving the recollections of the war, be it so, and be assured these war recollections, so called, will be revived until justice is done and the Constitution recognized in all its force in every part of the Republic. Next in importance is the question of the tariff. Fortunately, this year the Democratic party has taken a positive and definite position, and commits its leaders and followers firmly to the doctrine of a purely revenue tarifl, not affording to our industries even incidental protection. The position of the Republican party this year, as in forraer years and in all times, commits its leaders and followers to the doctrine of a tariff which shall not only raise the requisite revenue to meet the expenses of the Government, but which shall be so levied as to give full and adequate protection to the laborer, the producer, and the industries of the United States. The line, therefore, is sharply drawn, and the Democrat who believes in protection must leave his party or be faithless to his principles. The Democratic party and free-trade organizations of the country were never so restless and aggressive as now. They are sustained by Mr. Cleveland, with all his power and patronage, and nothing but the highest vigilance and mightiest efforts of the protectionists will pre vent alarming results to the country and its industries through the work of the next Congress. Already, if the dispatches in the Demo cratic papers can be relied upon. President Cleveland with the aid of Speaker Carlisle (who will preside over the next House of Representa tives) and Mr. Mills, of Texas, who, it is announced, will be at the head of the Ways and Means Committee, which controls the tariff question, is preparing a free-trade bill which is to be passed through the next House. The whole weight of the administration is to be exerted for its passage. So a tarifl bill that is to strike down our productive industries has been, or is to be, made at Red Top, the country home of the Presi dent, not in the hall of the House of Representatives by the chosen representatives of the people, but in the summer-garden of the Presi- 230 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. dent ; and then it is to be crammed down the throats of Democrats as a strictly administration measure. We know in advance the char acter of a bill that will emanate from such a source. We know the President's views, for he has proclaimed them through his Secretary of the Treasury. He favors free raw material, including free wool. We know, too, the sentiments of Speaker Carlisle. He has not been in Congress twelve years without defining his views upon the revenue question ; he has voted for every free-trade measure proposed in that period from Fernando Wood's down to Morrison's horizontal ; while Mr. Mills has declared his adherence to the Robert J. Walker tarifl of 1846, having oflered it as an amendment to the tarifl bill of 1883. A law more destructive to the progress and prosperity of the country than the Walker tariff never was put upon our statute-books. We need not wait, therefore, for its official publication ; the records and utterances of its reputed authors reveal its contents ; it will be free trade all along the line — an assault upon all our industries, a blow at all laborers and wage-workers, a leveling down of the prices of labor to the foreign standard. I assure you there never was a time more fraught with danger for the protective cause, which is the American cause, than the present. It is startlingly evident that the Democratic party throughout the country is concentrating upon the doctrine of free trade. Hitherto they have been seeking to hold, and have held, many of their adherents on the theory that they were not in favor of free trade, but could be relied on as confidently as the Republicans to maintain and protect the industries of the country. By this course of double-dealing with their followers they have held control in some of the States, and by the same policy secured control of the Nation in 1884. Mr. Randall, one of the most eminent Democrats of the country, in a debate in the House of Representatives, June 22, 1886, put this significant question to his Democratic colleagues on the floor : " Do you think that Mr. Cleveland would have been elected Presi dent if the convention of 1884 had declared for free wool?" There can be but one answer to this pertinent and searching inquiry. If the country had believed it was the purpose of the Democratic party when once in power to introduce free trade, or a revenue tariff, nothing could have saved them from utter rout and defeat ; neither Burchard nor St. John, nor Curtis nor Schurz, nor all their associate Mugwumps, single or combined, could have beaten Mr. Blaine. Their true purpose was carefully concealed. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were made to believe that no disturbance of the pro- THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 231 tective system should occur if Mr. Cleveland was elected. Mr. Cleve land himself was compelled to go to Paterson, New Jersey, that great industrial center, to make assurances to the laborers and producers there that they had nothing to fear from him or his party. These three States, which constituted the battle-ground of the National con test, were made to echo with protection speeches from Deraocratic leaders. The Carlisles and Morrisons and the Hurds were not there. Their printed speeches elsewhere made found no circulation in the protective centers of those great States. Randall was there, and those who thought like him. Mr. Randall himself exposed the deception and duplicity of the Democratic campaign of 1884, in a speech which he delivered in the last Congress. In a colloquy between Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Randall, the latter said : I know well the conduct of the gentleman in the Chicago Convention, and I know that neither he nor any other raan subsequently went on the sturap in his State, or elsewhere, and made declarations in the direotion of the bill of the Ways and Means Committee, as I conceive it to be. I not only know that, but I know also that, on the contrary, I was invited into his State, and spoke there in the exact line of the declarations that I have made here and make now. I know more : I know that in the canvass last year, which resulted in the election of Govemor Hill, they took care to invite me again, and they invited also many other raen who agreed with me in sentiment as to the construction of the Chicago platform, while they failed to invite any man to speak there who thought as the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hewitt] now declares. And what was the result ? The result was that the Democratic majority in the State of New York increased from something over 1,000 in 1884 to 11,000 in 1885, and it was not on the free- trade doctrine. That is the truth of history from a Democratic leader, and reveals in all its nakedness the base deceit practiced upon the voters of the country by the New York Democracy and the National Demo cratic party. We have had the same situation to contend with in Ohio, but fortunately our people have, in the main, not been de ceived. This year, however, there is no room for doubt as to the true position of the Democratic party. It is for free trade or a tariff for revenue only. A very general opinion prevails that reducing the duty on im ports necessarily reduces the receipts of the Government. It oftener produces just the opposite result and increases the receipts. Lower duties stimulate importations, encourage foreign purchases, and thus swell the revenue from customs sources. To be absolutely sure of reducing your revenues you must remove the duty wholly, place the foreign goods on the free list, or make the duties so high as to 232 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. discourage and diminish importations. The reduction of the duty on wool in 1883, for example, increased importations, and no dimi nution of the revenues was realized. The American system must be maintained in the fullest vigor; there must be no yielding of great principles ; the protection party must redouble its energy and stand with unbroken line against the well-organized forces of its adversaries. The sentiment of the country is with us ; the patriotism of the country is in our ranks ; the labor of the country is our stead fast ally. Every consideration of National interest and National growth, every aspiration for a higher manhood and a broader develop ment, is enlisted in our cause. Let Ohio speak this year with in creased emphasis for the beneficent system to which she is indebted for her matchless progress and development. The surplus money in the Treasury about which we hear so much to-day is there because the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, which alone has original jurisdiction of the subject, keeps it there, because it has proved itself incapable of reducing or diminishing it. During the adrainistration of President Arthur, Mr. Folger, the Secretary of the Treasury, estimated, in one of his annual reports, that the receipts of the Government from the customhouses and from the collectors of internal revenue, if continued, would meet all the obligations of the Government, including the sinking fund, and pay off all the bonds which were due and payable before June 30, 1887 ; and this was made to a Democratic House of Represent atives. Similar information was given by Mr. Sherman when he was Secretary of the Treasury ; so that from time to time the Demo cratic House of Representatives has been kept accurately advised of the receipts and expenditures of the Government and the demands upon the Treasury. The " awful surplus in the Treasury " in 1884, against which the Democratic leaders hurled such denunciations in that memorable campaign, was all there when President Cleveland came into office on March 4, 1885 ; it is still there, with added accumulation. What has been done to diminish the constantly increasing revenues? Ab solutely nothing. Not an act has been passed, not a tax taken off, not a so-called " burden " removed. With a large working majority — it is hardly true to call it worlcing majority — the Democrats have permitted the revenue laws to remain unchanged. The Morrison Bill, the defeat of which is still counted by Demo crats as the cause of the excessive surplus in the Treasury, by the report of its author, which was only an estimate, would have cut down THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 233 the receipts of the Government $26,000,000 ; while, as a matter of fact, the reduced duties it proposed would have increased importa tions and doubtless increased the revenues. With the exception of wool, flax, hemp, and other fibers, which were placed on the free list by this bill, and which would have insured a reduction of about $5,000,000, the other features of the bill would have increased the revenues, by stimulating imports. Every practical effort to reduce the revenues in a substantial way was thwarted by those in control of the House of Representatives. The attempts of the Republicans and a small body of Democrats to secure recognition by the Speaker to offer a bill for consideration and action to take the taxes from tobacco, cigars, and snuff, and to remove special licenses to dealers and re move the tax on alcohol used in the arts and manufactures, proved unavailing. The Speaker positively refused, in a letter, to recognize Southern Representatives for any such purpose, while Republicans, long before the date of the letter, were refused the poor privilege of offering a bill of like character. The tobacco tax alone would have cut down our receipts $28,000,000, and removed this enormous burden from the producers of American-grown tobacco, while upward of 75,000 cigar-makers would have been relieved of a burden which compels thera, for want of the necessary capital, to work in factories as eraployes, instead of for themselves as they were wont to do before the tax was imposed. Such was the treatment accorded to those who honestly desired reduction of the revenue by the Democratic party in the management of the House — a tyranny of power which is almost without a parallel in our history. This party, since 1874, with the single exception of two years, from 1881 to 1883, has been in control of the House of Rep resentatives, the only agency which, under the Constitution of the United States, can originate revenue bills — the only body which can initiate a movement for raising or removing taxes, and yet in all those years they have proved themselves unable to pass a single revenue bill ; while from 1881 to 1883, when the Republicans had a bare majority in the House, they passed a general tariff and internal revenue bill, which reduced the receipts of the Government over $60,000,000. The Democratic leaders of the House have shown themselves in capable of dealing with the intricate questions of finance and revenue. They have not known where to begin, and, beginning, they have had no conception of the end or outcome. Why, this remarkable spec tacle was presented at the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress : 234 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. On the 17th of June, 1886, Mr. Morrison offered his tariff bill to re duce taxation and provide against redundant revenue, which the House by a decisive vote refused to consider, and on the 22d day of June, within the same week, Mr. Morrison himself offered a proposi tion to increase taxation by authorizing the imposition of an income tax to meet certain proposed governmental expenses. Both proposi tions were supported by the leaders of the Deraocratic party in the House of Representatives, including the Speaker. What a contrast to the Eepublican method of dealing with the question of taxation and revenue ! From the conclusion of the war until it lost control of the House, the Eepublican party had reduced the revenue whenever the public treasury and public demands would justify. It had repeatedly reduced taxation, lowered import duties, and enlarged the free list. It had the courage to tax the people enormously to save the life of the Government, and when that great work was accomplished it commenced almost at once, and steadily continued, to relieve the people of unnecessary taxes. It has always provided sufficient in war or peace, and by a judicious foresight and intelligent statesmanship provided against an accumulating excess ; never imposing a burden upon the people when unnecessary, and always removing it when the exigency for it had passed. The truth is, the party in control is not in accord with itself — has an excess of leaders, which divide and demoralize it. The President, too, has contributed as little as the House toward the reduction of the revenues, and is as responsible as the House for the maintenance of whatever excessive and redundant revenue we have in the Treasury. He withheld his signature, and therefore de feated the proposition, requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to pay out $2,000,000 monthly in liquidation of United States bonds ; he withheld his signature from the Eiver and Harbor Bill, a measure of National importance, which has resulted in great injury to the commercial interests of the country. This bill would have taken from $10,000,000 to $14,000,000 from the Treasury, which would have been employed in the construction and improvement of the rivers and harbors, the great water ways of the country, and would have furnished employment to thousands of industrious workmen, unlocking that large sum of money, and sending it, with its blessings, to the people, who were ready and willing to give their labor for it. He vetoed the Dependent Pension Bill, which would have sent cheer and comfort to thousands of worthy and disabled soldiers, who are de pendent upon private charity for the bare necessaries of life, and THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 235 would have released from the county poorhouses tens of thousands of men who have worn out their lives in the country's service, and are now basely denominated " county paupers." This bill would have absorbed some of that surplus which the Democratic party is unable to dispose of. He has vetoed unnumbered bills for the erection of public buildings, appropriations for which would have put in circula tion some of the idle money now in the Treasury, and thereby greatly benefited the workingmen of the country. Every one of these propo sitions was wise and patriotic, but not one so deemed by our self-willed and obstinate President. He would not let the people's money be thus employed, but finds a better way, a more agreeable way, according to his manner of thinking, by calling in the bonds not yet due and pay able, not yet matured, and paying high premiums for them. His party in the House even refused to consider the Educational Bill, which involved an expenditure of many millions of dollars for the benefit of all the people, in all the States, to extend light into the dark places. This, too, would have consumed some of the hateful and terrible surplus. A question which confronts us in the near future (assuming that excessive revenues are to continue) is. What shall become of the In ternal Eevenue System of the country ? I am frank enough to say that, so far as I am concerned, if one of the two systems is to be sur rendered, the raising of revenue by duties on imports, or from internal taxation (that is, taxing the products and indnstries of our own coun try), the latter should give way before the constantly accumulating surplus, and not the former. In such an event the internal revenue should go and the tariff system remain. This is no new position for the Eepublican party. It is to be found in many of the platforms of the States ; in the reports and votes of Eepublican Eepresentatives and Senators ; and over and over again this policy in part has been tendered by the Eepublican minority to the Democratic majority in Congress. If it is the abolition of " war taxes" that the party wants, no surer way can be found, for the internal revenue system is pecul iarly a creation of the war, and was one of its real necessities. When ever resorted to in the past by the fathers, it was to meet a great National necessity resulting from war which had preceded, or to meet the expenses of a war in which we were about to engage. The first bill of the kind in our history went. into effect in 1792. It was in force but ten years, and was repealed upon the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, made in his first message to Congress. The language he used at that time is not without force and application now. He said : 16 236 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. The remaining sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the support of the Govemment. to pay the interest on the public debt, and to discharge the prineipal, in shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had con templated. War, indeed, and untoward events, may change the prospect of things, and call for expenses which the imports can not meet ; but sound prinoi ples will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasures for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but for the temptation offered by that treasure. For these reasons, given by President Jefferson, the law was promptly repealed. The next internal revenue law was enacted during the Administra tion of President Madison, and upon his recommendation, to provide the means for carrying on the second war with England. This sec ond law remained in force but four years ; it was repealed upon the recommendation of President Monroe in his first message to Con gress. In that paper he used the following language : It appearing in a satisfactory manner that the revenue arising from imports and tonnage, and from the sale of publio lands, will be fairly adequate to the support of the civil government ; of the present railitary and naval establish ments, including the annual augmentation of the latter, to the extent provided for ; to the payment of the interest on the public debt, and to the extinction of it at the time authorized, without aid of internal taxes, I consider it my duty to recommend to Congress their repeal. To impose taxes when the public exigen cies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people ; the faithful fulfillment of it is among the highest proofs of their virtue and capacity for self-governraent. To dispense with taxes when it may be done with perfect safety is equally the duty of their Representatives. This would seem, my fellow-citizens, to be sound doctrine, and coming, as it does, from eminent Democratic sources, it ought to fall with great weight upon Democratic ears. But their Ohio platform of this year seems determined to continue these " war taxes." This course is only in line with the war-time practices of the party. It was bitterly opposed to these taxes when they were enacted, when such taxes were really necessary, and when without them the Gov ernment could not have brought the Civil War to a successful termi nation. Now, that they are no longer needed, it as violently opposes their repeal. The Democracy seem to have forgotten their plat form in 1870, made the first day of June of that year, in the city of Columbus, when they resolved " that fhe internal revenue system is unendurable in its oppressive exact-ions and shotdd be immediately rescinded." What new light has dawned upon the Democracy of Ohio ? This was their position eighteen years ago, when the neces sity for internal taxation was imperative and absolutely essential to THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 237 meet the maturing obligations of the Government and maintain its credit ; when the debt hanging over us and the annual interest charge were something enormous ; when we were but five years removed from the close of the war and nine years away from resumption, then they were in favor of their " immediate repeal," and declared them " unendurable." Now that we have more money in the Treasury than we need, they want them to stand and continue evermore. Their habit of being wrong at the right time, and right at the wrong time, is here well illustrated. If the sentiment of the country is averse to abolishing the tax upon distilled spirits used as a beverage — and that is clearly the pre ponderating sentiment — and the receipts from that source be not re quired for the ordinary expenses of the Government, it might be well to set apart the sum so received, or such part thereof as may be neces sary, for educational purposes. To adopt a measure like the Blair Educational Bill would make this luxury contribute to the elevation and education of the people. No more philanthropic use could be made of this vast sum ; no purpose to which it might be dedicated could secure such beneficial results. The Blair Educational Bill car ries an appropriation of $77,000,000 to aid in the support of common schools in the States, Territories, and District of Columbia. Of that sum seven millions was to be distributed in 1886 ; ten millions in 1887 ; fifteen millions in 1888 ; thirteen millions in 1889 ; eleven millions in 1890 ; nine millions in 1891 ; seven millions in 1892, and five millions in 1893. What a splendid National offering that would be to the cause of intellectual development and to the education of tha youth of the masses ! This proposed distribution to the States and Territories was not based on population, but upon illiteracy. If based upon population, the Northern States would have received $47,000,000 and the States of the South $23,000,000 ; but under this bill the South receives $53,000,000 and the North $18,000,000 ; and of this sum the North would contribute $54,000,000 and the South $33,000,000. This would indicate that the North had no animosity toward the South, but is willing, out of the abundant treasure which it has, and contributes to the public treasury, to aid the South, im poverished by war, to educate and elevate the masses of her people and prepare them for the high duties of citizenship. The tax on spirits might well be dedicated to this high and laudable cause. On the subject of foreign immigration the Eepublican party of Ohio is fearless and outspoken. It leads in platform expression upon this question ; and it is gratifying to know that every Eepublican 238 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. convention held since, has met the question in the line of the Ohio declaration. Iowa, Pennsylvania, and New York have all pronounced against indiscriminate immigration, so that now, practically, for the first time in our National history, parties are brought face to face with this important problem in our National life. It is true that years ago the Chinese invasion of California received the well-con sidered action of Congress, resulting in a law limiting that character of immigration. Now the general question must be met and solved. It will not come at once; time, patience, and thought wiU be re quired. It is, however, a marked advance toward the desired goal, when the political parties come to pronounce for it in their platform declarations. It shows the drift and tendency of public thought, and manifests a growing sentiment which must necessarily and always precede public law. The sentiment of Ohio Eepublicans is so clearly expressed in their platform that I venture to read it to you at length. It may have escaped your notice. Here it is : While we adhere to the public policy under which our country has received great bodies of honest, industrious citizens, who have added to the wealth, prog ress, and power of the country ; and while we weloome to our shores the well- disposed and industrious imraigrant who contributes by his energy and intfilli- genoe to the cause of free government, we view with alarm unrestricted immigra tion from foreign lands as dangerous to the peaoe and good order of the country and the integrity and character of its citizenship. We urge Congress to pass such laws and establish such regulations as shall protect us frora the inroads of the anarchist, the coramunist, the polygamist, the fugitive from justice, the insane, the dependent pauper, the vicious and crirainal classes, contract labor in every form, under any name or guise, and all others who seek our shores, not to become a part of our civilization and citizenship, who acknowledge no allegiance to our laws, no sympathy with our airas and institutions, but who come among us to make war upon society, to diminish the dignity and rewards of American work men, and to degrade our labor to their level. Against all these our gates should be closed. This declaration requires no explanation or argument ; it speaks for itself ; it embodies the best sentiment of the country of every political faith, for it is based upon justice to all and looks to the highest welfare of all. If it can be embodied into practical legisla tion, it will go far toward removing many of the evils which exist in our society ; will secure the peace and good order of the country, and insure the continued happiness, freedom, independence, and advance ment of the people. Much is claimed by the Democratic party in the matter of the so- called reduction of the expenses of the Government under Mr. Cleve land's administration, by a Democratic House of Eepresentatives. THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 239 This reduction is more apparent than real. It is simply a show of economy, and very shortsighted and indefensible, as you will observe. It consists largely in withholding appropriations which the law com mands shall be made, as pay of the public officers of the Government, appropriating a sum less than the salaries provided by law. This idle performance, in the alleged interest of economy, compels our officials to go into the Court of Claims and sue the Government for their unpaid balances, which always results in a judgment ; and then these same gentlemen in the House appropriate to pay the judgments. Still another method for making a show of economy by the Demo cratic House is to make inadequate appropriations for the publie service, thus compelling the Eepublican Senate to increase the bill as it comes from the House, as a matter of public necessity, without which the wheels of the Government would be stopped. This is a favored way of demonstrating Democratic economy and Eepublican extravagance. This has nowhere been better stated than by Senator Beck, of Kentucky, a leading Democrat in the Senate of the United States and the ranking Democrat upon the Committee on Appropria tions of that body, who said, on June 30, 1886 : I thought of saying some other things, but I believe I will not. As far as this bill is coneerned it has received all the oare that the gentlemen on the Ap propriations Committee, who have had long service, could give it. I agree, and I am sorry to have to agree, to muoh of the criticism of the Republican Senators ; that there are very many items inserted by the Senate Coramittee in the bill that ought to have been inserted in the House of Representatives. After holding the bill back for six raonths and sending it to the Senate the last days of the fiscal year, so that we can hardly eonsider and inform our.selves so as to answer ques tions intelligently, we have a resolution sent here to-day to extend appropriations of the expiring fiscal year into the next year, whether they are in accordance with the needs of the service for the next year or not, in order to prevent the wheels of the Govemment from being stopped by reason of the delay that has occurred in the passage in proper time of those appropriation bills. A Republioan Senate, it is alleged, with much show of justice, is compelled to raake raany additions to carry on the Government decently, because gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol are withholding what is absolutely needed, as stated in their ofBcial com munications and personal interviews by the Democratic officers of the Govern ment, as necessary to carry on the Government properly. I sit in that Committee with a certain sense of mortiflcation at the delay, which I think needless, and I confess I feel humiliated when I hear Republican gentlemen say, what I have heard stated on this floor more than once in the last day or two, that very likely many of the appropriations are dirainished so that gentlemen at the other end of the Capitol can go before the country and tell how economical they were and how extravagant this end of the Capitol was, when this and many other iteras have to be inserted as amendments for the very purpose of enabling the Govern- 240 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ment to be carried on at all. I can make no excuse for the delay. We know that for the fiscal year 1888, when this Congress expires by its own limitation on the 4th day of March, 1887, every one of these appropriation bills has to be passed before that time ; and when the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives had their labor lightened this year by placing in the hands of other Committees the Consular and Diplomatic Bill, the Indian Bill, the Post- Office and other iraportant bills, which formerly encumbered them ; and now on the last day of the fiscal year the Sundry Civil Bill is not even here. The Legis lative, Executive, and Judicial BiU passed the House almost in the closing week of the fiscal year, and is in the condition in which we have it before us. The Naval Bill is not even considered, the Deflciency Bill is not looked at, while the Fortiflcation Bill has not been touched. I am not proud of the record. I do not propose to defend it. All of which I earnestly commend to our Democratic friends, to illustrate the hypocrisy of a Democratic House, and to the end that it may shake their faith in Democratic professions of economy and reform. As to the Civil Service, the Ohio Eepublican platform takes a strong and progressive stand. It not only requires the rigid enforce ment of the present law in its letter and spirit, but demands such other and additional legislation as will tend to improve and elevate our public service and give to it the purest and most capable officials. In this, as in all its declarations, it keeps abreast with the best thought of the country ; its purpose in this direction is earnest and sincere, and it is to be hoped the Legislature of Ohio will heed this sentiment and embody this purpose into public law. The good work heretofore inaugurated by the Eepublican party in the Nation must be carried to completion. No other party can, or shows any disposi tion, to do it. The Ohio Democratic platform has no word of ap proval for the Civil Service Eeform movement ; no commendation of the President for his efforts in this direction ; a feature of his admin istration, more pretentious than any other, is thus silently condemned. My fellow-citizens, I must conclude. The struggle this year is not only to re-elect Governor Foraker by a handsome majority, and a Legislature which shall be Eepublican, but for the Eepublican cause generally, now and hereafter. We have the past to inspire and en courage us, and the future full of hope and promise, with nothing to fear. We have but to be honest with the people; honest with each other ; true to our guiding principles, never forgetting the interests of the masses, taking counsel of the people, whose unerring instincts see the right, and success is assured. We have the satisfaction of knowing that, in all that has been won by Eepublican leadership and THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION. 241 Eepublican courage in the past, there is not a conscience or a voice in the civilized world which does not approve and commend it. Our opponents even, as we get further removed from the contest in which the achievements were won, and in which they lost, gratefully applaud. The past is secure ; its glory fills the world with wonder and admi ration, and inspires mankind with new hopes and grander aspira tions. The future is now our field ; let us look to it ; it opens with glorious possibilities, and invites the party of ideas to enter and pos sess it. Let us appeal to the highest judgment and reason of the people, and our appeal will not be in vain. In the language of Lincoln : Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differ ences, is either party without faith of being in the right ? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side or our side, that truth and justice will surely prevail by the judgment of the great tribunal of the American people. To that judgment we confidently commit our claims. THE AMEEICAN FAEMEE. Address before the Ohio State Grange at Canton, Ohio, December 13, 1887. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Ohio State Grange : I esteem it a very great honor to have been invited by the Committee having in charge the arrangements for your annual gathering, to participate in the welcome which the citizens of Canton, through the Mayor, have extended to you. I am gratified to join my neighbors and fellow-citizens in that greeting, and unite with them in tendering to you the cordial hospitality of our homes, and beg to express the genuine pleasure which all of us feel by being honored with your presence. I count myself most fortunate, even at the discomfort of a long railroad journey, in having the opportunity afforded me this evening to meet face to face this body of thoughtful and sturdy men, representing a calling which is not only the most ancient of human vocations, but at the same time the largest and most impor tant of all. The gentlemen whom I address, and the wider constituency which stands behind them, are the most self-sustaining and independent of our population. There can be no independence like that of the men who own the land they cultivate. They are, in point of real necessi ties and actual comforts, scarcely dependent on the rest of mankind, while the rest of mankind is wholly dependent on them. Farmers could manage to exist rather generously, if not luxuriously, without us, but we could not well exist without them. Agriculture may fairly be classed as the foundation of all in dustries; it is intimately related to every field of labor. No matter what our employment, we must draw our life every day afresh from the soil, and our daily necessities can be supplied from no other source. All trade, all commerce, all business is but the result, direct or remote, of the industrial pursuit in which you are engaged. Our city in its earlier and later progress is peculiarly the offspring of agri- THE AMERICAN FARMER. 243 culture ; from it has been drawn our chief income ; it has been the source of our revenue. We have been doing little else for thirty years but meeting the demands and supplying the wants of the farmers. Canton is therefore devotedly attached and deeply in debted to the industry which you represent, and is justly sensible of the fact that upon your success depends her prosperity. You have made wonderful improvements in your department of human activity in the last thirty years. Every decade records ad vancement and demonstrates marked and commendable progress. Agriculture no longer relies upon mere physical force ; it requires of its successful devotees culture and scientific knowledge. These are becoming, if not as essential, certainly of approximate importance with the harrow, the plow, and muscle. Manual labor alone does not always secure the best crops or the largest and most lasting results. A wise and discriminating intelligence and a knowledge of chemis try will oftentimes increase the annual yield to the farmer, add profit to his product, and secure permanent advantages to his land. An ignoramus makes no better farmer, in the higher and better sense, than he makes a lawyer, a doctor, or a preacher ; and any kind of a man will not make a good agriculturist any more certainly than he will make a successful merchant, a wise banker, or a skilled me chanic. Brain has become as essential as brawn. Both are neces sary, the one almost useless without the other, and each should go hand in hand in the pathway of conquest over the old and cruder modes, to the achievement of new and better methods. I do not mean to say that the successful agriculturist can get on without labor ; that lies at the very foundation of success in your calling, as in any other, but it is no longer the exclusive factor to successful farming. Nor are the old ways to be abandoned or forsaken for new and doubtful experiments. Cato, the eloquent orator and great general, wrote a treatise on agriculture, and his wise maxims are just as applicable in the present day as when written two thousand years ago. He said : The first thing to do is to plow thoroughly ; the second, to plow ; the third, to manure ; the fourth, to choose good seeds and plenty of them ; the fifth, to root out all weeds. I take it, gentlemen, that this embodies the fundamental philos ophy of successful farming, and has not been improved upon by any agricultural teacher or Farmers' Institute. Cato, like most of his people, advocated small farms and thorough tillage. 244 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. But, Mr. President, I will not be expected to talk to you upon the technicalities of your profession. With these you are too famil iar, and have too much practical knowledge, to be imposed upon by a novice ; and were I to undertake to tell you what I know about farming, the limit of your patience and indulgence would soon be reached, possibly even before my limited knowledge was exhausted. I choose rather to speak to you, for the little time I shall occupy, of the magnitude of the interest to which you are devoted, its marvelous growth, and the satisfactory contrast it presents in this country with other and competing nations. There are seven and three quarter millions of people in the United States engaged in agriculture, more than one eighth of our entire pop ulation, far exceeding in number those engaged in any other profes sion, numbering twice those employed in manufactures, and seven times greater than those employed in conducting trade and transpor tation. Therefore, you constitute the largest body engaged in any single calling in the United States, while the value of the agricul tural products of this country exceeds that of any other nation in the world. In 1880 the value of American agricultural products was $3,400,000,000, a sum almost incomprehensible to the ordinary mind ; while Eussia, with her immense territory, and with a hundred mil lions of people, produced agricultural products valued at $3,020,000,- 000. Germany stands third on the list, having produced $2,280,000,- 000 ; France follows Germany very closely, and shows a gross value of $3,330,000,000; the Isles of the Sea, $1,210,000,000; Austria, $323,000,000 ; while Spain, Australia, and Canada, with their united agricultural products, exceed a little more than one half of those of the United States. In 1880 the capital invested in manufactures in the United States was only twenty-three per cent, or less than one fourth that invested in agriculture. It is not generally believed, indeed, if it is known, but is never theless the fact, and a rather surprising fact, too, that hay is the most valuable of all our products. According to the census of 1880, the amount cut exceeded 36,000,000 tons, covering more than 30,000,000 acres. Sorghum is one of the newer agricultural products, and yet in 1880 more than 28,000,000 gallons of molasses were made from it. With the new and modern inventions said to have been put to practical tests, and in actual operation in Europe, this may yet be come one of the more valued and important agricultural products. Then the " Irish potato," as it is improperly called — it being pecul iarly American, for Ireland is indebted to us, not we to Ireland, for THE AMERICAN FARMER. 245 it, and which next to the cereal grains furnishes food to the greatest number of persons — has developed a remarkable growth as well as grown in popular favor ; for in 1880 we raised four bushels of pota toes for every man, woman, and child in the United States, aggregat ing a little over 203,000,000 bushels, and all consumed at home. The most astonishing development, to my mind, is that touching the extent of the live stock raised in this country. The figures ex pressing it are enormous. We raised, in 1880, fifty-six and three quarter million hogs, forty-six million cattle (eighteen and a half million were milch cows), forty-five million sheep, twelve and a half million horses, and two million mules. As some one has put it, if the live stock on Uncle Sam's ranch were ranged five abreast (each animal estimated to occupy a space five feet long), and marched around the world, the head of the procession would meet and over lap the tail. Our exports of living cattle in 1880 exceeded $12,000,- 000 in value, and in the same year we exported hams and bacon to the value of $50,000,000. Our wool clip of 1880 weighed 240,000,000 pounds, more than double the amount of wool produced in the United Kingdom. In 1883 and 1884, 396,000,000 pounds of wool were consumed in the United States, and 320,000,000 pounds of it were grown at home. I know of no good reason why the other 76,000,000 pounds should not be of our own home-grown product, from our own fiocks and fields, pro duced at home by our own people. As a wool-producer the United States stands first ; in 1886 the values of her clip were $72,464,201 ; Australia second, $47,358,000 ; the Argentine Eepublic third, $35,946,- 855; Eussia fourth, $33,615,200; Austria-Hungary fifth, $30,363,000 ; France sixth, $16,654,000 ; and Germany seventh, $15,582,000. Our dairy products are prodigious. Four hundred thousand tons of butter were made in 1880, averaging over fifteen pounds to every -man, woman, and child in the country. I can not vouch that all this was pure, sweet, unadulterated farmers' butter ; some of it was doubtless oleomargarine, butterine, or other substitute. When we come to take the next census there will be a rightful division of this product, thanks to the oleomargarine law of the last Congress, and we will know how much of the genuine and how much of the imita tion we produce as well as consume. The United States stands first in the production of cereals, to the value, in 1886, of $1,161,215,453. Eussia coraes next, with $1,109,- 159,673. Germany is third, the values being $750,148,109; and Austria-Hungary fourth, with $648,043,475. Great Britain, includ- 246 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ing India, Australia, and Canada, and all her other colonies and de pendencies, only produces cereals to the value of $437,282,910, which is $8,000,000 less than the production of France. We raise thirty per cent of the grain and fifty per cent of the cotton of the world. Ohio produces one tenth of the wheat of the United States, and stands fourth among the thirty-eight States in general agricultural products. This is but a partial statement of the wonderful progress of American agriculture — an incomplete showing of its results — after a little more than a century of developraent, but it is enough to bring to every one engaged in the industry a feeling of genuine pride and satisfaction, and is certainly a cause for National congratulation. Your profession is not only marvelous in the figures which it pre sents and in the advancement it has made, but it stands equal in dignity and honor with the highest of human callings. The greatest in every department of life and in every age have been its proud votaries ; the statesman, the lawyer, the doctor, the divine can engage in it without loss of self-respect or dignity; it seems rather to enhance both. The historians of China tell us that even to this day the sovereign of that empire, the despotic monarch of nearly one third of the human race, in order to show his high regard for agriculture, once in the year holds a plow and turns a fur row in the presence of his court and all the high dignitaries of the land. The majority of our Presidents were or had been farmers, and on leaving their lofty seats of power returned to the cultivation of the soil. It has come to be the rule that our ex-Presidents, if they would preserve their high place in the public estimation, must either live a life of ease or return to the peaceful and healthful pursuit of agriculture. In the popular view no other actual occupation seems so appropriate or so well to comport with the dignity of their pre vious station. Washington, on his farm at Mount Vernon, directing his labor, engaged in actual work himself, is remembered with almost equal pride as when engaged in performing illustrious services on the field of battle, or presiding over the young Eepublic as it^ first President. Webster, at his country seat at Marshfield, was every inch the true American statesman, and as secure in the people's affection and as high in public regard as when in the State Department he maintained with conscious power her dignity and honor. Marshall, most erai nent of jurists, was the same commanding figure at " The Oaks " as when, equally modest and unassuming, he expounded from the Su- THE AMERICAN PARMER. 247 preme Bench the immortal principles of constitutional law. Every body recalls with pleasant memory John Adams on his farm at Quincy ; Jefferson cultivating the soil at " Monticello " ; Madison in his sweet and tranquil old age at " Montpelier " ; Jackson at " The Hermitage " ; Garfield spending his brief Congressional vacations in harvesting at Mentor ; and no one thinks of them as having soiled their high repu tations or marred their dignity by these pursuits. Van Buren was as proud of his estate at Kinderhook as of his diplomacy at the capital. Clay with his short-horns at Ashland was as much a statesman and great leader, everywhere honored and esteemed, as when addressing listening Senates, or moving public audiences by his majestic periods and resistless eloquence. I congratulate you upon your present commanding and honorable position before mankind. You have sustained the ancient reputation of your craft. You are imperial in your power. Nothing which in reason you can ask of the National Congress or State Legislatures, for the advancement of the interests you represent, can be long withheld or refused, for whatever improves the situation of the great agricul tural classes feeds the life-springs of National character. Numerically the largest class, it has been demonstrated in the experience of the whole world that the social, political, and moral character of countries mainly depends upon the condition of the tillers of the soil. It has been said that " the political character of any country is shaped and molded by the tenure on which land is held and culti vated." Tell me how the land is held, and I can tell you almost to a certainty the political system of the country, its form of government, and its political character. When land is divided into small farms, the property, as a rule, of those who till them, there is an induce ment, ambition, and facility for independence, for progress, for wider thought and higher attainments in individual, industrial life. Over such a population no government but a free one, under equal laws and equal rights, with equal opportunities, can exist for any length of time. The small farm thoroughly worked was the ancient model, commended by the early sages and philosophers ; as old Virgil put it, " Praise a large farm, cultivate a small one." We must avoid in this country the holding of large tracts of land by nonresident owners for speculative purposes, and set our faces like flint against alien land- holding in small or large tracts. Our public domain must be rededi- cated to our own people, and neither foreign syndicates nor domestic corporations must be permitted to divert it from the hallowed pur pose of actual settlement by real farmers. It is highly gratifying to 248 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. know that the large majority of the farms in the United States are cultivated by their owners. Out of our four millions of farms, nearly three millions are operated and worked by their owners ; eight per cent only of the total are worked upon shares. Ohio, with her 247,000 farms, has 200,000 occupied by their owners — over eighty per cent. With this condition existing and maintained, we need have no fear of the future, of its safety and independence. One of the great lessons of history is that agriculture can not rise to its highest perfection and reach its fullest development without the aid of commerce, manufactures, and mechanical arts. All are es sential to the healthy growth and highest advancement of the others; the progress of one insures the prosperity of another. There are no conflicts, there should be no antagonisms. They are indispensable to each other. Whatever enfeebles one is certain to cripple the rest. Washington, in his last annual address to Congress, in 1796, re ferred to a former successful endeavor to encourage agricultural progress and diversity in industry, and emphasized his views by de- • daring the object " of too much consequence not to receive a continu ance of their efforts in every way that shall appear eligible." President Jefferson wrote, in 1816, that " he who is now against domestic manufactures must be for reducing us either to a depend ence upon that nation [Great Britain] or to be clothed in skins and live like wild beasts in dens and caverns." In his fourth message, John Quincy Adams said that " the great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation are so locked in union together that no permanent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to all the others." Benjamin Franklin, the great sage and intense patriot, writing from England in 1771, suggesting various plans for the improvement of our agricultural condition, said, " Here in England it is well known, that wherever a manufacture is established, which employs a number of hands, it raises the value of land in the country all around it." President Monroe, in his inaugural address in 1817, said: "Pos sessing as we do all the raw materials, fruit of our own soil and in dustry, we ought not to depend, in the degree we have done, on sup plies from other countries. While we are thus dependent, the sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into the most serious difficulties." Jackson, in 1823, declared that " upon the success of our manu- THE AMERICAN PARMER. 249 factures, as the handmaid of agriculture and commerce, depends in a great measure the independence of our country." What was true sixty-four years ago is true to-day ; and the words of the hero of New Orleans are fully as applicable to the present situation as to the time in which he lived. Let us accept the advice of the fathers of the Republic, heed their patriotic counsels, walk steadfastly in their faith, preserve the mutual helpfulness and harmony of the industries, and maintain our independence. National, industrial, and individual, against all the world, and thus advance to the high destiny that devolves upon us and our posterity. I bespeak for you a pleasant and profltable meet ing, and, with thanks and best wishes to all, bid you good-night. FEEE EAW MATEEIALS. Address before the Home Market Club, at Banquet in Hotel Vendome, Boston, Mass., February 9, 1888. [As reported for the Home Market Club.] Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Home Market Club : If I believed it to be entirely courteous to the gentlemen who have invited me to address them to-night, I would be content, after the very clear and convincing speech of Senator Sherraan, to rest the cause of protection, confident that no adequate reply can be raade to his logic, and no successful resistance to the strong positions he has taken and enforced. Very much like his illustrious brother in the famous march he made to the sea, he drives everything before him, and leaves very little for those who follow behind him. [Great ap plause.] A revenue reformer who had recently visited your State said to me a few days ago that Massachusetts had already received all the benefits she could from protection, and that now her interests as well as her inclinations lay in the other direction — that of free trade. Enlarging upon it, he was forced to confess that the manufacturing thrift and activity everywhere seen in your Commonwealth, the high rank you had taken and the perfection reached in production, were the outcome of the system of American protection, but now free trade, or its equivalent or approximation, would place you in a posi tion of commanding advantage over those portions of the country marked with less industrial development. If I were to admit the truth of my friend's discourse — which I do not — the situation would, in simple language, be this : Massachusetts owes her proud industrial position to a protective tariff, which she has enjoyed by the help of other States not so far advanced in manufactures, and which have neither so long nor so advantageously enjoyed its benefits. Now she does not need it for herself, and is unwilling that any of her sister PREE RAW MATERIALS. 251 States shall profit by its assistance and enjoy its blessings. She used it to attain her high commercial position and manufacturing devel opment. The newer States are now moving upward on the ladder which carried her before and above them. Now, as my friend would have it, she is ready to push the ladder down, with all that is upon it. [Laughter.] This I know to be a base and ungenerous reflection upon Massachusetts, which her industrial people will be quick to re sent, and which nothing in her behavior in the past would justify. Such a sentiment, surely, has no place among the industrial classes, nor among those whose capital and labor are employed in manufacture. The truth is, that your State, as well as all of New England, needs as much protection against foreign competition as ever it did. [Applause.] You have some advantages over many of the States, but you labor under some disadvantages not common to other portions of the country. Steam has compensated for the absence of water power. Your lands are not agricultural, like ours. You have no mines. Your avenues inviting capital and tempting labor are therefore limited, and anything which affects unfavorably your great workshops affects injuriously your Commonwealth, from one end of it to the other. Your present and future, therefore, de pend upon the continued success of your manufactures, and they in turn depend for their support upon a generous home market. What you want are consumers and purchasers of the products of your factories. You get them in the West and the South, and will continue to en joy them, provided these sections are permitted to prosper, and shall be encouraged by a suitable industrial system which will encourage new enterprises and promote the further development of their re sources. If protection, as a broad National policy, is not sound in prin ciple and wholesome in practice, then it ought to be abandoned, pro vided something better is offered in its place. The real interest which the people of New England, as well as the people of other sections, have in this question is not narrow or sectional merely, but general and National. If any other system will better promote in dustrial growth, conserve National ends, reward individual effort and the just aspirations of the people, then it should be adopted, and adopted at once. In the discussion of this question it is assumed, either through ignorance or willful intention, that the revenues se cured from our tariff are wholly unnecessary, and indulged in largely, if not solely, for the purpose of enriching the manufacturer, forgetting or ignoring the fact that a government can not be administered with- 17 252 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. out taxation and income, and that it is a part of the citizen's duty to contribute each his share for the support of the government which gives protection to his property and person, and security to his enter prises and investments. It requires over $300,000,000 every year, which must be raised from some source and in some way, to meet the expenditures and ob ligations of our National Government. This sum must be provided for, so long as the current demands remain undiminished. This in come must be secured either by direct taxation or by duties upon imports. The former system has never met with favor among our people, and has never been resorted to except in case of war neces sity, and during all preceding periods until now has been speedily abandoned when the necessity had passed away. It has never been held as a permanent system for raising revenue. It has been regarded always as merely temporary, to meet immediate exigencies, for which the prevailing system of taxation was for the time found inadequate. It has been the accepted National policy, from the beginning of the Government, to raise our current and necessary revenues from im port duties. If the internal revenue system was repealed, or such part thereof as might be safely spared, the question of the surplus which now faces us would vex us no longer, and the requisite rev enues to meet the demands of the Government would easily and with little burden upon our citizens bo provided from customs sources. [Applause.] I will not pause to discuss the wisdom of the one system over the other. I take it for granted that there is a consensus of opinion, cer tainly in New England, and which opinion is gi'owing rapidly through out the country, that if one or the other must yield, the internal revenue system must go and the tariff system remain, in the line of the long-established practice and policy of the Government. No ex tended argument is demanded to satisfy an American audience that taxation upon foreign products imported in competition with do mestic ones is better and more easily borne than taxation upon our own. Having, then, agreed that the settled policy of the Government is to raise its revenue from import duties, the simple question of the adjustment of these duties, upon what articles they shall be placed, is the one essential consideration. One line of political thought would raise this revenue by imposing the duty or the tax upon the foreign articles imported here which do not compete with those pro duced here — that is, select out from the group of imported articles those which are necessary to the wants of our people, and for which PREE RAW MATERIALS. 253 we must rely upon the foreign supply, and upon such articles place the tax or duty ; and let the articles which come from abroad in com petition with our domestic production enter our customhouses free, or practically so. This is the exact position of the revenue reformer, and is a fair statement of what constitutes a revenue tarifl. On the other hand, another line of political thought, advocated by the friends of protection, insists that the articles which we can not produce in this country, and which we must import from abroad, save and except luxuries, shall come in duty free, and those things which are made or produced abroad, and which are sent here to com pete with what we make and produce here, shall bear the burden and the duty — the noncompeting foreign product to be imported duty free, the competing one to bear the duty. Shall the former or the latter line of thought be adopted as our National policy? is the ques tion now upon us for consideration and judgment. This is the real question, and it can not be obscured by that other and diflerent one of reducing the surplus. [Applause.] The issue was never so sharply drawn as now, so that every citizen who wants to express his exact views in his ballot can do so with absolute certainty. The President has emphasized the issue and marked the line of contest. We accept his challenge, and appeal from him to the peo ple, the only sovereign we tolerate or recognize in the United States. [Applause.] Now, gentlemen, is the revenue-tariff policy, so called, or the protective policy, the best for our system and citizenship ? If freedom from taxation makes the imported article cheaper to the consumer, because, as it is asserted, the tax is added to the cost, then it seems to me there is every reason why those articles which we can not produce and must have should be absolutely free at the custom houses, and go untaxed to the people ; and surely there ought to be no question in the mind of any patriotic citizen, that the tariff should be levied upon the competing product rather than the noncompeting, which is imported, and thus foster the interests of our own people and protect them in their chosen vocations. Let the burden and the duty be put upon the products made by our foreign competitors, and competition at home between our own manufacturers will regulate with justice to the consumers the price of domestic commodities. This seems so plain as to render elaboration unnecessary, and has been vindicated in every department of industry sustained by protec tion. The enemies of protection are fighting the system in detail, and are leveling their artillery for the present at what are termed the crude raaterials used for the more advanced manufactures. 254 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. What are -the arguments presented by the advocates of free raw material, including wool ? I have examined them with some care, and do not find them always either logical or consistent. The gen eral statement is made that free wool will remove great burdens from our manufacturers by giving them low-priced wool, and in the end benefit the people by giving them cheaper clothing. This character of argument is made to the manufacturer and general consumer, while the same gentlemen, in presenting the question to the farmers and producers of wool, declare that free wool will increase and not diminish the price, and cite to them statistics which show that wool has been cheapest under high tariffs and commanded the highest prices when the tariffs were the lowest. If free wool would increase the price to the grower, it is difficult to discover how at the same time it can reduce the price to the manufacturer ; but a slight incon sistency of this kind would not disturb the New England reformer. [Applause.] An intelligent manufacturer expressed himself before the Ways and Means Committee, two or three years ago, as follows : If the duty were taken off wool absolutely to-day, the first effect of it would be the lowering of the price of the wool of this country to the level of the price of wool in other countries. That would be the first effect. The discouraging effect of it would be to destroy the sheep-raising industry in this country, and then the price of wool abroad would rise. I wish some of the gentlemen from Rhode Island would paste this in their hats ! [Laughter and applause.] But if free wool will secure cheaper clothing to the people, by the same process of reasoning, cloth duty free and untaxed ready-made clothing, will diminish the price still further, and give to the con sumer the very consummation of low prices and cheap wearing ap parel. If every consideration but the mere cheapness of the fabric be discarded, then no reason can be found why, with free wool, there should not come free cloth and free clothing. [Applause.] Things, however, are sometimes the dearest, when nominally they are the cheapest. The selling price of an article is not the only measure ; the ability to buy, the coin with which to purchase, is an important and essential element, and must not be dismissed froin our considera tion. If a man is without means and without employment, and there is none of the latter to be had, everything is dear to him. The price is of the smallest consequence, however cheap, if it is beyond his reach. If my only means is my labor, and that is unemployed, whether things are cheap or dear is of little moment to me. If the policy of protection is not to be just in its application and FREE RAW MATERIALS. 255 National in its scope, based upon broad principle, then the sooner it is reUnquished the better. It can not be sustained, and ought not to be, for one class or interest or section, and denied to others equally within the contemplation of its purpose. The raw-materials class have rights which can not be ignored. Those who think otherwise forget that the advanced product is only the manipulation of the less advanced, and the less advanced of the still less finished product, with human labor as the chief factor in all ; and protection upon the one can not be successfully and permanently maintained without protec tion of the other. The occupants of the fifth story, Mr. Chairman, are not safe if the dwellers beneath them are endangered, and all are imperiled if the foundation is shattered or removed. If the manufacturers are to have free wool that it may be cheaper, I beg to inquire, At whose expense ? Of course, at the expense of the producer, who is scarcely able to live to-day at the present rate of duty upon the foreign product. If free raw material will cheapen the product of the factory and the mill, of course by the same logic the products of the mill will be cheapened, if competing products are admitted free of duty. The products of the New England mills, the New Jersey potteries, and the Pennsyl vania furnaces have no higher claim upon the fostering care of the Government and the considerate concern of Congress than the iron mines of the Northwest, the wool producers of Ohio, the coal of West Virginia and Maryland, the clay of Missouri, the salt of Michigan and New York, the marble of Vermont and Connecticut, and no unselfish patriot thinks so. I assure you there is no wayside station in the work of cutting down duties when once entered upon. No reason will be found, surely none will be acce25ted, why we should stop half way in our so-called mission for the overburdened consumer. Pro tection will not respond to the beck of one interest and turn a deaf ear to the earnest calls of another. Seven and three quarters millions of farmers — more than one eighth of our entire population — will not tolerate a discrimination against their products, and that might as well be understood now. Our farming population has firmly resisted the seductive voice of the free trader ; has stood faithfully by the system of protection because it was right, as a broad policy looking to industrial independence. They only claim equal benefits with all others ; more they have never asked, and less they will not have. No advantage over their fellow-citizens engaged in other branches of business is desired, no unjust or unequal drawbacks or discrimination upon them will be tolerated. 256 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. They want you, and all who are engaged in manufactures, to live and prosper; employ mechanics and artisans, extend your work shops, and thus furnish them a home market for the products of their fields and fiocks, and in turn they want your goods. They are not troubled about the increased cost of woolen fabrics as a result of the tariff. The President's sympathy for them is uninvited and gratuitous. [Applause.] He groans beneath the burden which he declares they bear, and which they have never felt, and, without commission or authority, assuraes to speak for them. The wool growers were not slow to repudiate his tender of sympathy, and send forth burning words of protest against his free-trade theories. They were the first to sound the alarm, and I want them to have due credit; they sent out their message of condemnation twenty-four hours before Mr. Blaine's was wired from Paris [applause], and before Senator Sherman's masterly arraignment of the President's message was made on the floor of the United States Senate. [Ap plause.] They talked like men who knew their business, and with a courage assuring and refreshing in these days of cowardly indecision. I congratulate you to-night that the manufacturers of New Eng land and of the whole country, and the wool growers of the United States, are harmonious and united ; that they stand with columns closed and line unbroken, ready for the " fray." Their meeting at Washington, on the 14th of January, has demoralized their enemies, and brought confusion to those who believed their interests were to be at war. They lie on parallel lines, and their union and harmony will bring results helpful to both. The manufacturers of New England, and more particularly the skilled labor employed by them, need a protective tariff, and require it equally with the industries and labor of other States. It is im peratively demanded, not only here but in every section of the Union, if the present price of labor is to be continued and maintained. Your industries can not compete successfully even in this market with the industries of England, France, Belgium, and Germany, without a tarifl, so long as the price paid labor here exceeds the price paid labor there from 50 to 75 per cent. This inequality can only be met by a tarifl upon the products of cheap labor high enough to compensate for the diflerence. You can not compete except upon equal condi tions and with like cost of the competing product. Free trade will either equalize the conditions by reducing your labor to that of the rival labor on the other side, or it will close your factories and work shops and destroy home production and competition. Free trade PREE RAW MATERIALS. 257 means cheap labor, and cheap labor means diminished comforts — diminished capacity to buy, poor and enfeebled industries, and a de pendent condition generally. And every step taken in the direction of free trade, beginning with free raw material, is an advance, and a very long one and a very straight one, in the direction of reduced wages, and a changed condition of the American workingman, not confined to the labor engaged in preparing raw materials for use, but will widen, and in the end enter every department of labor and skill. I would secure the American market to the American producer [applause], and I would not hesitate to raise the duties whenever necessary to secure this patriotic end. [Applause.] I would not have an idle man or an idle mill or an idle spindle in this country, if, by holding exclusively the American market, we could keep them employed and running. [Applause.] Every yard of cloth imported here makes a demand for one yard less of American fabrication. Let England take care of herself, let France look after her inter ests, let Germany take care of her own people, but in God's name let Americans look after America ! [Loud applause.] Bvery ton of steel imported diminishes that much of home production. Every blow struck on the other side upon an article which comes here in com petition with like articles produced here makes the demand for one blow less at home. Every day's labor upon the foreign products sent to the United States takes one day's labor from American working- men. I would give the day's labor to our own, first, last, and all the time, and that policy which fails in this is opposed to American interests. To secure this is the great purpose of a protective tariff. Free traders say. Give it to the foreign workman, if ours will not per form it at the same price and accept the same wages. Protection ists say No, the workingmen say No, and justly and indignantly resent this attempted degradation of their labor, this blow at their independence and manhood. The difficulty with some of our friends is that periodically they become alarmed at the clamor of their enemies, and, under fear for the safety of their investments, yield ; yield essentials ; yield to the injury of the cause to which we are devoted, and to which we are in debted for unexampled prosperity, when they should stand with firm ness and courage, beating back their assailants, whose success, if at tained, would insure only widespread disaster. Every concession made is interpreted as a confession of excessive tariff benefits — a plea of guilty to the indictment of the free traders ; every inch of ground 258 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. surrendered weakens the line and impairs our commercial and busi ness independence. I welcome as allies in our great cause men from all political parties, but look with distrust upon our so-called friends who, in order to maintain their party relations, are ever demanding concessions and compromises, which will, if granted, be followed by the coraplete overthrow of our system. It is better, if you are pro tectionists, to get into the party which advocates that principle, and you will not be embarrassed by party considerations in conffict with your real principles. In the days of the war, when a citizen wanted to be counted iu fact on the side of the Union, he voted with the party which was pledged for its preservation, and which stood in the trenches and on the battle line of the contest. So now, in this great crisis between free trade and the American system of protection, founded by the fathers and so eloquently maintained by Clay and Webster and Choate, every friend of the principle and every foe of free trade should follow that party organization which carries the flag of protection, and which acknowledges no other [applause], and whose adherents are unre strained by a divided allegiance ; who are not compelled to balance between party and principle, not obliged to be constantly twisting and turning to keep on good terms with both, and as constantly failing in the difficult feat. [Applause.] The reckless assault made by the President should be resisted with flrmness and courage, resolutely and fearlessly, and his wild and illogical attacks should be met with dignity and refuted with reason and results ; and it is gratifying to know that resistance, earnest and aggressive, has started in Massachusetts, and will be persevered in to victory. He recommends with savage fury the reversal of the policy which is as old as the Government itself, which such statesmen as Washington and Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln, were pleased to commend and support by the force of their great naraes and charac ter — a policy which every student of American history knows has been vindicated by its triumphs and by the blessings with which it has crowned us. It is left to the President, standing apart from his illustrious predecessors, to frown with contempt upon a National policy which gave us the money, in large part, to carry on the war for the Union to a successful and glorious conclusion [applause] ; that has enabled us to meet all our obligations in peace, to establish the highest credit in the commercial world, and to achieve a manufactur ing rank second to none. He calls this system " vicious, illogical, and inequitable." We could frown back. We could make faces, too ; but FREE RAW MATERIALS. 259 that would be scarcely decorous or dignified ; aye, it would be wholly unworthy a cause whose worth is in its work, and to whose trophies every citizen can point with pride and satisfaction. There is no serious danger to the system from without ; the real danger is from within. We have demonstrated our strength and power when harmonious and united. For twenty-seven years it has stood without interruption, maintained by its friends, and twelve times in as many years it has resisted the assaults of its enemies, without loss or shock, and it will continue impregnable so long as we are without division or dissension in our own ranks. Our dan ger comes from those who have been and are the beneficiaries of the system, who are listening to the delusive suggestion of free raw material, and with supreme selfishness are disposed to turn a will ing ear to the enemies of a protective policy ; and while solicitous for their own protection against foreign rivals, and unwilling to give it up, are consenting, and I fear in some cases counseling, its with drawal from other interests, thus assisting in driving a wedge in the very foundation of a system which, if persisted in, will in the end overthrow the entire edifice. I warn you against these false teachers, who appeal to individual greed and narrow selfishness ; they are sow ing the seeds of destruction and death to a system which has produced results which are the wonder of the present century, and which, if continued, will be the marvel of the next. What is the meaning of all this outcry ? Who is hurt by the tariff against which we hear such loud denunciations ? Is any Ameri can citizen ? Is any American interest ? From whom and whence does the complaint come ? Not from the farmer, nor the wage-earn er, nor the manufacturer, nor the capitalist whose money is invested in industrial enterprises ; nor from the consumer, for he points to the improved quality of the product and reduced price as the reason for his faith. The agitation is inspired by our foreign rivals and those who sympathize with them here. They want our markets ; they want to diminish our production ; they would place us in a position of dependence, from which we fought our way like a young giant more than a century ago [applause], and to which we will not willingly and without stern resistance return. [Applause.] The party that tries to lead us back will be buried beneath popu lar indignation. [Applause.] From whom does this complaint come? It comes from the scholars, so-called [laughter], and the poets, from whom we gladly take our poetry, but whose political economy we must decline to receive ; from the dilettanti and would- 260 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. be diplomatists, the men of fixed incomes ; it comes from the men who " toil not, neither do they spin " [great applause], and from those who "do not gather into barns" [laughter], who have no invest ments except in bonds and mortgages, who want everything cheap but money, everything easy to secure but coin, who prefer the cus toms and civilization of other countries to our own, and who find nothing so wholesome as that which is imported, whether manners or merchandise, and want no obstructions in the shape of a tariff placed upon the free use of both. [Applause and laughter.] A college-bred American (who happily does not represent the educated men of the country), who had traveled much in Europe, whose inherited wealth had enabled him to gratify every wish of his heart, said to me a few years ago, with a sort of listless satisfaction, that he had outgroivn Ms country. What a confession ! Outgrown his country ! Outgrown America ! Think of it ! I felt at the time that it would have been truer had he said that his country had out grown him ; but he was in no condition of mind to have appreciated so patent a fact. He had no connection at all with the progressive spirit of his country. He had contributed nothing to its present proud position, or to the uplifting and welfare of his fellows ; he had no part in the march of the Republic. The busy, pushing American lad of humble origin educated at the public schools, had swept by him, as effort and energy always lead, and leave the laggard behind. His inheritance was not invested in productive enterprises, nor was his heart located where it sympathized with the aspirations of the people with whom he was born and reared. His country had got so far ahead of him that he was positively lonesome, out of line and wandering aimlessly along, to the rear of the grand procession. He was a free trader, for he told me so, and complained bitterly of the tariff as a burden upon the progressive men of the country, and that it severely handicapped him. When I pushed him to particularize the trammels which the tariff imposed upon him, as one of our sixty miUions of people, he raised his hand, which had never been soiled by labor nor touched by honest toil, tightly incased in a French kid, and said : " These gloves come enormously high here, sir, by reason of the tariff ; the duty is actually added to their foreign cost, which falls heavily upon us consumers." What answer could I make to such an indictraent ? How could I repel such a blow at our great industrial system ? Discussion would have been idle. I could only regard him in speechless silence, and gaze upon him with a feeling mixed with curiosity, pity, and contempt. [Applause and laughter.] I heard FREE RAW MATERIALS. 261 later on that he became a Mugwump ! [Laughter.] That was the newest manifestation of protest against the iniquitous system of tariff which we had in America. It gave the poor fellow the opportunity of leadership, for all are leaders in that narrow circle of free-trade spirits, and there my friend found a fit asylum for a man who had " outgrown his country." [Great laughter and applause.] There is another class of our citizens who have spent so much time abroad, who have so lost the aims and purposes of party that they have for twenty years been unable to embody in a vote " their honest opinions, or even a fraction of them." They, too, are to be pitied, and command our sympathy and commiseration. For twenty years there have been no issues for which political parties contended which embodied their honest opinions. They counted the great issue of the honest payment of the public debt against threatened repudia tion as beneath their thoughtful concern ; the resumption of specie payments against the bitter opposition of the inflationists was to them as an idle and unmeaning issue ; the suppression of the suflrage in entire States and Congressional districts, whereby the voice of New England is overborne and rendered forceless, is sneered at by these gentlemen as beneath the earnest purpose of a great political party to correct. These are not ideas worthy of their votes and support, and it is therefore not surprising that these gentlemen confess that they feel strongly attracted to the President ; and you would expect them to discover in him, as they have, "the best representative of the higher type of Americanism that can be found since Lincoln was snatched from us." An entire absence, they assert, of either worthy political aims or of representative Americans from Lincoln to Cleveland. If true, what a National humiUation ! Grant and Sherman and Sheridan must be either of the low type, or have been forgotten by these gentlemen. The general estimate of these men among patriotic citizens — and this estimate will be vindicated in history— is, that they were of the highest and best type of American citizenship, whose matchless qualities and lofty Americanism saved America to the world, and the freest and best Government to mankind forever. [Applause.] Garfield and Sumner, WUson and Wade, Hayes and Arthur, Blaine and Sherman, Logan and Hawley, Hoar and Dawes, and a host of illustrious names, are wholly ignored ; they do not measure up to the " higher type " of American manhood as embodied in the character of their beloved hero. I do not wonder that men representing such ideas can find no party worthy of their support, and no party stand- 262 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. ing for their exact views. I thank God it is so ; and that it is so, and that such ideas can not grow and thrive on free soil and among free men, is the proudest monument of our intelligence, our patriot ism, and our civilization. [Applause.] Gentlemen of the Home Market Club, I am glad to have been with you, and, in saying good-night, I bid you sustain the American system of protection, that you may maintain the dignity and inde pendence of American labor, that you may preserve the American home, the American schoolhouse, and American possibilities to the present and coming generations. [Tremendous applause.] THE PUECHASE OF GOVEENMENT BONDS. Speech in the House of Representatives, Fiftieth Congress, February 29, 1888. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in the Committee of the Whole for the consideration of the bill (H. R. 5,034) to provide for the purchase of United States bonds by the Secre tary of the Treasury, Mr. McKinley said — The exact purpose of this bill, Mr. Chairman, is not altogether manifest upon its face. If it be to give to the Secretary of the Treas ury authority to use the surplus money in the Treasury for the pur chase and redemption of Government bonds, and this be its sole pur pose, then I answer that the authority already exists fully and amply, and has existed since March 3, 1881. The bill under consideration neither increases, diminishes, nor qualifies the authority of the Secre tary of the Treasury under existing law. It neither adds to nor takes from the power that is to-day vested in the Secretary of the Treasury to apply the surplus money in the Treasury to the purchase and re demption of United States bonds. Now, what is the existing law ? — and I beg to read it, and at the same time I trust that it may appear side by side with the bill itself in parallel lines in the Congressional Record. The present law, which has stood upon the statute-books for almost seven years, is in these words : That the Secretary of the Treasury may at any time apply the surplus money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, or so much thereof as may be con sidered proper, to the purchase or redemption of United States bonds. That is the language of the existing law. The bill proposed by the Committee on Ways and Means diflers from this law only in phraseology, and that difference I will quickly indicate. The bill provides — 264 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to apply the surplus money now in the Treasury, and such surplus money as may hereafter be in the Treasury, and not otherwise appropriated, or so much thereof as he may consider proper, to the purchase or redemption of United States bonds. The only difference between the law and the bill is that the law declares that the Secretary may at any time, not during the fiscal year for which the appropriation was made, upon which the law was passed, but may at any time in any year apply any surplus to the pur chase or redemption of United States bonds; while the bill itself changes the language by declaring the Secretary " is hereby author ized to apply the surplus money now in the Treasury, and such surplus money as may hereafter be in the Treasury, to the pur chase or redemption of United States bonds." With these excep tions the bill and the law are exactly the same and are almost identical in language. No lawyer would find any difference, no lay man see any distinction, and neither could suggest any reason why, with the law unrepealed, any necessity exists for the passage of the bill. Mr. Chairman, why has not this law been invoked by the Admin istration aud by the Secretary of the Treasury during the past twelve months and the country saved from alarm and apprehension ? Be cause, as the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means advises this House, its integrity has been questioned and its validity chal lenged. By whom has the integrity of this law been questioned? By the President of the United States ; and it never was questioned by any authority, executive, judicial, or legislative, until it was ques tioned by him. The Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means says it was never operated under by any previous Secretary of the Treasury. That is doubtless true, and the only reason it never was used in buy ing bonds by previous Secretaries and under previous administra tions was because no condition or emergency existed which required its use. The Secretaries heretofore, with their power under the Sinking Fund act and under the act for the redemption of bonds which were subject to payment upon the option of the Governraent, were able to use up the surplus lying in the Treasury, which they did, first, by providing for the sinking fund, and, second, by the redemp tion of bonds payable upon the call of the Government. Now, that is the reason why this law was never used by any pre vious Secretary of the Treasury and any previous administration, but its force and validity during all previous years were never doubted. THE PURCHASE OP GOVERNMENT BONDS. 265 I say the only gentleman who has ever questioned this law is the present President of the United States. To show how it has been recognized all along as a wise and salutary measure, which might be invoked at any moment by any Secretary of the Treasury to relieve the Treasury and return the surplus to the people, I wiU read from Secretary Folger's report of December 3, 1883. In discussing the question of using the surplus he said : The only authority possessed by the Treasury, whereby it can restore to busi ness the surplus moneys thus accumulated, is that given to the Secretary by the act of March 3, 1881— The very law we are discussing — by which he may at any tirae apply the surplus money in the Treasury, not other wise appropriated, to the purchase or redemption of United States bonds. No doubt or suspicion, it will be observed, is cast upon the law by hira. There was no emergency for the use of this law during the ad ministration of the Treasury by Secretary Folger. The surplus was otherwise absorbed ; but he recognized in this report, to which I have called your attention, that he could at any time invoke the law for the purpose of paying out the surplus money in the Treasury to the holders of Government bonds. Mr. Secretary Fairchild recognized this law in his report made to Congress last December, in which he says : Now, there is no way under existing law to put out again among the people the surplus money whioh comes into the Treasury except it be that of a clause in an appropriation act of 1881, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to pur chase bonds in the market at such prices and in such amounts as he may think best — a power which ought not to be given unnecessarily and a responsibility which ought not to be put on any ofBcer of the Govemment. It will be observed that Mr. Fairchild, the present Secretary of the Treasury, does not question the validity of the law. The reason he gives for not executing the law, for not availing himself of its pro visions, is because it is entirely too much responsibility to put on a single officer ; and I may remark, in passing, that the bill reported by the Committee on Ways and Means is open to the same objection, because there are no restrictions, no qualiflcations, no guards to the action of the Secretary of the Treasury in the use of the surplus for the redemption of bonds ; and yet he is now willing to assume this re sponsibility, and wants the bill to pass. We have also the testimony of the gentleman who was Secretary of the Treasury at the time this law was passed, Mr. Secretary Sherman. This is what he says : 266 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. This law was passed by a Democratic Congress in both Houses, at my request as Secretary of the Treasury, to meet the very difficulty suggested, and, in plain English, to operate at any time. That is the language of the Secretary of the Treasury who sug gested the passage of that law, who ought to know its purpose. Under it the Secretary of the Treasury from time to time eould apply the surplus in the Treasury to the purchase or redemption of bonds of the United States from the beginning of this administration to this hour. Instead of which there was an accumulation of surplus beyond all precedent, which tended to and did produce the very dangers and difficulties by which we are threatened. So I say that the only question yet made to the force and integrity of this law is that made by the President of the United States him self. He characterized it in his message as " suspicious " — suspicious because, forsooth, it was adopted as an independent section on an ap propriation bill. That is all the ground upon which he bases his sus picion. That is the sole ground upon which he based his refusal to execute it, and apply the surplus for the purchase of outstanding bonds. Mr. Chairman, it may be important to know how this authoriza tion came into an appropriation bill, how this law was passed. I have already told you that Senator Sherman, at that time Secretary of the Treasury, suggested its enactment. It was offered in the Sen ate of the United States by a member of the President's present offi cial family, the premier of his Cabinet, Mr. Bayard, at that time a Senator from Delaware, and Chairman of the Finance Committee. He offered it not covertly, but in open Senate, in broad daylight, and called the attention of the Senate to it. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], who was in charge of the appropriation bill, gave way that it might be offered, and it passed the Senate without a division and unanimously, and came to this House. The House was then Democratic. The House nonconcurred in this and other amendments of the Senate. A committee of con ference was appointed, consisting on part of the House of two Demo cratic members and one Republican : Mr. McMahon, of Ohio, Mr. Cobb, of Indiana, and Mr. Hiscock, of New York. They met, and agreed upon this amendment with the other amendments of the Sen ate, and it came back to the House and passed this body without a dissenting vote. It then received the approval of the President. Thus the House will see how it comes to be upon the statute-books. It was not a rider, resting for its support upon the bill to which it was attached, but was considered and passed upon its own merits. THE PURCHASE OP GOVERNMENT BONDS. 267 Now, I ask. Is it fair, is it frank, is it just, is it becoming, in any officer of the Government to characterize that law as " suspicious," and a mere pretense of authority to get rid of the surplus? Why, Mr. Chairman, if the President of the United States feels called upon so to characterize every law that has become such through the medium of appropriation bills, he must condemn and refuse to execute nearly one half of our public laws. Three hundred and eighty-five new laws, distinctively new laws, all of a publio character, were put upon appropriation bills from the year 1862 down to 1874 ; and almost an equal number have been put upon appropriation bills since the Demo cratic party have controlled the House of Representatives. Why, the great Department of the Treasury, its present management, its pres ent system, was organized upon an appropriation bill. The reorgan ization of the War Department was upon an appropriation bill ; the fixing of the strength of the Navy at 7,500 men was put upon an ap propriation bill ; the fixing of the strength of the Army at 25,000 men was done through the medium of an appropriation bill, and the authority to redeem the fractional currency with fractional coin was passed upon an appropriation bill. The authority to issue silver cer tificates in denominations of one, two, and five dollars, the organiza tion of the United States Mints, the extension of benefits of the homestead acts, and many of our best reforms and wisest laws, were put upon appropriation bills ; and they are just as much open to the criticism of the President as being " suspicious " and a nullity as is the law about which I am now talking. Why, the very law that gives to the President of the United States $50,000 a year salary, instead of $25,000, was passed upon an appropriation bill ! Mr. E. B. Taylor. Did he take it ? And there was a great deal of suspicion about its passage. My friend asks me if he took it. I have no recollection that any Presi dent has ever refused it — Mr. CuTCHEON. Because of its being suspicious. On account of a suspicion attaching to it because it was enacted as a separate section in an appropriation bill. And I have no doubt the present incumbent takes it. But he has just as much justification for coming here and asking Congress to re-enact by an independent measure the increase of his salary as he has to come and recommend the re-enactment of a law that is eight years old, and which stands forth without taint or infirmity, valid in law and binding in con science. 18 268 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Now, Mr. Chairman, I might go through the entire list and show the vast number of independent measures framed upon appropriation bills. There is scarcely an appropriation bill that passes that does not contain new legislation in some shape or other. Why, this treat ment of a solemn statute is little short of Executive nullification. That is in effect what it amounts to. It is repudiation of a public law. Now, what is the meaning of it all ? When Congress, on March 4, 1887, adjourned — when the Forty- ninth Congress expired by limitation — that Congress had done noth ing by way of reducing taxation or diminishing the inflowing reve nues. Everybody knew that there would be a surplus of revenue in the Treasury. Everybody understood it. The President under stood it, and he had the right to convene Congress in extraordinary session and put the responsibility of dealing with this surplus upon the legislative branch of the Government. But he failed to do it, he declined to do it, and he thereby assumed the responsibility, and declared his ability to so manage the surplus in the Treasury as to do no harm to the country and without disturbance to business interests. He did not call the Fiftieth Congress in extraordinary session, and I do not wonder, Mr. Chairman, that he did not. If a Democratic House like that of the Forty-ninth Congress, which alone could originate revenue bills, with flfty majority, could not and would not reduce taxation and revenues, he could have little hope that a Congress with little more than a dozen majority would reduce taxation and stop the accumulating revenue ; and so I think perhaps in this he acted wisely ; but, at all events, in the failure to convene Congress in extraordinary session he took upon himself the grave responsibility of disposing of that surplus under existing law, and for the best interests of the Government and people. Does any man within the sound of my voice doubt that he had a perfect right, from March 4, 1885 — aye, from the date of his inaugu ration down to this very hour — to have applied every dollar of the $55,000,000 or $60,000,000 in the Treasury to the purchase of out standing bonds? He had that power fixed by a law passed in a constitutional way, which passed by the unanimous vote of both Houses, which stood unassailed and unassailable, and declining to avail himself of it he lectures Congress because it did not provide for paying out the surplus. When we adjourned we left him full power to pay it out, and I wish some friend of the administration would explain why he did not do it in the only straightforward, logical and businesslike way — that THE PURCHASE OP GOVERNMENT BONDS. 269 is, by paying the debts of the Government and saving the interest charge, which rests so heavily on the people. Instead of doing that, the administration prefers another way. It prefers to use the banks as a raeans of putting it in circulation ; and so it says to the banks, " If you will get bonds enough and bring them to the Treasury we will issue you on the 4-per-cents 110 cents for every dollar deposited, and 100 cents on every dollar of 4^-per-cents you deposit, and thus put the money in circulation." And they did it. Nearly $59,000,000, as I understand, of the surplus money that ought to be in the Treasury to-day, the Secretary having refused to pay it out to Government creditors, is now out among the banks, held by them, they giving to the Government bonds as security for the deposit; and they are getting it without interest. They have the surplus money in the Treasury in their own hands, and they collect the accruing interest on the Government bonds which they have de posited as security, when, if the administration had used the $59,- 000,000 and bought a corresponding amount of bonds with that sum, those bonds would have been canceled, and the interest on that sum would have been stopped. And I charge here to-day that the President of the United States and his administration are solely responsible for whatever congested condition we have in the Treasury and whatever alarm prevails about the finances of the country. [Applause.] Every dollar of it would have paid a dollar of the Governraent debts if the Secretary had ex ercised wisely the discretion given him by law. His way might have been justifiable if there had been no other means of putting the surplus money in circulation. He may lecture that side of the House as much as he will — doubtless they deserve it [laughter] — but he can not avoid or evade the responsibility that rests on him. What does a man do who has got a surplus balance in the banks and has out standing debts bearing interest ? He calls in the evidences of those debts and pays them off with his surplus deposit. That is what a business man would have done ; that is what a business administra tion would have done ; and we would have had $50,000,000 less of interest-bearing bonds in circulation to-day if the President had fol lowed the way blazed for him by the Republican party. Well, now, I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if there was any ulterior motive in piling up this surplus ? I wonder if it was not for the purpose of creating a condition of things in the country which would get up a scare and stampede the country against the protective sys tem ? I wonder if this was not just what was in the mind of the 270 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. President : " I will pile up this money in the Treasury, $65,000,000 of it, and then I will tell Congress that the country will be filled with widespread disaster and financial ruin if it does not reduce the tariff duties " ? If the President thought that he was going to get up a storm of indignation and recruit the free- trade army, break down the American system of protection, and put the free traders on top, he has probably discovered his blunder by this time ; and the best evi dence of it is that he now wants the very law which he has so long discredited solemnly re-enacted, as if it were new and original with him ; and, so having failed, he comes here through his Secretary of the Treasury — and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Texas will read the letter of the Secretary upon this subject — he comes here through his Secretary and asks us to pass this bill, which is a duplicate of existing law. Why pass it? He has got the authority now, and whatever vote we may give, we give with the distinct understanding and the posi tive declaration that an authority just as full and just as ample exists to-day, which the President and Secretary have refused to use, and no higher power will be imparted by this bill when put on the statute- books. But I am willing to do anything in an honorable way in aiding the Administration to get out of its dilemma and put in cir culation the $60,000,000 which it has been hoarding, and pay off that amount of Government debts. [Applause.] J 'a^i.^ 1) .vi-n, K.TOM & c JOHN A. LOGAN. Memorial Address in the House of" Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, February 16, 1887. [From the Congressional Record.] Mr. Speaker : A great citizen who filled high public stations for more than a quarter of a century has passed away, and the House of Representatives turns aside from its usual public duties that it may place in its permanent and official record a tribute to his memory, and manifest in some degree its appreciation of his lofty character and illustrious services. General Logan was a conspicuous figure in war, and scarcely less conspicuous in peace. Whether on the field of arms or in the forum where ideas clash. General Logan was ever at the front. Mr. Speaker, he was a leader of men, having convictions, with the courage to utter and enforce them in any place and to defend them against any adversary. He was never long in the rear among the followers. Starting there, his resolute and resistless spirit soon im pressed itself upon his fellows, and he was quickly advanced to his true and rightful rank of leadership. Without the aid of fortune, without the aid of influential friends, he won his successive stations of honor by the force of his own integrity and industry, his own high character and indomitable will. And it may be said of him that he justly represents one of the best types of American manhood, and illus trates in his life the outcome and the possibilities of the American youth under the generous influences of our free institutions. Participating in two wars, the records of both attest his courage and devotion, his valor, and his sacrifices for the country which he loved so well, and to which he more than once dedicated everything he possessed, even life itself. Reared a Democrat, he turned away from many of the old party leaders when the trying crisis came which was to determine whether the Union was to be saved or to be severed. He joined his old friend and party leader, Stephen A. Douglas, with all the ardor of his strong nature,, and the safety and 272 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY, preservation of the Union became the overshadowing and absorbing purpose of his life. His creed was his country. Patriotism was the sole plank in his platform. Everything must yield to this sentiment ; every other consideration was subordinate to it; and so he threw the whole force of his great character at the very outset into the struggle for National life. To him no sacrifice was too great, no un dertaking too difficult, no charge too desperate, no exposure too severe, no siege too hazardous. He commanded, Mr. Speaker, on the battle line, and never ordered his men to go where he would not lead. His skirmishers were never too close to the enemy's guns to keep him away. He was every inch a soldier, dashing and fearless, often exposing himself unnecessarily against the earnest protest of his commanders and comrades. Wherever the fire was the hottest, wherever the line was most exposed, wherever the danger was most imminent, John A. Logan was always to be found. He seemed the very incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor. Belmont, Henry, and Donelson, Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills and Vicksburg, Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw, and the battle before Atlanta, tell the story of his lofty courage, of his martial qualities, of his genius to command and of his matchless heroism, as these great bat tles tell to all mankind the dreadful cost of liberty and the price of our Nationality. Great and commanding, however, Mr. Speaker, as were his serv ices in war, the true eulogist of General Logan can never pass un noticed the important services rendered by him immediately preced ing his enlistment and afterwards in arousing an intense, a deep, a profound love for country and a strong and lasting sentiment for the cause of the Union, not only in his own State, but in every one of the Northern States ; and the full measure and influence of his prompt action and courageous stand at that time never can be estimated. His patriotic words penetrated the hearts and the homes of the people of twenty-two States. They increased enlistment. They swelled the muster rolls of the Union. They moved the indifferent to prompt ac tion, they drew the doubting into the ranks of the country's defenders. His flrst election to Congress was in the year made memorable by the debate between Lincoln and Douglas. In the Presidential con test of 1860, soon following, he was the enthusiastic friend and sup porter of Douglas. But the moment secession was initiated and the Union threatened, he was among the flrst to tender his sword and his services to President Lincoln, and to throw the weight of his great character and resolute soul on the side represented by the political rival JOHN A. LOGAN. 273 of his old friend. He resigned his seat in Congress to raise a regi ment, and it is a noteworthy fact that in the Congressional district which he represented more soldiers were sent to the front according to its population than in any other Congressional district in the United States. It is a further signiflcant fact, that in 1860, when he ran for Congress as a Democratic candidate, in what was known as the old Ninth Congressional District, he received a majority of over 13,000 ; and six years afterward, when at the conclusion of the war he ran as a candidate of the Eepublican party in the State of Illinois as Eepresentative to Congress at large, the same old Ninth District, that had given him a Deraocratic majority of 13,000 in 1860, gave him a Eepublican majority of over 3,000 in 1866. Whatever else these facts may teach, Mr. Speaker, they clearly show one thing — that John A. Logan's old constituency approved of his course, was proud of his illustrious services, and followed the flag which he bore, which was the Flag of the Stars. His service in this House and in the Senate, almost uninter ruptedly, since 1867, was marked by great industry, by rugged honesty, by devotion to the interests of the country and to the whole country, to the rights of the citizen, and especially by a devotion to the interests of his late comrades in arms. He was a strong and forcible debater. He was a most thorough master of the, subjects he discussed, and an intense believer in the policy and principles he advocated. In popular discussion upon the hustings he had no superiors, and but few equals. He seized the hearts and the con sciences of men, and moved great multitudes with that fury of enthusiasm with which he had moved his soldiers in the field. Mr. Speaker, it is high tribute to any man, it is high tribute to John A. Logan, to say that in the House of Eepresentatives where sat Thaddeus Stevens, and Eobert C. Schenck, James G. Blaine and James A. Garfield, Henry Winter Davis and William D. Kelley, he stood equal in favor and in power in party control. And it is equally high tribute to him to say that in the Senate of the United States, where sat Charles Sumner and Oliver P. Morton, Hannibal Hamlin and Zachariah Chandler, John Sherraan and George F. Edmunds, Eoscoe Conkling and Justin S. Morrill, he fairly divided with them the power and responsibility of Eepublican leadership. No higher eulogy can be given to any man, no more honorable distinction could be coveted. It has been said here to-day, Mr. Speaker, that John A. Logan was a partisan ; that he was a party man. So he was. He believed 274 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in the Eepublican party ; but while he believed in the Eepublican party, its purposes and aspirations, he was no blind follower of party caucuses or of partisan administrations. The world knows how Logan loved his old commander. General Grant. He loved him with a simple faith ; he had been his friend in all his active years ; he had presented his name for the first time to the Republican National Convention in 1868, as the candidate of the then dominant party for the Presidency of the United States, and he had stood by him and supported him with his utmost energy in every subsequent contest that was made for General Grant for that great office. But, loving Grant as he did, he yet had the independence and the courage to dissent from his judgment and policy on more than one memorable occasion ; and I recall one such occasion now, Mr. Speaker, which can not be remembered by any of us without enhancing our admiration for the dead Senator. It was when the contest between President Grant and Charles Sumner was at its height ; it was when the party caucus had decreed that the veteran statesman of Massachusetts, the apostle of freedom, must be deposed from the Chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, a position he had so long ffiled and with such marked distinction, a position for which he was eminently qualified by education, ability, and experience. John A. Logan was one of four Republican Senators who uttered earnest and emphatic protest against that action, and his grand utterances on that occasion should be remembered, for they are worthy the hero of a hundred battles. Here are his words : Twelve years ago, when I came to Congress, I differed with the Senator from Massachusetts in my politioal opinions. I had always recognized bim as a man of great ability, as a raan of sterling integrity and worth. Yet I had no sympathy whatever with his political views. But I was attracted toward him in my sym pathies and feelings because of the fact that I stood many times in this Chamber and saw him stand like a Roman senator and hurl away the curs of slavery as they snapped and snarled at him. I many times saw him disperse them in debate on the fioor of the Senate. I leamed then to admire hira, although I did not fully agree with hira. He then, sir, led the ai-my of liberty in this eountry. He was its leader in the Senate, its leader everywhere ; as its orator, as its advocate, as the man who advanced opinions, as the man who went far in advance and beckoned to others to corae forward with him and give liberty to all the people of this country. During the terrible war through which we have passed he was one of the great leaders in the Senate. Through all our trials and difficulties, through our misfortunes and our triumphs, he stood at the head of the men in favor of liberty in the land. When this administration came into power he still, as the great debater, as the great statesman in the land, stood at the liead of all. JOHN A. LOGAN. 275 So General Logan spoke of Charles Sumner ; and, so feeling, he could not consent to witness the humiliation of him who had stood on the outpost of liberty and aroused public thought and quickened public conscience in favor of freedom for all men. His sense of justice was very strong and very deep ; his convictions of fair play were of the kind that made him the prompt and ready defender of those who were to be dealt with unfairly. He was always an open adversary ; he never fought under concealment ; he never fought in darkness or in ambush ; he was always direct in his methods, whether in war or in peace, and " the path of his thought was straight, like that of the swift cannon ball, shattering that it may reach, and shat tering what it reaches." Mr. Speaker, he was not only quick to defend Charles Sumner, but he was as prompt to defend his old comrade and leader. General Grant, when a little later he was unjustly (as Logan believed) at tacked in the Senate, and the warp and the woof of the thought of his defense both of Sumner and of Grant are exactly the sarae. He puts the defense of both upon the ground of what they had done for their country. In defense of General Grant he opened with this simple but pathetic inquiry, "What has the tanner from Galena done ? " And then, answering his own question, he said : He has written his history in deeds which wOl live so long as pens are dipped in ink, so long as men read, and so long as history is written. The his tory of that man is worth something. II is valuable. It is not a history of glit tering generalities and declamation in speeches, but it is a history of great deeds and great things accomplished for this country. He reviewed his brilliant achievements at the head of the Western Army, and said : General Grant was then brought to the Army of the Potomac. He made a success, he won the battle, victory perched on our banner, we succeeded, slavery was abolished, and our country saved. The man who had done all that, Logan said, was worthy to be commended, not condemned. Then he made a most telling appeal to his associates, to stand by the great captain who, at the head of a mil lion of men, had made perpetual the best Government in the world. Mr. Speaker, General Logan's military career, standing alone, would have given him a high place in history and a secure one in the hearts of his countrymen. General Logan's legislative career, stand ing alone, would have given him an enduring reputation, associating his name with sorae of the most important legislation of the time and the century. But united, they present a combination of forces and of 276 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. qualities, they present a success in both careers almost unrivaled in the history of men. He lived during a period of very great activities and forces, and he impressed himself upon his age and time. To rae the dominant and controlling force in his life was his intense pa triotism. It stamped all of his acts and utterances, and was the chief inspira tion of the great work he wrought. His book, recently published, is a masterly appeal to the patriotism of the people. His death, so sudden and unlooked for, was a shock to his countrymen and caused universal sorrow among all classes in every part of the Union. No class so deeply mourned his taking away as the great volunteer army and their surviving families and friends. They were closely related to him. They regarded him as their never-failing friend. He had . been the first Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Ee public, and to him this mighty soldier organization, numbering more than four hundred thousand, was indebted for much of its efficiency in the field of charity. He was the idol of the army in which he served — the ideal citizen volunteer of the Eepublic, the pride of aU the armies, and aflectionately beloved by all who loved the Union. Honored and respected by his commanders, held in affectionate regard by the rank and file, who found in him a heroic leader and devoted friend, he advocated the most generous bounties and pen sions, and much of this character of legislation was constructed by his hand. So in sympathy was he with the brave men who risked all for country that he deraanded for them the most generous treatment. I heard him declare last summer, to an audience of ten thousand peo ple, gathered from all sections of the country, at the annual encamp ment of the Grand Army of the Eepublic at San Francisco, that he believed that the Government should grant from its overfiowing Treasury and boundless resources a pension to every Union soldier who was incapable of taking care of hiraself, asserting with all the fervor of his patriotic soul that the Governraent was unworthy of itself and of the blood and treasure it cost if it would suffer any of its defenders to become inmates of the poorhouses of the land, or be the objects of private charity. Mr. Speaker, the old soldiers will miss him. The old oak around which their hearts were entwined, to which their hopes clung, has fallen. The old veterans have lost their steady friend. The Congress of the United States has lost one of its ablest counselors, the Eepub lican party one of its confessed leaders, the country one of its noble defenders. YIEWS OF THE MINOEITY. Extracts from the Eeport on "The Mills Tariff Bill," IN THE House of Eepresentatives, Fiftieth Congress, April 2, 1888. [From the Congressional Record.] Mr. McKinley presented the views of the minority of the merabers of the Committee on Ways and Means, as follows : The extraordinary manner in which this bill came to the Commit tee, and the total lack of consideration given to so grave a measure by those charged with its investigation, demand notice and comment. It was fashioned outside of the Committee and reached it not by the reference of the House, which is the usual channel through which committees obtain jurisdiction of a subject. It was presented ready- made by the Chairman of the Committee, was framed, completed, and printed without the knowledge of the minority, and without consider ation or discussion in the full Coramittee. If any consultations were held the minority were excluded. Thus originating, after three months of the session had gone, it was submitted to the Committee. Since, there has been no consideration of it. Every effort upon the part of the minority to obtain from the majority the facts and in formation upon which they constructed the bill proved unavailing. A resolution to refer the bill to the Secretary of the Treasury for a statement of its probable effects upon the revenue, together with a statistical abstract, which would facilitate its consideration by the Committee and the House, was voted down by a strict party vote. The industries of the country, located in every section of the Union, representing vast interests closely related to the prosperity of the country, touching practically every home and fireside in the land, which were to be affected by the bill, were denied a hearing ; the majority shut the doors of the Committee against all examinations of producers, consumers, and experts, whose testimony might have 278 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKtNLBY. enlightened the Comraittee. The farmers, whose investments and products were to be disastrously dealt with, were denied an oppor tunity to address the Committee. The workingmen of the country, whose wages were at stake, were denied audience. The Eepresenta tives on the floor of the House were not permitted to voice the wants of their constituents. Proposing a grave measure which would af fect all of the people in their employments, their labor, and their incomes, the majority persistently refused the people the right of hearing and discussion ; denied them the simple privilege of present ing reasons and arguments against their proposed action. But as the bill is avowedly a political one, believed to represent, so far as it goes, the views of President Cleveland and his party asso ciates, a bill which, with the President's free-trade message of De cember 6, 1887, is to constitute the issue and be the platform of the party, these reasons may account for, but will not justify, this extraor dinary course of procedure. The minority protested without avail in the Committee, and now announcing it to the House, as they feel constrained to do, accept the issue tendered by the biU, accompanied with some of their reasons for opposing it, and make their appeal from the people's servants to the people themselves. The bill is a radical reversal of the tariff policy of the country which for the most part has prevailed since the foundation of the Government, and under which we have made industrial and agricul tural progress without a parallel in the world's history. If enacted into law, it will disturb every branch of business, retard manufactur ing and agricultural prosperity, and seriously impair our industrial independence. It undertakes to revise our entire revenue system ; substantially all of the tariff schedules are aflected ; both classiflcation and rates are changed. Specific duties are in many cases changed to ad valorem, which all experience has shown is productive of frauds and undervaluations. It does not correct the irregularities of the present tariff ;" it only aggravates them. It introduces uncertainties in interpretation, which will embarrass its administration, promote contention and litigation, and give to the customs officers a latitude of construction which will produce endless controversy and confusion. It is marked with a sectionalism which every patriotic citizen must deplore. Its construction takes no account of the element of labor which enters into production, and in a number of instances makes the finished or advanced product free, or dutiable at a less rate than the materials frora which it is made. "The poor man's blanket," which the majority has raade a burning issue for so many years, is VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. 279 made to bear the same rate of duty as thfe rich man's. More than one third of the free list is made up from the products of the farm, the forest, and the mine. From products which are now dutiable at the minimum rates, ranging from seven to twenty-five per cent, and even this slight protection, so essential, is to be taken from the farm ers, the lumbermen, and the quarrymen. Nowhere in the bill is the ultimate purpose of its authors more manifest than in its treatment of wool. It places this product upon the free list, and exposes our flocks and fleeces to merciless competi tion from abroad. In this respect the bill is but the echo of the Presi dent's message, and gives emphasis to the settled purpose of the majority to break down one of the most valuable industries of the country. It is public proclamation that the American policy of protection, so long adhered to, and under which has been secured unprecedented prosperity in every department of human effort, is to be abandoned. Why have the majority put wool on the free list? Let them make their own answer. We quote from their report : We say to the manufacturer we have put wool on the free list to enable him to obtain foreign wools cheaper, make his goods cheaper, and send them into foreign markets and successfully compete with the foreign manufacturer. First, the purpose is to bring down the price of wool. If this should be the result, we inquire at whose expense and loss ? It must be at the expense of the American grower, and to his loss, who, at present prices and with the present duty, is being forced out of the business by ruinous foreign corapetition. The injury, by the confes sion of the majority, will fall upon the American wool grower. He is to be the first victim. He can find no profitable foreign market, if he is unable to hold his own, and it is absurd to talk about enlarging the market for his product at home with the wool of the world crowding our shores unchecked by customhouse duties. There were 114,000,000 pounds of wool imported into this country during the last fiscal year, and our domestic product, as a result, even with a duty of ten cents a pound on the higher grades, was diminished to 365,000,000 pounds. The bill will greatly increase importations of the foreign product, and diminish if not wholly destroy our own pro duction. Every nation ought, if possible, to produce its clothing as well as its food. This Nation can do both, if the majority will let it alone. It should be borne in mind that our wool producers can not compete with countries where no winter feeding and but little summer 280 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. attention is required and where labor is so cheap, unless their indus try has just and adequate protection. Is labor in manufacturing more deserving of the considerate concern of Congress than labor engaged in the field of agriculture? Both are useful and equally honorable, and alike merit the thoughtful consideration of those charged with making laws. The majority report asserts that we must produce our woolen goods at lower cost and be able to undersell the foreign product. And after this how is the lower cost to be secured ? First by fleecing the wool grower, and next by reducing the labor cost in the manu facture. How are we to undersell the foreign product ? By raaking the manufacturing cost of our goods less than theirs. In other words, by cutting down the wages of our skilled and unskilled labor, not to the foreign standard simply, but below it, for the product must cost us less if we undersell our competitors. The Araerican farmer will not quietly submit to this injustice. The American workingman wih indignantly repel this effort to degrade his labor. The majority gravely inquire in their report, " If Congress grants the request of the wool growers, what are the people to do for woolen clothing ? " We beg to suggest that the people of this country wore woolen clothing during the existence of the tariff of 1867, and the tariff proposed by the Wool Conference is substantially that tariff, and the people were never better clothed, and never better able to buy clothes. It would be instructive to the majority to compare the prices of woolen clothing in this country during the period from 1847 to 1860 under the low tarifl then prevailing, with the prices now pre vailing ; and they would be profited also by a comparison of the prices of wages then prevailing with those now maintained. Their investi gations would disclose the wretched condition of labor in the former period, the starving prices then received, and the inability of thou sands of worthy workmen to get work at any price. Clothes at any price were then the dearest. If the laboring men could have been heard by the Committee, they would have told a story of misery dur ing the free-trade era which might have deterred the majority even from inaugurating the policy now proposed. Again, the majority inquire, " Are the people to be compelled by Congress to wear cotton goods in the winter, or go without, to give bounties to wool growers and wool manufacturers?" While this question is too trifling for a serious reply, we assure the majority that the only danger of such an occurrence is from the bill they now report — a bill which is to deprive our people of employment, and the oppor- VIEWS OF THB MINORITY. 281. tunity to earn money with which to feed and clothe themselves and their families and educate their children. The foreign market to whicli the American producer is invited by the majority report is delusory. Our own market is the best. There is no market anywhere comparable with it. Let us first of all possess it ; it is ours, and we should enjoy it. Practically all the nations of the world, except England and the countries she has subjugated, have protective tarifls which they are maintaining, while the majority in the House is seeking to overthrow ours, under the delusion of a for eign market. They gravely invite us to leave our natural markets — the "best in the world — and go in search of others less inviting. The Commercial Bulletin, of Boston, on January 14, 1888, stated the true situation : In brief, with the removal of all duties on wool, ... we should not gain a cent's worth of foreign trade, for the other woolen-using countries, France, England, and Germany, could still undersell us in foreign markets with the help of their cheap labor. We should lose the fine wool industry, which would be transferred to South America and Australia, and we should also lose cheap mutton. It is more than idle to talk about a foreign market for wool and woolen products while we are buying of other countries and import ing annually forty million dollars worth of worsted and woolen goods. We should make these goods here ; and if we did, there would be a steady demand for our doraestic wool at remunerative prices, our labor would be profitably employed, and the woolen factories would be running at their highest capacity with reasonable rewards for their investments. Mr. James Phillips, Jr., of Massachusetts, a large woolen manu facturer, who is strongly opposed to free wool, speaking of the for eign market, says, and we commend his words : The world's raarket is a great free-trade shadow dance. The more people think and know of this question the less attractive the world's markets be come, and the more substantial our home market grows. My advice would be that the United States look carefully after the home pasture by tightening the fence, if necessary, before we go wandering around to find a spot where we can sell our goods in corapetition with the labor of Europe. Wool on the " free list " is a deadly assault upon a great agricul tural interest, and wiU faU with terrible severity upon a million peo ple, their households, and dependencies. It wUl destroy invested capital, unsettle established values, wrest from the fiockmasters their lifetime earnings, bankrupt thousands of our best and most Indus- 282 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. trious farmers, and drive them into other branches of agriculture already overcrowded. It is a vicious and indefensible blow at the entire agricultural interests of the country. Under this bill, wool being free and a duty of forty per cent placed on woolen cloth and " all manufactures of wool," we beg to inquire how combed and carded wool are to be classified ? If they are held to be " manufactures of wool," then the duty of forty per cent would be assessed and collected and they would pay the same duty as if manufactured into cloth. If they are to be classified as wool, the eflect would be to stop the sorting, scouring, and combing of wool al most entirely in the United States, unless the domestic wools eould be bought at a price low enough to cover the cost of the labor required for placing wool in the advanced form. Admitting combed and carded wool as wool free of duty would render the combing, scour ing, and carding machinery in this country to a great extent idle and worthless. There will be no use for it if this work could be done more cheaply on the other side. Surely the duty ought to be suffi ciently high to cover the cost of the labor, and unless it is, for eigners will be given control of the wool market not only in its raw state, but when carded, combed, and washed. Again, ready-made clothing and cloakings are made subject to a duty of forty-five per cent ad valorem. Clothing and cloakings are composed, first, of cloth, and second, of the lining, braid, buttons, and sewing silk, which are called trimmings. In the better grades of these manufactures silk is used entirely as a lining and is growing in general use. We are informed that where silk is used these trim mings in a man's coat and vest nearly equal one half of the cost of the material used in such garments. Now, then, if the cloth pays a duty of forty per cent and the trimmings a duty of fifty per cent, as pro vided by the bill, then the average would be forty-five per cent. Now, forty-five per cent is the duty placed by the bill on ready-made clothing, so that the cloth and the trimmings when made into a coat and vest pay the same duty as the materials. The clothier, the tailor, the sewing woman, have no protection for their labor. If the bill was enacted into law, the whole ready-made clothing business of the country would be transferred to our European rivals. Then what market would we have for our cloth ? Placing borax on the free list will destroy an important industry on the Pacific coast. It was greatly stimulated by the increased tarifl given it by the law of 1883, since which the production has in- VIEWS OP THB MINORITY. 283 creased from 5,600,000 pounds in 1883 to 10,182,000 pounds in 1887, and during that period the prices have ruled lower in the United States than at any other period of production. In 1873 the price was thirty-three cents. It is now six and one half cents — all due to American production under the encouragement of a protective tariff. This is to be withdrawn, and our markets again placed in the control of the foreigner. Tin plates are placed on the free list, although this country can make this essential article as easily as Great Britain, from which our supply is almost entirely obtained. Tin plates are composed of ninety-five to ninety-seven and one half per cent of iron or steel and two and one-half to five per cent of tin. This country has every facility for producing the sheets of iron or steel for tin plates, and it can buy from other countries the tin with which these sheets are coated. It is a mistaken belief that Great Britain obtains her supply of tin principally from Cornwall, in England. That country imports from other countries the larger part of her supply of tin, and this country now buys tin frora the same countries, but not for use in the manufacture of tin plates, the present duty of one cent per pound be ing too low to enable us to compete with the tin-plate manufacturers of Great Britain. The world's supplies of tin are derived principally from Banca and Billiton, two Dutch islands in the Straits of Malacca, from Australia, and from Cornwall in England. In the five years ended May 31, 1885, the Straits and Australia supplied 156,833 tons of tin, and in the five years ended December 31, 1883, Cornwall supplied 45,673 tons. Since 1883 the imports of tin from the Straits into Great Britain have greatly increased, while the supply from Cornwall has only slightly increased, if at all. In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1887, this country imported tin plates valued abroad at $16,883,813. The bUl of the majority not only proposes to con tinue this large importation annually, but makes public proclama tion that this country does not want a tin-plate industry. If the majority had considered the interests of our own country, and not those of Great Britain, they would have recommended an increase in the existing duty on tin plates, so that our people would have been encouraged to engage in their manufacture and to develop the re cently discovered tin mines of Dakota. Free tin plates (or iron or steel sheets, or plates, or taggers iron, coated with tin or lead, or with a mixture of which these metals is a component part, etc.) raeans no less than the annihilation of the 19 284 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. manufacturing of the finer grades of sheet iron in this country, upon which is expended the greatest amount of skiUed and best paid labor. The galvanized sheet-iron industry is especially threatened, and this is a great and growing manufacture, involving heavily invested capi tal in many States, Bast and West. Free tin plates do not necessarily insure cheaper prices to the farmer or general consumer, but the duty taken ofl will be gladly absorbed by the foreign manufacturer, and this condition can be fully appreciated if the public wiU note that " free pig tin " has not insured against a most unheard-of heavy ad vance in price of this article in the hands of a foreign " combine," say from about twenty cents per pound to as much as thirty-eight cents per pound, within the last few months, and is now quoted on differ ent futures as varying from thirty-four to thirty-seven cents per pound, being seventy-five or eighty per cent advance. This article is so completely controlled by the French syndicate that the boast of the trust is that this great advance can be maintained at its will. This condition fixes also the advanced prices on all the good solder which so largely enters into the working of tin plate in " the farmer's cans," etc., and for which " tariff taxation " (so caUed) is not chargeable. And here let attention be called to the fact that good tin plates (well coated with tin) have of late advanced very consider ably to consumers, for which advance the control by the foreign trust is wholly responsible ; and it is further and well understood, in well- informed and reasoning mercantile and manufacturing circles, that tin plates would lately have advanced more largely, without regard for our American manufacturers', or consumers', or packers', or farmers' interests, except that the foreign syndicate has supplied the tin-plate manufacturers of England at a much less price than to the outside world for the time being, so that " tin plates " need not just now be advanced to a point which might threaten and retard the effort to place such plates upon the free list, as proposed by this bill. The sheet-iron and sheet-steel industries are placed in great peril by this bill. Cotton ties fare as badly as tin plates ; they also are transferred to the free list. AVe now make cotton ties in this country in small quantities, and would make them in larger quantities if the duty on foreign cotton ties were higher than it now is. In the expan sion of the cotton-tie industry in our own country the South ought to largely share, for it possesses all the raw materials of their manufacture, and the market for their sale and use is at its own door. But the bill of the majority announces that the manufacture of cotton ties is not to be tolerated in the North, or established in the South, and that such VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. 285 machinery as we now possess for the manufacture of cotton ties is to be thrown upon the scrap pile. British manufacturers are invited to raake all our cotton ties, and of course they will then charge us what they please for thera. Why this article when used for baling cotton should be admitted free of duty, and when used for any other pur pose should be made dutiable at one and a quarter cents a pound, is not manifest upon any principle of fair play or economic science. There may be some reason known to the majority which they have failed to disclose to the minority ; we know of no reason why cotton should enjoy this extraordinary and exceptional legislative favor. If it be the purpose of the majority to reduce the income of the Government from customs sources, we beg to remind them that that purpose will not be accomplished by the scaling down of duties, as proposed in this bill. It is well known, and supported by almost universal experience, that a mere diminution of duties tends to stimulate foreign importations and thereby increase the revenue. This is shown by the reports of importations since 1883 of those articles upon which reductions were made by the law of that year. For example : The duty on window glass by the tarifl of 1883 was reduced twenty-five per cent, and the importations increased from 50,947,890 pounds under the old law to 61,627,948 pounds in 1887 under the new law, and produced to the Treasury an increased reve nue in the latter year over the former of more than $300,000. The duty on braid, plaits, laces, and trimmings was reduced by the act of 1883 from thirty to twenty per cent ad valorem, and the sum paid in duties in 1887 was $114,482.76 more than in 1883. The re duction on tin plate under the act of 1883 was one tenth of a cent per pound, while the duty collected in 1887 was $715,468.57 greater than in 1883. Bronze in powder was reduced by the law of 1883 from twenty to fifteen per cent, yet the sum received by the Govern ment for duty in 1887 was $14,000 more than was received from the same source in 1883. The duty on writing paper was reduced from thirty-five per cent to twenty-five per cent ad valorem. The receipts in 1883 under the higher duty were $19,406.87 ; under the reduced duty in 1887 the receipts were $242,316.37, showing an excess of duties of $323,000. The duty on wool was reduced by the act of 1883, and the increase of importations and revenue is probably the most striking of any in the schedule. The importations "in 1882 were 63,016,769 pounds ; in 1887, 114,404,174. The duty coUected in 1883 was $3,854,653.18; that in 1887, $5,899,816.63. These iUustra- 286 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tions clearly demonstrate that a simple scaling down of duties from twenty to thirty or forty per cent, more or less, will only increase revenues and therefore augment the surplus. If " the absolute peril " to the business of the country, described by the President in his message last December as resulting from an existing and increasing surplus, was imminent and well founded, how easily he could have averted it by the purchase of outstanding bonds with the surplus money in the Treasury — a power which he possessed, clear and undoubted, under the act of March 3, 1881. To have thus used the surplus in the Treasury would have been direct and busi nesslike ; just what a prudent business man would have done with his idle money — called in his creditors and applied it to his debts. The President failed to do this, and when Congress assembled " the condition " confronted it. If the House had even then appreciated the situation, how promptly and easily it could have, in part at least, relieved it ! It could have been done in the first week of December, by abolishing the entire tobacco tax, amounting to $30,000,000 annu ally, and thereby removed a great burden from the agricultural pro ducers of the country, by releasing also from taxation alcohol used in the arts and manufactures, which it is estimated would amount to $6,000,000 more. This simple proposition would have received a practically unanimous vote in the House and the approval of the country, and have stopped the collection of $3,000,000 a month ; and if it had been promptly done there would now be $12,000,000 less of surplus in the Treasury, and we venture to predict that the reduction that could have been thus secured was greater than the reduction which will be accomplished by this biU. The majority failed to seize the op portunity. It seems impossible for the party now in the majority in this House to pass a revenue bdl and reduce taxation. This has been its almost unvarying experience while in control of the House. It is a striking fact that all of the reductions of taxation which have occurred since the conclusion of the war, with the exception of the trifling ones made by the acts of March 1, 1879, and of May 38, 1880, aggregating a little over $6,000,000, were accomplished while the Eepublican party was in the majority and in control of legisla tion. A brief summary of what has been done in this regard wUl be both suggestive and instructive. By the act of July 14, 1870, the reduction of the revenue from customs duties was : Pree list $2,403,000 Estimated reduction from the dutiable list 23,651,748 Total $26,054,748 ^ VIEWS OF THB MINORITY. 287 By the aot of May 1, 1873, tea and coffee were placed upon the free list, making a reduction of $15,893,847 By the act of June 6, 1872, tariff duties were further reduced, and the reduction was, by the — Free list $3,345,724 Estiraated reduction frora the dutiable list 11,933,191 Total $15,278,915 By the act of March 3, 1883, the reduction from tariff duties was : Free list $1,365,999 Estiraated reduction from the dutiable list 19,489,800 Total $20,855,799 The foregoing estimates were made when the several bills were passed. Of internal taxes the following have been the reductions made by the Eepublican party since the conclusion of the war : By the acts of July 13, 1866, and Maroh 2, 1867 $103,381,199 By the acts of Maroh 31, 1868, and February 3, 1868. . . 54,802,578 By the act of July 14, 1870 55,315,321 By the act of December 31, 1871 14,436,862 By the act of June 6, 1872 15,807,618 By the act of March 3, 1883 40,677,683 Total $384,421,260 This we present as the result of Eepublican legislation from July 13, 1866, down to and including March 3, 1883. The EepubUcan party was in control of the House of Eepresentatives from the first- named date to March 4, 1875. During that period it will be observed that taxation was reduced and revenue diminished in the aggregate sum of $284,421,260. On March 4, 1875, the control of the House passed to the Democratic party and remained with it until March 4, 1881, a period of six years. During these years the internal revenue was reduced $6,368,935. On March 4, 1881, the Eepublican party was reinvested with control of the House of Eepresentatives, holding it for two years, during which time it reduced taxation and the revenues from customs sources in the estimated sum, $30,855,799, and upon internal revenue, $40,677,682, a grand total of $61,432,481. Since March 4, 1883, the House of Eepresentatives has been domi nated by the Democratic party, a period of five years, and no taxes have been reduced and no curtailment of the revenues has taken place, although warned of a threatened surplus not only by the present ad ministration but by the preceding one of President Arthur. It will be observed that from 1866 to 1888, a period of twenty-two years. 288 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the control of the House of Eepresentatives has been equally divided between the two political parties, each having governed eleven years. During the eleven years of Republican control the revenues were reduced $302,504,569 During the eleven years of Democratic control the revenues were reduced 6,368,935 Difference in favor of the Republican party $356,135,634 If it be claimed that for the most part during the Democratic con trol of the House the Senate was dominated by the Eepublican party, and therefore the responsibility of failure to reduce the revenues should be alike shared by them, we answer : That under the Constitu tion of the United States the House alone can originate bills to re duce taxation, the Senate having no jurisdiction of the subject until it is given to it by a bill which passes the House ; that during all these years no such bill has gone from the House to the Senate ; and that therefore the sole responsibility for failure rests with the present majority in the House of Eepresentatives. If disaster results from the failure of the President to use the sur plus now in the Treasury, as the law authorizes him to use it, in pay ment of our existing debts, and if the majority in the House, which alone can originate a bill to reduce the revenue, fails to send to the Senate a bill of that character, the responsibility will rest with them. The minority are powerless ; they are neither in control of the House nor the committees ; they are in no parliamentary position to report a bill or give direction to legislation which shall surely accomplish results so much desired. They sought by amendments in the Com mittee on Ways and Means to make this bill reasonable, just, and practical ; failing there, they will seek to amend and modify it in the Gommittee of the Whole House, and if their efforts there are unavail ing, they will seek as a last resort an opportunity to offer a substitute, which will assuredly diminish the revenues without any impairment of the American systera of protection. It is therefore manifest that the responsibility for the present monetary condition which so alarms the country does not rest with the minority party iu the House, but with the President and the majority in Congress. They can not escape it. The President has for three years failed, while having the power, to avoid the financial condition he now complains of. The majority in the House for six years has signally failed to provide for a reduction of the revenue. They can not avoid responsibility for the evils which are now upon us ; and while these are beyond their power to retrieve, they can, by courage and wisdom, and governed VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. 289 by business principles, provide against like evils in the future. They must now act, or make public confession of failure. The minority regard this bill not as a revenue-reduction measure, but as a direct attempt to fasten upon this country the British policy of free foreign trade. So viewing it, their sense of obligation to the people, and especially the working people, employed in manufacturing and agriculture, in all sections of our common country, impel them to resist it with all their power. They will assist the majority in every effort to reduce the redundant income of the Government in a direct and practicable way; but every effort at fiscal legislation which will destroy or enfeeble our industries, retard material develop ment, or tend to reduce our labor to the standard of other countries, will be met with the persistent and determined opposition of the minority, as represented in this House. THE MILLS TAEIFF BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fiftieth Congress, May 18, 1888. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9,051) to reduce taxation and simplify the laws in relation to the collection of the revenue, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : Our country is in an anomalous situation. There is nothing resembling it anywhere else in the world. WhUe we are seeking to find objects to exempt from taxation, in order that we may relieve an overflowing Treasury, other nations are engaged in exploring the fleld of human production to find new objects of taxa tion to supply their insufficient revenues. In considering the situa tion that thus confronts us and the bill tbat is presented here as intended to relieve it, we may as well understand at the beginning the things upon which all are agreed. They are, first, that we are collecting more money than is required for the current needs of the Government ; and second, that the excess, whatever it may be, beyond the wants of the Government should be left with the people. Our contention, therefore, is upon the manner of the reduction, and not upon the reduction itself ; not that no reduction shall or ought to be made, but how and upon what principle can it best be accomplished. We agree, further, that the tax upon tobacco shall be removed, and thus leave with the people $30,000,000, which they annually pay upon this domestic product. Were we men of business, governed by the principles which guide practical men of affairs, this burden would have been and could have been removed any time within the past two years ; and had it been removed two years ago no surplus would now vex the Administration or alarm the business of the country. In passing, it is suitable that I should say that within the period named no hindrance from this side of the House has been interposed to the abolition of this tax. THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 291 It is also suitable that I should say, for the sake of the truth of history, that gentlemen on this side and gentlemen on the other side of the House repeatedly made efforts during the last Congress to secure recognition for the purpose of offering a bill to abolish this tax, which request was refused by the presiding officer of the House, and refused, too, Mr. Chairman, when every intelligent Eepresenta tive on this fioor knew that if an opportunity were given to vote upon a bill for the abolition of that tax it would receive not simply a majority, but the vote of fully two thirds of the House. I repeat, that if that had been done, if the House as then organized had given to the representatives of the people an opportunity to vote upon a simple proposition to reduce taxation, no iramediate surplus would now be in the Treasury to interrupt and disturb the business of the country. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] But this tax was not abolished, and if it is now, that still leaves about $40,000,000 revenue collected in excess of the public necessity. How can this amount be remitted with the least disturbance to the business and employ ments of the people ? This, Mr. Chairman, is the real, the practical question. At this point parties and individuals differ, and herein the two lines of political thought which have prevailed from the formation of the Govemment are clearly manifested, and present for consideration and the ultimate judgment of the people the division between the Eepublican and Democratic parties upon a purely economic question. I can not forbear, in this connection, to congratulate the country that upon this question our fellow-citizens of all sections and all nationalities, without regard to past party affiliations, unbiased by prejudice and uninfluenced by passion, can divide. Here is pre sented an issue which leaves the past behind and looks only to the present and the future ; an issue without a tinge or touch of section alism, which awakens none of the bitter memories of former discord or divisions, which appeals neither to race nor geographical lines, which knows no North, or South, or East, or West, but brings all within its sweep and contemplation, each dividing upon what each may honestly regard for the best interests and highest welfare of all ; an issue which we can consider and discuss calmly and deliberately, having only in view the future of the individual citizen and the highest and best destiny of the Eepublic. In this spirit I welcome the issue so sharply, and I may say boldly, made by the President in his annual message, and now further made by the bill under debate, and approach its consideration with the single purpose to reach, if 292 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. possible, a conclusion which shall bring to the country, and the whole country, with whose interests we are temporarily intrusted, the widest benefits and the most lasting good. [Applause.] It will be freely confessed by our political opponents that this bill is but the beginning of the tariff policy outlined by the President, and is a partial response only to his message, to be followed with additional legislation until our system of taxation shall be brought back to the ancient land marks of the Democratic party, to a purely revenue basis — that is, that the tariff or duty put upon foreign importations shall here after look to revenue, and revenue only, and discard aU other consid erations. This brings us face to face, therefore, with the two opposing sys tems — that of a revenue as distinguished from a protective tariff — and upon their respective merits they must stand or fall. Now, what are they ? First, what is a revenue tariff ? Upon what principle does it rest? It is a tariff or tax placed upon such articles of foreign pro duction imported here as will produce the largest revenue with the smallest tax ; or, as Eobert J. Walker, late Secretary of the Treasury and author of the tariff of 1846, from whom the advocates of the pending measure draw their inspiration, put it : The only true maxira is that which experienoe deraonstrates will bring in each case the largest revenue at the lowest rate of duty, and that no duty be imposed upon any article above the lowest rate which will yield the largest amount of revenue. The revenue [said Mr. Walker] from ad valorem duties last year [1845] exceeded that realized from specific duties, although the average of the ad valorem duties was only 23.57 per cent and the average of the specific duties 41.30 per cent, presenting another strong proof that the lower duties increase the revenue. To secure larger revenue from lower duties necessitates largely increased importations ; and if these compete with domestic products the latter must be diminished or find other and distant, and, I may say, impossible markets, or get out of the way altogether. A genuine revenue tariff imposes no tax upon foreign importations the hke of which are produced at home, or, if produced at home, in quantities not capable of supplying the home consumption, in which case it may be truthfully said the tax is added to the foreign cost and is paid by the consumer. A revenue tariff seeks out those articles which domes tic production can not supply, or only inadequately supply, and which the wants of our people demand, and imposes the duty upon them, and permits as far as possible the competing foreign product to be im ported free of duty. This principle is made conspicuous in the bill THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 293 under consideration ; for example, wool, a competing foreign product, which our own flookmasters can supply for domestic wants, is put upon the free list, while sugar, with a home product of only one eleventh of the home consumption, is left dutiable. Any tax levied upon a foreign product which is a necessity to our people, and which we can not fully supply, will produce revenue in amount only measured by our necessities and ability to buy. In a word, foreign productions not competing with home productions are the proper subjects for taxation under a revenue tariff ; and in case these do not furnish the requisite revenue, a low duty is put upon the foreign product competing with the domestic one — low enough to encourage and stimulate importations, and low enough to break down eventually domestic competition. For example, the duty proposed under this bill upon cotton bagging will extinguish the industry here, and under its provisions we would import all of that product from Calcutta and Dundee. A large revenue would come from this source, because the foreign would take the place of the domestic production. This duty is a revenue one, and gives no protection whatever to the home producer. If it did it would not be a revenue tariff. As the Cob den school of political science puts it, " The moment it is made clear that a tax is a benefit to home producers, then the free-trade dogma condemns it. The test is simple and easy of application. Free trade or a revenue tarifl does not allow of any import duties being imposed on such articles as are likewise produced at home." Or, if produced at home, a revenue tariff would soon destroy their production. What is a protective tariff ? It is a tariff upon foreign imports so adjusted as to secure the necessary revenue, and judiciously imposed upon those foreign products the like of which are produced at home or the like of which we are capable of producing at home. [Ap plause.] It imposes the duty upon the competing foreign product ; it makes it bear the burden or duty, and, as far as possible, luxuries only excepted, permits the noncompeting foreign product to come iu free of duty. Articles of common use, comfort, and necessity, which we can not produce here, it sends to the people untaxed and free from customhouse exactions. [Applause.] Tea, coffee, spices, and drugs are such articles, and under our system are upon the free list. It says to our foreign competitor. If you want to bring your mer chandise here, your farm products here, your coal and iron ore, your wool, your salt, your pottery, your glass, your cottons and woolens, and sell alongside of our producers in our markets, we will make your product bear a duty ; in eflect, pay for the privilege of doing it. 294 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Our kind of tariff makes the competing foreign article carry the burden, draw the load, supply the revenue ; and in performing this essential office it encourages at the sarae time our own industries and protects our own people in their chosen employraents. [Applause.] That is the mission and purpose of a protective tariff. That is what we mean to maintain, and any measure which will destroy it we shall firmly resist ; and if beaten on this floor, we will appeal from your decision to the people, before whom parties and policies must at last be tried. [Applause.] We have free trade among ourselves throughout thirty-eight States and the Territories and among sixty millions of people. Absolute free dora of exchange within our own borders and among our own citi zens is the law of the Eepublic. Eeasonable taxation and restraint upon those without is the dictate of enlightened patriotism and the doctrine of the Eepublican party. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Free trade in the United States is founded upon a community of equalities and reciprocities. It is like the unrestrained freedom and reciprocal relations and obligations of a family. Here we are one country, one language, one allegiance, one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. It is otherwise with foreign nations, each a separate organism, a distinct and inde pendent political society organized for its own, to protect its own, and work out its own destiny. We deny to those foreign nations free trade with us upon equal terms with our own producers. [Applause.] The foreign producer has no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws. There are resting upon him none of the obligations of citizenship. He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties ; he is subject to no demands for military service. He is exempt from State, county, and municipal obligations. He contrib utes nothing to the support, the progress, and glory of the Nation. Why should he enjoy unrestrained equal privileges and profits iu our markets with our producers, our labor, and our taxpayers ? Let the gentleman who follows me answer. [Applause.] We put a burden upon his productions, we discriminate against his merchan dise, because he is alien to us and our interests, and we do it to protect our own, defend our own, preserve our own, who are always with us in adversity and prosperity, in sympathy and purpose, and, if necessary, in sacrifice. [Applause.] That is the principle which governs us. I submit it is a patriotic and righteous one. In our own' country, each citizen competes with the other in free and THE MILLS TARIFF BILL, 295 unresentful rivalry, while with the rest of the world all are united and together in resisting outside competition as we would foreign interference. Free foreign trade admits the foreigner to equal privileges with our own citizens. It invites the product of foreign cheap labor to this market in competition with the domestic product, representing higher and better paid labor. It results in giving our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations, to the injury of our labor, our tradespeople, and our farmers. Protection keeps money, markets, and manufactures at home for the benefit of our own people. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] It is scarcely worth while to more than state the proposition that taxation upon a foreign com peting product is more easily paid and less burdensome than taxa tion upon the noncompeting product. In the latter it is always added to the foreign cost, and therefore paid by the consumer, while in the former, where the duty is upon the competing product, it is largely paid in the form of diminished profits to the foreign producer. [Applause.] It would be burdensome beyond endurance to collect our taxes from the products, professions, and labor of our own people. Now, Mr. Chairman, this is a bill ostensibly to reduce the rev enue. It will not do it. Take from this bill its internal-revenue features, its reduction of $24,500,000 from tobapco and from special licenses to dealers in spirits and tobacco, eliminate these from the bill, and you will not secure a dollar of reduction to the Treasury un der its operation. Your $37,000,000 of proposed reduction by the free list will be more than offset by the increased revenues which shall come from your lower duties ; and I venture the prediction here to day, that if this bill shall become a law, at the end of the fiscal year 1889 the dutiable list under it will carry more money into the Treas ury than is carried into the Treasury under the present law, because with every reduction of duties upon foreign imports you stimulate and increase foreign importations; and to the extent that you in crease foreign importations, to that extent you increase the reve nue. There is another singular thing about this bill, and I have nowhere seen attention called to it. Now I do not intend to ex amine the bill item by item. But there are a few striking things in the bill which the country ought to understand. No one would have supposed from hearing this discussion but that the bill reduced duties all along the line. You never would have suspected, had you listened to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. MiUs], or the gentleman 296 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. from Pennsylvania [Mr. Scott], or the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Bynum], or other gentleraen of the Ways and Means Committee, that this bill increased duties, would you ? How many men on the other side of the House know what is in this bill to-day ? I would like to poll them. [Laughter.] Now here is a single item — steel bUlets. The present duty on steel billets is 45 per cent ad valorem. In this bill it is increased to $11 per ton, which is equivalent to 68.33 per cent — an advance of 45 per cent. Do you know what is raade out of these steel billets? Wire fencing, which incloses the great fields of the West; and the raw ma terial is increased 45 per cent by this bill ; and if the principle of the gentlemen who advocate the bill be true, that the duty is added to the cost, every pound of wire fencing that goes to the West wiU be increased from one quarter to one half a cent a pound ; all this under a Democratic bill. What else is made out of steel bUlets ? Nails, which everybody use, which enter into the every-day uses of the peo ple. The duty upon nails is reduced 25 per cent, and the raw ma terial ig increased 45 per cent. [Laughter.] As a friend near me suggests, when one end goes up the other goes down ; and the latter, I trust, will be the fate of this bill. [Laughter.] Why, sir, the duty on wire fencing is only 45 per cent ad valorem; yet the billet from which wire fencing is made must pay by this bill 63 per cent. Here [illustrating] is a piece of wire rod drawn from these steel billets which finally goes into fencing. That is dutiable at 45 per cent under this bill ; and the steel from which it is made is dutiable at 63 per cent. What do you think of " raw raaterial " for manufacturers? [Laughter.] No account is here taken of the labor required to draw the rods. But, Mr. Chairman, that is not all that is remarkable about this bill, this great bill which is based upon prin ciple, it is said, which the President stands behind and beneath, and which he insists shall be passed, whether or no, in this House, and for the passage of which he is dispensing official favors ; for, as the Post, of this city, says, " there is an AUentown for every Sowden." [Laughter and applause.] What else? Here, for example, are cotton ties, which present another queer freak in this bill. Everybody knows what cotton ties are ; they are hoop-iron cut into lengths just large enough to go round a bale of cotton. Now, if the Southern cotton planter wants some of this hoop-iron with which to bale his cotton he goes to the custom house at New York or Charleston and cuts off all he wants, and he does not have to pay a cent of duty ; but if the farmer-constituent of THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 297 my friend who sits before me [Mr. Nelson], or your farmer-constitu ent, wants sorae hoop-iron of precisely the same width and thickness and goes to the customhouse to get it, the Government makes him pay one cent and a half of duty upon every pound he takes, while it lets the cotton planter take his for nothing. If the Western farmer wants it for his bucket or his barrel or to go on his wagon-bed, or if the washerwoman wants it for her washtub, every one of them must pay a cent and a half a pound, under the philosophy of the gentleman who framed this bill, while the cotton planter gets his absolutely free of duty. Gentlemen, is that fair? I appeal to Southern men who sit before me ; I appeal to Northern Democrats who sit around me ; is that fair upon any principle of justice or fair play? Talk about sectionalism ! You raise the question in your bill ; you make a sec tional issue which I deeply regret, and I am sure you must, upon seri ous reflection. There are some other features in this bill which are a little singu lar. The proposed duty on white lead is two cents a pound, while orange mineral, which is made from white lead, is reduced to one cent and a half a pound. [Laughter.] That is another case of high duty upon raw material and low duty upon the finished product. Why, what in the world, Mr. Chairman, has this bill done for the people anyhow ? What has it done for the farmer ? It has taken the duty practically off of everything he grows. I will not stop to give the items. It makes free practically every product of the farm, the forest, and mine. It takes the duty off of wool. What does it give the grower in return ? Does it give him anything free ? Everything he buys is dutiable. The coat he wears, the hat that covers his head, his shoes, his stockings, his sugar, his rice, everything bears a duty, and substantially everything he raises is put on the free list. The duty on wool must go. What has this Democratic party given the agriculturists in return for this slaughter of their interests? I have looked this bill up and down, and I will tell you what they have done for the farmer. They have given him free sheep-dip. [Laugh ter and applause.] Sheep-dip is made free, the duty on it abolished. My distinguished friend from Virginia [Mr. Lee], who honors me with his presence here, knows what this article is. It is a preparation which is used on sheep. It is made up largely of the stems of to bacco. It has a little sulphur in it, I believe ; it has also a little lime in it. They put that on the free list, and that is all they do for the farmer. [Laughter.] 298 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois. What good is that to the farraer after they have destroyed his flocks ? None. They leave the shears he clips his wool with at 45 per cent ad valorem. They make his wool free, and then make the farmer pay 45 per cent for the shears with which he clips his wool. [Laughter.] Bnt that is not all. The bell, the sheep bell — if my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. EusseU] is here, if that golden-shod shepherd from Worcester is here [laughter and applause], he will understand. It is the bell that is put around the neck of the sheep to admonish the shepherd of the whereabouts of the wandering flock under his charge. I am told that gentleman has gone on the outside. I learn he is now here in his seat ; I am glad to see him. He knows what I am talking about. [Laughter.] They have left them dutiable at 45 per cent ad valorem. Why, even the sheep will be ashamed of you gentlemen. [Laughter.] Tin plates are made free. What are tin plates made of ? Ninety- seven and a half per cent are sheet iron or sheet steel ; two and a half per cent tin. Tin plates are made free. Sheet iron, sheet steel are dutiable at two cents a pound. Now, I shall not tax you further with the details of the bill. I might spend hours in pointing out like inconsistencies. I will leave their further discussion for the five- minute debate. I only give these samples so that my honorable and learned friend from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge], who replies to me, may take them up and explain the principle on which these rates are fixed and these duties levied. Mr. Chairman, there is another thing which I wish to call atten tion to in this bill, and that is the internal-revenue part of it. It seems to have escaped attention. Now, so far as the abolition of the tax on tobacco is concerned we are all in accord ; but this new fea ture of the bill provides for the repeal of the law which authorizes the destruction of illicit stills when found in unlawful use. Under the present law, if you find a man engaged in unlawful distilling, not having paid the tax or secured the license, the officer is authorized to destroy the whole outfit. The bill repeals that section of the law, and provides that the still shall neither be mutilated nor destroyed, but preserved, presumably for future violations of the law. [Laughter and applause.] And in this bill further provision is made that in case a man is arrested for illicit distilling, the judge is charged espe cially with the duty of looking well to his comfort and to his well- being while he is in the custody of the officials of the law. [Laugh ter on the Eepublican side.] That provision does not apply to any THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 299 other class of criminals under any of our statutes.; but if a man is en gaged in violating the revenue laws he must be tenderly looked after by the judge, who is directed to see that he is in every way made com fortable while serving out his sentence in prison. [Eenewed laughter on the Eepublican side.] Now, Mr. Chairman, there is one leading feature of this bill, which is not by any means the most objectionable feature, but which, if it stood alone, ought to defeat this entire measure, and that is the introduction of the ad valorem system of assessments to take the place of the specific system now generally in force. You all know the difference between the ad valorem system and the specific mode of levying duties. One is based upon value, the other upon quantity. One is based upon the foreign value, difficult of ascertainment, rest ing in the judgment of experts, all the time offering a bribe to under valuation ; the other rests upon quantity, fixed and well known the world over, always determinable and always uniform. The one is assessed by the yardstick, the ton, and the pound-weight of com merce, and the other is assessed by the foreign value, fixed by the foreign importer or his agent in New York or elsewhere, fixed by the producer, fixed by anybody at any price to escape the payment of full duties. Why, valuation under the ad valorem system is not even uniform throughout the United States. My friend from Massachu setts [Mr. Morse], who listens to me now, knows that the valua tions fixed upon imported goods at the port of Boston are often differ ent from the valuations fixed on the same class of goods, costing the same, arriving in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, or Charles ton. So we do not have and can not have a uniform value, for the value is subject always to the cupidity or dishonesty of the foreign importer or producer. It is a system, sir, that has been condemned by all the leading nations of the world. There is not a leading nation that adheres to any considerable extent to the ad valorem rates of duty upon articles imported into its borders. England has aban doned all ad valorem duties except one, for the very reason that there can be no honest administration of the revenue laws so long as the value is fixed thousands of miles away from the point of produc tion and impossible of verification at home. Henry Clay said, fifty years ago : " Let me fix the value of the foreign merchandise, and I do not care what your duty is." Mr. Secretary Manning, in his very able report made to the last Congress, went over the entire question, and published in a vol ume the opinions of the experts of the Treasury, the collectors, 20 300 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the naval officers, the special agents of the Department, all of whom declared that there is nothing left for the American Government to do but to abolish the ad valorem system and adopt the specific in the interest of the honest collection of the revenue and for the safety and security of reputable merchants. And the Secretary himself said, in language too strong and plain to be misunderstood, that it is the duty of Congress to abandon the ad valorem and establish specific duties. I give below these opinions. Naval Officer Burt, of New York, says : I have long been convinced that a change from ad valorem to speciflc rates would not only be a benefit to the revenues, but would go far to relieve their ad ministration frora the friction and inevitable injustice that have made it in a measure odious. 1 might give here a rSsume ol my reasons for this opinion, as frequently expressed officially hitherto, but I presume the Department is fully apprised of all the arguments adduced on either side. I will therefore simply say that the ad valorem systera is theoretically the perfect system, and that this has engaged its support by those who have only had opportunity to view it as an abstract proposition. This prejudice in its favor must surely give way before the overwhelming evidence that in practice, particularly with high rates, it breeds injustice, contention, and commercial obstructions that are almost intolerable. James D. Power, a special agent of the Treasury, in a report to the sarae Secretary, says : Ad valorem rates of duty afford temptations and opportunities for fraud which can not be guarded against even by the most rigid rules and vigilant watchfulness. The assessment of values under this system is based upon expert knowledge of values, the most uncertain and arbitrary method that could be de vised. Under the ad valorem system fraud has prospered, and demoralized the importing trade, which has passed from the hands of American citizens into the control of men who have taken advantage of our high import duties to enrich themselves at the expense of the revenue and the ruined trade of American whole sale firms. Fraud of this nature is difficult to detect, and more difficult still to establish. In the absence of documentary proof it resolves itself into a mere difference of opinion between experts, and the owner of the suspected goods can at all times procure experts who will maintain the correctness of his invoice prices ; or he may select an easier and more convincing and efficacious lino of de fense by procuring affidavits from his buyer or partner abroad to the effect that the invoice cost was the actual price paid for the goods. Messrs. L. G. Martin and A. K. Tingle, special agents, make the following statement to the Secretary : There can be no doubt that a change from ad valorem to specific rates would help to dirainish the tendency to corrupt action and loss to the revenue bythe incompetency or indifference of appraisers. The application of specific rates to all textile fabrics would undoubtedly be a work of great difBculty, particularly as to woolen goods, but it is believed that a schedule can be prepared by the THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 301 skilled officers in the appraiser's department, with the aid of manufacturers and merchants, which would be satisfactory to all interested, except those who are profiting by the present system of undervaluation. The late Secretary Manning summed up the objections to ad valo rem rates, and I beg to quote his language. He clearly exposed the vice of the system which this bill seeks to ingraft upon our legislation : Whatever successful contrivances are in operation to-day to evade the revenue by false invoices, or by undervaluations, or by any other raeans, under an ad va lorem system, will not cease even if the ad valorem rates shall have been largely reduced. They are incontestably, they are even notoriously inherent in that sys tera. One advantage, and perhaps the chief advantage, of a specific over an ad valorem system is in the fact that, under the former, duties are levied by a positive test, which can be applied by our officers while the merchandise is in possession of the Government, and aooording to a standard which is altogether National and domestic. That would be partially true of an ad valorem system levied upon " home value " ; but there are constitutional impediments in the way of such a system which appear to be insuperable. But under an ad valorem system, the facts to which the ad valorem rate is to be applied must be gathered in places many thousand railes away, and under circumstances raost unfavorable to the administration of justice. This one feature of the bill ought to be enough to insure its defeat, and if the party associates of the late Secretary had given heed to his sound utterances this vicious mode of assessment would have no place in the bill. Instead of simplifying the collection of the revenues as the title of the bill declares, it will increase the difficul ties now experienced, encourage fraudulent invoices, promote under valuation, impair the revenue, and do incalculable injury to honest importers and merchants. I now come to consider the general effect of the protective system upon our people and their employments. There is no conflict of interests and should be none between the several classes of producers and the consumers in the United States. Their interests are one, interrelated and interdependent. That which benefits one benefits all ; one man's work has relation to every other man's work in the same community ; each is an essential part of the grand result to be attained, and that statesmanship which would seek to array the one against the other for any purpose is narrow, unworthy, and unpatri otic. The President's message is unhappily in that direction. The discussion had on this floor has taken that turn. Both have been calculated to create antagonisms where none existed. The farmer, the manufacturer, the laborer, the tradesman, the producer and the consumer all have a common interest in the maintenance of a protective tariff. All are ^alike and equally favored by the system 302 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. which you seek to overthrow. It is a National system, broad and universal in its application ; if otherwise, it should be abandoned. It can not be invoked for one section or one interest to the exclusion of others. It must be general in its application within the contem- ' plation of the principle upon which the system is founded. We have ! been living under it for twenty-seven continuous years, and it can be asserted with confidence that no country in the world has achieved such industrial advancement, and such marvelous progress in art, science, and civilization as ours. Tested by its results, it has surpassed all other revenue systems. From 1789 to 1888, a period of ninety-nine years, there have been forty-seven years when a Democratic revenue-tariff policy has pre vailed, and fifty- two years under the protective policy, and it is a noteworthy fact that the most progressive and prosperous periods of our history in every department of human effort and material devel opment were during the fifty-two years when the protective party was in control and protective tariffs were maintained ; and the most dis astrous years — years of want and wretchedness, ruin and retrogression, eventuating in insufficient revenues and shattered credits, individual and National — were during the free- trade or revenue-tariff eras of our history. No man lives who passed through any of the latter periods but would dread their return, and would fiee from them as he would escape from fire and pestilence ; and I believe the party which pro motes their return will merit and receive popular condemnation. What is the trouble with our present condition ? No country can point to greater prosperity or more enduring evidences of substantial progress among all the people. Too much money is being collected, it is said. We say. Stop it ; not by indiscriminate and vicious legisla tion, but by simple business methods. Do it on simple, practical lines, and we will help you. Buy up the bonds, objectionable as it may be, and pay the Nation's debt, if you can not reduce taxation. You could have done this long ago. Nobody is chargeable for the failure and delay but your own administration. Who is objecting to our protective system ? From what quarter does the complaint come? Not from the enterprising American citizen ; not from the manufacturer ; not from the laborer, whose wages it improves ; not from the consumer, for he is fully satisfied, because under it he buys a cheaper and a better product than he did under the other system ; not from the farmer, for he finds among the employes of the protected industries his best and most reliable cus tomers ; not from the merchant or the tradesman, for every hive of THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 303 industry increases the number of his customers and enlarges the volurae of his trade. Few, indeed, have been the petitions presented to this House asking for any reduction of duties upon imports. None, that I have seen or heard of, and I have watched with the deepest interest the number and character of these petitions that I might gather from them the drift of public sentiment. I say I have seen none asking for the passage of this bill, or for any such departure from the fiscal policy of the Government so long recognized and fol lowed, while against this legislation there has been no limit to peti tions, memorials, prayers, and protests, from producer and consumer alike. This measure is not called for by the people; it is not an American measure ; it is inspired by importers and foreign producers, most of them aliens, who want to diminish our trade and increase their own ; who want to decrease our prosperity and augment theirs, and who have no interest in this country except what they can make out of it. To this is added the influence of the professors in some of our institutions of learning, who teach the science contained in books, and not that of practical business. I would rather have my political economy founded upon the every-day experience of the puddler or the potter than the learning of the professor, or the farmer and factory hand than the college faculty. Then there is another class who want protective tarifls overthrown. They are the men of independent wealth, with settled and steady incomes, who want everything cheap but currency ; the value of everything clipped but coin — cheap labor but dear money. These are the elements which are arrayed against us. Men whose capital is invested in productive enterprises, who take the risks of business, men who expend their capital and energy in the development of our resources, are in favor of the raaintenance of the protective system. The farmer, the rice grower, the miner, the vast army of wage-earners from one end of the country to the other, the chief producers of wealth, men whose capital is their brain and muscle, who aspire to better their condition and elevate themselves and their fellows ; the young man whose future is yet before him, and which he must carve out with his hand and head, who is without the aid of fortune or of a long ancestral line — these are our steadfast allies in this great contest for the preservation of the American system. Experience and results in our own country are our best advisers, and they vindicate beyond the possibility of dispute the worth and wisdom of the system. What country can show such a trade as ours, such commerce, such immense transportation lines, such a volume of exchanges, and such 304 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. marvelous production from the raw material to the finished product? Its balance-sheet is without a parallel in the world's history — richest in agriculture, greatest in its domestic trade and traffic, and leading in manufactures any nation in Europe. Why abandon a policy which can point to such achievements, and whose trophies are to be seen on every hand ? The internal commerce of the United States is greater than the entire foreign commerce of Great Britain, France, Gerraany, Eussia, Holland, Belgium, and Austria- Hungary. Why, a single rail road system in this country (that of the Pennsylvania Eailroad Com pany) carries more tonnage and traffic in a single year than all the merchant ships of Great Britain ! The whole of Europe has not buUt as many miles of railroad as this country has during sorae recent years, and in 1880 the whole known world did not lay as many miles of track as were laid across this country. Great Britain's foreign commerce equals about one sixth of our domestic commerce. Can we do better under any other fiscal policy ? We say not. Wise states manship coraraands us, therefore, to let well enough alone. Sir Edward Sullivan, in a recent article in the London Post, makes these suggestive comparisons, which I beg every gentleman to hear : Under free trade the masses must get poorer, because they get less employ ment. A well-known statistical work gives a comparison of the raaterial progress of France under protection and England under free trade. If there is any truth in figures, it ought to startle us from our free-trade dream. The coraparison is based on the returns of legacy duty : In 1836 England was 10s. a head richer than France. In 1850 England was 19s. a head richer than Prance. In 1877 England was 5s. a head poorer than Prance. France has fifty-seven per cent of her land under tillage, and it is increasing every year. The United Kingdom has thirty per cent of her land under tillage, and it is diminishing every year, but the population of England increases much more rapidly than the population of France. The commerce of England has increased twenty-one per cent in ten years. The commerce of France has increased thirty-nine per cent in ten years. The commerce of the United States has increased sixty-eight per cent in ten years. The commerce of the world has ijjgreased twenty-six per cent in ten years. So much for the blasting effeots of free trade. In Germany, so long ago as May 14, 1882, Bismarck, in a speech before the German Eeichstag, paid to the Eepublican protective tariff policy this high eulogy. He said : The success of the United States in raaterial developraent is the raost illus trious of modern time. The Araerican Nation has not only successfully borne and suppressed the most gigantic and expensive war of all history, but immediate- THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 305 ly afterward disbanded its Army, found employment for all its soldiers and ma rines, paid off most of its debt, given labor and horaes to all the unemployed of Europe as fast as they could arrive within its territory, and still by a system of taxation so indirect as not to be perceived, much less felt. Because it is my de liberate judgment that the prosperity of America is mainly due to its system of protective laws, I urge that Gerraany has now reached that point where it is necessary to iraitate the tariff system of the United States. You may try protection by any test you will. You may try it not only by the condition of the individual citizen and his happiness and prosperity and the aggregate prosperity of the Nation, but try it by the progress which has been made in invention and scientific develop ment ; try it by any standard you may raise, the protective system shows by its results that it surpasses any other. You can match it with no other. Go to the Patent Office and examine the evidences furnished from that great register of the products of American genius. Take the States which have stood by the protective system, which have believed in it, which have built up under it, and contrast them with the States whose Eepresentatives have stood in unyielding opposition to the sys tem on this floor. See what result you get. Take Connecticut, a little State but a manufacturing one : in the year 1887 there were 788 patents granted to the inhabitants of that State, one for every 790 of its inhabitants, while for Arkansas the number of patents [From the Commissioner's report, 1887.] States. Pntfints. One to every inhabitant. Connecticut 788 ' 65 1,8751,595 245 130 988113 4,047 45 1,477 66 2,109 52 224 121 113 132505265 790 Arkansas 13,346 Massachusetts 950 Illinois 1,929 Kentucky 6,729 Georgia .... . . 11,862 1,144 8,392 New York . 1,355 25,146 Ohio -M^. . 2,165 North Carolina 21,208 2,030 South Carolina 19,145 1,234 12,746 Vermont 2,966 Virerinia 11,458 1,713 Texas 6,006 306 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. granted was 65, one to every 12,346. Take Massachusetts : in 1887 there were 1,875 patents granted to the people of that State, one to every 950 of her population ; while to Kentucky there were 245 pat ents granted, or one to every 6,729 of her population. Take Illinois : 1,595 patents were granted to her people, or one to every 1,929 of her population ; while for Georgia there were 130, or one in every 11,862 of her population. Here is the list (see page 305). These figures need no comment ; they point their own moral ; they enforce their own lesson. They demonstrate better than any argument that I can make that invention and progress and the gen eral diffusion of knowledge follow manufacturing and industrial en terprises. [Applause.] Why, Mr. Chairman, the establishment of a furnace or factory or mill in any neighborhood has the effect at once to enhance the value of all property and all values for miles surrounding it. Manufactures produce increased activity. The farmer has a better and a nearer market for his products. The merchant, the butcher, the grocer, have an increased trade. The carpenter is in greater demand ; he is caUed upon to build more houses. Every branch of trade, every avenue of labor, will feel almost immediately the energizing infiuence of a new industry. The truck farm is in demand ; the perishable products, the fruits, the vegetables, which in many cases will not bear exporta tion, and for which a foreign market is too distant to be avaUable, find a constant and ready demand at good paying prices. What the agriculturist of this country wants raore than anything else, after he has gathered his crop, are consumers — consumers at home, men who do not produce what they eat, but must purchase all they consume; men who are engaged in manufacturing, in mining, in cotton spinning, in the potteries, and in the thousands of produc tive industries which command all their time and energy, and whose employments do not admit of their producing their own food. The American agriculturist further wants these consumers near and con venient to his field of supply. Cheap as inland transportation is, every mile saved is money made. Every manufacturing establish ment in the United States, wherever situated, is of priceless value to the farmers of the country. The six manufacturing States of New England aptly illustrate the great value of a home market to the Western farmer. These States have reached the highest perfec tion in skill and manufactures. They do not raise from their own soil, with the exception of hay and potatoes, but a small fraction of what their inhabitants require and consume ; they could not from THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 307 their own fields and granaries feed the population which they had in 1830, much less their present population. The most intense revenue reformer, the most unenlightened Democrat, will have to confess that New England is indebted in large part for her splendid development to the protective system. Now, have her prosperity and progress been secured at the sacrifice of other interests and other sections ? I answer. No ; but they have brought, as I believe I shall be able to show, a positive blessing to all our 60,000,000 people. In 1880 the population of these six States was over 4,000,000. The food products required by their people, the very necessities of their daily life, in a large measure came from other States and remote sections of the Union. They raised, in 1880, but one quarter of one per cent of the total wheat production of the United States. They raised in the same year but one half of one per cent of the total crop of Indian com, two and one quarter per cent of the oats, twelve per cent of the hay, and thirteen per cent of the potatoes which were pro duced in the United States. What did they consume ? What did they buy of the Western farmer ? Fifty millions of dollars' worth of meat were consumed by their industrial people in a single year. The extent of their needs is strikingly shown by the fact (obtaihed from the report of Commissioner Fink) that during the year 1884 " the trunk lines " brought into New England no less than 470,000 tons of flour and 950,000 tons of grain. At 200 pounds to the barrel of flour, this is an importation of 4,700,000 barrels, or nearly one and one fifth barrels, for each inhabitant. During the same year there were ex ported from Boston and Portland, the only points in New England from which breadstuffs are sent abroad, 2,100,000 barrels of fiour, leaving for consumption within these States 2,600,000 barrels. These figures take no account of the large trade by water from New York. A large part of the flour consumed in Connecticut, Ehode Island, and southern Massachusetts is received in this way, but no reliable statis tics are available. It is reasonable, however^ tpiUinppose — and this comes to me from what I deem good authority — that the amount thus received and consumed offsets a large portion of the foreign ex ports to which I have referred. Of the grain received during the same year rather less than 400,000 tons were" exported, leaving for New England consumption 550,000 tons, for all of which these States were the customers of the West in addition to the amount grown upon their own soil. In addition to this. New England consumed in 1886-87, in her factories, nearly one fourth of the entire cotton crop of the country. More than this, she used in her woolen mills, in 1880, 308 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. fully one half of the entire wool clip of the United States ; and dur ing the year 1886 she consumed more than one sixth of the entire an thracite coal production of the country, and five and a half per cent of the bituminous coal production, and every pound of both came from the Middle and Southern States. Is not New England — I appeal to the gentlemen of the other side, I appeal to the farmers of the country — worth preserving ? Is not the industrial system which makes such a community of consumers for agricultural products possible worth maintaining? Does not she fur nish you a market worth fostering ? Does not she give you a trade and an exchange of products worth your while to guard with the most con siderate care ? And does not her condition indicate the wisdom of the policy we advocate ? Is not her market better for you than a foreign one ? Is not New England a better customer for you, more reliable, more easily reached, more stable, than Old England ? [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Is not Boston a better consumer for the people of the United States than London, New York than Liverpool, Pittsburg than Manchester, Cincinnati than Birmingham? [Ap plause on the Eepublican side.] New England buys of you for all her wants ; Old England takes not a pound or a bushel from you except what she must have and can not get elsewhere. Let us contrast this home market of New England with the foreign market of Old England. In 1880 New England con sumed 540,000,000 pounds of cotton, at 11.61 cents a pound, which in value then amounted to $62,694,000, or twenty per cent more than the per capita value of all our domestic exports to the United Kingdom; and this was only New England's contribution to the Southern producers of cotton. She sends at least $70,000,000 to the West and Northwest for her food supplies. She sends to the wool growers of the Middle, Western, and Pacific States $40,000,000 an nually for their fleeces. I repeat, is not this market worth pre serving, aye, cherJC^'ja.tr, and does it not make us long to have New England thrift. New England enterprise, and New England pohtics more generally distributed throughout all sections of the country? [Applause on the Eepublican side.] You can destroy this valuable home market by such legislation as is proposed in this bill ; you can diminish this deraand for food, for cotton, for wool, for flax and hemp produced in other sections of the country, by following the delusive theories of our friends on the other side of the House ; you can diminish the capacity of the operatives to buy of you by dirainishing their wages ; you can drive them from the THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 309 cotton and woolen factories to the farms ; they will then drift to the West and Northwest, not to engage in manufactures, but in a great measure to become tillers of the soil, and instead of being as they are now, and as they will be under a proper tariff system, your con sumers, they become your competitors. They go from the ranks of consumers to the ranks of producers ; diminish the consumers and increase the producers. The foreign markets for agricultural prod ucts is one of the delusions of free trade. If it ever had any real substance as against a good home market, that has long since disap peared. The Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee says to the Western farmer : " Let New England go. Pass her by, and go to Old England." Well, that is about as practical as the Democratic party ordinarily is. [Laughter on the Eepublican side.] Why, it was only a while ago that I remember to have heard the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Dunn], a prominent member of this House and Chairman of one of its leading committees, say what I now read from the Eecord : The wheat producer of the Northwest is standing face to face with the wheat producer of India. A few years ago India shipped 40,000 bushels of wheat. Last year (1885) she put into the market 40,000,000 bushels. Can you protect the Northwest farmer against that labor ? India oan put wheat down in the markets of consumption in Europe cheaper than we can transport it frora the fields of pro duction to the markets of consumption — that is to say, India can produce and market her wheat in Europe for what it costs the farmer of the Northwest to transport his to the raarket of consumption, without allowing hira for the cost of production. In other words, the transportation of wheat costs the American farmer as much as both transportation and production costs the India farmer. In the face of a statement like this, from such high Democratic authority, how, I ask, is the wheat of the American farmer to reach the European market with any profit to our producers ? And yet it is to this kind of competition that the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee invites the American farmer. Do the farmers want such a market with such a competition? What their answer will be no man can doubt. They wUl reject with indignation and scorn the Chairman's invitation. [Applause.] The home market is the best, besides being the safest. It has the most money to spend, and spends the most. It consumes the most, it is therefore the most profitable. The masses of our people live better than any other people in the world. Great Britain only buys our food products when she has not enough of her own and can reach no other supply. This market, therefore, is fitful and fluctuating, and can not be relied upon as we can rely upon our own consumers. The foreign market under a 310 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. revenue tariff for agricultural products has not been encouraging in our own experience in the past. It promises less under such a system in the future. The Chairraan of the 'Committee in opening this debate boldly announced that we must increase foreign importations to secure National prosperity. How much does the gentleman and the party with which he is associated desire to increase importations? Are they not large enough already? Are they not now crowding our producers and diminishing our annual productions ? Are they not already making labor restless, filling it with apprehension and uncer tainty as to the future ? Is this country to be the dumping ground of foreign products ? During the last fiscal year over $233,000,000 in value of foreign merchandise was imported into the United States free of duty, and over $450,000,000 additional was imported which paid a duty. Is this not enough? Do the iron and steel workers want further importations in their line, representing cheap labor, to com pete with the product of their labor ? Over $50,000,000 in iron and steel manufactures were imported last year, every dollar of which represented foreign capital and foreign labor, which might well have been produced at home. Bvery ton could have been made here, and American hands were waiting to make it. How much labor do you suppose was represented by the $50,000,- 000 worth of iron and steel that came into this country last year ? It would have taken 1,740 puddlers and helpers, working every day for 300 days in the year, to have produced the scrap iron that came from Europe last year. It would have taken 2,500 men 300 days to have produced the bar and structural iron, and steel billets, and slabs, and ingots which were imported into the United States last year. It would have taken 300 men 300 days, besides those engaged in preparing the raw material, to have produced the plates and sheets, the corrugated iron, and the steel in various forms imported last year. It would have taken 3,700 men 300 days to have made the wire rods and the nails and the screws and wire in various shapes which were imported into the United States last year. It would have taken 800 men 300 days to have made the washers, and the bolts, and the fish plates, and railway-plates, the steel tire, hinge-iron, and tubes of steel which were imported into this country last year. It would have taken 500 men 300 days to have made the iron and steel rails which were brought into the United States from abroad last year. It would have taken 24,000 men to manufacture the tin-plate imported last year. Summing up these figures, 33,540 men, working for 300 days, THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 311 would have been required to produce the $50,000,000 worth of iron and steel which we imported last year. Do you want that volume in creased ? Ten million sixty-two thousand is the aggregate nuraber of days' work that were taken from the American workingmen, every day's work of which they could have performed, and were willing and ready to perform. [Applause.] Including all branches of labor required to manufacture the $50,000,000 worth of imported iron and steel and the manufacture thereof, taking into account the labor employed in the mining, transportation, and manipulation of the raw materials, and it would employ nearly, if not quite, 100,000 men. I do not know what you think about it, but I would not permit a single ton of steel to come into the United States if our own labor could make it. [Applause.] Let American labor manufacture American products. [Applause.] And if you do not like it, you know what you can do. [Laughter.] This Government is made for Araericans, native-born and naturalized ; and every pound, every bushel, every ton, every yard of foreign product that comes into this country to com pete with ours deprives American labor of what justly belongs to it. Do the farmers want increased importations of agricultural prod ucts ? Of barley alone to the value of $6,152,000 was imported last year, and vegetables to the value of $2,276,000. The total imports of the products of agriculture for the year 1887 free and dutiable were in value $197,308,240. Of this sum products worth $46,678,443 were admitted free of duty, and the remainder paid a duty. Do the agri culturists want the duties all removed and their products driven from this market ? Seven millions three hundred thousand dollars' worth of foreign glass came into this country last year. Do the glass blowers want this volume increased ? Five million five hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of pottery of foreign make entered our market last year. Do the potters want this vast sum augmented ? Will the wool growers, who were compelled to compete with $16,- 000,000 worth of foreign wool last year, relish the prospect of hav ing their product further displaced next year ; and the labor engaged in woolen manufactories in this country, are they anxious that the $44,000,000 worth of woolen goods imported in 1887 in competition with the products of their labor shall be multiplied in 1889? All these importations will be greatly increased if this bill shall become a law. Bvery invoice of foreign goods which comes here, the like of which we can make, crowds out just so much Araerican labor. Is there to be no lirait to this foreign invasion ? I answer. Only to the extent that our people shall make importa- 312 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tions impossible by reducing the cost of the home product. This will be the only restraint upon foreign merchandise glutting this market to the displacement of our own. If our present labor conditions are maintained, and this bUl gets upon our statute-book, there wUl be no barrier in the way of a perfect inundation of foreign goods in the United States. It should not be forgotten tbat low duties or no duties substitute foreign imports for homeraade and homegrown products, and to the extent of such substitution take work and wages from American labor. The effect of this bill — and there can be no other — is to increase importations, displace our own products by for eign ones, diminish the output of our factories and mills, curtail the demand for labor, and reduce the wages of those who may be able to get work. This result is as clear and manifest to me as the sim plest mathematical problem, and we have only to look at the wage scale of competing nations to know what our labor will come to with free trade or its equivalent. We can not compete with foreign nations without the restraint of a tariff unless we have equal condi tions and equal labor cost. To do this we must introduce European conditions and European methods in the United States, and that is what this bill and all similar legislation means. " The trammels of trade must be removed," is the language em ployed by the friends of this bill. How, and in what way? First, by removing the duty from raw materials used in manufacture, which of necessity will be at the expense and loss of those engaged in prepar ing them. But to a tarifl reformer that is of little account. This trammel must go, to enable the domestic manufacturer to compete with the foreign manufacturer at home and abroad. After this, and next in order, the trammel of high wages must be removed. This is the most important and essential of all. This is the chief obstruc tion. Free raw material will not equalize the condition of manufac turers at home with those abroad. Cheap labor, underpaid labor, underfed labor, will be the next demand of the advocates of this bid. Some of them have been frank enough to avow it already. This is the inexorable logic of the situation. If we are to control the whole of our own market and send our manufactures across the sea, it can be accoraplished in one way only — by reducing the cost of the home product to the same or below the cost of the foreign product. To do this, every intelligent man knows, involves an enormous reduction of the wages of American workingmen. To this a revenue tariff comes at last and from which there is no escape, and against it every true American interest cries out in an emphatic and earnest protest. THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 313 I propose a wiser and more patriotic solution of the difficulties of our financial situation. If we will buy more American goods and less foreign, we will reduce the income of the Governraent and leave and increase the surplus among the people. If we will buy more Amer ican merchandise and less of foreign make, manufactures at home will run the year around and labor will be suitably rewarded and steadily employed. If we had some of that lofty patriotism evinced by the fathers, if we were more American in feeling, sentiment, and purpose, there would be fewer advocates of this bill. There has been much effort made in this debate to show that, after all, American workingmen get no better pay than the workingmen of other countries. Let us consider this branch of the discussion for a little while; for if it be true that labor here is no better rewarded, than elsewhere, then the strength of protection is much weakened. I beg to cite, against the unsupported statements of the gentlemen who have already spoken upon the other side, the testimony of Amer ican workingmen whose opportunity for information from experience in both countries, and otherwise, makes their evidence incontroverti ble. From the statements made March 10, 1886, before the Commit tee on Ways and Means, I read. Sorae of this testimony is two years old, but the only reason it is so is because laboring men were not per mitted to testify this year. [Laughter and applause.] Mr. Eoger Evans, a workingman, speaking upon this subject, said : Of course you must not gauge the American workingman by the amount of coarse bread and meat which will be necessary for him to subsist upon. It can not be. The American workingman must have other things than those. He must be fed and clothed and able to maintain his family as becomes the dignity of an American citizen. Another, Mr. Philip Hagan, spoke as follows : Mk. Chairman and Gentlemen : I was bom under a free-trade Govemment, and I believe that the free-trade Governraent deprived me of an education. The reason of that was that I had to go to work when 1 was eight years of age ; and I remember also my little brother going to work under that free-trade Govern raent when he was eight years of age. I remeraber well when there was a family of nine of us (including my father and mother), and when my wages for work ing in a mill were ten cents per day. This was under a free-trade Govemment. Subsequently I went up higher there to five shillings a day, or $1.35. That was about the limit I could reach — six and sixpence a day — and having to pay sixty cents out of that to my helper. Many members of this Committee know all this just as well as 'I am stating it, and I am not going to detain you any longer : but I will state that as soon as my liraited knowledge inforraed me that labor was protected in the United States I came here. I declared my intentions and I be came a citizen of the United States. And now I have a family, and now I make 314 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. regularly fourteen shillings a day. The produce on which I lived in England came mostly from the United States, and certainly I ought to get it as cheap here as in England. I worked for five shillings a day in England, and I get fourteen shillings a day here. Consequently I ara able to send ray chUdren to school, and they are getting an education, which their father did not get under a free-trade Government. I want to see these children raised up and educated as citizens. [Applause.] Mr. Thomas Williams said : As American citizens we can not be corapelled to subsist upon what the working people of England, France, or other European countries subsist upon. The people of this country have raade it just what it is, and in a very great raeas ure the workingmen have made it what it is. Sorae of us have corae across the Atlantic, leaving the land of our birth, and have corae here with the expectation that we were going to better our oondition. We have bettered it in a great meas ure. We will get along if you will let us alone. The manufacturers and our selves will fight our own battles. Mr. Thomas P. Jones said : I came to this country to better my condition, and I am happy to say that 1 have bettered my condition. I have made more wages than I ever made in the old country. It has been shown here to-day, and as I think very clearly, that this tinkering with the tariff is not for the best interests of the country — is not for the best interests of the wealth producers, of the men who build up this oountry. Then, gentlemen, I take it that it is your duty to throw this bill to the dogs. I cer tainly do not stand to dictate to you in this matter, but I can assure you this far : that there is a school of education among the working people in this country, and that if this tinkering of the tariff is allowed to proceed ; if you will, in spite of our remonstrances, go on destroying our interests and shutting up the indus tries of the country, our working people will be ere long sufficiently educated to step forth and say, " Gentlemen, thus far shall you go, and no further." We will elect men and send them here to legislate for our interests if you will not do so. We have the power, gentlemen, and you know it. Laborers in this country were never so cemented as they are to-day. One of the principal things which has helped us to that is this very bill whioh the honorable Chairman has brought be fore this Comraittee. Where I live, in Chicago, you would be surprised to see the feeling that exists among the working classes. And why ? Because some of the people there worked in this country in free-trade times. I have a brother- in-law who, in free-trade tiraes, traveled to his work, six raUes, in the raoming, getting there at sunrise, worked all day, and walked home at sundown, aud all for a paltry 50 cents a day. I also have worked for 50 cents a day, but not in this country, thank God ! I have worked for 25 cents a day, but do not want to have to do it again. I have seen in the city of Glasgow, in Scotland, men working for 12 cents a day and a bowl of soup. That does not become an American citizen. We can not have such a state of affairs here, and we will not have it. I have a letter from Mr. WiUiam Barbour, of the Barbour Flax THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 345 Spinning Company, of Paterson, New Jersey, under date of March 31st, in which occurs the following : Dear Sir : As a stockholder and director of the Barbour Flax Spinning Com pany, of Paterson, N. J., I wish to make a statement to you regarding the flax- thread industry, and to call your attention to the effect which the proposed Mills bill would have upon it. While I am an Araerican born, and the industry I represent in Paterson, N. J., is thoroughly American, I am also a large stock holder in a flax spinning company in Ireland ; and that you may judge of the relative wages paid in the two countries, I would state that the pay rolls of the two mills, as recently compared, differed only about |500, the number of hands in the Irish mUl being 3,900, against 1,400 in the New Jersey raill. . . . Yours, truly, William Baeboue. That is, 1,400 American laborers are paid nearly the exact sum which 2,900 laborers are paid for the sarae labor in Ireland. And yet gentlemen would have us believe there is no difference in favor of the American workingmen ! [Applause.] The Singer Sewing Machine Company maintains a factory in Glasgow, Scotland, as well as its works in New Jersey. It employs one third more hands in its Scotch establishment, yet the pay roll there is only half that of its American works, the actual figures being $18,000 and $35,000. Mr. Herbert. Will tho gentleman allow me to ask him a question ? Certainly.Mr. Herbert. Can the gentleman tell me the price a sewing woman in Scotland pays for a sewing machine and the price a sewing woman in New Jersey pays for the same kind of a sewing machine ? Yes, sir. I am told the prices are about the same, except a sewing machine in Scotland costs more than a sewing machine in America. [Laughter and applause.] John H. Eoss, Superintendent of the Boston Thread and Twine Company, under date of April 23, 1888, says : We are paying three times the average wages paid for similar labor through out Europe. Here is a letter, under date of April 26, 1888, from the represent atives of at least a half million workingmen of the United States : Washington, D. C, April 26, 1888. Dear Sie : Having seen by the papers that Mr. Mills and others, in their speeches in the House of Representatives upon the tariff bill, have asserted that the wages paid to labor were no higher in the United States than in Europe, we the undersigned desire to state, through you, to the members of Congress that such statements are misleading and false. Wages are higher in this country than in 21 316 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. any other in the world. Notwithstanding the fact that the statements have been made by members on the floor of the House of Representatives that the tariff only benefits the manufacturer, and that they receive all the advantages from the protection given by the Governraent, we know that we receive our share of the benefits of protection on the industries we represent. We therefore emphatically protest against any reduction of the duties that will bring us on a level with the low price paid for labor in Europe. We insist upon the maintenance of a strong protective tariff, in order to maintain an Araerican standard of wages for Araerican workingraen. Respectfully yours, William Weihe, President of Amal- Louis Arrington, Master 'Workman gamated Association of Iron amd Olass Blowers' Assembly 143. Steel Workers. James Campbell, President of Local William Martin, Secretary of Assembly 300, Knights of Labor, Amalgamated Association of Iron Window Glass Workers of Amer- and Steel Worlcers. ica. John Conkling, Master Workman William J. Smith, President Ameri- National Assembly Iron and Steel can Flint Glass Worlcers' Union. Workers, Knights of Labor. William J. Dillon, Secretary. John Coffey, Master Workman Glass Blowers' Assembly 149. This bill proposes to equalize Araerican production with Euro pean production by bringing down American wages to the level of European wages, and, Mr. Chairman, I give you notice here to-day that you can not do it. [Applause.] Now as to farm wages here as contrasted with other countries. I have a letter from Mr. Dodge, the Statistician of the Agricultural Department : Washington, D. C, March 29, 1888. The wages of white labor in agriculture in this country are about $34 per month. In England the average wages paid for agricultural labor, according to J. S. Jeans, in the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, were about $13.65 per month. Pay has been reduced since 1880. In the Argentine Republic the com mon farm hands get $10 to $12 per month. In India agricultural wages are about $20 to $25 per year. Wages here in the wool growing industry are two or three times as much as in competing countries. Consul Wamer, at Cologne, in his official report of May 21, 1886, to the State Department, gives a statement of the increase of exports from Germany to the United States, also the wages paid. The laborer, whether he works in iron or steel works, factories, stone quarries, or railroads, earns as a rule from 47 to 70 cents per day, and for skilled labor he may get from 80 to 92 cents per day. Women, when employed, earn from 24 to 30 cents per day. Boys under six teen receive 19 to 24 cents a day ; but an extra strong boy may earn THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 3IY 30 cents. The working hours are from six to six in summer and seven to seven in winter, with one hour for dinner. The Consul Gen eral at Vienna, in speaking of the Austrian laborer, says a home of his own, though ever so modest, is beyond his reach. Consul Tanner, at Chemnitz, Saxony, says : The customary wages to hired servants and on a farm are $57.19 per year, with board and lodging for men, and $38.50 for females. Field hands are paid at the rate of 5J cents per hour. Women receive 3i cents per hour. Speaking of their food, he says : Sugar or sirup is never allowed, and but very little milk. Tea is never used. For dinner they have meat and vegetables three tiraes a week, and always on Sundays. This effectually disposes of the claim that wages in England and other countries are as high as here. The wage question in the South is interesting, and I have seen it no better stated, and the reason for maintaining protection nowhere more strongly presented, than in the report made this year on the American rice industry, prepared by the Eice Association and ad dressed to the Association of Savannah. I read : During this period [frora 1840 to 1860] the duty on foreign rice was twenty per cent ad valorem. In all the rice-producing divisions of the country slave labor was then eraployed, and no foreign rice was iraported. It will be noted that slave labor operates as a positive prohibition to foreign imports. It takes the place of a protective tarifl, and pre sents to labor a choice between the one and the other. Cheap labor can successfully compete with cheap labor on equal terms and with equal chance of profits in the markets of the world without the aid of legislative protection, and what I have read shows the character of ' labor best adapted to free trade. This report says the conditions surrounding the American producer have entirely changed. Let me read: Since the emancipation of the slaves the cost of agricultural labor in the South has been greatly increased. In the rice districts of the Carolinas and Georgia field labor ranges from 40 to 60 cents, and the best expert (not mechan ical) labor to $1 per diem. So that at no time since 1865 could rice have been cul tivated as a staple product without the protection aflorded by import duties upon foreign grain. Now, with what labor does the Southern rice grower compete? I will read from this report a quotation from the report of the United States Minister at Pekin : 318 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Coming now to the field hand whom the farmer hires, we arrive at the sub stratum of labor. The average wages of an able-bodied young man is ^12 per annum, food, straw, shoes, and free shaving. Deducting $4 for his clothing, he saves $8 annually, or may do so. Ten years' saving wUl enable him to buy one third of an acre of land (value per acre, $150) and necessary implements by which he can attain by his own labor a subsistence. ... In ten years he ean become the possessor of two thirds of an acre. The report goes on further : In Japan, the field hands receive their food and lodging with wages from $8.60 to $13.96 per annum. The wages of females are about $6 per annum. In British India the per diem is 6 cents for raales and 1^ cents for females. In Kumei the highest permanent wages are .50 cents per month. In Borat men employed by the year get from 80 to 100 pounds of grain per month, and from 44J cents to $1.98 per annum. In Bombay and Madras laborers are paid frora 6 to 13 cents per diera. Hence the wages paid at the South in rice fields are many fold greater than those paid to laborers in the rice fields of Asia. Two thirds of the cost of pro duction is disbursed in wages in the former. The report then concludes : The contrast in this element of cost should render unnecessary any further comment than that without the intervention of the existing iraport tax on Asiatic rice competition would seem impossible. This argument I commend for its force and fairness, and it makes out a strong case for the rice grower, who in my judgment deserves protection, which we cheerfully accord; but the same argument applies with equal force to domestic wool, flax, and hemp and other products of agriculture and manufacture. They are all within the same principle ; all of them cultivated and produced with wage-labor greatly in excess of that paid abroad. Yet these American products are to be severely crippled, if not wholly destroyed. This statement of the rice grower is a most striking demonstration of the wisdom and necessity of protection. It shows that what is true in the North is true in the South. The chief and controlling question is one of labor, and so long as the labor cost here in any department of employment exceeds the labor cost in Europe so long we must have a protective tariff which shall compensate for this difference. And whether the labor is in the rice flelds of Georgia and of the Carolinas, or in the wheat fields of the Northwest, in the factories of New Eng land, the mines of Maryland and Virginia, or the furnaces of Penn sylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey, it must be protected against the less rewarded labor whose products come in competition with theirs. Either this tariff must be maintained to maintain the diflerence of wages, or one of two things must inevitably occur : we must abandon THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 319 production in many of the most valuable fields of industry here, or our labor must come down to the standard of the competing labor ; and we may discuss theories untU the frosts of December, but we can not alter the fact. This is the issue, and it can not be evaded. It is a fact worthy to call to the attention of the House that a labor organization representing a mUlion, workingmen, with its representatives in this city, whose sole duty it is to look after the in terests of labor, has given no sign of approval of this bill. Not a petition has come through this source asking for its passage, or any thing like it. Whatever utterance has been made has been in oppo sition and protest. Every member on this floor has observed the activity of this Committee of Knights of Labor in regard to legisla tion aflecting the interests of labor, but in all that vast constituency, found in every State of the Union, found in the flelds, in the facto ries, workshops, and mines, no word or sign but of disapproval and condemnation has come. The expectation of cheaper clothes is not sufficient to justify the action of the majority. This is too narrow for a National issue. Nobody, so far as I have learned, has expressed dissatisfaction with the present price of clothing. It is a political objection ; it is a party slogan. Certainly nobody is unhappy over the cost of clothing except those who are amply able to pay even a higher price than is now exacted. And besides, if this bill should pass, and the effect would be (as it inevitably must be) to destroy our domestic manufactories, the era of low prices would vanish, and the foreign manufacturer would compel the American consumer to pay higher prices than he has been accustomed to pay under " the robber tariff" so called. Mr. Chairman, I represent a. district comprising some 200,000 peo ple, a large majority of the voters in the district being workingmen. I have represented them for a good many years, and I have never had a complaint from one of them that their clothes were too high. Have you ? [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Has any gentleman on this floor met with such complaint in his district ? Mr. Morse. They did not buy them of rae. No ! Let us see ; if they had bought of the gentieraan from Massachusetts it would have made no diflerence, and there could have been no complaint. Let us examine the matter. [Mr. McKinley here produced a bundle containing a suit of clothes, which he opened and displayed amid great laughter and applause.] 320 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Come, now, will the gentleman from Massachusetts know his own goods? [Eenewed laughter.] We recall, Mr. Chairman, that the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means talked about the laboring man who worked for ten days at a dollar a day, and then went with his ten dollars wages to buy a suit of clothes. It is the old story. It is found in the works of Adam Smith. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] I have heard it in this House for ten years past. It has served many a free trader. It is the old story, I repeat, of the man who gets a dollar a day for his wages, and having worked for the ten days goes to buy his suit of clothes. He believes he can buy it for just $10; but the "robber manufacturers " have been to Congress, and have got one hundred per cent put npon the goods in the shape of a tarifl, and the suit of clothes he finds can not be bought for $10, but he is asked $20 for it, and so he has to go back to ten days more of sweat, ten days more of toil, ten days more of wear and tear of muscle and brain to earn the $10 to purchase the suit of clothes. Then the Chairman gravely asks. Is not ten days entirely annihilated ? Now, a gentleman who read that speech or heard it was so touched by the pathetic story that he looked into it and sent me a suit of clothes identical with that described by the gentleman from Texas, and he sent me also the bill for it, and here is the entire suit ; " rob ber tariffs and taxes and all " have been added, and the retail cost is what ? Just $10. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] So the poor fellow does not have to go back to work ten days more to get that suit of clothes. He takes the suit with him and pays for it just $10. [Applause.] But in order that there might be no mistake about it, knowing the honor and honesty of the gentieraan from Mas sachusetts [Mr. Morse], he went to his store and bought the suit. [Laughter and cheers on the Eepublican side.] I hold in my hand the bill. Mr. Struble. Read it. Mr. McKinley (reading) : Boston, May 4, 1888. J. D. Williams, bought of Leopold Morse & Co., men's, youths', and boys' clothing, 131 to 137 Washington Street, corner of Brattle — I believe it is. Mr. Morse. Yes, Brattle. Mr. McKinley (reading) : To one suit of woolen clothes, $10. Paid. [Eenewed laughter and applause.] THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 321 And now, Mr. Chairman, I never knew of a gentleman engaged in this business who sold his clothes without a profit. [Laughter.] And there is the same $10 suit described by the gentleman from Texas that can be bought in the city of Boston, can be bought in Philadelphia, in New York, in Chicago, in Pittsburg, anywhere throughout the country, at $10 retail the whole suit^-coat, trousers, and vest — and forty per cent less than it could have been bought in 1860 under your low tarifl and low wages of that period. [Great ap plause.] It is a pity to destroy the sad picture of the gentleman from Texas which was to be used in the campaign, but the truth must be told. But do you know that if it were not for protection you would pay a great deal more for these clothes ? I do not intend to go into that branch of the question, but I want to give one brief illustration of how the absence of American competition immediately sends up the foreign prices, and it is an illustration that every man will remember. My friend from Missouri [Mr. Clardy], who sits in front of me, will remember it. The Missouri Glass Company was organized several years ago for the manufacture of coarse fluted glass and cathedral glass. Last November the factory was destroyed by fire. Cathedral glass was their specialty. Within ten days from the time that splen did property was reduced to ashes the foreign price of cathedral glass advanced twenty-eight per cent to the American consumer. [Ap plause on the Eepublican side.] Showing that whether you destroy the American production by free trade or by fire it is the same thing : the price goes up to the American consumer, and all you can do is to pay the price the foreigner chooses to ask. [Eenewed applause.] Now, the gentleman had a lot of blankets here the other day. The very climax of the gentleman's speech was reached when he came to a description of the American blankets, and the enormous burdens that the tariff laid upon the poor man's bed-covering. Why, you would have supposed that he was enunciating the National issue for 1888 ; and I think really that is about all they have left, now that Civil Service Eeform is gone. [Laughter.] Now, what is the fact ? He told you that for one pair of five-pound blankets, which he exhibited, the price was $2.51, the labor cost 35 cents, the tariff $1.90, and the difference between the labor and the duty $1.55. Then the gentleman from Texas turned to this House, and to his admiring associates and listening audience, and said, " Why does not the manufacturer give the laborer that $1.55, the diflerence between the labor cost and the duty ? " which inquiry was followed by deafening applause. Did he not leave the irapression 322 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. upon the mind of every one that the manufacturer got the duty ? He asked. Why did he not give it to the laborer? and turning he said, " Of course he would not do that; he put it into his pocket." I will tell you the reason, or at least a sufficient reason, why the manufacturer did not give it to the laborer. It was because he did not get it himself. I do not know where the gentieraan got his figures, but I have a careful statement from one of the leading blanket manufacturers of this country, and I intend to give the facts fully. Blankets are numbered according to grade and according to weight. There are several grades of five-pound blankets numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. A No. 1 five-pound blanket made in the city of Philadelphia sells for $1.72. The labor represented in the blanket is 87^ cents ; the duty is $1.02. Of a scarlet blanket, five pounds, the price is $2.27 ; the labor is 87^ cents ; the duty is $3.17. Of the white all-wool Falls of Schuylkill blanket the price is $3.62; the labor $1.05 ; the duty $2.60. Of the Gold-Medal blanket the price is $4.53 ; the labor $1.05 ; the duty $3.50. Now, Mr. Chairman, if the duty was added to the cost, what would the American manufacturers get for these blankets ? They should get for the first blanket $2.74. How much do they get ? They get only $1.72. They should get for the second blanket, duty added, $3.77. How much do they get ? They get $2.27. They should get for the third $5.12. How much do they get ? They get $3.17. They should get, duty added, for the fourth class $6.22. How much do they get ? They get $4.35. They should get, duty added, for the highest grade, $8.03. How much do they get ? They get $4.05. Now, Mr. Chairman, what did these same blankets cost in 1860 under a revenue tariff, under the free-trade domination of this coun try by the Democratic party ? What did we pay for the sarae blankets that year as contrasted with what we pay now ? The blanket that seUs to-day for $1.02 sold in 1860 for $2. The blanket that seUs now for $1.45 sold in 1860 for $2.50. The blanket that seUs now for $1.31 sold in 1860 for $2.25. The blanket that sells now for $1.90 sold in 1860 for $3.50. The blanket that sells now for $2.58 sold for $3.75 in 1860. The blanket that seUs now for $4.35 sold for $7.50 in 1860. The blanket that seUs for $5.85 now, sold for $10 in 1860. The blanket that soUs now for $6.80 sold for $13 in 1860. Now let us see about the wages, for that is an essential element in this question. In 1860 a spinner got $6 a week in the same estab lishment, and I am speaking from the books of the manufacturer. THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 323 It is no idle and hearsay, second-hand statement that I am making, nor does it come from any foreign source, nor is it based on any information from abroad. It is taken from the actual books of a manufacturer of blankets in Philadelphia, who has been manufac turing for a great many years. A spinner got for a week's work in 1860, $6. What does he get now? Fifteen dollars. Six dollars a week in 1860, and. $15 a week in 1888 ! A piecer boy got $1.15 a week in 1860, and he gets $3.50 now. A weaver got $4 in 1860, and gets $10 in 1888. A finisher, unskilled, got $4.15 in 'i860, and he gets $9 in 1888. A skilled finisher got $6 in 1860, and is paid $16 in 1888. A dye-house hand, unskilled, got $4.25 in 1860, and he gets $9 in 1888. A common laborer got $4 in 1860, and he gets $7.50 in 1888. A skiUed laborer got $4.50 in 1860, and he gets $9 in 1888. An engineer got $6.50 in 1860, and he gets $16 in 1888. The weekly earnings of the spinner in 1860 could buy three pairs of cheap blankets for one week's work. The spinner under American protection in 1888, for the price of one week's work can buy fifteen pairs of blankets. Talk about productive capacity ! Think about buying capacity ! The spinner buys his blankets for one half what they cost him in 1860 ; and he gets two and a half times as much for his labor in 1888 as he got in 1860. Do you wonder these men do not like your bill ? [Applause.] Do you wonder these men con demn the action of the Committee for not listening to their protests ? Why, you are preparing here to-day — and that is the purpose and effect of this bill — you are preparing to-day to reduce the scale of American wages. But I am not through with the blanket issue. You may think what I have already given is sufficiently exhaustive, but I have an actual transaction here that I know will be of interest to the members of this House, and, therefore, at the expense of wearying your patience, I am going to ask your attention to it. [Cries of " Go on ! "] On March 25, 1887, the United States Government advertised for bids for the purchase of blankets for the use of the medical depart ment of the Army. This was in 1887, under the Cleveland adminis tration. There were foreign bids and there were American bids. Now, if the President is right in saying that the duty is added to the cost, then the foreign cost, duty added, ought to be just equal to the American price. Now, what are the facts of this transaction ? As I have said, there was a foreign bid and there was an American bid. The foreign bid was for a four-pound blanket for medical purposes, to be furnished for $2.25^^. For the same four-pound blanket for 324 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the same purposes the American bid was $2.56, there being a differ ence of 30^7 cents. Who do you suppose got the contract ? There was a foreign bid and an American bid, and the difference between the bids was 30 cents on each blanket. Now tell me which manu facturer, the American or English, got the contract ? Is there any body here who would not have given it to the American, there being a difference of only 30 cents between the bids ? Is there any gentleman on this floor who would send abroad to get a pair of blankets merely to save 30 cents on them, thus taking away from the American manufacturer and the American farmer and the American laborer that much business ? However that may be, that contract did go abroad. English labor, with foreign wool, made those 2,000 blankets for the use of our Army. American labor was boycotted, and they came in without paying any duty. The Government took advantage of a law that stands on the statute-book and admitted them free of duty. There being so little revenue in the Treasury, it was necessary, of course, to save every penny, so they took advantage of that law which permits the United States Govern ment to bring its own goods in free of duty ! Now let us look at the figures. The duty on blankets of that quality is 18 cents a pound and 35 per cent ad valorem. Eighteen cents a pound upon 2,000 blankets, four pounds each, is $1,440 ; 35 per cent ad valorem is $1,576.40 — making a total duty upon those 2,000 blankets, which were bought from a foreign blanket-maker, of $3,016.40. The cost of these blankets, free of duty, amounts to $4,504 ; with the duty added the total wonld be $7,520.40. If the President is right, and if the Chairman of the Comraittee on Ways and Means is right, in saying that this duty is added to the price to the American consumer, then $7,520.40 is exactly what the American price would be. Now, then, gentlemen, what was the American price? The American price was $5,120. That is, it was $2,400 less than the foreign cost, duty added. Without any duty, the difference between the cost of the American and the cost of the foreign blankets, the whole 2,000, was about $600. So you see the American manufac turer does not get the duty, and that, I submit, is a sufficient reason why he does not give it to his workmen. I am very sorry, Mr. Chair man, that the President of the United States did not know of this transaction, which had occurred under his own administration, so that he might have avoided making the blunder which he made in his message when he said that the duty was added to the cost. And I do not know what those around me may think about it, but I am THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 325 very sorry that our Government went abroad and bought those blank ets just to save 30 cents apiece on them. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Chairman, I wish that this Government of ours, which is sup ported by its own people, and not by foreigners, would patronize its own people. I think that is an example of patriotism which should be set by those charged with public administration. I wish the men who pay the taxes to support this Government, to pay the President's sal ary and other expenses of the Government, would be patronized when the Government has anything to buy ; don't you ? And are you not a little ashamed of this transaction, all of you ? I do not know whether the like was ever done under any former administra tion or not ; but it never ought to be done, except in time of war or great public necessity, by any future administration of any party. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] All Europe is watching the progress of this bill. Its immediate promoters are not following it with keener vigilance and more ab sorbing interest than their foreign sympathizers. All trades, all man ufacturers across the Atlantic, are watching it with the deepest con cern and anticipating the rich harvest which awaits them when our gates shall be opened, our industrial defenses torn down, and free and unrestrained access t© our splendid markets is afforded for the prod ucts of their cheap labor. I have in my hand the Pottery Gazette, pub lished in London, under date of January 2, 1888, from which I read : Earthenware is reported to be reduced to 30 per cent. This will help the trade, but we trust the men and masters here will not be too sanguine as to the results and upset the trade. Their information upon the earthenware schedule is quite accurate ; they had it in advance of the minority members of the Committee, and while, thoroughly pleased, the editor of the Gazette feels con strained to advise the men and masters not to be too sanguine as to results and thereby upset the trade and defeat the bUl. He advises them not to rejoice too soon; the news is alraost too good to be true, and too much ecstasy on their part might prejudice it before the American House. Why should they rejoice when our tariff goes down? Our workingmen and employers have no such feeling. They dread it ; they oppose it ; they know what it means to them. They know that it will benefit their foreign rivals and bring distress to them. The reduction of duties upon earthenware will help Staf fordshire, England, and their people know it well, while it will hurt American potters and the labor they employ. Again I read : 326 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Our American friends are expected over shortly — They are detained here during the pendency of this bill — when we shall hear what the effect is to be of the promised alteration in their tariff. The protected manufacturers in the States are already making efforts to stop the reduced imports, but it will be useless. With what confidence they speak ! They mistake the temper of our people. They are staking too much upon the fulfillment of Dem ocratic pledges. This long-nursed and favored class must give way a little to the consumer, whose long suffering has at length come to the front. The generous sympathy which the Bnglish manufacturer has for the American consumer is touching indeed! The consumers are as ten to one of the United States inhabitants, and the protection to the pottery and glass manufacturer of the commoner description represents the cost of labor many times over. This reads like the speech of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills]. It sounds so like the Democratic speeches of the last two weeks that we might well conclude that the gentlemen of the ma jority on this floor were representing an English and not an American constituency. Again I read : Is this fair to the housekeeper? Is it right? Nay, is it just? This sympathy would have been more highly appreciated by the American consumer had it been extended at a time when the Staf fordshire potteries controlled the American market, before we had become successful competitors, and when they were charging us 100 per cent more for the coarse tableware that went into the houses of the masses than we now have to pay, resulting from the competition created by our own potteries. The hope of foreign producers is in the Democratic party. Foreign producers are already preparing for the new order of things. They are already establishing agencies in the United States, preparing to invade and occupy this market. I have .among my notes a letter from Andris Jochams, of Charleroi, Belgium, proprietor of La Providence EoUing MiUs, which gives un mistakable evidence of preparation for the passage of this bill. Let me read the letter : Chaklekoi, le I4 Mari:, 1888. Deae Sirs : I beg you to take notice that we have appointed Messrs. Weir. Smith & Rogers as our sole and general agents in the. United States of Ameriea for the sale of our architectural iron, as per circular inclosed, and you will oblige us in addressing your deraands to them in future. With a prospect of a reduc tion in duties on architectural iron and steel in your country we will be soon THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 327 ready to offer you such advantages in prices and quantity that you will find a nice profit in importing from us. We remain, dear sirs, with much respect, your obedient servant, Andris Jochams. Messrs. Weir, Smith & Rogers, 41 Broadway, New York. The American public, it will be observed, is assured that with the prospect of reduction of the duties on architectural iron and steel in our country they will be soon ready to offer us such advantages in prices and quality that we will find a nice profit in importing from them. Eeduced duties are to increase their profit, which, for the time at least, is to be divided so as to give to the American importer a " nice profit." There has been much discussion about trades and combinations in the course of this debate — trusts to control prices, diminish produc tion, extinguish competition — and these are made a fruitful theme for vicious assaults upon the tariff. This is the only new feature that has been developed in the tarifl discussion, and therefore deserves passing attention. I have no sympathy with combinations, organized for this or any other purpose, to control the supply and thereby con trol prices. I regard all such as against public policy and opposed to fair and legitimate trade. They are, however, in no wise related to the tariff, and the tariff is in no way responsible for them. There is nothing in the tariff laws to promote or even suggest them. They are of foreign origin — they originated in free-trade countries. They can and do exist among producers and factors not in any way affected by the tariff. They are of recent date in the United States. The most widely known trusts of the country are not engaged in what are termed " protected industries." The oU trust and the whisky trust, which are so commanding and powerful, which make prices and alter them, control supply and production, these surely can not be charged to a protective tariff, for nothing which they make or offer as mer chandise is subject to protective tariffs. The most oppressive trusts —oppressive to the American consumer— are those which deal in for eign goods, and aU of which wiU be promoted and strengthened by the passage of this bill. There is a trust or combination made up of aU the plate glass manufacturers of Europe. I have here a circular dated London, AprU 25, 1887, which reads : Dear Sir: We beg to inforra you that the Associated Plate Glass Manu facturers have revised their prices for plate glass of all descriptions, and that, withdrawing all previous quotations, we inclose you herewith our tariff of prices, 328 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the discount from which will be 30 per cent, with the exception of glazing glass used for sUvering purposes, the discount frora which will be 35 per cent. We are, dear sir, yours respectfully, London and Manchester Plate Glass Manufacturing Company (Limited), Union Plate Glass Company (Limited), Pilkington Brothers. A de Grand ry. Agence G^nbrale des Glaceries, Beiges. This trust is stiU in force. Here is a foreign combination to con trol the price of plate glass, and the gentlemen on the other side are engaged in making the monopoly more complete and controlling by reducing the import duties now paid on their product and by reliev ing them of a burden they now have to bear, and thus enabling them to break down American competition, which alone has reduced the price of plate glass, and now prevents the most extortionate exactions for the foreign product upon American consumers. Here, again, is an importers' trust in the same line of goods. I read from the New York Herald of February 28, 1888, an account of the investigation by a committee of the New York Legislature : Mr. Jaraes H. Heroy, an iraporter of plate and French glass, was next called to tell what he knew about the glass trust. He is a spry old gentieraan who has been in the business for fifty years. Colonel Bliss asked the witness to identify a circular. It is a very peculiar circular, and will open the eyes of the public, if not the eyes of the Committee. It is as follows : " Henry C. Marrinner, Plate and Sheet Olass Importer, No. 1S6 South Fifth Avenue : " We beg leave to quote you 70, 10, and 5 per cent discount from the price list of January 20, 1887, for French window glass. In ease you wish to make any large purchases we can make you extra discounts as follows : If you receive from us or any merabers of our Assooiation in New York (which includes all the regu lar iraporters), either all frora one house or part frora eaoh of the houses, one hundred boxes in one calendar month, you are entitled to an extra discount of 5 per cent ; or if the deliveries to you in any one calendar month from any or all of these houses should amount to $1,000, then you will be entitled to an extra dis count of 10 per cent. This is done, as you will see, to give large purchasers the advantage over small buyers, which they have been long entitled to, but which could not be given to them until we made our present organization to regulate prices. This arrangement of rebates takes place from February 1st. We can also make deductions frora the new price list of January 5, 1888, for colored, enaraeled, ground, and cathedral glass, extra discounts as follows : For orders of twenty cases, or 2,000 feet or more at one time, 10 per cent discount. For import orders of 7,500 feet or more of cathedral and one hundred cases or more colored, enameled, and ground glass we will make special prices, according to the conditions of the order. " Yours, very truly, Heroy & Marrinner." THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 329 There was no doubt about the intention of that trust. Mr. Heroy said " it was siraply " to make prices below which they would not sell their goods. At the last meeting he attended he thought it was the desire of the combination to reduce prices, and added : " We have not yet decided what to do in the case of a man who undersells us. We do not deoide these things in a hurry. As a result of the combination prices have advanced. I can't tell exactly the amount of the busi ness done. It is largely exaggerated, but, including all branches, it is about $20,- 000,000." I have also in my possession a copy of the trust contract. Not content with making this combination among themselves, they sought in every way possible to induce our American producers of plate glass to join them and assist in fleecing the American public. There is a foreign trust on china and earthenware. I have the evidence here in the London Pottery Gazette of March 10, 1888, from which I read : If any manufacturers are not true to the rules of the new Association, the bond they will have signed will enable their fellow-manufaoturors to sell thera up "rurap and stump." Nothing but the state of dire necessity into whioh the trade has fallen would tempt men to put their hands to such a bond. The scheme has just been successful with the china manufacturers. They have just obtained a second advance. If the keen buyers who always want to beggar the trade and reduce prices say to a manufacturer who will not sell at lower than the fixed rate, " Well, if I am forced to pay the Association price I will not buy from you," such manufacturer can reply : " All right ; if you buy from another, and I have to stand for orders, I shall get my pull out of your business, for our rules will not let me suffer through refusing to reduce at your request." So you see one manufacturer can not be played off against the others. There is a foreign tin trust and a foreign iron trust to control prices and deprive the public of the advantages of legitimate compe tition. All these are to be beneflted by this bill. Its author should change its title so as to make it read, " An act to promote foreign trusts and combines and break down American competition." We should set our faces against all these unnatural associations. We should crush out those at home, and do nothing to encourage those abroad who organize to prey upon the American market. We can control the former, but the latter, while robbing our own citizens, are beyond our control and out of our jurisdiction. Mr. Chairman, whUe the Democratic majority, aided by the active support of the President, is seeking to break down the protective system, under which we have realized such unexampled prosperity, what do we witness elsewhere and in other countries ? Within the last six months there was held a great meeting in England repre senting 30,000 workingmen. The meeting was called to consider 330 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the depressed condition of labor, and to demand such a change of the fiscal legislation as would abandon free trade in the United Kingdom and adopt a protective tariff. They resolved — First, That this meeting is strongly of the opinion that the time has corae when all classes interested in tho nation's prosperity should unite in demanding a revision of its fiscal system. Second, That this meeting records its opinion that all articles imported frora abroad should bear a fair share of taxation with the same artieles produced at home. These resolutions, with a suitable memorial, were presented to the British Parliament. During the same month the Chamber of Com merce of Lincolnshire, England, adopted the following resolution : That this meeting is of the opinion that the fearful depression both of trade and agriculture is intimately connected with and both are caused by foreign com petition, resulting in low prices, which are affecting all the industries of this eoun try ; that false free trade is a failure, obtained at the expense of the native pro ducer. This meeting therefore begs to urge of their representatives in Parlia ment and the Government the necessity of speedily taking measures to prevent the ruin impending over trade, and especially over the land of this country and all concerned in it, either as owners, cultivators, or tradesmen, and that a reconsid eration should at once take place of our present fiscal arrangement. The working people of England find that competition with coun tries employing cheaper labor too oppressive to bear longer, and are demanding, in the interest of themselves and families, to be saved from the further degradation it will entail. It is not American competi tion they dread ; it is the competition of France, Germany, and Bel gium — countries whose labor is even more poorly paid than the labor of England. They have come to appreciate at last that nothing but tarifls which are defensive in their character will save them from utter ruin and destitution. We will be precisely in the same situation if this bill shall become a law. Our competition is with all the world, for no labor is so well paid as ours, and, being the highest paid labor, it invites the sharpest competition from the lowest. We will have no objection to free trade when all the nations shall bring the level of their labor up to ours ; when they shall accept our standard ; when they shall regard the toiler as a man, and not a slave ; but we wdl never consent while we have votes and the power to prevent the drag ging down of our labor to that of the European standard. [Ap plause.] Let them elevate theirs ; let them bring theirs up to our level, and we will then have no contention about revenue or protec tive tariffs. We will meet them in open field, in home and neutral markets, upon equal footing, and the fittest will survive. [Applause.] THB MILLS TARIFF BILL. 331 This is no time to seriously think of changing our policy. The best sentiment, the practical judgment of mankind, is turning to it. Sir Charles Tupper said a year ago in the Canadian House of Commons : No person who has carefully watched the progress of public events and public opinion can fail to know that a very great and marked change has taken place in all countries, I may say, in relation to this question (protection). ... In Eng land, where it was a heresy to intiraate anything of that kind a few years ago, even at the period to which I ara referring, a great and marked change in public opinion has taken place. Prof. Sidgwiek, a learned Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in that great university, and the gentleman who read at the meeting of the British Assooiation in 1886 a paper ou political economy, has published a work in whioh opinions that would have been denounced as utterly fallacious and heretical at that time have been boldly pro pounded as the soundest and truest principles of political eoonomy. . . . States men of the flrst rank, men occupying high and commanding positions in public affairs in England, have unhesitatingly committed themselves to the strongest opinions in favor of fair protection to British industry. Why, even Canada, a dependency of free-trade England, is too wise to favor the false doctrines of her mother, and has rejected her teachings, and to-day is prosperous under a protective system, which inthe main she borrowed from us. I wish every citizen might read the budget speech of the Minister of Finance in Canada, and contrast it with that of my honored but misguided friend from Texas. On May 12, 1887, in the Commons, Sir Charles Tupper, in speaking of a previous period in the history of Canada under free trade, said : When the languishing industries of Canada embarrassed the Finance Minister of that day, when, instead of a large surplus, large deficits succeeded year after year, the Opposition urged upon that honorable gentleman that he should en deavor to give increased protection to the industries of Canada, which would pre vent them from thus languishing and being destroyed. We were not suocessful I -will not say in leading the honorable gentleman himself to the oonclusion that that would be a sound policy, for I have some reason to believe that he had many a misgiving on that question — but at all events we were not able to change the policy of the gentieraan who then ruled the destinies of Canada. As is well known, that became the great issue at the subsequent general election of 1878, and the Conservative party being returned to power, pledged to promote and foster the industries of Canada as far as they were able, brought down a policy through the hands of my honored predecessor. Sir Leonard Tilley ; . . . and I have no hesitation in saying that the success of that polioy thus propounded and matured from time to time has been such as to coramand the support and confi dence of a large portion of the people of this country down to the present day. Under this system he proceeds to show that Canada has enjoyed a prosperity the like of which she never enjoyed before, and then, 22 332 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. instead of recommending a reduction of duties, proposes the increase of duties upon certain foreign merchandise, to the end that Canadian industries may be fostered thereby. Here is what the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills], our premier, says. Mark the contrast : Now, sir, what has been the result of this policy [of protection] ? Enormous taxation upon the necessaries of life has been a constant drain upon the people ; taxation not only to support the expenditures of the Govemment, but taxation so contrived as to fill the pockets of a privileged class, and take from the people five dollars for private purposes for every dollar that it carries to the public Treasury. . . . This is one of the vicious results, etc. . . . What use have our manufacturers for the tariff at all? Why are they constantly beseeching Con gress not to ruin them by reducing war rates ? ... It is a policy that is at war with the institutions of this country — the concentration of the wealth of the country in the hands of a few. My friend has not read with profit or purpose the history of his country. Wedded to the economic teachings of Calhoun and Walker, he has not observed their contradiction and refutation in the match less progress of his country. He still lives in the past. The con dition of his own State, her boundless resources, appeal to him, but her voice, if heard, is not heeded. He seeks to throw across her path way and the pathway of the Eepublic the tattered dogmas of half a century ago, and stop the wheels of progress, interrupt our advancing civilizatiou, and stifle the just aspirations of the people. The coun try is in no frame of mind for such retrogression ; against it every instinct of humanity revolts, every noble sentiment protests. If the people of the country want free trade or a strictly revenue tariff, it is their privilege to have it. The majority voice should be controlling, but it must be after a fuU, fair, and candid expression. I do not believe that a majority in this House were instructed by their constituents to vote for this bill or any other committed to the doctrine of free trade. If the issue had been so understood raany of the gentlemen who are promoting this legislation would not be here. I do not believe the country understood, in 1886, that if the Demo cratic party carried a majority in the House it would do what is now being proposed. How many Eepresentatives on that side of the House would have been left at home upon a platform favoring free wool and substantially free agricultural products ? More by far than your majority. The opportunity of the people of this country is next November. If they want free trade they can so vote, but they must have it after full discussion. The majority now on the floor of this House were THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 333 not instructed by the elections in 1886 to vote for this bill ; there was no such issue. Wherever we sought to make it the issue it was ob scured or denied by Democratic protectionists in the North. Nobody knows that better than the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Scott], the friend of labor. [Laughter.] The House of Eepresentatives, I say, was not elected upon that issue. I challenge your party, under the instructions given you by the people two years ago, to force this measure through the House. Go back to the people and ask to be returned on this bill and the President's message ; do not dodge or equivocate, but stand up to the issue squarely ; make your platform in Connecticut the same as in the Carolinas, in New York and New Jersey the same as Mississippi and Georgia ; and then, if your majority is returned, you will be commissioned to adopt this bill or something like unto it, abandoning the American for the British policy. [Applause.] The details at this time can be of little moment. This bill points to the overthrow of the protective system ; that is its tendency and mission. It is the system which is on trial ; not one item or one schedule of the tariff, but the principle upon which the whole rests. Nothing which that side of the House can do or will do touching the tariff can be other than hurtful. If it corrects a single abuse or inequality or incongruity, it will be at the expense and sacrifice of many great interests. It is destruction, not correction, you are after. When your biU levels at all it levels down. When it equalizes articles be longing to the same group and family, representing the same raw material and the same amount of labor, its equality is with the lowest. It does not help that which bears the lowest duty, but destroys that which bears the highest. It injures the whole, that it may put the whole upon the same footing. It gives no consideration or protection to a single home industry or American product, except probably cotton and rice. It puts no languishing American industry on its feet ; it sets in motion no idle spindles ; it starts no new fires ; it creates no increased demand for labor ; if an industry is down, it keeps it there ; its very breath is paralyzation ; it injures what it touches, and touches'that it may injure. [Great applause.] If the tariff needs revision— and in some particulars revision would improve it— it must be done by its friends and. in fuU recog nition of the principle of protection. It must be done by a party with courage enough to raise duties if needed, and reduce them if unnecessary, and with wisdom enough to foresee and provide against redundant revenue, and in correcting inequalities prudent enough to 334 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. inflict no injury upon any, but bring good to aU. That is the correc tion of inequalities to which the Eepublican party pledged itself in its National platform of 1884, and for the fulflUment of which it has not since then had a majority in the House to enforce. If it had, it would have long ago been done. It will do it when it is again in control. Not correction which destroys, but which makes simple, harmonious, and equitable all of the provisions of the tarifl. It is fortunate that our Government is founded upon the consent of the governed, that every citizen has a voice in making and un making the House of Eepresentatives every two years, and even if he is deprived in the interim of a hearing, there is one day when he can speak and vote and make his influence felt [applause] ; for I teU you, Mr. Chairman, if the workmen were without the ballot we would have free trade within twelve months, and their protests and ours would be as idle as the wind which none of us heeds. Fortunately for them they have a vote, and if they faU to use it for their homes, and their flresides, and their famUies, they wiU show much less man hood, independence, intelligence, and righteous resentment than I am sure they possess. It was the ballot in the hands of labor, to be used next November, which kept coal and iron ore from being placed on the free list in this bill ; and unless the majority is reversed in this body and the Fifty-first Congress placed under Eepublican control, these products, with others of equal importance, wUl be stricken from the dutiable and placed upon the free list. This is only the initial step. The Chairman of the Committee has so declared. Listen to these words found in his speech opening this debate : We should lay taxes to obtain revenue, bnt not restrict importations. We should plaoe every material of manufacture on the free list. This is the proclamation made by the premier of this body ; this is in direct line with the President's message ; this is the plan, the policy, and the purpose of the Democratic party. The elections once safely over, the party now in control again invested with power, and the work will go on to the end. The Democratic protectionists and patriots must get out of the way. Even Democrats who believe that protection is " a local issue," and as such worth maintaining, must not further interrupt the procession. You saw an exhibition of the spirit this morning [laughter], when the generous courtesy of my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge] saved his party from a most unfortunate embarrassment. The hope of the country, Mr. Chairman, is in the ballot. The future, and, as I conceive, the wei- THE MILLS TARIFF BILL. 335 fare and progress of the Eepublic, the future condition of the wage- earners, depends upon the issue to be settled in November. Ameri can citizens who love their country must be on guard on that day of supreme concern ; it is their day, their one great opportunity. Parties must be subordinated to the great interests of the masses. No party necessity is great enough to force its adherents against its country's best interests. I care not what in the future may be the party name which stands for this system, which stands for the people, I will follow its flag under whatever designation or leadership, because it is my country's flag, and represents its greatness and its glory. Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I conclude, and thank you for your kind attention and for the generous indulgence of the House. [Long and continued applause, and cries of " Vote ! "] NOT A CANDIDATE. Speech at the Eepublican" National Convention at Chi cago, Illinois, June 23, 1888. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : I am here as one of the chosen representatives of my State. I am here by resolution of the Eepublican State Convention, passed without a sin gle dissenting voice, coramanding me to cast my vote for John Sher man for President, and to use every worthy endeavor for his nomina tion. I accepted the trust because my heart and judgment were in accord with the letter and spirit and purpose of that resolution. It has pleased certain delegates to cast their votes for me for President. I am not insensible to the honor they would do me, but in the presence of the duty resting upon me I can not remain silent with honor. I can not, consistently with the wish of the State whose credentials I bear, and which has trusted me ; I can not with honorable fldelity to John Sherman, who has trusted me in his cause and with his confl dence ; I can not, consistently with my own views of personal integ rity, consent, or seem to consent, to permit my name to be used as a candidate before this Convention. I would not respect myself if I could flnd it in my heart to do so, or permit to be done that which could even be ground for any one to suspect that I wavered in my loyalty to Ohio, or my devotion to the chief of her choice and the chief of mine. I do not request — I demand, that no delegate who would not cast reflection upon me shall cast a ballot for me. PEOTECTION AND THE SOUTH. Address before the Piedmont Chautauqua Association at Atlanta, Georgia, August 21, 1888. Fellow-Citizens : I make my acknowledgments to the Piedmont Society for the courtesy and cordiality of its invitation, which has given me the opportunity to meet for the first time an assemblage of the citizens of Georgia. I have come upon the suggestion of the Committee to address you upon a public question of great National import, which concerns not only the prosperity of one section but of all sections of our comraon country, and which is of commanding interest to our sixty millions of people. It is no new subject I propose to consider. It is as old as government by men. Taxation, with few exceptions, has been the chief and absorbing issue for the more than a century of the Eepublic. The Government was scarcely launched before its discussion com manded the best thought of the statesmen of the time, and in varying degrees it has been prominently before the public ever since. The diflerent theories of taxation have an interest now which they have never possessed before. Public thought is awakened, and the citizen is investigating for himself. Frank discussion and thoughtful con sideration of the two conflicting theories are therefore demanded in the present state of the public mind, as well as by the condition of our National Treasury. How taxes are to be raised to support the Govern ment, and by what method they can be levied and collected so as to bear most lightly upon the people, and at the same tirae promote rather than retard National prosperity, is the scope of the theme which I propose to discuss before you to-day. There are some things upon which all are in accord, and which are so manifest as to require no argument or amplification. They are admitted facts. Among them are, that the United States must have sufficient raoney to meet its current expenses and maturing obligations ; that the United States as a political society is without 338 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. assets, without money, and has no income except what it secures by taxes collected from its people. It must collect its money, whatever may be its actual requirements, either by direct taxes or by duties upon imports. There are few people to be found in the country who seriously favor the system of direct taxation for governmental ex penses — that is, taxing the people, their property, real and personal, their professions and employments. The American sentiment is practically unanimous in favor of raising at least a large share of the revenue for the Government by levying duties upon foreign im portations. It requires nearly $350,000,000 every year, or almost a million dollars every twenty-four hours, to meet the necessary wants of the public service, and there is general assent to the proposition that the bulk of this vast sum shall be raised from customs sources. Up to this point there is substantial concurrence, and here individual and party sentiment divide, and I believe honestly divide, and to these lines of division, and the principles upon which they respectively rest, I invite your respectful consideration. Free traders, so called — or, to be more exact, the advocates of a revenue tarifl — believing with the other school of political economists in import duties, insist that duties shall be levied upon that class of foreign products which are not produced in the United States, the principle being that revenue is the sole and only object of such taxa tion, and that a duty levied upon such foreign products as have little or no home competition will secure the largest revenue with the smallest rate of duty. And this is altogether true ; for whenever you can find a foreign article which the people of this country require and which of necessity they must import, any duty, however low, indeed the very minimum, will produce revenue ; for inasrauch as there is no home-produced article to contend for any part of the home market, importations will go on unchecked, and the revenue derived therefrom will be limited only by the extent of the importations, influenced by the necessities of our people and their capacity to buy. A familiar and simple illustration is furnished in the products of tea and coffee. Neither of these great staple articles is produced in the United States. The demands of our people for these products — and they extend to every home and fireside in the land — are supplied from abroad. Now, any tax thereon, however slight and insignificant, would produce a very considerable revenue to the Government ; and this illustrates what is commonly understood as a " revenue tariff." If, however, the duty is levied upon the foreign competing product. PROTECTION AND THE SOUTH. 339 and it is made so low, having revenue only in view, then the effect is to destroy home competition and increase the revenue therefrom by increasing importations. Hon. J. Eandolph Tucker, of Virginia, an erainent lawyer and experienced statesman, in a speech delivered in the House of Eepre sentatives, May 18, 1878, defined a revenue duty as follows : Therefore, as no higher duty ought to be laid than is needed to raise the requisite revenue on any particular article, it follows that the true revenue duty is the lowest duty whioh will bring the required revenue. This definition is a fair and frank one, and I accept it. A revenue tariff is, therefore, such a one as will produce the largest revenue from the lowest duty. The lowest rate of duty will encourage importa tions, diminish home production, and inevitably increase the revenue ; it will of necessity check competition at home and send our merchants abroad to buy ; it affords no protection, not even incidental, for, the very instant you discover that such duty favors the home producer, that instant you discover that importations and revenue are checked, and that our own producers are able to control the home market, or a part of it. Then at once the advocate of a revenue tarifl reduces the duty — brings it down to the true revenue standard ; for it must not he overlooked, according to the free-trade maxim, that " where protection begins there revenue ends," and the question of revenue is all-controlling. A revenue tariff is inconsistent with protection ; it is intended for a wholly different purpose. It loses its force and char acter as a genuine revenue tariff when it becomes to any extent pro tective. It has but one object, the raising of revenue. It can have but one effect — that of opening up our markets to the foreign pro ducer — impoverishing the home producer and enriching his foreign rival. England is more nearly a free-trade country than any other, and her system of taxation fumishes an unmistakable example of the practice and principle of a revenue tariff. Her import duties are imposed almost exclusively upon articles which can not be produced by her own people upon her own soil. Tobacco, snuff, cigars, chicory, cocoa, currants, figs, raisins, mm, brandy, wine, tea, and coffee, these are the articles from which her customs revenue is derived — articles, in the main, not produced in England, but which must be supplied from abroad; while practically all competing products of foreign make and production are admitted through her customhouses free of duty. A brief statement of the dutiable im ports of Great Britain wUl not be without interest. 340 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. It will be observed that her duties are more largely imposed upon peculiarly American products than upon any other. The duty upon tobacco is, according to moisture, from 84 to 92 cents per pound for the raw or unmanufactured article ; and if manufactured, it pays a duty of from $1.04 to $1.16 per pound. The manufactured article is made dutiable at 20 cents a pound greater than the raw product, which, with all of England's boasted free trade, is intended as a pro tection to those engaged in the manipulation of tobacco. It is almost prohibitive to Americans who would export manufactured goods. The ad valorem equivalent of the duty on tobacco is nearly two thou sand per cent. Cigars pay a duty of $1.32 per pound, and from tobacco and cigars $43,000,000 of duties are collected annually. The duty on tea is eight cents per pound. How would the American enjoy paying such a duty upon this article of every-day use ? The duty collected from this source is over $18,000,000 annually. Coffee pays a duty of three cents per pound, but if ground, prepared, or in any way manufactured, it must pay a duty of four cents a pound — another example of where England protects those engaged in manu facture. Cocoa pays a duty of two cents a pound, but if it is in any form subjected to manufacture it pays four cents a pound, the duty on the manufactured article being double that on the raw material. Besides the articles I have named, there are about ninety or a hun dred others, such as patented and other medicines, chiefly of Ameri can production, which are dutiable at $3.36 per gallon. More than $96,000,000, or nearly one fourth of the British revenues, are raised from customs duties. You will note the character of taxation to which the revenue re former invites the people of the United States. Both the breakfast table and the sick room are made to bear a large part of the burden under the British system of taxation. It is not without significance that the nearer we approach this system the more generous the be stowal of British commendation. Bvery step we take in that direc tion, every enlargement of the free list of competing foreign products, every reduction of duty upon such products, is hailed as a vindication of Cobden and a beneficence to British interests. It is in vain for British statesmen to assure us that their system is best for us. We are not accustomed to look to our commercial rivals for disinterested favors. It is folly [said Washington in his Farewell Address] in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another ; it must pay, with a portion of its inde pendence, for whatever it may aooept under that character. There can be no PROTECTION AND THE SOUTH. 341 greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure and which a just pride ought to dis card. We are not, Mr. President, insensible to the good opinion of man kind, or of the English-speaking race, but when it is to be had only at the expense of our industrial independence, at the sacriflce of the dignity and independence of labor and the destruction of National prosperity, we must regard it with supreme suspicion, and turn from it as the eulogy of selfish interest and the commendation of interested greed. The other theory of taxation, and the one which I believe to be essential to American development and National prosperity, is based upon an exactly opposite principle. It permits all articles of foreign production, whether of the fleld, the factory, or the mine, except luxuries only, which we can not produce in the United States, to enter our ports free and unburdened by customhouse exactions. The duty is to be imposed upon the foreign competing product — that is, the product which, if brought into this country, would contend with the products of our own soil, our own labor, and our own fac tories, in our own markets. Under this system, if the foreign pro ducer would enter our market with a competing product he must contribute something for the privilege which he is to enjoy, and this something, in the form of duties, goes into the Treasury, furnishing revenue to the Govemment ; and these duties operate to protect the joint product of labor and capital against a like foreign product. This mode of levying duties answers a double purpose. It pro duces revenue to the Government, and at the same time fosters and encourages the occupations of our own people, promotes industrial development, opens up new mines, builds new factories and sustains those already established, which in turn furnish employment to labor at fair and remunerative wages. A revenue tarifl accomplishes but a single purpose — that of raising revenue ; it has no other mission ; while a protective tarifl accomplishes this and more — it brings revenue to the American treasury and discriminates in favor of the Ameri can citizen. A revenue tarifl invites the product of foreign labor and foreign capital to occupy our markets free and unrestrained in competition with the product of our own labor and capital. A pro tective tariff invites the product of foreign labor and foreign capital which are necessary to the wants of our people (which we can not produce in the United States) to occupy our markets and go untaxed to the people ; but it insists that every foreign product the like of 342 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. which is produced at home, or can be successfully, in quantities capa ble of supplying the domestic consumption, shall, whenever necessary to maintain suitable rewards to our labor, bear a duty which shall not be so high as to prohibit importations, but at such a rate as wiU pro duce the necessary revenues and at the same time not destroy, but en courage, American production. It says to the world of producers : " If you want to share with the citizens of the United States their home market, you must pay for the privilege of doing it. Your product shall not enter into free and unrestrained competition with the prod uct of our own people, but shall be discriminated against to such an extent as to fully protect and defend our own." Hon. Alexander Stephens, a distinguished citizen of your own State, and endeared to the people of the South, stated, on June 23, 1882, in a speech in the House of Eepresentatives, the theory so weU that I beg to quote him : The best way to raise revenue is by duties upon imports. They bear less heavily on the taxpayers, and, as legislators, that is what we should look to. In levying duties on imports you can at the same time make foreign producers pay for the use of your markets, and in that way, incidentally and properly, give aid and protection to Amerioan industry. It is not true, as a general proposition, that the consumer pays all the duty imposed upon commodities brought from other countries. This is a question that I can not now argue. In most instances, where the duties are judiciously laid, they are borne partly by the consumer and partly by the importer. To aUow Congress thus to raise revenue by duties upon imports was one of the main objects in establishing the Federal Constitution of 1787. This system of internal revenue taxation by excise and stamp duties was not favored by the fathers of the Republic in times of peace. I speak plainly, and say that it was looked upon then as not only of British origin, but there was always the odium of British Toryism attached to it in the American mind. There was never any legislation more abhorrent to the people of this country, even in their colonial condition, than what was known as the infaraous Starap Act. In marked contrast with the utterances of the theorist of the pres ent is this patriotic utterance of Georgia's beloved and lamented states man. It is alleged as a serious objection to protective duties that the tax, whatever it may be, increases the cost of the foreign as well as the domestic product to the extent of such tax or duty, and that it is wholly paid by the consumer. This objection would be worthy of serious consideration if it were true, but, as has been demonstrated over and over again, it is without foundation in fact. Wherever the foreign product has successful competition at home the duty is rarely paid by the consumer. It is paid from the profits of the foreign manufacturer, or divided between him and the merchant or the im porter, and diminishes their profits to that extent. Duty or no duty, PROTECTION AND THE SOUTH. 343 without home competition the consumer would fare worse than he fares now. There is not in the long line of staple products consumed by the people a single one which has not been cheapened by com petition at home, made possible by protective duties. There is not an article that enters into the every-day uses of the family which is produced in the United States that has not been made cheaper and more accessible as the result of home production and development, which was to be secured only by the sturdy maintenance of the pro tective system. While this is true of protective tariffs, exactly the opposite is true of revenue tariffs. They are always paid by the con sumer. With a duty put upon a foreign product the like of which is not produced at home, and which enters our markets free from home competition, the cost to the American consumer is exactly the for eign cost with the duty added, whatever that may be, much or little. Supposing, for example, there was a tax upon tea and coffee : there being no production of these articles in the United States, and there fore no competition here, the cost to the American public would be the cost abroad and the duty added. We imported last year 526,- 489,000 pounds of coffee. A duty of ten cents a pound would have produced to the Government over $52,000,000, which would have been paid by the 12,01)0,000 families of this country, consumers of this article. Eighty-seven million five hundred and eighty-four thousand pounds of tea were imported last year. At ten cents a pound $8,000,000 and upward would have gone into the Treasury, every dollar of which would have been paid by our own people. Take sugar as another example. We produced last year in this country about eight per cent of what our people consumed. The duty col lected from imported sugar amounted to $58,000,000. The domestic production was so inconsiderable, as compared with the domestic consumption, as to have had little, if any, appreciable effect upon the price to the consumer, and therefore this sum was almost wholly paid by our own citizens; and the cost of sugar to the American consumer, because of the inadequate home supply, is practically the foreign price, duty added, the domestic production being so small, contrasted with the domestic demand, that it in no wise controlled or infiuenced the price. The price to us is fixed by the ninetyrtwo per cent which came from abroad, plus the amount of the duty collected at the custom house. It would have been otherwise if the bulk of our consumption was produced at home. If you take any American production which is large enough to supply the domestic demand the effect is diflerent. 344 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Then the foreign production must undersell the home production in order to get a foothold in this market, and therefore the foreign producer is willing to surrender the whole duty, or a considerable part of it, consenting to less profits for the sake of extending his markets, with the hope of ultimately destroying home competition. The real question, therefore, is, whether in raising money to supply the Government needs we should have thoughtful concern of the in dustrial interests of the people we represent, or, discarding every other consideration, should adjust our duties upon the revenue prin ciple to secure revenue, and revenue only. The money must be raised, and in raising it the protectionist is mindful of the interests of our own people. The tariff reformer is considerate of everybody else's interest but our own. I can not understand why any patriotic citizen should prefer a revenue tariff to a protective tariff. I can not understand why, so long as taxation must be resorted to (and that will be the case so long as the Government exists), it should not be raised upon the foreign article which competes with the domestic article, and thus discriminate in favor of our own, rather than to admit to equality in our markets untaxed, and upon equal terms with our own producers, the products of our foreign rivals. The protective system but invokes the highest law of Nature, that of self-preservation. There is every reason, founded in justice, why the American producer should in every cons^titutional way be favored as against the foreign producer whose products compete with his. This is our natural market. We have raade it. We have made it after a century of struggle. We have made it at an enormous cost of capital and exertion of brain and muscle. We have preserved it against foreign wars and domestic conflicts, at great sacrifice of men and money. The foreign producer has contributed nothing to the growth or development of the country. Whatever influence he has exerted has been against us and to our detriment. He has nothing in common with us. He is without the jurisdiction of our laws. He can not be reached by the local taxgatherer. He is exempt from all civil obligations in every part of the Eepublic. We can make no requi sition upon him either in peace or in war. Our mode of reaching him is through the product he would send to our markets. We can deraand of him that his merchandise shall make contribution to our treasury if he would enjoy the use of our markets. We can make him serve us in no other way. In the case of a revenue tariff, as I have pointed out, his product never bears the burden. Whatever we put upon it is borne by our PROTECTION AND THE SOUTH. 345 own people, and in no wise shared by him. This principle of caring for our own is founded upon the highest authority, human and Divine. It commences with the family, extends up through the com munity to the State, and at last to the Nation. There is no city in the country in any section that does not invoke this principle in the administration of municipal government for the protection and en couragement of its own citizens. The itinerant vender, the street auctioneer, the peddler, is taxed in every city of the land. If he exposes his wares upon the streets of Atlanta at public auction, I doubt not, the city government compels him to pay a tax for the privilege of doing it, and that tax is added to the ordinary revenues of the city to assist in meeting its obliga tions. Now, why is this done? Upon exactly the same principle that we tax the foreign competing product under the system of pro tection. It is done to protect and defend the resident merchants of your city, who are with you always, within your jurisdiction, subject to your laws, contributing to the wealth and progress of your city, paying taxes to adorn and beautify it, paying taxes to support your public schools and make public improvements. The itinerant vender has no such relation to your community. He is no part of your political organ ism. He comes and goes ; he is not a taxpayer ; he shares in none of the burdens of your people ; he is a free trader, who looks upon your market as his, and open to him as much as to your own trades people. Your city government taxes him to diminish the burdens borne by your own citizens. This is protection simple and pure, and is the exact character of that which we would apply to foreign nations seeking our markets. Our fathers recognized this principle. It was emphasized in the second act ever passed by the Congress of the United States ; indeed, it was the very first important legislative declaration under the Federal Constitution. The only other law that preceded it was that of fixing the oath of office of certain Federal officials. It was proposed even before Washington was inaugurated. It subsequently received his sanction, and it is a fact not without significance that his approval was given to it on a day memorable in American history, July 4, 1789. It had the approval of Jaraes Madison, Eufus King, Eoger Sherman, Jonathan TrumbuU, Eichard Henry Lee, and a host of other leading men from all parts of the Union. Here is another historical fact of great interest and significance. Additional tariff legislation was had in 1790. Some duties were increased. The Journal of the House of Eepresentatives discloses the 346 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. fact that of the 39 votes given in favor of the biU, 21 were from the Southern States, 13 from the Middle States, and 5 from the New England States. Of the 13 votes cast against it, 9 were from the New England States, 3 from the Southern States, and 1 from the Middle States. It will thus be seen that we are largely indebted to the South for the inauguration and establishment of the protective system in the United States, which has for the most part governed our legislation since the formation of the Government. For nearly sixty years of our National life this principle in its fullness has been recognized in our laws, and whenever recognized it has been accom panied by commercial and industrial development, stimulating new enterprises and securing prosperity to the masses without a parallel in the world's annals. The revenue-tariff periods of our history have been periods of greatest financial revulsions and industrial decadence, want and pov erty among the people, private enterprises checked, and public works retarded. From 1833 to 1842, under the low-tariff legislation then prevailing, business was at a standstill, and our merchants and traders were bankrupted; our industries were paralyzed, our labor remained idle, and our capital was unemployed. Foreign products crowded our markets, destroyed domestic competition, and, as invari ably follows, the prices of commodities to consumers were appreciably raised. It is an instructive fact, that every panic this country has ever experienced has been preceded by enormous importations. From 1846 to 1861 a similar situation was presented under the low tariff of that period. Contrast this period with the period from 1860 to 1880, the for mer under a revenue tarifl, the latter under a protective tariff. In 1860 we had 163,000,000 acres of improved land, while in 1880 we had 287,000,000, an increase of 75 per cent. In 1860 our farms were valued at $3,200,000,000. In 1880 their value had leaped to $10,- 197,000,000, an increase of over 300 per cent. In 1860 we raised 173,000,000 bushels of wheat; in 1880, 498,000,000. In 1860 we raised 838,000,000 bushels of corn ; in 1880, 1,717,000,000 bushels. In 1860 we produced 5,000,000 bales of cotton ; in 1880, 7,000,000 bales, an increase of 40 per cent. In 1860 we manufactured cotton goods to the value of $115,681,774 ; in 1880, while seUing prices had been greatly reduced, the value reached $211,000,000, an increase of more than of 80 per cent. In 1860 we manufactured of woolen goods $61,000,000 ; in 1880, $267,000,000, an increase of 333 per cent. In 1860 we produced 60,000,000 pounds of wool ; in 1880, 240,000,000 PROTECTION AND THB SOUTH. 347 pounds, an increase of 300 per cent. In 1860 we mined 15,000,000 tons of coal ; in 1880, 79,000,000 tons, an increase of over 400 per cent. In 1860 we made 987,000 tons of pig iron ; in 1880, 3,835,000 tons. In 1860 we manufactured 235,000 tons of railroad iron, and in 1880 1,208,000 tons. In 1860 our aggregate of National wealth was $16,- 159,000,000 ; in 1880 it was $43,000,000,000. From 1848 to 1860, during the low-tariff period, there was but a single year in which we exported in excess of what we imported. The balance of trade during the twelve of the thirteen years was against us. Our people were drained of their money to pay for foreign pur chases. We sent abroad over and above our sales $396,216,161. This vast sum was drawn from the United States, from its business, from the channels of trade, which would have been better employed in pro ductive enterprises, and thus supplied our wants for which we were compelled to go abroad. During the last thirteen years, under a pro tective tariff, there was but one year that the balance of trade was against us. For twelve years we sold to our foreign customers in ex cess of what we bought from them in the sum of $1,612,659,755. This contrast makes an interesting exhibit of the work under the two systems. You need not be told that the Government and the people are most prosperous whose balance of trade is in their favor. The Government is like the citizen — indeed, it is but an aggregation of citizens ; and when the citizen buys more than he sells he is soon conscious that his year's business has not been a success. Our wealth increases $875,000,000 every year, while the increase of France is $375,000,000 ; Great Britain, $325,000,000, and Germany, $200,000,- 000. The total carrying capacity of all the vessels entered and cleared from American ports during the year 1886-'87 in the foreign trade was 38,000,000 tons. The amount of freight transported by the rail roads of the United States was alone 482,000,000 tons for the same year. The sum of our industries exceeds that of any other people or tribe or nationality. Mulhall, the Bnglish statistician, places the manufactures of the United States at $11,405,000,000 annually, which is $2,205,000,000 greater than those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, nearly twice those of France or Germany, nearly three times those of Eussia, and almost equal to the aggregate industries of Austria, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Australia, Canada, and Sweden and Norway. This advancement is the world's wonder. The other nations of the earth can not furnish such a splendid exhibition of progress in any age or period. We defy a revenue-tariff policy to present such 23 348 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. an exhibition of material prosperity and industrial development. Arts, science, and literature have held their own in this wonderful march. We are prosperous to-day beyond any other people. The masses are better cared for, better provided for, more self-respecting, and more independent, than ever before in our history ; which can not be said of the masses of other countries. One of the striking dif ferences between a revenue tarifl and a protective tarifl is that the former sends the money of its people abroad for foreign supplies, and seeks a foreign market. The latter keeps the money at home among our own people, circulating through the arteries of trade, and creates a market at home, which is always the best because the most reliable. My fellow-countrymen, the South has shared in this splendid progress, in this golden period of development. Listen to the story of your triumphant march : From 1851 to 1860 the average yearly production of pig iron throughout the United States was less than 800,000 tons. In 1886 the States of Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, and North Caro lina produced 875,179 net tons, or 75,000 more than the whole an nual output of the United States under the free-trade period named. The eight years last past have brought to the South wonderful prog ress. You had, in 1880, 19,435 miles of railroad; you have now 36,737 miles, and this is increasing. You raised, in 1880, 5,755,350 bales of cotton ; in 1887 you raised 6,800,000 bales. In 1880 you raised 431,074,630 bushels of grain, and in 1887 you raised 626,305,000 bushels. In 1880 you had live stock amounting in value to $391,- 312,254 ; it is now valued at $573,695,550. The value of your agricul tural products in 1880 was $571,098,454; in 1887 it had reached $742,066,460. In 1880 you produced 397,301 tons of pig iron ; in 1887 you produced 929,436 tons, and I am assured upon the best authority that you produce more than a million tons now. You mined, in 1880, 6,049,471 tons of coal ; in 1887, 16,476,785 tons. You had, in 1880, 179 cotton-mills ; you have to-day 300, and they are increasing. The number of your spindles in 1880 was 713,989 ; they are to-day 1,495,- 145. The number of your looms in 1880 was 15,222 ; they are over 34,000 now. The value of cotton goods which you produced, in 1880, was $21,000,000 ; in 1887 it was over $43,000,000. And yet, in the presence of such progress, it is seriously proposed to reverse the policy under which it has been made. Surely a new era of industrial development has come to the South. Nothing should be permitted to check or retard it. To her. PROTECTION AND THE SOUTH. 349 Nature has been most prodigal with her gifts. Her hills and valleys have been made the storehouses of richest treasure. Coal and iron mines wait impatiently the touch of labor and capital, and tempt both with promise of lavish profit. Eaw materials are found at every turn, to invite the skilled artisan to transform them into the finished product for the highest uses of man. She possesses the fibers in rich abundance; her skilled labor should weave the fabric. It is said that there is nothing grown in any of the States, except Florida, that Georgia can not profltably produce. She has coal, iron deposits, marble and building stone, lumber, cotton, and the cereals. Nothing but her own folly, nothing but blindness to her highest and best in terests, can keep h6r from the front rank of the industrial States of the Union. One of the chief complaints against the protective system is its alleged hindrance to foreign trade and a foreign market for our own products. It is argued that if we could import raw materials from other countries free, and manufacture such raw materials into prod ucts for use, we could export them at. great profit and thus secure a standing in the markets of the world. This theory is wholly, as I be lieve, illusory ; it is without foundation. We have an example of free raw material in a certain line of manufactures — that of leather for boots, shoes, etc. In 1872 hides and skins were made free, so that our manufacturers could import them without customhouse burdens. They have had " free trade " in their raw materials now for sixteen years. This industry has been an exceptionally successful one, and yet you can not avoid being surprised when I say to you that in those sixteen years we have been able to export but two per cent of the leather production of the country. But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to day have substantial free trade in raw materials which they make into the finished product in the United States, provided they export it. Sections 3019, 3020, 3021, and 3023 of the United States Statutes pro vide for the remission of duties on aU foreign materials used in manu facturing for the export trade. The law is positive that all articles manufactured for export from imported materials, upon which duties have been paid, shall, when exported, be entitled to a drawback of 90 per cent of the duties paid on such raw materials. Some use has been made of these laws. The remission of duties in 1884 paid upon imported material manufactured for foreign markets amounted to $2,256,638. On some articles the drawback is equal to the duty paid, 350 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. but in no instance where articles are imported to be manufactured here and sent abroad is the duty to exceed ten per cent. And yet we are gravely told by the tarifl reformers that we can not reach foreign markets on account of the high tariff on the raw material, when, in fact, for foreign trade, foreign raw materials are practically free. This principle was recognized as early as the ad ministration of George Washington, and has been enlarged and made applicable to all imported materials, the drawbacks varying from 90 to 100 per cent. What becomes, then, of the cry for free raw materials in the presence of this fact ? The truth is, we are not so much concerned about the foreign market as we are about the home market. The latter is the best, and we have not yet been able to con trol it, and until we do, that should be our chief concem. But tf any of our people are sighing for a foreign market, and value it more highly than our own, they can import foreign raw material practi cally free of duty, and after advancing it into the higher forms of manufacture can go out and " possess the world's markets," if that be possible. Taxed raw materials do not now stand in their way, and it is base hypocrisy to claim that they do. " The markets of the world " in our present condition are a snare and a delusion. We will reach them whenever we can underseU com peting nations, and no sooner. Our tariffs do not keep us out, and free trade will not make it easier to enter them. Let me give you a brief exhibit of some of our foreign trade, what we buy and what we sell. In the year ending June 30, 1887, we bought of Mexico, the Central American States, British Honduras, and the West Indies and South America, products to the value of $172,468,526, and we sold these governments of our own products about 33^ per cent in amount of what we bought of them, or about $60,000,000 ; and, as showing that our protective tariff did not produce this uncomfortable balance against us, I, need only state that more than one half of the products we bought were not subject to any tariff tax at all, but were admitted free of duty. Mr. President, upon what terms can we adopt a revenue-tariff system in this country ? In one way only — by accepting European conditions, and submitting to all the discomforts and disadvantages of our commercial rivals. The chief obstruction in the way of a revenue tariff is the wages paid American workingmen, and any re turn to that policy involves a reduction of the cost of labor. We can not afford, Mr. President, to have cheap labor in the United States. Cheap labor means cheap men and dear money. I would rather ele- PROTECTION AN^ THE SOUTH. 351 vate and improve the condition of my fellow-citizens than increase the value of money and the power of " money-bags." This is a Eepublic of free and equal citizenship. The Government is in the hands of the masses, and not of the few. This is our boast, and it is a proud one. The condition of the masses, their well-being, they* intelli gence, their preparation for the civil duties which rest upon them, depend largely upon the scale of industrial wages. It is essential, therefore, that the best possible wages attainable shall be secured and maintained. This is vital and fundamental. We can not without grave danger and serious disturbance — we ought not under any cir cumstances — adopt a policy which would scale down the wages and diminish the comforts of American workingmen. Their welfare and independence, their progress and elevation, are closely related to the welfare and independence and progress of the Eepublic. We have no pampered class in this country, and we want none. We want the field kept open ; no narrowing of the avenues ; no lower ing of our standard. We want no barriers raised against a higher and better civilization. The gateway of opportunity must be open to all, to the end that they may be first who deserve to be first, whether born in poverty or reared in luxury. We do not want the masses excluded from competing for the first rank among their coun trymen and for the Nation's greatest honors, and we do not mean that they shall be. Free trade, or a revenue tarifl, will of necessity shut them out. It has no respect for labor. It holds it as the mere machinery of capital. It would have cheap men that it might have cheap merchandise. With aU its boasted love for the struggling mUlions, it is infinitely more interested in cutting down the wages of labor than in saving twenty-five cents on a blanket ; more intent in reducing the purchas ing power of a man's labor than the cost of his coat. Things are not always the dearest when their price is nominally the highest. The price is not the only measure, but the wherewithal to buy is an essential factor. Few men before me but have found in the course of their lives more than once that that which was cheapest when measured by mere price was the dearest when they were without money and employment, or when their products could find no market, or, find ing it, commanded no price at all commensurate with the labor required to produce them. Primarily, it is labor which is interested most in this question of protection.' The man with money can seek other avenues of profit and investment, or can wait for his dividends ; but the laborer can not wait for his dinner, and the United States 352 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. does not want citizens who make Presidents, Senators, and Eepre sentatives to be in a condition of dependence and destitution. That is not the sort of citizenship we want. Next to the laborer the farmer is the immediate beneficiary of (the American system. It brings to his plantation a city of consumers. The farmer and the factor are brought into close proximity. The problem of transportation is largely eliminated. He finds a market not only for staple products which would bear transportation, but for many products which but for a home market would waste and decay in the fields. I need not tell a farmer in this neighborhood of the beneficial eflects of a home market. His own experience is better than any philosophy. Atlanta has given him an object lesson. It has increased the value of his farm products and enhanced the value of every foot of ground he owns. Benjamin Franklin, writing from London, in 1771, to Humphrey Marshall, comprehended the situation when he said : Every raanufacturer encouraged in our country makes part of a market for provisions within ourselves, and saves so much money to the country as raust otherwise be exported to pay for the manufactures he supplies. Here in England it is well known and understood that wherever a manufacture is established which employs a nuraber of hands, it raises the value of land in the neighboring country all around it ; partly by the greater deraand near at hand for the produce of the land, and partly frora the plenty of raoney drawn by the manufacturers to that part of the country. It seems therefore the interest of all our farmers and owners of lands to encourage our young manufactures in preference to foreign ones imported among us from distant countries. The fathers of the Eepublic appreciated the necessity for a home market. They were all farmers and planters. They could not sell to each other, for each supplied his own wants. This was their situation. They recognized the importance of diversifying the occupations of the people. They must promote other pursuits than the cultivation of the soil. They must have, if they would prosper, consumers who would absorb the surplus products of the farm. The result was a protective tariff, and under it the wisdom and foresight of the found ers of the Eepublic have been more than vindicated. Andrew Jack son put the case as well as has ever been done, when he declared, in 1824 : Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus product ? Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove, when there is no market either at home or abroad, that there is too muoh labor employed in agriculture, and that the channels for labor should be multi plied? Common sense points out the remedy : Draw from agriculture the super- PROTECTION AND THB SOUTH. 353 abundant labor, employ it on mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for your breadstuffs, and distributing labor to the most profitable account and benefit to the country. One third of the cotton crop of the South is consumed at home. Who would not wish that all of it might find a market in the United States ? We of the North would be better off ; you of the South would be better off. The country at large would be the gainer if the whole cotton crop was fabricated in our own mills by our own people. Transportation would to a great extent be saved. We would make and buy more cotton cloths at home, and send abroad for less ; idle labor would be employed ; idle capital find investment ; the South would increase its spindles and its looms, and general and permanent prosperity would follow. The tariff reformer seeks to flatter the New England manufacturer with the suggestion that he no longer needs protection, and should turn his influence in favor of free trade. He assures him that he has reached such perfection in manufacture, such completeness of organi zation, such advancement in mechanical skill, that he has nothing to fear from competition abroad, and that he has but to reach out for our own and " the world's markets " and they are his. He assures him that he has nothing longer to fear from foreign competition, but that his serious danger is from home competition ; that while he is indebted for his splendid progress in industrial development to a pro tective system, he has outgrown it, and if it is to be continued, the people of the South and West will become his dangerous rivals ; and that, to avoid this new competition, he invites him to assist in with holding from the States which have been slower in industrial devel opment that measure of legislative aid which has been so profltably invoked by the New England States, and to which they are indebted for their wonderful advancement in mechanical and industrial pur suits. What do the South and the West say to this narrow and pro vincial view ? It may be true that the New England manufacturer has reached that rank and that degree of perfection when protection to him is not so essential as it once was, but the West and the South are in exactly the same condition that New England was thirty years ago, and I am sure wiU insist that the same fostering legislation shall be accorded for their development that has been so long enjoyed by their more progressive fellow-citizens on the Eastern coast. The truth is, protection must be universal in its application— equally within the reach of all sections and all industries, or it should be abandoned altogether. It can not be enjoyed by one interest to the 354 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. exclusion of another. The New England woolen mills can not de mand protection upon their cloth and deny it to wool, and they do not. The rice planter can not hope to enjoy full protection against foreign competition and deny equal protection to the producer of salt. The sugar planter of Louisiana can not invoke the power of Congress for protective duties and yet deny like protection to indus tries in other parts of the country. The system must stand as a whole, or fall. As Burke said of liberty, " It is the clear right of all, or of none. It is only perfect when universal." It must be protect ive tariff for all interests requiring the encouragement of the Govern ment, or it must be free trade or a revenue tarifl, and rest alike upon all classes and all portions of the country. Mr. President, we are diflerent from any other nation, and it is that difference which makes us the best of all nations. Our political system rests upon a principle diflerent from that of any other. It is founded upon the consent of the people. If we had wanted it other wise we would not have left home, but would have remained the obedient child of an imperious parent. We would not have turned away from the mother country. We would have remained one of her dependencies. We would not have fought our way through blood and sacrifice to independence. We separated to set up for ourselves a free and independent political society, and that policy is the best for us which best subserves the purposes of our organization, our citizenship and civilization. It is ours to work out our own destiny, and in doing so furnish an example of a free and progressive people, whose industrial policy has made it possible to satisfy the best aud highest aspirations of men, and which closes no field to human en deavor. We would wish for all mankind, for all the nations and peo ples of earth, the beneficence of our system and the opportunities which it presents. We bid them level their condition up to ours ; we will not level ours down to theirs. We will remove all restrictions from international trade, as we have removed all restrictions from in terstate trade, whenever they wUl raise their labor and their condi tions to our standard. ^ Men of Georgia, upon this great industrial question there should be no North nor South. To us of every section have been intrusted the interests of our country — our whole country. To others have been confided the care of other nations and other peoples. We will not interfere with them ; we bid thera not interfere with us. My fellow-citizens, in this conflict, influenced by patriotism, National in terest, and National pride, let us be Americans. THE SENATE TAEIFF BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fiftieth Congress, January 26, 1889. [From ihe Congressional Record.] The question before the House being on the concurrence to Senate amend ments to the bill (H. R. 9,501) to reduce taxation and simplify the laws in rela tion to the collection of the revenue, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : The question of whether we are to have any revenue legislation before the close of the present Congress will de pend for its answer very much upon the action that is taken by the House of Eepresentatives to-day upon the suggestion of my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Eeed]. Everybody knows, Mr. Speaker, that if this bill with the Senate amendments goes to the Comraittee on Ways and Means, no practical legislation will be had at this session of Congress, and the great question of the reduction of the revenues of the Govern ment, now so excessive, as claimed by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills], will continue unsettled, and nothing can be done for nearly eleven months, or until we assemble in regular session next December, and at best we can not hope for revenue legislation before the spring or summer of 1890. So that at this very point this House will determine whether we are to have any reduction of the revenues, and whether excessive collections are to continue for twelve or four teen months in the future. The Senate of the United States, a co-ordinate branch of Congress, has respectfully asked this House to agree to a Committee of Con ference. Their purpose is manifest — it is, to bring the two Houses closer together and make an agreement possible. I believe that but once in the history of our century of legislation has a similar request been refused — and refused, I believe, under a ruling of the present Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives, because the request was not 356 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. made at that stage of disagreement between the two Houses when a conference was justified. We are confronted this morning with this request for consultation and conference. It is not a question of high tariff; it is not a question of low tarifl; but it is a question of whether the House of Eepresentatives will meet the Senate of the United States in free and open conference and determine if their differences can be adjusted and their disagreements reconciled. The House has given to the country one bill framed upon one principle and based upon the line of party policy with which the majority is in accord. The Senate has given to the country another bill resting upon an entirely different principle and following out an entirely different line of public and party policy. The Senate has asked the House to consent to a Committee of Conference to con sider the disagreement so presented, that they may see if in some manner this great difference between the two Houses can not be reconciled. Now, what do we want to do as practical men ? What does the country expect of us ? We want to reduce the public reve nues, and we can reduce them, without my friend from Texas [Mr. Mills] being called upon to surrender one jot of his free-trade prin ciples or this side surrendering one jot of its protection principles. If the House of Eepresentatives meets the Senate in free and open conference and those provisions are adopted where the two bills meet on common ground, we can reduce the revenues from $35,000,000 to $40,000,000 and still preserve for future settlement the general policy of taxation respectively adhered to by the two parties. AU we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to take up these two bills and look at the duties and changes in rates which are common to both. First, the abolition of the tax upon tobacco — $30,000,000 ; that is comraon to both bills. Then you take the free list ; that is common to both bills. Then you take the administrative features of both bills. Both seek the same purpose ; both look to an honest collection of the revenue and an honest administration of the custoras laws ; and if a Committee of Conference that we might appoint here this morning would only occupy the common ground, common to both bills, not even enter the field of division or controversy, we would strike down from $35,000,000 to $40,000,000 of revenue that is being collected, and which the administration has repeatedly declared, if continued, will put in peril the business of the country. This House has already spoken upon the subject and expressed its approval of one subject of reduction. It was only the other day that it raani fested its desire to have the tax taken from tobacco when it refused THE SENATE TARIFF BILL. 357 to send a bill of that import to the Committee on Ways and Means, but sent it to another Committee, because it believed that Committee would give to the majority of this House an opportunity to vote its sentiments and register its will in public law. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] This administrative bill has nothing to do with politics ; it has nothing to do with free trade ; it has nothing to do with protection ; it has nothing to do with party principles or policies. It is above politics and should be divorced from party. But it has everything to do with an honest administration of the customs laws, whether they are based upon the principle of protection or upon the principle of free trade. Now, why not, as practical men, seeking to relieve the Treasury of the United States of its congestion, as described by the President of the United States, meet this condition and relieve the Treasury of its accumulating surplus, and leave this vast sum of money with the people, where it belongs ? " It is not a theory ; it is a condition." Shall we run away from the condition which we can in part relieve, or waste our valuable time now upon theory? Shall we reduce the revenues of the Government ? We have an op portunity to do it, and to move in that direction this morning ; but if this bUl goes to the Committee on Ways and Means, mark my word, there will be no practical legislation reached at this session of Congress. And I beg the gentlemen on that side of the House, and gentlemeu on this side of the House, to signalize the close of this Democratic Congress with some practicable, sensible, patriotic legis lation. [Loud applause on the Eepublican side.] THE AMEEICAN VOLUNTEEE SOLDIEE. Address at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, May 30, 1889. [From the New Tork S-um,.] Mr. President and Comrades of the Grand Army of the Eepublic, and my Fellow-Citizens : The Grand Army of the Eepublic is on duty to-day. But not in the service of arms. The storm and siege and bivouac and battle line have given place to the ministrations of peace and the manifestations of affectionate regard for faUen comrades, in which the great body of the people cheerfully and reverently unite. The service of the day is more to us — ^far raore to us — than to those in whose memory it is performed. It means nothing to the dead, everything to the living. It reminds us of what our stricken comrades did and sacrificed and won. It teaches us the awful cost of liberty and the price of National unity, and bids us guard with sacred and sleepless vigilance the great and immortal work which they wrought. [Applause.] The annual tribute which this Nation brings to its heroic dead is, in part at least, due to American thought and conception, creditable to the living and honorable to the dead. No nation in the world has so honored her heroic dead as ours. The soldiery of no country in the world have been crowned with such immortal meed or received at the hands of the people such substantial evidences of National regard. Other nations have decorated their great captains and have knighted their illustrious commanders. Monuments have been erected to per petuate their names. Permanent and triumphal arches have been raised to mark their graves. Nothing has been omitted to mani fest and make immortal their valorous deeds. But to America is mankind indebted for the loving and touching tribute this day per formed, which brings the offerings of affection and tokens of love to the graves of all our soldier dead. [Applause.] We not only honor our great captains and illustrious commanders, the men who led the THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER. 359 vast armies to battle, but we shower equal honors in equal measure upon all, irrespective of rank in battle or condition at home. [Ap plause.] Our gratitude is of that grand patriotic character which recognizes no titles, permits no discrimination, subordinates all dis tinctions ; and the soldier, whether of the rank and file, the line or the staff, who fought and fell for Liberty and Union — all who fought in the great cause and have since died, are warmly cherished in the hearts and are sacred to the memory of the people. [Great ap plause.] Mr. President, from the very commencement of our Civil War we recognized the elevated patriotism of the rank and file of the army and their unselfish consecration to the country, while subsequent years have only served to increase our admiration for their splendid and heroic services. They enlisted in the army with no expectation of promotion ; not for the paltry pittance of pay ; not for fame or popular applause, for their services, however efficient, were not to be heralded abroad. They entered the army moved by the highest and purest motives of patriotism, that no harm might befall the Eepublic. While detracting nothing from the fame of our matchless leaders, we know that without that great army of volunteers, the citizen soldiery, the brilliant achievements of the war would not have been possible. [Applause.] They, my fellow-citizens, were the great power. They were the majestic and irresistible force. They stood behind the strategic commanders, whose intelligent and individual earnestness, guided by their genius, gained the imperishable victories of the war. I would not withhold the most generous eulogy from conspicuous sol diers, living or dead — from the leaders Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Hancock, McClellan, Hooker, and Logan — who flame out the very incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor before the eyes of the American people, and have an exalted rank in history, and fill a great place in the hearts of their countrymen. [Applause.] We need not fear, my fellow-citizens, that the great captains will be for gotten. No retrospect of the war can be had, no history of the war can be written, which shall omit the name of the gallant Sheridan, he who made the scene of Stonewall Jackson's stronghold in the Shenandoah Valley a field of glory [applause] ; and no contemplation of the war can be had that shall pass unnoticed the name of the illus trious Hancock [applause], whose brilliant achievements at Gettys burg and upon other noted fields have covered him with imperishable fame. [Applause.] And, my fellow-citizens, no history of this war will ever be written which will omit the name of the glorious Sher- 360 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. man [applause], that grand old soldier who delved into the moun tains at Chattanooga and came out gloriously triumphant at the sea. [Thunders of applause.] Nor can we ever forget that majestic tri umvirate who commanded the grand military divisions of the grand est army of the world [applause], and Grant, monument or no monu ment [applause] — Grant will be remembered forever. [Cheers.] That silent, sturdy soldier who closed his lips on the word victory at the Wilderness and refused to speak, but fought it out on that line until the final grand surrender at Appomattox. [Applause.] No retrospect of that war can be had which shall omit the names of the gaUant naval officers who contributed such distinguished services [applause] — Porter, Dahlgren, Dupont, Foote, Ammen, Eowan ; and " While old Ocean's breast bears a white sail. And God's soft stars at rest guide through the gale, Men will ne'er thy narae forget, O heart of oak, Farragut, Farragut, Thunderbolt's stroke I " But the fame of these men, in which the Nation has so just a pride, and whose names are indissolubly associated with that great conflict, is, after all, but the reflection of the patience, and the cour age, and the heroism, and the sacrifices of the rank and file of the army. [Applause.] Of general and soldier it can be said : " Their fame is one and indivisible, and that you can not disunite the glory of their deeds ; and while the private soldier bore no insignia of rank upon the outside, his blue blouse bore a heart within." [Applause.] My friends, we had a million soldiers in the field when the war terminated, and the highest testimony to their character is found in the fact that when the muster hour carae, and that vast army, which for years had been accustomed to wars and carnage, returned to their homes, they dropped into the quiet walks of citizenship, and no trace of them was ever discernible except in their integrity of character, their intense patriotism, and their participation in the growth and development and maintenance of the Government which they had contributed so much to save. [Applause.] " What becarae of these battalions When the victory was won ? Let rae point you to a picture I See a million soldiers there Flushed with triumph, and with weapons Plashing keen and bright and bare. Vanished. Wondrous transformation 1 Where is now that mighty band? THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER. 361 Do they roam, a vast banditti. Pillaging their native land ? No. We point to field and workshop : Let the world the moral see ! There beneath the dust of labor Toil the veteran soldiery. Ye who were mightiest in the battle On the mountain and the plain, Wrought, yes, wrought your greatest triumph When ye sought your homes again — Sought your homes 'mid peace and quiet, Grasping with your strong right hand Implements of honest labor, Toiling to upbuild the land." My fellow-citizens, the rank and file of the old Eegular Army was made of the same heroic mold as our Volunteer Army. It is a recorded fact in history, that when treason swept over this coun try in 1861 — when distinguished officers, who had been educated at the public expense, who had taken the oath to support the Consti tution of the United States and defend this Government against all its eneraies, when they proved recreant to trust and duty, and en listed under the banner of the Confederacy — the rank and file of that Old Army stood steadfast to Federal authority, loyal to the Federal Government, and no private soldier followed his old commander into the ranks of the enemy. [Applause.] None were false to conscience or to country. None turned their backs on the old fiag. [Applause.] The most splendid exhibition of devotion to country and to the Government and the flag was displayed also by our prisoners of war. We had 175,000 soldiers taken prisoners during the Civil War ; and when death was stalking within the walls of their prisons, when starvation was almost overcoming their brave hearts, when mind was receding and reason was tottering, liberty was offered to those 175,000 men upon one condition — that they would swear allegiance to the Confederate Government and enlist in the cause of the Con federacy. What was the answer of our brave but starving comrades ? [Voices, " No ! "] There could be but one answer. They preferred to suffer all and to bear all rather than prove false to the cause they had sworn to defend. [Applause.] Now, so far removed from the great war, we are prone to forget its disasters and underestimate its sacrifices. Their magnitude is best appreciated when contrasted with the losses and sacrifices of other armies in other times. There were slain in the late war nearly 362 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. 6,000 commanding officers and over 90,000 enlisted men, and 207,000 died of disease and from exposure, making a grand total of 303,000 men. In the War of the Eevolution between the United States and Great Britain, excluding those captured at Yorktown and Sara toga, the whole number of men killed and wounded and captured of the combined British and American forces was less than 22,000. We witnessed that loss in a single battle in a single day in the great Civil War. From 1775 to 1861, including all the foreign wars in which we were engaged, and all our domestic disturbances, covering a period of nearly twenty-four years, we lost but ten general officers, whUe in the four and a half years of the late war we lost one hundred and twenty-five. Massena, the French marshal at Zurich, in 1799, when he defeated General Korsakoff, the Eussian, lost but eight per cent of his forces, while bloody Shiloh yielded up more than thirty per cent. Bona^ parte, in the famous battle of Marengo, which was an awful disaster in the morning and a splendid victory in the evening, lost but 4,000 of his forces, while the heights of Gettysburg yielded up twenty-eight per cent of a loss to our forces, or a total of 23,000 brave men. Wel- lingington, at Waterloo, lost but fifteen per cent of his forces, and in the bloody Wilderness we lost thirty-one per cent. Napoleon, at Austerlitz, lost ten per cent of his forces, and our sacrificial loss at Antietam and at Murfreesboro was twenty-nine per cent. " How they went forth to die ! Pale, earnest thousands from the busy mills. And sunbrowned thousands from the harvest hUls, Quick, eager thousands from the city streets. And storm-tossed from the fishers' fleets — How they went forth to die ! " My feUow-citizens, we counted no cost when the war commenced. We knew little of the great sacrifices which were to come or the scope and extent of that great war ; we only knew that the Union was threatened with overthrow; we only knew that the Nation of our fathers was in danger by the hand of treason. And that alone made the liberty-loving people indifferent to cost and consequences, caring nothing but to smite the hand which would seize our priceless inheritance, and scorning all other considerations that they might preserve to mankind the best Government in the world. It was then that the genius of self-government asserted itself, and the whole North was turned into a camp for muster and military instruction. The citizens voluntarily came together to join an army bound to- THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER. 363 gether in a common cause for a common purpose — the preservation of the Union. It was an awful experience for the American boy, who knew nothing of war, in many instances, save as he had read of it in the glamour of history, and who in many cases had never so much as seen a company of armed men. Unused to hardships, unaccustomed to toil, undriUed in the tactics of war, with a mother's blessing and a father's affectionate farewell, he went forth with firm resolve to give up all, even the last drop of his life's blood, that this Nation should be saved. And, my fellow-citizens, we not only knew little of the scope and proportions of that great war, or the dreadful sacrifice to be incurred, but as little knew the great results which were to follow. We thought at the beginning, and we thought long after the commencement of the war, that the Union to be saved was the Union as it was. That was our understanding when we enlisted, that it was the Constitution and the Union — the Constitution as it was and the Union as it was — for which we fought, little heeding the teachings of history, that wars and revolutions can not fix in advance the boundaries of their influence or determine the scope of their power. History en forces no sterner lesson. Our own Eevolution of 1776 produced re sults unlooked for by its foremost leaders. Separation was no part of the original purpose. Political alienation was no part of the flrst plan. Disunion was neither thought of nor accepted. Why, in 1775, on the 5th day of July, in Philadelphia, when the Continental Con gress was in session declaring its purposes toward Great Britain, what did it say ? After declaring that it would raise armies, it closed that declaration with this significant language : Lest this declaration should disquiet the rainds of sorae of our friends and fellow-subjects in other parts of the Erapire, we assure them that we do not raean to dissolve the union which has so long and happily subsisted between us. Our fathers said in that same declaration : We have not raised arraies with arabitious designs to separate from Great Britain and establish independent States. Those were the views of the fathers. Those were the views enter tained by the soldiers and statesmen of colonial days. Why, even the Declaration of Independence, which has sounded the voice of liberty to all mankind, was a shock to some of the colonists. The cautious and conservative, while believing in its eternal truth, doubted its wis dom and its policy. It was in advance of the thought of the great body of the people. Yet it stirred a feeling for independence, and an aspiration for self-government, which made a Eepublic that has now 24 364 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. lived more than a century ; and only a few days ago you were per mitted to celebrate the centennial inauguration in this city of its first great President. [Applause.] Out of all that came a Eepublic that stands for human rights and human destiny, which to-day represents more than any other Government the glorious future of the human race. [Applause.] Our own Civil War produced results unlooked for on either side. The South engaged in it to destroy the Union, that it might perpetu ate its peculiar institution of slavery. It happily accomplished neither the one nor the other. [Applause.] What was the purpose of the North ? I will give you its official purpose. On July 22, 1861, Con gress adopted a resolution declaring the determination and the pur pose of the American people. What was it ? I quote its exact lan guage : " To defend the Constitution of the United States and pre serve the Union." How ? I again quote : " With all the rights " — slavery and all — " of the slave States unimpaired." That resolution passed the House with but two dissenting votes. It passed the Senate unanimously. You know that Lincoln was in the habit of saying he would save the Union with slavery, or he would save it without slavery, or he would save it part slave and part free. There you have the resolution of Congress and you have the statement of the President. These are the official manifestoes. This was the legisla tive and executive will ; and as soon as these objects were accom plished the war must cease. That was the boundary of human vision. That was the chalk- line of human purpose. That was the official determination. But it could not be so. The results overleaped the resolution and overleaped the statement of the President, and brought emancipation to 4,000,- 000 men [applause], and placed in the Constitution of the United States, where it had never been before, and where, under God, it shall stand forever [applause], civil and political equality to every citizen everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Government. That was not the outcome looked for in the beginning. That was not the ex pectation of the early volunteers. That was not the expectation of the Congress, or the President and his Cabinet. Man's purposes were overruled, but not from man came the issue : " From Hira who is the Sovereign of soul and life came our order of battle, that He might be God and that man might be free." My friends and fellow-citizens, the settlements of that war — and I speak for my comrades of the Grand Army of the Eepublic — the settlements of that war must stand as the irreversible judgraent of THB AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER. 365 battle and the inflexible decree of a Nation of free men. [Applause.] They must not be misinterpreted, they must not be nullified, they must not be weakened or shorn of their force under any pretext whatever, but must be acquiesced in freely in every part of the Ee public, without reservation or voidance or evasion. [Applause.] It must not be equality and justice in the written law only. It must be equality and justice in the law's administration everywhere, and alike administered in every part of the Eepublic to every citizen thereof. It must not be the mere cold formality of constitutional enactment. It must be a living birthright, which the poorest and the humblest may enjoy, and which the richest and most powerful dare not deny. [Applause.] Our black allies must neither be deserted nor forsaken. [Ap plause.] And every right secured them by the Constitution must be as surely given to them as though God had put upon their faces the color of the Anglo-Saxon race. [Applause.] They fought for the flag in the war, and that flag, with all it represents and stands for, must secure them every constitutional right in peace. [Applause.] At Baton Eouge the flrst regiment of the Black Brigade, before starting for Port Hudson, received at the hands of its white colonel — Colonel Stafford — its regimental colors in a speech from the colonel, which ended with this injunction : " Color-bearer, guard, defend, protect, die for, but do not sur render these colors." [Applause.] To which the sergeant replied — and he was as black as my coat : " Colonel, I'll return those flags to you in honor, or I'll report to God the reason why." He fell mortally wounded in one of those desperate charges in front of Port Hudson, with his face to the enemy, with those colors in his clinched fist pressed upon his breast. He did not return the colors, but the God above him knew the reason why. [Applause.] Against those who fought on the other side in that great conflict we have no resentment ; for them we have no bittemess. We would impose upon them no punishment ; we would inflict upon them no indignity. They are our brothers. We would save them even from humUiation. [Applause.] But I will tell you what we insist upon, and we will insist upon it until it is secured — that the settlement made between Grant and Lee at Appomattox, which was afterward embodied in the Constitution of the United States, shall be obeyed and respected in every part of this Union. [Applause.] More we have never asked, less we will not have. [Applause. A voice, '' That's 366 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. right."] Beyond that step we have never advanced, short of it we can not stop. Justice and righteousness plant us there ; and " Eight is might and truth is God " [applause] ; and we might just as well remember now that God puts no nation in supreme place that will not do supreme work [applause] ; and God keeps no nation in supreme place which will not meet the supreme duty of the hour. " From the war's dread fiery ordeal No bitter hates we bring, No threat of wild revenges. No cruel taunts to fiing ; But we must not prove faithless To the gallant blood they shed ; Our foes are all forgiven. But ne'er forgot our dead. " 0 boys, who fell at Shiloh, At Richmond and Bull Run, The work your brave hands finished Shall never be undone. Sleep sweetly through the ages, 0 dear and gallant dust ! The men who guard your victories Stand faithful to their trust." Comrades of the Grand Army of the Eepublic, those were brave men whose graves we decorated to-day. No less brave were those whose chambers of repose are beneath the scarlet fields in distant States. We may say of all of them as was said of the Knights of St. John in the Holy Wars : " In the forefront of every battle was seen their burnished mail, and in the gloomy rear of every retreat was heard their voice of conscience and of courage." " It is not," said Mr. Lincoln, " what we say of them, but what they did, which will live." They have written their own histories, they have builded their own monuments. No poor words of mine can enhance the glory of their deeds, or add a laurel to their fame. Liberty owes them a debt which centuries of tribute and mountains of granite adorned by the master hands of art can never repay. And so long as liberty lasts and the love of liberty has a place in the hearts of men, they will be safe against the tooth of time and the fate of oblivion. The Nation is full of the graves of the dead. You have but a small fraction of them here in New York, although you contributed one tenth of all the dead, one tenth of all the dying, one tenth of all the prisoners, one tenth of all the sacrifices in that great conflict. Y6u have but a sraall number here ; the greater number sleep in dis- THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER. 367 tant States, thousands and tens of thousands of them of whom there is no record. We only know that fighting for freedom and union they fell, and that the place where they fell was their sepulchre. The Omniscient One alone knows who they are and whence they came. But when their immortal names are called from their silent muster, when their names are spoken, the answer will come back, as it was the custom for many years in one of the French regiments when the name of De la Tour d'Auvergne was called the answer came back, " Died on the field of honor." America has volumes of muster rolls containing just such a record. Mr. President and comrades of the Grand Army of the Eepublic, our circle is narrowing with the passing years. Bvery annual roll-call discloses one and another not present, but accounted for. There is a muster roll over yonder as well as a muster roll here. The majority of that vast army are fast joining their old commanders who have preceded them on that other shore. " They are gone who seemed so great — Gone I but nothing can bereave them Of the force they made their own Being here ; and we believe them Something far advanced in state, And that they wear a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave them. Speak no more of their renown, And in the vast cathedral leave them. God accept them ; Christ receive them." PEOTECTION AND EEVENUE. A Campaign Speech at Music Hall, Cleveland, Ohio, October 5, 1889. [From ihe Cleveland Leader.] Mr. President and my Fellow-Citizens : Political parties are indispensable to popular government. Except in the election of the first President of the United States we have always had political parties, under various designations. They have not always been under the same name, but save in the election of Washington we have always had two or more great political organizations. In the days of the Eevolution we had Whigs and Tories, the former stand ing for the independence of the colonies and the latter for their dependence upon Great Britain. Subsequently we had the Federal party and the Anti -Federal or Eepublican-Democratic party, with the two names frequently united, though at first the former alone was used ; then the Democratic, the Whig, the Free Soil, the Liberty, and Anti-Slavery parties ; and now, since 1855, we have had, as the two leading parties of the country, the Eepublican and the Democratic. It is a fact worthy to be noted that the very principles for which we are contending to-day, the identical policies and theories of gov ernment which divide the two chief political organizations now, have in some form or other always divided the political parties of the country since the formation of the Federal Government. There has always been in the United States a political party that favored a strict construction of the Constitution of the United States, that stood in opposition to internal improvements and to a protective tariff, that believed in class and caste and obstruction ; and there has always been, on the other hand, a party that stood for the largest liberty, for the full development of the country, for the improvement of the great National water ways of the United States, and for the maintenance of a protective tariff and the widest opportunities for American aspiration; and to-day, I repeat, that the two political PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 369 parties now contending for public confidence, now contesting for political control, are divided substantially on the sarae issues that separated the parties of the fathers all through the first century of the Eepublic. If Madison and Hamilton, Clay and Webster stood for a system of taxation that would bear most lightly upon the peo ple, and least retard our industrial development, so the Eepublican party stands to day for precisely the same system, insisting that it shall stand and remain on the statute-books of our country. [Ap plause.] If Lincoln and Chase, Giddings and Wade contended for the freedom of man, the Eepublican party which they founded is to-day contending for that without which the freedom they secured would not be worth possessing. So we are battling this year, as we battled last, for the maintenance of those great principles upon which depend the liberty of the citizen and the prosperity of the people. Taxation is necessary to any government. You can not form a municipality, you can not organize a county, you can not cueate a State, you can not form any government, without having to meet at the very threshold the question of how the money is to be raised to pay the current expenses imposed by such government. So I propose to talk to you for a little while, at the beginning of my address, upon this subject of taxation. We can not get along with out taxation. It requires about a million doUars every twenty-four hours to carry on the operations of the General Government. This money must be raised from some source. The Government can not create it, for, great as the Government is, it can not make values out of nothing. It would not do to raise this large sum of money by direct taxation, for direct taxation is unpopular with the people, and has never been submitted to by the citizens of this country except in the presence of a great National emergency ; so we must find some other system for raising this nearly $350,000,000 annually, required for public purposes. We must raise it by some other system than that of taxing ourselves, our lands, our incomes and our professions. Hence both political parties of the country have come to agree that the bulk of this vast sum of money must be raised by what is com monly caUed the tarifl — that is, taxing the products of other coun tries rather than by a direct system of taxing our own products; taxing the merchandise of other countries that is seeking a market here rather than taxing the domestic products that are made or grown here. Up to that point the two great parties of the country are in substantial accord, but at that point they diverge, the Demo cratic party insisting, as it has ever insisted as a National party, that 370 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. this annual outlay, this vast sum of money required for governmental purposes, shall be raised by what is known as a revenue tariff and under a revenue-tariff system ; while the Eepublican party insists that this large sum of money shall be raised under what is commonly known as the protective system. It is here that the two political par ties of the country divide. It is here that the people of this country are called upon to give judgment between them ; and to give intelli gent judgment upon this question it is necessary that we should rightly understand what constitutes a revenue tariff, and exactly what is meant by a protective tarifl. Now, a revenue tariff, as the ve^ term implies, is a tariff for revenue only, a tariff which has n^J^B|m,%io object, no end in view, except putting money into the Treasury for public purposes. It is a tariff that dismisses and discards every consideration save the single one of putting money into the Federal Treasury. A protective tarifl not only looks to the question of revenue, not only has that in view, but while raising revenue it has consideration for the occupations of our own people. It has concern for our agricultural and mechanical development. In a word, it looks to the imposition of duties npon those foreign productions that will fall most lightly upon our own people and least retard the progress of the country. The one has the single purpose of raising revenue, the other has the double purpose of revenue and protection — support of our Government, and defense of our interests against the competing industries of other countries. Now, you will readily see that to raise the amount of revenue we need from the smallest rate of duty, you would first impose your tarifls upon the foreign products which are most imported into the United States, for a revenue tarifl rests upon importation — large importations. Every cargo, every invoice, every importation that comes into the United States puts money into the Federal Treasury. But you can not raise all the money required for public purposes by putting your duty upon a noncompeting foreign product, and so the advocates of a revenue tarifl say that you must then adjust your duty upon the com peting foreign product, but you must make it so low as to invite im portations of such corapeting product, and you must make the duty so low as to encourage the American people to buy the foreign product rather than to buy the domestic product ; you must make it so low that in the judgment of the Araerican people, however much they may be mistaken, it is more profitable for them to go abroad and buy than to buy the goods that are produced in the United States. In making the duty low for that purpose you have the very perfection PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 371 and consummation of a revenue tarifl. If that duty in any way favors or encourages Amorican producers ; if it in any way protects our own people in their productions against foreign productions, then it ceases to be a revenue tarifl and becoraes a protective tarifl, and " where protection begins, then," in the language of the political economists, " revenue ends." So if you find, when you have adjusted your revenue tariff, that it is toa high, that it in fact gives encourage ment to American producers, the advocates of the revenue tariff say, " Put it down " ; " Make it lower " ; " Bring it down so that it gives no protection, no favor, no discrimination to our own producers." If you fail to do that, then you do not secure the largest amount of money or revenue from the smallest rate of duty. Your duty must be low enough to increase importations of the foreign competing product. It must be low enough to diminish production at home and increase the demand for foreign production ; and you can readily see that every increase of importation of the foreign competing prod uct diminishes by just so much the American product. Every time you bring the competing product into the United States it takes the place of a like quantity of the American product. The revenue tariff cares nothing for that. This tariff is to secure revenue, and must be put low enough to diminish the demand for domestic pro duction and increase the demand for foreign production. But while you are putting ample money into the Federal Treasury by a tariff as low as that ; while you are increasing the fiow of revenue into the National Treasury, you are diminishing the money in the pock ets of our people, you are diminishing our own production, you are diminishing the demand for American labor ; for every cargo, every invoice, every importation from foreign countries, of a product that competes with what we make in the United States, displaces just so much of American production, and to that extent deprives the Amer ican workingmen of what justly belongs to them. [Applause.] Now, if you want that to occur, then you want a revenue tariff. If you want increased foreign productions, then put your revenue tariff upon such foreign products and you will have them. You will have ample revenue, you will have an overflowing Treasury, but while you are securing an overflowing Treasury you are bankrupting our own industries, destroying our own investments, and depriving American workingmen of the labor which belongs to them. [Ap plause.] But there is a time when revenue ceases to overflow in the Treasury from a revenue-tariff system. After you have impoverished our own people — after you have destroyed our own industries — then 372 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. our people become so poor that they can not import, and the revenues fall ofl. Even under a revenue-tarifl system, as was the case in 1860, at the close of the revenue-tarifl period under the very perfection of a revenue-tarifl system, the revenues had so fallen ofl that the Gov ernment had to go into the markets of the world to borrow money to pay the ordinary expenses of the Government. A protective tariff not only looks to the question of revenue, but it has the patriotic motive of taking care of our own people. It says, "Let everything come into the United States free of duty wliich we can not produce or manufacture ourselves." A few years after the close of the war, when the Eepublican party was satisfled that it could take care of the great debt, it at once removed the duty from all the products that we could not produce in the United States. It took the tariff off tea, coffee, and the spices. It relieved many of the products which we had to import from taxation, because protec tion says that everything that can not be raised in the United States and the people of this country must have, should come in untaxed to the people; that you must put your tax, your burden, your duty, upon the competing foreign product — that is, the product which com petes with the American product. The Eepublican party says : " Put it upon that product which competes with our labor and with our in vestments, and make that product bear the burden, and while it is putting money in the National Treasury it is standing as a wall of defense to our own labor and our own capital." [Applause.] Ah, but they say that this protective tariff is paid by the consumer. There never was a greater economic fallacy enunciated. Protective tariffs are never paid by the consumer after the country that enjoys protection is capable of supplying the whole market of that country. [Applause.] Then corapetition among our own producers brings down and regulates the price. Our own history is the best refutation of that fallacy. There is not a single article of production, from the watch-spring to the car-wheel, from the smaUest article to the largest, that has not been cheapened by American production, made possible only by a protective tariff. [Applause.] There are men here who bought foreign goods when we could not produce the like at home. Compare the price you paid then with the price you pay now for our own goods, and you will find that it is in your favor from twenty-five to fifty per cent. [Applause.] A revenue tariff is always paid by the consumer — invariably and inevitably. You put a tax on the noncompeting foreign product, and who pays it ? What fixes the price ? Why, the foreigner fixes PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 373 the price. Why ? Because there is no competition at home to bring the price down. The country that has the monopoly of our con sumption is the country that fixes the price. Is not that so of the noncompeting foreign product? We have no domestic production to meet the foreign production and regulate and neutralize the price. There is nothing here to stop it. The noncompeting foreign produc tion comes in unchecked, and the price, therefore, to the American consumer of such a product is the foreign price with the American duty added. When we added a duty in war times to tea, coffee and spices, and to drugs, the American consumer paid the American tariff. Why? Because we could not raise those products in the United States, and therefore the foreigner had the monopoly of this market and fixed his own price, and his price was the price in his own country, with the American duty added. So it is with any arti cle for which we are not capable of supplying the American demand. So it is with sugar. We produce one pound out of every twelve that we consume. Eleven pounds of every twelve come from abroad. Who fixes the price of sugar to the American consumer ? Is it the Louisiana sugar grower who produces but one pound out of every twelve we consume, or is it the foreign producer who furnishes eleven pounds out of every twelve we consume ? Why, there is not a school boy in this audience that does not know that the producer of the eleven twelfths fixes the price — that the price of the one twelfth is fixed by the price of the eleven twelfths. But they say. If we had a free-trade revenue tariff we would cap ture the export trade ; we could go out and control the foreign mar ket. Why talk of the foreign market until we have possessed our own ? Why talk about going three thousand miles away, across the sea, to find a market for our goods, when we have the best market in the world at home, and do not possess all of it now ? [Applause.] We imported last year $720,000,000 worth of foreign products, $350,000,000 at least of which ought to have been produced in the United States. Don't you think we had better produce that $350,- 000,000 worth, and supply the American demand, before we go to looking for a foreign market? What a difference it would have made to this country if we could have kept those $350,000,000 at home and had them circulating through the arteries of trade and the avenues of business ! They would have been felt from one end of this country to the other. We imported last year $55,000,000 worth of iron and steel. How much do you suppose, my feUow- citizens, that represents in labor alone, considering the labor in the 374 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. coal mine, the ore mine, the labor employed in transportation to the miUs, the labor in the factories, and then the labor employed in transporting the finished product ? Why, the amount of iron and steel we imported last year represents the labor of 100,000 men for 300 days, or from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 in labor alone ! Now, the Eepublican party says, " Give those 300 days' work to 100,000 American workingmen rather than to 100,000 men on the other side." That is the policy of protection! [Applause.] We imported last year $150,000,000 worth of agricultural products, all of which should have been produced here, and we imported $14,000,000 worth of woolen goods and worsteds, every yard of which ought to have been made in our own factories and our own mills. And if that had been done, do you imagine that wool last year would have been selling at from eighteen to twenty cents a pound, or would it be selling, as it is this year, for from twenty-four to thirty-three cents a pound ? You increase the manufacturing products of this country in woolens $44,000,000 annually, and sheep husbandry in the United States will increase, and the price of wool will be remunerative to our own domestic producers. Ah ! but they say. Protection increases taxation ! Take the dec ade between 1870 and 1880 : Free-trade England increased her taxa tion twenty-one per cent, and protected America diminished her taxation one per cent. Next they say. Protection interferes with our foreign trade. Between 1850 and 1860, under the revenue tariff policy of the Democratic party, this country exported $821,000,000 worth of products. Between 1870 and 1880, under the protective tariff policy, this country exported, sent out of the United States, $5,100,000,000 worth of products. [Applause.] Then they declare that protection interferes with the commerce of the country. Look at the last dec ade. The commerce of England increased twenty-one per cent ; the commerce of France increased thirty-nine per cent ; the commerce of the United States increased sixty-eight per cent — all under pro tection. [Applause.] Why, all we want to-day is to look at our own history — to read the history of our country ; that is the best contra diction of the fallacies of the revenue tariff and the best vindication and approval of the protective system. From 1846 to 1861 we had the revenue-tariff policy of the Democratic party ; we had it in its simplicity and perfection. What was the result ? Why, when 1861 carae and Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, we had not a single dollar in the Federal Treasury — not one. Worse than that, we had no credit. You can sometiraes get on without money if you only have PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 375 good credit. This Government had neither at the close of the revenue- tariff period of the Democratic party. The Eepublicans came in ; a great war confronted them. They immediately created a protective tariff, patterned after the protective tariff of 1842. What followed ? Great streams of money flowed into the National Treasury ; manufac tories were built all over the United States, and increased and multi plied. We raised a mighty army, we equipped a great navy, we fur nished the sinews of a destructive war, and brought that war to a successful termination. When it was all over we had a debt of $3,750,000,000. The Democratic leaders said, "You can't pay it; you might just as well give up and repudiate it." The Eepublican party said, " No, we saved the American Union, and we propose now to save her flnancial honor ! " [Applause.] And we kept on with our protective tariff, and to-day, after twenty-four years under the protective system, that debt stands not $2,750,000,000, but less than $1,100,000,000, with a surplus in the Treasury. [Applause.] We can pay every dollar of our debt as it matures, if we want to, without in creasing taxation a farthing. Then we have good credit, and that is better than great riches. Good credit to a nation is like a good name to an individual. In 1861 James Buchanan tried to sell $25,000,000 of bonds bearing six per cent interest. Under the revenue-tariff policy of the Democratic party he was able to sell but $18,000,000, and the Government had to bear a discount of eleven cents on every dollar. The Government got eighty-nine cents on the dollar and paid six per cent interest at that. Why, this Government got so poor that it was like a faded daguerreotype, beyond identification. In January, 1861, it was so poor that James Buchanan's Secretary of the Treasury suggested to Congress that it invite the States to indorse the bonds of the Government of the United States, that they might be sold in the markets of the world. Think of the Government of the United States asking for an indorser ! [Laughter.] It is hard enough for you or me, when we want to get a little money, to be compelled to go and get bail ; but think of our great Government going about look ing up bail that it may borrow money in the markets of the world ! The United States doesn't need any indorser now. [Applause.] It can borrow all the money it wants at two per cent interest with a single name, and that name is the " United States of America," re generated by the Eepublican party. [Prolonged applause.] Which picture do you like best, that of 1861 or that of 1889 ? If we only had " free raw material " we could get into the export trade, sighs the free trader. Why, we have the free raw material now. 376 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. We have raw material in our own hills and our own vaUeys, undug and undeveloped, only waiting the hand of industry. Grover Cleve land said in the last message he sent to Congress before the election — and I have no harsh words for Mr. Cleveland ; I feel every time I speak like making a public acknowledgment to him for his free-trade message, for without it General Harrison would not be President of the United States to-day — but Mr. Cleveland said, " If we only had free raw material we could go into the export trade." Why, he wasn't familiar with the statutes of the United States ! We have free raw material to-day for the export trade, and there is not a business man in this city who does not know it. You can go to any country in the world, you can buy any raw material you want, bring it to the United States, pay the duty fixed by law at the customhouse, take it out, manufacture it into the finished product, take it back and enter it for the export trade ; enter it at our customhouse for the foreign trade, and the Government will give you back ninety per cent of the duty you paid upon the raw material, only keeping ten per cent for the ex pense of handling. And yet they talk about free raw material and the export trade ! We have it now, and it is not our fault that the Demo cratic party does not know it. [Laughter.] Then they say " everything would be so cheap " if we only had free trade. Well, everything would be cheap and everybody would be cheap. I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a word of hope ; it is not a word of comfort ; it is not a word of cheer ; it is not a word of inspiration ! It is the badge of poverty ; it is the signal of distress ; and there is not a man in this audience, not a single white- haired man, who, if he will let his memory go back, will not recall, that when things were the cheapest, men were the poorest. [Ap plause.] Stand up, citizens of Cuyahoga County, old men stand up, and bear testiraony upon this point. When prices were the lowest did you not have the least money to buy with? [Applause, and cries of " Yes ! "] Cheap ? Why, cheap merchandise means cheap men, and cheap men mean a cheap country ; and that is not the kind of Government our fathers founded, and it is not the kind their sons mean to maintain. [Applause.] If you want cheap things, go where you can get them ; that is where you belong ; this is not your abiding place. We want labor to be well paid ; we want the products of the farm, we want mechanical products, we want everything we make and produce to pay a fair corapensation to the producer. That is what makes good times ; that is what protective tariffs mean. But, complains the mournful tariff reformer, " You have strikes under pro- PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 377 tection." Strikes have nothing to do with protection or free trade. They have strikes in England ; they have strikes in every free-trade country in the world. We have strikes in protected America. And we always will have them, because when capital, in the opinion of labor, seeks to get too much out of labor, labor will strike, whether under free trade or under protection. Finally they say. You have been overburdening the people with taxation all these years ! Well, you do not look very much like an overtaxed people here in the city of Cleveland, and this is the kind of audiences that I have been addressing all over Ohio. Overtaxed ? You are the least taxed people of any country in the world. The Eepublican party overburdens you with taxation? Why, it com menced at the very conclusion of the war to roll from your shoulders the burden of taxation, and it has reduced the taxes annually $368,- 000,000 ever since. Bvery year $368,000,000 have been rolled off the shoulders of the people, and now we have a country the most pros perous in the world. But, my fellow-citizens, you may ask. What has the tariff question to do with the canvass in Ohio this year? What has it to do with a State election ? Why, if you will but reflect, it has everything to do with it — everything to do with it. You elect this year a Legislature. What does that Legislature do ? It elects a United States Senator for six years. What does that United States Senator do? Why, if he is a Eepublican he votes for protection ; if he is a Democrat he votes for free trade. It has everything to do with it. And if you believe in this system of protection you must express your belief in the votes you give for members of the Legislature. You can not vote directly for Senator ; you can not go to the Senate of the United States and vote your sentiments ; you must do it through agents — first the legis lative agents, then the senatorial agents. And did it ever occur to you that by your votes this year you will part with your sovereignty for six years beyond recall ? You can not call your representative back if he does not vote as you want him to ; you part with your sovereignty until March 4, 1897. Therefore it is of the highest moment that your legislative ticket should represent your protection sentiment and then it will find expression in the election of a United States Senator. Why, for twenty years we have had but one Eepub lican Senator in that greatest of legislative bodies — only one. True, he has been big enough to count two [great applause] ; he is about the size of any two average Senators, but just the same we have had but one Eepublican Senator for the past twenty years of our history. 378 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. All this time Ohio has been a Eepublican State, giving from 5,000 to 25,000 Eepublican majority. More than that, the voice of Ohio has been practically suppressed in the Senate of the United States ; when John Sherman voted Aye, Allen G. Thurman has been there to vote No ; or George H. Pendleton has been there to vote No ; or Henry B. Payne has been there to vote No ; so that through all these years Ohio has, in fact, had no vote and no voice in the Senate of the United States, so far as practical legislation was concerned. But what signifies a single vote ? Well, I have seen the political control of the Senate turned in a single day by a single vote. You know that the protective tariff of 1842 was stricken down in 1846 by a single vote, that of George M. Dallas, Vice-President of the United States! I saw Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware, within ten years, made presiding officer of the greatest parliamentary body of the world by a single vote. So it means everything. I do not care who you send. I don't care who John Sherman's associate may be, only I want him to be a Eepublican. [Great applause.] But I want for the next ten years — aye, for twenty years — to have, instead of one big vote, two big Eepublican votes from Ohio. And while I am on this legislative and State question, let me say I not only want the Legislature to be Eepublican, but I want every friend of mine in Cuyahoga County, I want every Eepublican in Cuyahoga County to give his cheerful vote to our splendid candidate for Governor, Joseph Benson Foraker ! [Great applause.] He has been our Governor for four years. We have had a good many great Governors of Ohio. We have had Chase, and Dennison, and Tod, and Brough, and one of God's noblemen in the person of Eutherford B. Hayes. [Applause.] But you may scan the public record of Gov ernor Foraker and you will find that it will shine brightly beside the best. He is brave, he is courageous, he is manly, he is brilliant, and even the Democrats admit that he is able. [Laughter, and a voice, " They have to."] He calls things by their right names, and when he sees something he doesn't like he hits it, and he hits it hard. [Applause.] Voice your approval of his four years' administration by giving to him your full vote and an old-fashioned Eepublican ma jority in Cuyahoga County. But they claim that we have boards of election in Ohio that are subversive of the freedom and independence of the people. They say that our election boards really interfere with the right of suffrage. Why, my fellow-citizens, what are they for ? They are to protect the right of suffrage ; they are intended to give every man who is entitled PROTECTION AND REVENUE. 379 to vote just one vote, and no more ; they are intended to keep every man who is not entitled to a vote from casting a vote at the polls. Nobody ought to object to that ; nobody but the man who wants to vote iUegally can object. No man objects to the law of larceny except the man who wants to steal. No man objects to this registration board unless he wants Ulegal votes polled. And so I say it is the duty of every legal voter in the city of Cleveland to inconvenience himself long enough to go and register, that he may thus aid in purging the ballot. It affects us in the country as much as it does you. A hundred iUegal votes given to the Democratic party in the city of Cleveland equals a hundred legal Eepublican votes in any of the counties of the Western Eeserve. It not only protects you, but it gives force and effect and efficacy to the wUl of the legal voters of the State. Isn't it amusing to hear the Democratic party talk about interfering with the right of suffrage ? — the party that hasn't won a National victory for forty years that was not the price of fraud and the wicked suppression of the ballot! Why, they have held the lower House of Congress by fraud for fifteen years. Their majorities are secured by the most violent, flagrant disregard of the Constitu tion of the United States — by nullification, ballot suppression, and fraud. Grover Cleveland would not have been President of the United States if every man who was entitled to vote had been per mitted to exercise that franchise, and when he exercised it his ballot had been counted as it was cast. [Applause.] If we can have an honest ballot and a fair count in this country, the Democratic party will not control the Government for the next fifty years. I don't know what you think about it, but I say to you, my fellow-citizens, that the Constitution of the United States must be observed, re spected and obeyed in every part of this Eepublic by every citizen. I was glad to see that the other night at Cincinnati that grand old hero General Sherman, in addressing the Army of the Tennessee, surrounded by his old soldiers of every political party, said, speaking of this wicked suppression of the baUot : " It is not right, it is not honest, it is not fair." Then, turning to his old comrades, he said : "Boys, this is not the settlement we made at Appomattox Court House, which was afterwards put into the Constitution of the United States." [Applause.] Those were grand words, and they were words that should burn in every heart to-night. So far National legislation has not reached the trouble ; so far the strong arm of the Government has not corrected this fiagrant abuse. But it will correct it, and that speedily, let us hope. It is not manly, 25 380 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. it does not become a brave people to stand by and see their weaker fellow-citizens deprived of their just constitutional rights. " Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be disposessed, But blessed are they among nations who dare to be strong for the rest." [Ap plause.] Our black allies must neither be forsaken nor deserted. I weigh my words. This is the great question not only of the present, but it is the great question of the future ; and this question will never be settled nntil it is settled upon principles of justice, recognizing the sanctity of the Constitution of the United States. [Applause.] We cherish no resentments from the war ; we have no bitterness against the people of the South. We want them to be our brothers, not only in name but in spirit and in heart. We bid them enjoy equally our prosperity. But at the same time we bid them obey the Constitution of the country. [Applause.] We have no feeling, I say, against that section ; but this contest will go on until this right shall not be a mere cold formality of constitutional enactment, but a living birth right which the poorest and the humblest may confidently enjoy, and which the richest and most powerful dare not deny. It wiU go on until the American ballot box shall be as sacred and as pure as the American home. [Prolonged applause.] THE QUESTION OF A QUOEUM. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, January 30, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The question before the House recurring on the appeal from the decision of Speaker Reed, who the day previous had held that members present in the House, although declining to vote, should be counted as present to constitute a quorum within the meaning of the Constitution, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : No one appreciates more than I do the impor tance and gravity of the question which confronts us this morning. No one can realize the full import of the question we are to deter mine to-day unless he has been a member of the House of Eepre sentatives during the last dozen years, or unless he has been a close and daily student of its proceedings. This question is important in every aspect in which we may view it — important not only to the majority, but to the minority ; important now and for the future ; and of such supreme importance to all of us and to the people whose interests we represent, that we may well pause and consider it in all its bearings as a practical question under the Constitution of the United States, unmoved by passion and unaffected by partisan ship. It is, as the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle] said on yes terday, much more of a constitutional question than a parliamentary one. And it is of enough import and consequence to require at the very outset a statement of what has occurred, of what has led up to the strange situation in which we find ourselves to-day. Yesterday the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Dalzell], authorized as he was by his Committee, called to the attention of the House an election case, which, under the Constitution of the United States, is a question of the highest privilege. When he presented that case the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Crisp] raised against it a question of considera- 382 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tion, and upon that question the yeas and nays were demanded and ordered by gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber, who in less than thirty minutes afterward sat in their seats silent and refused to vote — refused to vote under their own call for the yeas and nays. [Laughter and applause.] When that yea-and-nay vote was concluded it disclosed that there were 161 votes in the affirmative and two votes in the negative, lack ing two of a majority of the House of Eepresentatives as at present constituted, it requiring 165 members to constitute a quorum of the House by the present membership under the Constitution of the United States. Thereupon the Speaker of the House, as he had the right to do, as I will show hereafter, proceeded to note that thirty or thirty-five members, who had refused to vote on that roll-call for con sideration, which they had demanded and secured, were present in their seats, refusing to vote, present in their places when their names were called. Therefore, with the 163 Eepresentatives whose names were disclosed by the roll-call, to which were added the thirty names noted to be present by the Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives, the Speaker declared there was a constitutional quorum present ready to perform public business. Now from that ruling of the Speaker the gentieraan from Georgia [Mr. Crisp] took an appeal, and it is that appeal which is before the House of Eepresentatives to-day. What is involved in that appeal ? All that is involved in it is a simple practical question of fact : Was there a constitutional quorum present? Nobody questions what the Constitution means. It is plain and explicit that a majority of the House is necessary to con stitute a quorum to do business. Everybody knows how many mem bers it takes to make a majority of the House. Therefore the only question to be determined under this appeal is whether a majority of the House, to wit, 165 Eepresentatives, were present in their seats in the House of Eepresentatives and in session to do public business. How is that to be ascertained ? How is that count to be determined ? Why, it is to be determined, Mr. Speaker, as you determine any other fact. It may be determined by a call of the House, it may be deter mined by a rising vote, it may be determined by tellers, and it may be determined, as it was yesterday, by the Speaker of the House, by actual count. Now, there is no doubt about this question of fact. Nobody ques tions the count of the Speaker, because it is an incontrovertible fact that there were 185 or 190 members present, as the Speaker's an nouncement made it, and there were, as known to all of us, nearly 300 THE QUESTION OF A QUORUM. 383 Eepresentatives of the people sitting in their seats on this floor when the vote was taken on the consideration of the election case. Nearly 300 Eepresentatives, elected and qualifled, who had taken an oath to perform their duties under the Constitution, were here, visibly here, and nowhere else. Was not the count made by the Speaker abso lutely correct to the number and names he counted ? Will any gen tleman who voted or whose name was disclosed by the Speaker's count rise in his place and declare he was not present ? I know there was an inadvertence, an error, as explained by the Speaker, as to one member [laughter and applause on the Democratic side], but no greater inadvertence than occurs every day of our legislative session when the roll is caUed by the Clerk. And so I say, Mr. Speaker, as this is wholly and purely a question of fact, when that fact is not con troverted, when it is not contradicted, when it is not disputed, when there is indubitable evidence that more than a quorum of gentlemen are present on the floor of the House, we have met the constitutional requirement of a majority capable to do the public business and dis charge the duties devolved in our trust to the people. If the position of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle] be a correct one, then it requires a majority of the whole House voting to constitute a quorum ; and that is the logic of his position, that the roll-call itself must disclose that a majority of the House is voting or else there is no quorum ; any proposition or measure passed in the absence of such majority actually voting would be passed in contra vention of the Constitution of the United States. That is his asser tion ; that is his position. But he finds no warrant for that in the Constitution of the United States. The letter of that Constitution does not declare that a majority of the House voting shall constitute a quorum. It does not declare that a majority of the House of Eepre sentatives answering to their names upon the roll-call is essential to a constitutional quorum. It does not provide in any one of its sections how that question of a quorum is to be determined, how the number of members is to be ascertained. It is left to the House, and the House can leave it to the Speaker, whose organ he is. Why, there is abundance of general parliamentary law upon this subject maintain ing the correctness of the Speaker's holding. In Cushing's Digest of Parliamentary Law it is declared : If, therefore, it appears upon division, or if notice be taken by any member, that a quorum is not present, it will become the immediate duty of the presiding officer to count the members, and if they do not amount to a quorum, to suspend all further proceedings. 384 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Then I turn again to Cushing, on page 97, and I read a single paragraph upon parliamentary law : The assemblies, therefore, . . . may establish the quorum at any number they please, provided it is not less than the constitutional nuraber. Thus, in Massa chusetts, where the Senate is to consist of 40 merabers, not less than 16 of whom are to constitute a quorum, that body may itself determine upon and fix its own quorum at any number between 16 and 40. In some of the ways above men tioned — And here is what I desire especially to call your attention to — the quorura of each legislative assembly becomes established at a fixed number — We have a fixed number here — a majority, whatever it may be — the presence or absence of which can always be ascertained by counting. This is usually done, after the assembly is constituted, by its presiding officer, who announces or reports the result. In the Senate of the United States this duty is performed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, upon whose report to the presiding officer the latter announces the result. Por the purpose of ascertaining whether a quorum is present, every person who is entitled to vote — that is, every person whose return as a meraber has been admitted, and who has been regularly swom as such, and no other person — is to be counted, etc. This distinctly establishes the principle that the presiding officer may count the body itself, and that such a course is the usual parUa mentary practice ; that it is the duty of the presiding officer to count the merabers of the body over which he presides who may be present, in order to constitute a quorum. The gentleman from Kentucky de clared in his remarks on yesterday that under the ruling of the Speaker one Eepresentative could carry a bill if 167 gentlemen sat in their seats in sUence. WeU, so he could, and so he ought to, if 167 men sit in silence in their seats and refuse to vote when their votes would defeat the proposition ; then the vote of a single member ought to carry a bUl. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] And it has been done, Mr. Speaker, over and over again, every week at every session of Congress for the last quarter of a century. Mr. Sprtoqer. But not on a yea-and-nay vote. The question of the yea-and-nay vote has nothing whatever to do with the principle involved. Mr. Carlisle. Would it interrupt the gentleman from Ohio to ask him a question just there? Certainly not. Mr. Carlisle. The Constitution of the United States provides that when the President returns to the House in which it originated a bill without his ap- THE QUESTION OF A QUORUM. 385 proval it shall not become a law unless repassed by a vote of two thirds, and the yeas and nays shall be taken and entered upon the Journal. I understand the gentleman from Ohio to contend that if there were 165 members actually present, then that any member or any part of that number of members voting, the remainder being present and silent, will be sufficient to pass the bill. The ques tion, then, is this : Suppose that the President of the United States should send back to this House a bill with his objections, does the gentleman insist that one man could pass that bill over the President's veto if there were 166 members present and not voting? My friend from Kentucky may be very ingenious in his question, but he is not altogether fair. I am not discussing the question as to what the House could do upon a bill sent back by a President with his veto. [Derisive applause on the Democratic side.] There is a special constitutional provision which covers that character of legis lation, and that provision I am not now discussing, nor is it in any way involved in the issue before us. Mr. Carlisle. Ah I but no greater quorum is required then than in the other ease. It is simply a provision here that a vote of two thirds must pass the bill over the President's veto in order that it shall become a law, and I contend that it must be two thirds of a quorum, but the other third must participate. The gentleman must recollect that under that provision of the Constitution there is a yea-and-nay vote required, which does not apply in the case of the passage of other measures. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Carlisle. But one fifth of the members have the right to make it a yea- and-nay vote under the Constitution, and it becomes just as obligatory then as in the other case. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Yes ; and when gentlemen sit in their seats and refuse to perform a public duty they are betraying a public trust, as gentlemen on that side of the House have been doing for the past twenty-four hours. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Speaker, the point I am making to the House, and which I am seeking to enforce, is this : That under the position taken by the gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber no bill can pass this House unless a majority of the membership of the House shall vote on the one side or the other on the bill or proposition under con sideration. I will assume that to be their position when the yeas and nays are called. What is the difference between the propositions, whether a vote be by viva voce or by division or by tellers, or whether it be by yea and nay ? The question is, whether a majority of the House requisite to constitute a quorum have voted, no matter how the vote be taken ; that is the inevitable logic of the position of the 386 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. gentleraen on the other side. They must vote or not be counted, is the foundation of the gentleman's argument, whether the vote be taken by roll-call or in any other way. From that position the gen tleman can not escape. Why, Mr. Speaker, if the position of the gentleman from Ken tucky [Mr. Carlisle] be true, then as Speaker of the House — able and honorable Speaker that he was for six years — he repeatedly signed bills and joint resolutions, giving them the force of law, which never had received the vote of a constitutional quorum. He has done it over and over again, and done it, too, when the public records of this House show, as announced by him as Speaker, that less than a majority of the House voted for and against their passage. It does not matter whether the point of no quorum is made or not, if a ma jority voting is required to give force and effect to the passage of a bill. It is required because the Constitution directs it. I take another case, Mr. Speaker. Suppose twenty gentlemen on this side of the Chamber, when a yea-and-nay vote was called, should for any reason sufficient unto themselves, either because they had an interest in the measure or for any other good reason, ask to be ex cused from voting, and supposing a motion should be made that the twenty Eepresentatives on this floor be excused from voting because they had an interest in a measure, and, in fact, were excused, then would any man claim that those twenty gentlemen should not be counted to constitute a quorum, although they did not vote ? Mr. Oates. Are they not participating in the proceedings ? I beg pardon. Exactly. They are participating, and they are participating no more in the proceedings of the House than you were participating yesterday [loud applause on the Eepublican side], the only difference being that these twenty men were acting in an orderly [laughter and applause] and a lawful and parliamentary manner [laughter and applause], and the gentlemen on the other side were acting in defiance of law and the orderly conduct of public business. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Crain. Being excused, would they be counted? Undoubtedly, to make a quorum, they would be counted. That is the point I make. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] And be cause they are excused and counted, does the fact that a raember who has not respect enough for the House to ask to be excused give him license to break a quorum and stop the proceedings of this House and its publio business, when, if excused from voting, he would be THE QUESTION OF A QUORUM. 387 counted to make a quorum ? Mr. Speaker, this question is not a new one. The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle] said yesterday that there had been no decision like this in a hundred years ; that you stood there as an exception to your illustrious predecessors who had gone before you, and that their uniform decisions had been against yours. Why, this question was not known to the fathers. Mr. Crain. Nor ever would have been. Your intellectual performances yesterday and to-day were never dreamed of by the framers of the Constitution. [Laughter and ap plause on the Eepublican side.] I say, Mr. Speaker, that what occurred when this very section was under discussion by its framers throws some light on what the fa thers believed might be possible in the way of destroying a quorum and stopping public business. For, sir, they never fancied that sullen silence was a statesmanlike way of stopping public business. The later generation of statesmen have inaugurated it. We have done it — all of us. I am not saying that you gentlemen on the other side are doing differently from what we have done for fifteen or twenty years past. [Cheers on the Democratic side.] I have sat here and filibustered day after day in silence, refusing to vote, but I can not now recall that I ever did it for a high or a noble or a worthy pur pose. [Laughter and applause.] There was never a time I did it that I now remember when I did not feel ashamed of myself. [Ap plause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. That is the precise difference between the gentleman and — Mr. Speaker, I do not want my revolutionary friend to come at me in that way. [Laughter.] He disturbs me. Not only has that been my feeling in the past, but if gentlemen will be honest with themselves and honest with each other, if the old members who have served here for twelve or fifteen years will turn their minds back to those occasions, they will remember how we commenced our filibus tering, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, because of a personal pique, or because we thought that some slight had been put upon one side or the other, or upon some member of the majority or minority. But we never continued that filibustering on any occasion that the majority on both sides of the Chamber, Eepublicans and Democrats, did not confess to themselves and to each other that they were ashamed of the whole performance. This mode of stopping legisla- 388 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tion was never thought of by the framers of the Constitution. In the discussion of this very section Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved to fix the quorum at thirty-three members in the House of Eepresenta tives and fourteen in the Senate. He said : This is a majority of the present number and will be a bar to the Legislature. Fix the number low and they will generally attend, knowing that advantage may be taken of their absence. It never occurred to him, the men of that time never dreamed, that any advantage could be taken by " the presence " of members of this legislative body. They never dreamed that you could stop legis lation when actually present and in your seats by cold and studied silence. It was your absence that they feared and for which they provided a remedy, and absence is the manly way to do it. If you are going to have revolution, have it in a proper way and withdraw from the House of Eepresentatives. [Cheers on the Eepublican side.] Why, Mr. Speaker, look at it — look at what Mr. Morris fur ther says : The secession of a small number ought not to be suffered to break a quorum. He contemplated secession, you see ; going out, leaving the House the accustomed way, the parliamentary way, the constitutional way, if you please. The secession of a small number ought not to be suffered to break a quoram. He does not say that the silence of one hundred and fifty mem bers when present ought to break a quorum, for he never anticipated that such a means could be used to break a quorum. He never cal culated that a quorum could be broken while members were in their seats participating in the public business ; that Eepresentatives could be present and still counted as absent. In the National councils they may be fatal. Besides other mischiefs, if a few men can break up a quorura, they may seize a moment when a particular part of the continent may be in need of immediate aid, to extort, by threatening a seces sion, and thereby secure some unjust and selfish measure. There is no danger, he seemed to think, when all were present. But, I have said that the Constitution does not tell us how to ascer tain whether there is a majority present or not ; whether the fact is to be ascertained by vote, by roll-call, or by the count of the Speaker. The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Carlisle] says that the later provision, which authorized less than a quorum to bring in absentees, is evidence that you must have a full quorum voting in order to do public business. Why, sir, if the gentleman is right, that provision THE QUESTION OF A QUORUM. 389 of the Constitution is absolutely nugatory, absolutely without force or effect, and the framers of the Constitution need not have made it. What did they make it for? They said that less than a quorum might send for absent members and bring them into the House. For what purpose ? Why, to count them as a quorum, in order that pub lic business might be done. Suppose that, when you brought in the absent members under that constitutional provision, they should sit in silence and refuse to vote. If their silence could prevent the House from counting them to make a quorum, then that constitu tional provision would be absolutely forceless, inoperative, and the supremest folly. No gentleman can get away from that conclusion. It is the duty of every member of this House to be present at its sit tings. It is the duty of every member of this House to vote when his name is called, unless he is excused. That is the rule in every parlia mentary body ; and when gentlemen sitting here in their seats refuse to perform their public functions and their public duties, they are in no position to turn upon us, who are ready to do public business here, and call us " revolutionists." Mr. McLane, of Maryland, one of the most distinguished mem bers that ever sat on this floor, a man who was a meraber of this House when some of us were too young to be here, and who came here later and served in the Forty-flfth Congress with several gentle men whom I see before me — Mr. McLane characterized proceedings like yours of yesterday as absolutely revolutionary. I have his speech here before me ; and he made another declaration to which attention has not been called, namely, that the amendment proposed to the rules of the House by Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, in the very line of the Speaker's ruling, was clearly constitutional, and was essential for the proper performance of public business. Mr. McLane, who was minister to France under the administration of President Cleveland, said what I am now about to read when this question was up for dis cussion in the Forty-sixth Congress : The amendment not only does not provide for constructive voting, but it states distinctly that the member refusing to vote shall remain recorded not voting, precisely as if he had been excused from voting, but that his presence shall be noted and he shall be counted to make a quorum. The analogy I pre sent is, that if the House had excused him — The very point to which the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Crain] called my attention a moment ago — The analogy I present is, that if the House had excused him he would still not have voted, but would have been counted to make a quorum. 390 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. And then he declares that this amendment is strictly within the Constitution and justified by that instrument. Mr. Compton. From what is the gentleman reading ? Prom the Congressional Eecord of January 28, 1880 — the same debate to which the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Crisp] referred in his remarks yesterday. I have also in this Eecord some very pun gent remarks from the then Eepresentative from Kentucky [Mr. Blackburn], also from Mr. Phister; and also what that great con stitutional lawyer, Mr. Tucker, once the honored Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of this House, said on the same subject, to which reference was made by my distinguished colleague from Illinois [Mr. Cannon], in the debate of yesterday. They read as follows : Mr. Blackburn. The gentleman, as I understand it, offers this clause to come immediately after No. 1 of Rule VIII, and to be No. 3 : " ' 3. Whenever a quorum fails to vote on any question and objection is made for that cause, there shall be a call of the House, and the yeas and nays on the pending question shall at the same time be ordered. The Clerk shall call the roll, and each member, as he answers to his name, or is brought before the House, under the proceedings of the call of the House, shall vote on the pending ques tion. If those voting on the question, and those who are present and decline to vote, shall together make a majority of the House, the Speaker shall declare that a quorum is constituted, and the pending question shall be decided as a majority of those voting shall appear.' " Mr. Tucker. The purpose of the amendment I propose is very obvious. It is to prevent that which we have very often seen in this House, and which has occurred very often in preceding Congresses ; and I offer the amendraent without reference to its partisan infiuence in any direction, but it is to prevent the non action of the House when a quorum is actually present. A majority of the mem bers of this House, if present, constitute a quorum to do business. The Constitu tion does not say that a majority voting shall constitute a quorum, but that a majority of the House shall constitute a quoram to do business : and the practice of the Bnglish Parliament, from which most of our rules on this subject have been taken, is that, whenever the House of Commons meets, the Speaker counts the raerabers who are present, and announces that a quorum is present if there is a sufficient number ; so that the Speaker of the House of Commons may, as the Speaker here, by ocular demonstration, becorae satisfied that there is a quorum present. And the purpose of this amendment is not to make any member vote when he does not choose to vote, but to have a call of the House when a quorum is disclosed as not present upon a division on a pending question ; and then, as each member's name is called and he answers to his name, he is noted as present. He may vote or not, as he pleases. If he does not answer to his name, the Sergeant- at-Arms under the call is sent for him ; if he is in the House he is brought to the bar, and by ocular demonstration is proved to be present. And thus we may have an ascertained quorum of the House though there may not be a quorum voting. If you will look at the debates on the Federal Constitution on this sub- THE QUESTION OP A QUORUM. 391 ject you will find that the only danger the framers of that Constitution appre hended was the action of less than a majority of the House when more than a majority were absent from the House ; but there was no apprehension expressed in the debates, and no apprehension felt, that there would be any action by a majority of those voting if there were enough present to constitute a majority of the House. And so, sir, all our rules have looked to the question of present and absent merabers. If a member is not present, the Sergeant-at-Arms is sent for him. When brought in he is present, and though he may not choose to vote, as a number of gentlemen do not choose to vote, on questions that come before the House, that does not destroy the action of the House. The amendment does not require a quorum to be present to make a decision of the House valid, but it only requires there shall be a quorum present to enable the raajority to deoide upon a question. If the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Robeson] be correct in the statement he made the other day, that there must be a majority acting upon a question, the effect would be this : Under our Constitution no measure could pass against a dissenting minority unless a majority of the whole House voted for the measure ; because all that a minority has to do in the House upon any measure is to remain silent ; and if they do not, by voting, disclose the fact that they are present, the argument would be that if there is not a quorum voting on the question it is lost, or there can be no decision. That, sir, would re sult in this conclusion : That unless a majority of the whole House voted for any measure to whioh there was a minority dissenting it could not pass the House. There are a great many of the State Constitutions to which an araendraent of this kind has been made, that there shall be a majority of the whole House to pass a bill. But that is not the provision of the Federal Constitution. It is simply that a majority shall constitute a quorum, and then the decision of a question shall be by the majority of that majority. I have offered this amend ment, as I have said, not from any partisan standpoint, and I mean no disrespect to anybody, and I feel no gentleman on the other side will charge rae with disre spect toward thera ; but it seems to me not to be in accordance with the progress of the age we live in that we should sit here in a condition of nonaction under the self-delusion that we are not present when we are present, and that there shall be a power on the part' of gentlemen here upon any question of remaining silent and saying, " You can not prove I am here unless I choose to open my mouth." Mr. Blackburn. I do not raean to cavil or clamor against the opposition which may be offered to this amendraent on this floor ; but I do say that this amendment oflered by the gentleman from Virginia does not go as far as many of the States in the rules of their legislative bodies have gone. It does not direct that a member refusing to vote shall be recorded as voting in the negative. When a meraber refuses to answer to his narae— a duty raade imperative by ex isting rule, which says that he shall vote unless he be excused— the amendment of my friend from Virginia simply provides that when a member shall fail to discharge his duty imposed upon him by the highest obligation he can possibly bear, an obligation made imperative by the plain language of the rale, when re fusing to discharge suoh a duty he shall not be reported or recorded as voting at all, but his presence shall be noted in order to prevent the absence of a quorum. I do not mean to commit myself to the theory that there should be no power 392 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. given to a minority to impede or obstruct legislation. I know that there are tiraes and occasions upon which I would not abridge that power if I were able. Where the right to offer araendments has been denied, where reasonable oppor tunity for debate has been refused to the minority, it is not only their right but it is their duty to obstruct such legislation. It matters not whether I stand here with the majority or with the minority, I shall always advocate and demand that right. But I say that the report submitted by this Comraittee is not, upon any fair construction, araenable to the critioisra that it is its purpose, even as supple mented by the gentleman from Virginia, to abridge in any material respect the right that the minority should hold in this House. Take this revision, adopted as a whole, and incorporate in it the amendment now pending, and the minority will still be amply provided with every facility to obstruct and impede legislation where debate has been refused and the right of amendment denied. Mr. McLane. I for one am not very keen to adopt the amendraent of the gentieraan frora Virginia [Mr. Tucker], because frequent occasions do occur when I would much rather resort to a revolutionary proceeding than submit to the ar bitrary and tyrannical conduct of a majority [applause on the Republican side] ; but, although I ara not keen to adopt the amendraent of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, I oan not allow myself to pretend for a moment that it is a legal or proper proceeding to defeat legislation in that manner. The gentleman from Kentucky has very well made the point that if a majority are present to do busi ness, though they may not vote, the business can be done ; and under this very clause of the Constitution which gives us the right to adopt rules, we provide that a member may be excused, from voting. Ten, twenty, fifty members may be excused from voting ; and yet, though they do not vote, they count to make a quorum. I presume nobody will gainsay that. The amendraent of the gentie raan from Virginia is not only perfectly constitutional, but it is substantially what the existing rule provides in regard to members excused from voting, though it is extended to members who are not excused. The rale in the revision and in the existing code provides for excusing members ; and the gentleman from Vir ginia proposes now to extend that provision to members who are not excused. This question is weU stated by Hon. George Glover Crocker, President of the Massachusetts Senate, in his work on Principles and Procedures in Deliberative Bodies, to which I invite the close atten tion of the House : If a qmrum •is present, vote valid, though less than quorum votes.— It may be laid down as a general rule that it is the duty of every member of an organiza tion not only to be present at its meetings, but also to vote upon the questions whioh arise. Henee it is that a vote is valid and binding upon the Assembly if a quorum of the Assembly is present, even though a quomra does not vote. If a quomm is present, a raotion is carried, if supported by a majority of those who actually vote. Any other course would enable a small minority, by neglecting their duty, to have raore power than they would have if they voted. Thus, if fifty merabers constitute a quorura, and fifty members are present, it would be obviously wrong to allow one meraber, who is opposed to a pending motion, to prevent the passage of the motion by abstaining from voting, wheu, if he voted, THE QUESTION OF A QUORUM. 393 the motion would be carried by a vote of 49 to 1. In all cases, however, where, on a counted vote, it appears that a quorum has not voted, the presumption is thereby raised that a quorum is not present, and unless this presumption is overthrown the vote must be considered void. This presumption oan be overthrown by proof that a quorum was actually present at the time when the vote was taken ; and if it is so overthrown, then the vote is valid. If a quorum does not vote, but is in fact present, the Secretary should make entry in the records that on a count of the Assembly it was found that a quorum was present. Now, Mr. Speaker, what is this question ? What are we contend ing about? We are contending as to how it shall be ascertained that we have a constitutional majority present in the House. We insist, and the Speaker's ruling so declares, that members in their seats shall be counted for the purpose of making a quorum, and that their refusal to respond to their names upon a call of the roll, though pres ent, shall not deprive this House of moving in the discharge of great public duties and stop all legislation. Gentlemen on the other side insist upon what ? That they shall perpetuate a fiction — that is what it is — that they shall perpetuate a fiction because they say it is hoary with age, a fiction that declares that although members are present in their seats they shall be held under a fiction to be constructively ab sent. That is what they are contending for. We are contending that this shall be a fact and a truth, not a fiction and a falsehood, and that members who sit in their seats in this Hall shall be counted as present, because they are present. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] They want the Journal to declare a lie ; we want the Journal to declare the truth. [Eenewed applause.] And it is the truth that hurts their position and makes it indefensible ; it is the continuance of the fiction that they invoke in justification of that position. It is about time to stop these legal fictions. Let us be honest with each other and with the country ; let uS defeat bills in a constitutional way, if we can, or not at all ; give freedom of debate, opportunity of amendment, the yea-and-nay vote, by which the judgment and will of every Eepresentative can be ex pressed and responsibility fixed where it belongs, and we will preserve our own self-respect, give force to the Constitution of the country we have sworn to obey, and serve the people whose trusts we hold. Why, this controversy is to determine whether a majority shall rule and govern, or be subject to the tyranny of a minority. Talk about the "tyranny of the majority"; the tyranny of the minority is infinitely more odious and intolerable and more to be feared than that of the majority. The position of the gentlemen on the other side means that they will either rule or ruin, although they are in 394 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the minority. We insist that while we are in the majority they shall do neither. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Crisp. If the gentleman has his majority here, he need not ask us to assist. " The gentleman " is not only entitled to have his own majority here, but he is entitled to have the legally elected Eepresentatives of the people here, and here always. [Eenewed applause.] Mr. Crisp. In the language of Mr. Blaine, I deny utterly that you have any right to say I shall be present or vote, except as the Constitution gives you the right to require my attendance. I know you deny it, and we are discussing whether that denial is right or wrong. That is the issue — whether it is true or whether it is false ; and the country and an enlightened public will settle the issue between us. I say we have settled one question — settled it, I trust, for all time ; settled it at a good deal of cost, it is true — that the minority can not ruin this Government ; and we intend, if we can, under the Constitution and the laws, in broad daylight and in the presence of 60,000,000 people, whose deliberate judgment we invite upon our acts to-day, to determine whether the constitutional majority legally chosen to this House shall do the business of this House. [Long-continued applause on the Eepublican side.] CIVII^SEEYIOE EEFOEM. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, April 34, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole for the consideration of the bill (H. R. 9,006) making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Govemment, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : In the single moment that I have, I desire to say that I am opposed to the amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee to strike from this bill the appropriation for the execution of the civil-service law. My only regret is that the Committee on Appropriations did not give to the Commission all the appropriation that was asked for the improvement and extension of the system. If the Eepublican party of this country is pledged to any one thing more than another, it is to the maintenance of the civil-service law and its efficient execution ; not only that, but to its enlargement and its further application to the public service. The law that stands upon our statute-books to-day was put there by Eepublican votes. It was a Eepublican measure. Bvery National platform of the Eepublican party since its enactment has declared not only in favor of its continuance in full vigor, but in favor of its enlargement so as to apply more generally to the public service. And this, Mr. Chairman, is not alone the declaration and purpose of the Eepublican party, but it is in accord with its highest and best senti ment — aye, more, it is sustained by the best sentiment of the whole country, Eepublican and Democratic alike. There is not a man on this floor who does not know that no party in this country, Demo cratic or Eepublican, will have the courage to wipe it from the statute- book or amend it save in the direction of its improvement. Look at our situation to-day. When the Eepublican party has full control of all the branches of the Government it is proposed to annul this law of ours by withholding appropriations for its execution, when 26 396 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. for four years under a Democratic administration nobody on this side of the House had the temerity to rise in his place and make a motion simUar to the one now pending for the nullification of the law. We thought it was good then, good enough for a Democratic administra tion ; and I say to my Eepublican associates it is good enough for a Eepublican administration ; it is good and wholesome for the whole country. If the law is not administered in letter and spirit impar tially, the President can and will supply the remedy. Mr. Chairman, the Eepublican party must take no step backward. The merit system is here, and it is here to stay ; and we may just as well understand and accept it now, and give our attention to correct ing the abuses, if any exist, and improving the law wherever it can be done to the advantage of the public service. THE TAEIFF OF 1890. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, May 7, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under considera tion the bill (H. R. 9,416) to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : I do not intend to enter upon any extended discussion of the two economic systems which divide parties in this House and the people throughout the country. For two years we have been occupied in both branches of Congress and in onr dis cussions before the people with these contending theories of taxation. At the first session of the Fiftieth Congress the House spent several weeks in an elaborate and exhaustive discussion of these sys tems. The Senate was for as many weeks engaged in their investi gation and in debate upon them, while in the political contest of 1888 the tariff in all its phases was the absorbing question, made so by the political platforms of the respective parties, to the exclusion, prac tically, of every other subject of party division. It may be said that from the December session of 1887-88 to March 4, 1889, no public question ever received, in Congress and out, such scrutinizing inves tigation as that of the tariff. It has, therefore, seemed to me that any lengthy general discussion of these principles at this time, so soon after their thorough consideration and determination by the people, is neither expected, required, nor necessary. If any one thing was settled by the election of 1888, it was that the protective policy, as promulgated in the Eepublican platform and heretofore inaugurated and maintained by the Eepublican pariy, should be secured in any fiscal legislation to be had by the Congress chosen in that great contest and upon that mastering issue. I have interpreted that victory to mean, and the majority in this House a,nd 398 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. in the Senate to mean, that a revision of the tariff is not only de manded by the votes of the people, but that such revision should be on the line and in full recognition of the principle and purpose of protection. The people have spoken ; they want their will registered and their decree embodied in public legislation. The bill which the Committee on Ways and Means have presented is their answer and interpretation of that victory and in accordance with its spirit and letter and purpose. We have not been compelled to abolish the internal-revenue system that we might preserve the protective sys tem, which we were pledged to do in the event that the abolition of the one was essential to the preservation of the other. That was unnecessary. [Applause.] The bill does not amend or modify any part of the internal revenue taxes applicable to spirits or fermented liquors. It abolishes all the special taxes and licenses, so called, imposed upon the manu facture of tobacco, cigars, and snuff, and dealers thereof, reduces the tax upon manufactured tobacco from eight to four cents per pound, and removes all restrictions now imposed upon the growers of to bacco. With these exceptions the internal revenue laws are left undisturbed. From this source we reduce taxation over $70,000,000, and leave with the people this direct tax which has been paid by them upon their own products through a long series of years. The tariff part of the bill contemplates and proposes a complete revision. It not only changes the rates of duty, but modifies the gen eral provisions of the law relating to the collection of duties. These modifications have received the approval of the Treasury Department and are set forth in detail in the report of the Committee, and I will not weary you by restating them. A few of the more important changes, however, deserve attention. There has been for many years a provision in the law permitting the United States to import for its use articles free of duty. Under this provision gross abuses have sprung up, and this exemption from duty granted the United States has served as an open doorway to frauds upon our revenue and unjustifiable discrimination against our own producers. Not only has the Government imported supplies from abroad, but its officers, agents, and contractors have been held to enjoy the same privileges, which have been exercised to the injury of our own citizens. The result has been that the supplies imported by contractors for Governmental work have, in many instances, been in excess of the demand for such public work, and been applied to other and different uses. This provision of law has been eliminated THE TARIFF OF 1890. 399 in the proposed revision, and if approved by the House and Senate and the President, the Governraent, its officers, agents, and contract ors, will hereafter have to pay the same duties which its citizens gen erally are required to pay. Your Committee have been actuated in this by the belief that the Government should buy what it needs at home [applause] ; should give its own citizens the advantage of sup plying the United States with all its needed supplies, and that the laws which it imposes upon its own people and taxpayers should be binding upon the Government itself. [Applause.] The Committee have also fixed a limit upon the amount and value of personal effects accompanying the passenger returning from foreign travel to $500. It has been too common for citizens of the United States visiting other countries to supply themselves not only for their immediate uses but for future uses and for the uses of their friends, and there has heretofore been no limit to the amount and value of foreign articles which could be brought in free of duty under the designation of " personal effects " if accompanied by the return ing passenger. The practical effect of this provision was that the wealthy classes who were able to visit distant countries secured ex emption from the payment of duties, while the average citizen unable to go abroad was compelled to pay a duty upon the articles which he might want to use. The limit of $500 is believed to be sufficient for all honest purposes. We have also introduced a new provision in the bill which re quires that foreign merchandise imported into the United States shall be plainly stamped with the name of the country in which such arti cles are manufactured. There has been a custom too general in some foreign countries to adopt American brands, to the injury of our own manufactures. Well-known articles of American production with high reputation have been copied by the foreigner, and then by the addition of the American brand or American marks have fraudulently displaced American manufactures, not in fair competition, but under false pretenses. The counterfeit has taken the place of the genuine article, and this we propose to stop. England has felt the injustice of fraudulent marking, and stringent laws have been enacted to pro vide against false indications of origin abroad. I read an extract from the London Ironmonger of November 9, 1889, which fairly presents the opinions of English trade journals on fraudulent marks, as well as the action of the English Government : The response of our Colonies to the invitation of the home Government to legislate on the lines of the Merchandise Marks Act has been extremely satisf ac- 400 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tory. Up to date many of the principal Colonies, including Canada and the Cape as well as India, have virtually adopted the imperial act, while in almost all the other Colonies legislation is either promised or has been already taken in hand. In the Crown Colonies the provisions of this act have been adopted as a matter of course. With two not very important exceptions, however, the principles of the primary measure have been adopted, or are likely to be adopted, throughout the whole of the British Empire; consequently to that extent honest trading has received a well-deserved impetus and fraudulent marking an equally well-merited check. This is a matter for sincere congratulation all around, and if the various Australian Colonies and New Zealand can see their way to pushing forward rap idly their proposed enactments the results will be all the more satisfactory to all concerned. Section forty-nine of the bill provides that goods, wares, and mer chandise, and all articles manufactured in whole or in part in any foreign country by convict labor, shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, and the importation thereof is pro hibited. Nearly if not all of the States of the Union have laws to prevent the products of convict labor in the State penitentiaries from coming into competition with the products of the free labor of such States. The Committee believed that the free labor of this country should be saved from the convict labor of other countries, as it has been from the convict labor of our own States, and so recommend this provision. It would be of small account to protect our workmen against our own convict labor and stUl admit the convict-made prod ucts of the world to free competition with the products of our free labor. By way of encouraging exportation to other countries and extend ing our markets, the Committee have liberalized the drawbacks given npon articles or products imported from abroad and used in manu factories here for the export trade. Existing law refunds 90 per cent of the duties coUected upon foreign materials made into the finished product at home and exported abroad, whUe the proposed bill wUl refund 99 per cent of said duties, giving to our citizens engaged in this business 9 per cent, additional encouragement, the Government only retaining 1 per cent for the expense of handling. We have also extended the drawback provision to apply to all articles imported which may be finished here for use in the foreign market. Hereto fore this privilege was limited. This, it is believed, wiU effectually dispose of the argument so often made, that our tariff on raw mate rials, so called, confines our own producers to their own market and prevents them from entering the foreign market, and will furnish every opportunity to those of our citizens desiring it to engage in the THE TARIFF OF 1890. 401 foreign trade. Now, the bill proposes that the American citizen may import any product he desires, manufacture it into the finished ar ticle, using in part, if necessary, in such manufacture domestic mate rials, and when the completed product is entered for export it refunds to him within 1 per cent of all the duty he paid upon his imported ma terials. That is, we give to the capital and labor of this country sub stantially free trade in all foreign materials for use in the markets of the world. We do not require that the product shall be made wholly of the foreign material. Already, under special provisions of laws and regulations of the Treasury Department, parts of the finished product made here and attached to the completed article does not de prive the exporter of his drawback. We have extended this provision and in every way possible liberalized it, so that the domestic and for eign product may be combined and still allow to the exporter 99 per cent upon the duty he pays upon his foreign material intended for export ; which is, in effect, what free-traders and our political oppo nents are clamoring for, namely, " free raw material for the foreign trade." And if you are desirous of seeing what you can do in the way of entering the foreign market, here is the opportunity for you. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] In the same direction, by section twenty-three, we have made manufacturing establishments engaged in smelting or refining metals in the United States bonded warehouses under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe ; and we have provided that metals in any crude form requiring smelting or refining to make them available in the arts, imported into the United States to be smelted or refined and intended for export in a refined state, shall be exempt from the payment of duties. This, it is believed, will en courage smelting and refining of foreign materials in the United States and build up large industries upon the seacoast and elsewhere, which will make an increased demand for the labor of the country. If the provision be adopted, it completely disposes of what has some times seemed to be an almost unanswerable argument that has been presented by our friends on the other side, that if we only had free raw material we could go out and capture the markets of the world. We give them now within 1 per cent of free raw material, and invite them to go out and capture those markets. [Applause.] Mr. Springer. Will the gentleman permit me to ask if that also applies to wool ? '» Yes ; it applies to anything which they choose to import for pur poses of manufacture. If my friend wants to engage in the manufac- 402 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. ture of cloth, and he wants free wool, he can get within 1 per cent of his free wool and engage in the manufacture under this provision of the law, and the entire export trade is open to him if he thinks the foreign market better than the home market. These are all of the general provisions of the bill to which I desire to call the attention of the Committee at the present time. It is asserted in the views of the minority, submitted with the re port accompanying this bill, that the operation of the bill wUl not diminish the revenues of the Government ; that with the increased duties we have imposed upon foreign articles which may be sent to market here we have increased taxation, and that therefore instead of being a diminution of the revenues of the Govemment there wUl be an increase in the sum of $50,000,000 or $60,000,000. Now, that statement is entirely misleading. It can only be accepted upon the assumption that the importation of the present year under this biU, if it becomes a law, will be equal to the importations of like articles under the existing law ; and there is not a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, there is not a member of the minority of that Committee, there is not a member of the House on either side, who does not know that the very instant that you have increased the duties to a fair protective point, putting them above the highest rev enue point, that very instant you diminish importations and to that extent diminish the revenue. Nobody can well dispute this propo sition. Why, when the Senate bill was under consideration by the Committee on Ways and Means, over which my friend from Texas presided in the • last Congress, the distinguished Chairman of that Committee [Mr. Mills] wrote a letter to Secretary Fairchild inquiring what would be the effect of increased duties proposed under the Sen ate bill, and this is Mr. Fairchild's reply : Where the rates upon articles successfully produced here are materially in creased, it is fair to assume that the imports of such articles would decrease and the revenue therefrom diminish. He further states that where the rate upon an article is so in creased as to deprive the foreign producer of the power to compete with the domestic producer, the revenue from that source will cease altogether. Secretary Fairchild only states what has been the uni versal experience in the United States wherever increase of duties ^bove the revenue point has been made upon articles which we can produce in the United States. Therefore, it is safe to assume that no increase of the revenues, taking the bill through, will arise from THB TARIFF OP 1890. 403 the articles upon Which duties have been advanced. Now as to the schedules. The biU recommends the retention of the present rates of duty on earthen and chinaware. No other industry in the United States either requires or deserves the fostering care of Government more than this one. It is a business requiring technical and artistic knowl edge, and the most careful attention to the many and delicate pro cesses through which the raw material must pass to the completed product. For many years, down to 1863, the pottery industry of the United States had very little or no success and made but slight prog ress in a practical and commercial way. At the close of the low-tariff period of 1860 there was but one pottery in the United States, with two small kUns. There were no decorating kilns at that time. In 1873, encouraged by the tariff and the gold premium, which was an added protection, we had increased to 20 potteries, with 68 kUns, but still no decorating kUns. The capital invested was $1,020,000, and the value of the product was $1,180,000. In 1882 there were 55 potteries, 244 kUns, 26 decorating kilns, with a capital invested of $5,076,000, and an annual product of $5,299,140. The wages paid in the potteries in 1882 were $3,387,000, and the number of employes engaged therein 7,000; the ratio of wages to sales in 1882 was 45 per cent. In 1889 there were 80 potteries, 401 kilns, and decorating kilns had in creased from 26 in 1822 to 188 in 1889. The capital invested in the latter year was $10,597,357, the value of the product was $10,389,- 910 ; amount paid in wages, $6,265,224, and the number of em ployes engaged, 16,900. The ratio of wages to sales was 60 per cent of decorated ware and 50 per cent of white ware. The per cent of wages to value of product, it will be observed, has advanced from 45 per cent in 1882 to 60 per cent in 1889. This increase is not due, as might be supposed, to an advance in wages, but results in a reduc tion in the selling price of the product and the immense increase in sales of decorated ware in which labor enters in greater proportion to materials. The total importation for 1874 and 1875 of earthenware was to the value of $4,441,216, and in 1888 and 1889 it ran up to $6,476,190. The American ware produced in 1889 was valued at $10,389,910. The difference between the wages of labor in this coun try and competing countries in the manufacture of earthenware is fully 100 per cent. When the law was enacted in 1883, 1 asserted on this floor that if the duty of 55 per cent and 60 per cent was given as recommended by the bill then pending, in less than five years the quality of Ameri- 404 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. can ware would be improved, the quantity increased, and the price to the consumer sensibly diminished. That prophecy, Mr. Chairman, has been fully verified. In 1882 an assorted crate of ware sold for $57.89, and the same, only a better ware, is now sold for $46.30. In 1864 we paid for the same crate of ware $210.75. On decorated ware the immense benefit to the consumer is even more apparent. The selling price of all decorated ware was from 50 to 100 per cent higher in 1882 than in 1890. In 1852, with the low revenue-tariff duty of 24 per cent and no domestic manufactures, an assorted crate of white ware sold at $95.30 ; in 1890, with the 55 per cent duty and domestic competition, with large potteries which are the pride of the country, employing labor and capital at home, buying our own raw material, the same assorted crate is selling for $46.30. The duty, I submit, ought to be higher even than that proposed in the bill. We have recommended an increase of duties upon glassware. Since the tariff act of 1883, by which duties were reduced, importa tions from the other side have been constantly increasing, and as a result our own workmen have not been employed at full time. Our sharpest competition comes from Belgium, where labor, both skilled and unskilled, is much lower than in the United States. There they work seven days in every week. It will appear that the cost of labor in Germany may be set down at one third of the cost in the United States ; that of Great Britain at five eighths, and that of France at a medium between Germany and Great Britain. The American Flint Glass Workers' Union, through Mr. William J. Smith, their president, stated before the Ways and Means Committee that this large differ ence in the cost of labor between foreign countries and the United States makes it impossible for the home product to compete with the foreign-made goods in the market of the United States under the present duty, and that to maintain the present rate of wages an in crease of duty is demanded. Among others who appeared before the Committee touching the glass schedule was Mr. George A. Macbeth, of Pittsburg, a manu facturer of lamp glasses, globes, and chimneys. He argued in favor of lower duties and free raw material, and I believe was the only gentleman who appeared in that behalf. The following I quote from the hearings : The Chairman. If we remove the duty on what you call raw material, and then remove the duty from the finished articles, would the consumer get his chim neys any cheaper ? Mr. Macbeth. Yes, sir. THB TARIFF OF 1890. 405 The Chairman. How muoh? Mr. Macbeth. As near as 1 can figure it out it would be $650 a week on my product. The Chairman. Six hundred and fifty dollars a week would represent how much on each chimney ? Mr. Macbeth. 1 do not know exactly. The Chairman. Suppose we took the duty off the raw material, 45 per cent, how much would the consumer be beneflted? Would he be benefited to the amount of the duty, by less or by more ? Mr. Macbeth. I could not state exactly. The Chairman. You are here asking for free raw material. If we take the duty ofl all raw material and then the duty ofl the finished product, what I want to know is, what beneflt the American consumer would get in the reduced price of the flnished product ? Mr. Macbeth. He would get just about the amount I stated. The Chairman. How much would that be ? How much off the present price of the chimney? Mr. Macbeth. I do not know that I could state the exact amount per dozen. The Chairman. I am not talking about a week's product. You understand the business. You have visited Germany and other points for the purpose of in vestigating these matters, and you are here asking us to give you free raw mate rial, and I want to know what would be the reduced cost to the consumer on your goods if we took ofl the duty. Mr. Macbeth. In dollars and cents it is $650 a week. The Chairman. What I want to know is, what chimneys would cost the consumer ? Mr. Macbeth. Chimneys now costing say 35 cents by the dozen ? Mr. Bayne, Take the dozen chimneys now sold at 35 cents, how much would the consumer get a dozen chimneys for if the duties were taken ofl ? Mr. Macbeth. You ask me to make figures. (After figuring.) The reduced cost would be about 3 or 4 cents a dozen on that kind, one fourth of a cent on each chimney. Mr. Bayne. Only 3 or 4 cents a dozen ? Mr. Gear. When a man or woman would go to a retailer and buy a chimney for a larap would he or she get the benefit of that ? Mr. Macbeth. My individual opinion is he raight not. This is a frank admission and of great value at this time, showing clearly that even with free raw materials and reduced duties there would be no benefit accruing to the consumer, but increased profits would go to the manufacturers and middlemen. From a statement made by the President of the Window Glass Workers' Association, himself a workman, prepared by himself after the most careful per sonal investigation, we find the best evidence of the necessity for these increased duties. The agricultural condition of the country has received the careful attention of the Committee, and every remedy which was believed to 406 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. be within the power of tariff legislation to give has been granted by this bill. The depression in agriculture is not confined to the United States. The reports of the Agricultural Department indicate that this distress is general ; that Great Britain, France, and Germany are suffering in a larger degree than the farmers of the United States. Mr. Dodge, statistician of the Department, says, in his report of March, 1890, that the depression in agriculture in Great Britain has probably been more severe than that of any other nation; which would indicate that it is greater even in a country whose economic system differs from ours, and that this condition is inseparable from any fiscal system, and less under the protective than the revenue tarifl system. It has been asserted in the views of the minority that the duty put upon wheat and other agricultural products would be of no value to the agriculturists of the United States. The Committee, believing differently, have advanced the duty upon these products. As we are the greatest wheat-producing country of the world, it is habitually asserted and believed by many that this product is safe from foreign competition. We do not appreciate that while the United States last year raised 490,000,000 bushels of wheat. Prance raised 316,000,000 bushels, Italy raised 103,000,000 bushels, Eussia 189,000,000 bushels, and India 243,000,000 bushels, and that the total production of Asia, including Asia Minor, Persia, and Syria, amounted to over 315,000,000 bushels. Our sharpest competition comes from Eussia and India, and the increased product of other nations only serves to increase the world's supply, and diminish proportionately the demand for ours ; and if we will only reflect on the difference between the cost of labor in producing wheat in the United States and in competing countries we will readily perceive how near we are to the danger line, if indeed we have not quite reached it, so far even as our own markets are concerned. The cost of farm labor in Great Britain, estimated by the statisti cian of the Agricultural Department, is $150 per annum ; in France, $125 ; in HoUand and Austria, $100 ; in Germany, $90 ; in Eussia, $60 ; in Italy, $50 ; and in India, $30, while the same labor costs in this country $220. The farmers of the United States have therefore come to appreciate that with the wonderful wheat development in India and Eussia, with the vast sums of money which have been ex pended for irrigation and in railroads for transporting this wheat, taken in connection with their cheap labor, the time is already here when the American farmer must sell his product in the markets of THE TARIFF OF 1890. 407 the world in competition with the wheat produced by the lowest- priced labor of other countries, and that his care and concern must in the future be to preserve his home market, for he must of necessity be driven from the foreign one, unless by diminishing the cost of his production he can successfully compete with the unequal conditions I have described. Now as to other products of agriculture. During the last year Canada exported to the United States eggs to the value of $2,159,725 ; horses, $2,113,782 ; sheep, $918,334 ; poultry, $110,793 ; wool, $316,918 ; barley, $6,454,603 ; beans, $435,- 534 ; hay, $833,381 ; malt, $105,183 ; potatoes, $192,576 ; planks and boards, $7,187,101. There were exported of flsh of various kinds, lumber, and other commodities, to the amount of at least $20,000,000 more. The increase of our importations in agricultural products has risen from $40,000,000 in 1850 to $356,000,000 in 1889. We imported in the last ten years more than $60,000,000 worth of horses, cattle, and sheep. We imported tobacco from the Netherlands for the six months ending December 31, 1889, to the value of $5,000,000. The countries exporting agricultural products here do not view the in crease of duties proposed in this bill upon agricultural products in the same light as do the gentlemen of the minority and those who oppose this bill. Prof. Goldwin Smith, a Canadian and political economist, speak ing of the Canadian farmers and the effect of this bill upon their in terests, says : They will be very much injured if the McKinley Bill shall be adopted. The agricultural schedule will bear very hardly on the Canadian farmers who particu larly desire to find a market in the United States for their eggs, their barley, and their horses. The European raarket is of little value to thera for their horses. If there shall be a slow market in England all the profits will be consuraed on a cargo of horses and great loss will entail. I do not see how the Canadian farmers can export their produce to the United States if the McKinley Bill shall become a law. If that be true, Mr. Chairman, then the annual exports of about $35,000,000 in agricultural products will be supplied to the people of the United States by the American farmer rather than by the Cana dian farmer ; and who will say that $35,000,000 of additional demand for American agricultural products will not inure to the beneflt of the American farmer ; and that $35,000,000 distributed among our own farmers wiU not relieve some of the depression now prevailing, and give to the farmer confidence and increased ability to lift the mort gages from his lands ? [Applause.] 408 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. The Hon. Mr. Charlton, a member of the Canadian Parliament, in a speech delivered March 28, 1890, in speaking of the bill now before this House, after referring to the large trade which the Cana dian farmer has with the United States, and contrasting it with the small trade he has with England, says : Upon this vast volurae of exports our direct interests led us to desire that the duties might be removed, for if the duties were removed that market would be bet ter, the prices would be higher, and the prosperity of the country would be greater. Our trade with the United States is greater than with any other country, greater than with England, although we enter the English markets without any custom house restrictions, while in the United States markets the vexations restrictions are calculated to reduce trade. Now, to show what would be the effect of reci procity on our trade, let me for one moment refer to the result of the reciprocal trade relations which obtained frora 1854 to 1866. Our exports to the United States in the first year after reciprocity araounted to $10,478,000, while in the last year of reciprocity they amounted to $39,950,000, an increase of 380 per cent in eleven years ; and now, twenty-three years after, our exports to the Unit«d States have only risen to $45,500,000, an increase of only about $5,500,000 in the twenty- three years, against an increase of nearly $30,000,000 in eleven years under reci procity (or free trade). These figures tell their own story ; there can be no doubt what the result of reciprocity of trade between these two countries would be. Mr. Chairman, the same condition has been true as to every agreement of reciprocity we have ever had with any nation of the world. We have been beaten in every instance. From 1854 to 1866 — twelve years of reciprocity with Canada — we bought of them twice as much as they bought of us ; 95 per cent of their products came into the United States free of duty, while only 42 per cent of ours went into Canada free of duty. Mr. Chairman, what these other countries want is a free and open market with the United States. What we want, if we ever have reciprocity, must be reciprocity with equality, reciprocity that shall be fair, reciprocity that shaU be just, reciprocity that shall give us our share in the trade or arrangement that we make with the other nations of the world. It will be seen, Mr. Chairman, that wherever we have tried reciprocity or low duties we have always been the loser. But I am not going to discuss reciprocity or the propriety of treaties and coinmercial arrange ments. I leave that to the illustrious man who presides over the State Department under this administration [Secretary Blaine] and to my distinguished friend, the Chairman of the Committee on For eign Affairs of this House [Mr. Hitt]. This 'is a domestic biU ; it is not a foreign bill. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] The Committee, then, Mr. Chairman, have in the interest of ag- THE TARIFF OF 1890. 4O9 riculture recommended an increase of duty in the wool schedule. The present rate of duty on first-class wool is 10 cents per pound, and upon second-class 12 cents per pound. We have recommended in this bill that the duty on first-class wool shall be increased from 10 cents to 11 cents a pound, and that the duty now fixed on second- class wools shall remain as at present. On third-class wool the pres ent rate of duty is 2^ cents per pound upon all wool costing under 13 cents, and 5 cents a pound on wools costing above 12 cents. The Committee on Ways and Means will offer an amendment when this schedule is reached, providing that on carpet wools the dividing line shall be changed from 12 to 13 cents, and that the duty on wool under 13 cents, commonly known as carpet wool, shall be 32 per cent ad valorem, and above 13 cents per pound shall be 50 per cent ad valorem. It will be noted that we make on first-class wool an in crease of 1 cent a pound, and that the existing rate on second-class wool is maintained, while the proposed ad valorem rate will raise the duty on carpet wools of certain grades according to the necessity. If there is any one industry which appeals with more force than another for defensive duties it is this, and to no class of our citizens should this House more cheerfully lend legislative assistance, where it can properly be done, than to the million farmers who own sheep in the United States. We can not afford as a Nation to permit this in dustry to be longer crippled. It is also to be noted, Mr. Chairman, that having increased the duties on wools we have also increased the duties on the product — the manufactures of wool — to compensate for the increased duty on the raw material. In the metal schedule, which is probably the schedule in which the country is as deeply interested as any other — in the metal sched ule, starting out at the very foundation, iron ore, we have left the duty on that precisely as it exists under the present law, namely, 75 cents per ton, and we left it at the same duty which was proposed by my distinguished friend from Texas [Mr. MiUs] in the bill which he presented to the last Congress. The same is also true of coal. Pyrites or sulphuret of iron, containing in excess of 25 per cent of sulphur, has been put upon the free list. Pig iron, scrap iron, and steel we have left at $6.73 a ton, the present duty, while the MiUs bill made it $6 per ton. On bar iron the difference between the proposed bill and the Mills bill is one tenth of 1 cent per pound. On round iron not less than three fourths of an inch in diameter the present duty is 1 cent per pound ; the Mills bill retained it at that rate, and the present bill reduces the duty to nine tenths of 1 cent per pound. On 410 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. cast-iron pipe the existing law is 1 cent per pound ; we have reduced it to nine tenths of 1 cent per pound, and the Mills biU reduced it to six tenths of 1 cent per pound. Beams, girders, joists, angles, etc., present duty li cents per pound ; the Senate biU fixed the duty at 1 cent per pound, the MiUs bill at six tenths of 1 cent per pound, and the present biU puts it at nine tenths of 1 cent per pound. Forgings of iron and steel : Existing law, 2^ cents per pound ; Mills biU, 2J cents per pound ; proposed biU, 2.3 cents per pound. Hoop iron : Existing law, 1 cent per pound, 1.2 cents per pound, 1.4 cents per pound ; MiUs biU, 1 cent per pound, 1.2 cents per pound, 1.3 cents per pound ; proposed bUl, 1 cent per pound, 1.1 cents per pound, 1.3 cents per pound. EaUway bars, steel rails : Present duty, $17 per ton ; Mills bUl, $11 ; Senate biU, $15.68 ; present bill, $13.44, or $2.44 in excess of what the Mills bill proposed, and $2.24 less than the Senate bill. Sheets of iron or steel: Present law, 1.1 cents per pound, 1.3 cents per pound, 1.4 cents per pound ; MiUs bUl, 1 cent per pound, 1.1 cents per pound, li cents per pound; proposed biU, 1 cent per pound, 1.1 cents per pound, 1.4 cents per pound. Corrugated or crimped : Present law, 1.4 cents per pound ; MUls bUl, 1.4 cents per pound ; proposed bill, 1.4 cents per pound. Sheet iron and sheet steel : Present law, 2^ cents per pound ; Mills biU, 2 J cents per pound ; proposed bill, 2^ cents per pound. Pickled or cleaned by acid : Present law, 1.35 ; Mills bill, 1.35 ; proposed bill, 1.35. Cut nails : Present law, li cents per pound ; Mills bill, 1 cent per pound ; proposed bill, 1 cent per pound. Chains : Present law, IJ cents per pound, 3 cents per pound, 2^ cents per pound ; Mills bill, li cents, 1^ cents, 2 cents per pound ; proposed bill, 1.6 cents, 1.8 cents, 2| cents per pound. Thus, Mr. Chairman, I have hurriedly gone through with the metal schedule, from which it appears that we have made substantial reductions wherever it could be safely done. Mr. Henderson, of Iowa. What change, if any, is made in fence wire? We leave it at six tenths of one cent a pound, which is the same duty as is provided by existing law. Mr. Henderson, of Iowa. The same as the present law. What was it under the Mills bill ? The same ; and also the same in the Senate bill. Now, Mr. Chairman, the important part of the metal schedule, and that which will probably be most harshly assailed, is that pro posed in connection with the duty on tin plate. The bill proposes to advance the duty from one cent per pound, the present rate, to 1.85 THE TARIFF OF 1890. 411 and 2.15 cents per pound, varying according to gauge. The existing tariff presents the anomaly of placing a higher duty upon the sheet iron and steel which constitute the chief element in the production of tin plate than upon the tin plate itself, which is a manifest wrong demanding correction, independent of the question of encouraging the manufacture of tin plate in the United States. The duty recommended in the bill is not alone to correct this inequality, but to make the duty on foreign tin plate high enough to insure its manufacture in this country to the extent of our home consumption. The only reason we are not doing it now and have not been able to do it in the past is because of inadequate duties. We have demonstrated our ability to make it here as successfully as they do in Wales. We have already made it here. Two factories were engaged in producing tin plate in the years 1873, 1874, and 1875, but no sooner had they got fairly under way than the foreign manufacturer reduced his price to a point which made it impossible for our manufacturers to continue. When our people embarked in the business foreign tin plate was selling for $12 per box, and to crush them out, before they were firmly established, the price was brought down to $4.50 per box ; but it did not remain there. When the fires were put out in the American mills, and its manufacture thought by the foreigners to be abandoned, the price of tin plate advanced, until in 1879 it was selling for $9 and $10 a box. Our people again tried it, and again the prices were depressed, and again our people abandoned tempora rily the enterprise, and as a gentleman stated before the Committee, twice they have lost their whole investment through the corabination of the foreign manufacturers in striking down the prices, not for the benefit of the consumer, but to drive our manufacturers from the business ; and this would be followed by an advance within six months after our mills were shut down. We propose this advanced duty to protect our manufacturers and consumers against the British monopoly, in the belief that it will defend our capital and labor in the production of tin plate until they shall establish an industry which the Bnglish will recognize has come to stay, and then competition will insure regular and reasonable prices to consumers. It may add a little temporarily to the cost of tin plate to the consumer, but will eventuate in steadier and more satisfactory prices. At the present prices for foreign tin plate, the proposed duty would not add anything to the cost of the heavier grades of tin to the consumer. If the entire duty was added to the cost of the can it would not advance it more than one third or one 27 412 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. half of one cent, for on a dozen fruit cans the addition would prop erly only be about three cents. Mr. Cronemeyer said before the Committee : After we get fifty mills in this country and exchange our ideas, we can re duce the price by the use of improved machinery and methods which they never thought of in the other countries. We consumed last year 300,000 tons of tin plate, all of it im ported, upon which we paid $7,000,000 duty, every dollar of which was paid by the consumer, for it is a revenue tariff, and there was no competition at home to influence or regulate the prices. The price of tin plate to the American consumer for the last twenty-four years has been the foreign price flxed by the foreign producer with the American duty added, and every dollar of that duty has been paid by the canners and by the consumers in every form, small and great. Mr. Gear. Controlled by a syndicate. Yes, as my friend suggests, they are controlled by a syndicate. They put the price up and they put the price down according to the will of those who belong to the combine. Why, the very agitation, the very suggestion that we proposed to increase the duty on tin plate has already crushed out one foreign combine, one foreign trust, and it will stay crushed out until the political complexion of this House shall change and this duty shall be reduced, for I assume we are going to advance the duty upon tin plate. [Applause.] We have now four mills which can be at once adapted to making tin plate. They can produce about 4,000 tons a year. It would require ninety mills of the dimensions of those now here to make the tin plate used in our country, and it would require over 33,000 naen to be employed directly in this industry. But the benefits would not stop there. The additional labor in mining the coal and ores, in producing the pig metal, the lead, the tin, the lumber for boxing, and the sulphuric acid, would furnish labor to 50,000 work men and bring support to 200,000 people. The capital required would be above $30,000,000. I know no more certain and encourag ing field for labor and capital than is here presented. We have not hesitated, therefore, to recommend the advanced duty. The foreign manufacturers fear this proposed duty and will spare no effort or cost to prevent its adoption. They have the monopoly now ; they want to perpetuate it. They have a trust and combine ; we propose by this duty to break and destroy it. We want to develop our tin mines in the Black Hills ; they want these treasures to sleep. THB TARIFF OF 1890. 413 We want to extend our manufacturing supremacy; they want to check it. Already they are at work to defeat this bill. Let me read you from English authority, the London Ironmonger of August 10th : The efforts which are being made in the United States to familiarize the people of that country with the idea that tin plates can and should be manu factured there are well worthy the sustained attention of the manufacturers of South Wales and England. The promoters of the homeraade plan are ex ceedingly pertinacious, and are leaving no effort untried in order to achieve success. At an exhibition to be held at Pittsburg this autumn the process of manufacture is to be carried on in a practical manner, a sum of nearly £1,000 being expected to be laid out on the plant for the purpose. It is anticipated, by thus interesting the American public and showing " how simple the business is," the way will be made easier for pushing a bill through Congress next session, having for its object the imposition of much heavier duties upon imported tin plates. Should this scheme succeed, then there is no doubt that a great deal of American capital will be promptly embarked in the business, and sooner or later the tin-plate trade will cease to be a monopoly of South Wales and Monmouth shire. Nevertheless, we see no reason why the manufacturers of tin plates in this country need grow disheartened or despondent. They have the advantages of possession, position for shipment, trained labor, and all materials on the spot. These are very important points ; but, in addition, the Welsh makers have strong allies in the United States, and, if the alliance is raade the most of, we should have very considerable doubts of the success of any application to Congress to increase the present duties. Who their American allies are I know not. But to insure that result the Welsh makers and their business conneotions must not only watch, but work, and work hard, to checkmate the advances of the American ultra-protectionists. The London Iron and Steel Trades Journal of the 12th instant makes the very significant admission italicized in the succeeding quotation : The most important item in the proposed new schedule is that affecting tin plates. The duty is now 1 cent per pound, and the suggested tariff is 3 cents and 3.10 cents per pound. If this is earried, the occupation of three fourths of those engaged in the tin-plate trade will begone, and ow mcmufaoturers and their work men if they continue in the business must employ their capital and experience on the other side of the Atlantic. [Applause.] The great obstacle to tin-plate mak ing on a large scale in the States is the entire absence of cheap feraale labor, so necessary in the industry, and so abundant in Wales. — We do not have cheap female labor here under the protective sys tem. I thank God for that. [Applause.] But if the enormous duty of 13 shillings a box is adopted possibly the labor diffi oulty may be got over. Until the bill is actually passed we shall continue to believe that the people of America will refuse to impose upon the consumers of 414 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. tin plates this enormous tax. Tin plates can not 'possibly be made in the States so cheaply as they oan be in this country. The existing duty is ample proof of this ; and to abolish the duty entirely would be more appropriate than to in crease it. Let them bring their factories right over here. Bring $25,000,000 over here and sit down among us and employ our labor and consume the products of our farmers. [Applause.] The tinned-plate manufacturers of Wales have been urged by some of their number to enter into a combination to shut down their mills for the purpose of curtailing production and advancing prices. The matter seems to have met with quite general acceptance by all the firms but the South Wales Tinned Plate Cora pany. The raanaging partner of the flrm, J. H. Rodgers, addressed his workmen on the subject and opposed the move. His speech, as reported in the Cardiff Echo of March 3d, contains the following allusions to the Amerioan tariff question, and is of interest : " A year ago the protectionist party in the United States, for the first time in many years, was able to get a bill passed by the Senate more than doubling the duty on imported tinned plates, with the objeot of enabling the steel makers of America to manufacture plates profitably and to exclude those made in this country. The House of Representatives threw out the bill, but now the pro tectionist party is in a majority in the lower House, so that those in Araerica who are endeavoring to prevent the duty on tinned plates being raised have a more difficult battle to fight than they had a year ago, and those araong us who are trying to form a combination to close all tinned-plate works in Wales for a time, if successful, would simply succeed in arraing our opponents with the strongest weapons of attack." He then stated that the forming of a combination to shut down the tinned-plate works would be but a fulfillment of the prophecies of the protectionists, and he regarded it as eminently unwise and hazardous. Continuing, he is quoted : " I could give you further evidenoe to prove how undesirable and how dangerous any combination would be to oblige the Americans to pay higher prices for plates. The total exports of tin boxes and terne plates last year were 7,400,000. Of these the United States took 5,500,000 boxes. Consider what would be the result to all of us here if the United States should make her own plates, as she now makes her own steel rails, pig iron, etc., which not many years ago were all made in this country. Some tell us that if such a state of things comes about we must find new markets ; but where are we to find them ? And if they are found, why do not the owners of the works that are now idle for want of orders seek them out and open up business with them ? It seems to me that the first results would be that tin plate makers would have to reduce the cost of manufacture to meet the increased duty. As far as I can see at present the only direction in whioh the cost could be reduced would be in labor." Mr. Henderson, of Iowa. Before the gentleman leaves the subjeot of tin plate I will ask him to yield for a question. Certainly. Mr. Henderson, of lows. I wish to ask the gentleman, first, whether the Com mittee on Ways and Means has any information as to this country having the tin ore for the manufacture of tin plate ; secondly, whether or not England produces THB TARIFF OF 1890. 415 tin ore herself or whether she imports it ; and third, whether or not, if we have not the tin pre in this country, we can afford to put on this duty, and import the ore and manufacture the tin plate ourselves, as, in the main, they do in England? I will say to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Henderson] that the best information the Committee on Ways and Means have upon that subject is that we have plenty of tin ore in the Black Hills country, in the Dakotas, and that important discoveries of tin have recently been made in northwestern Wyoming. Mr. Kerr, of Iowa. And we have it in Virginia also. I am told by the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Kerr] that we also have tin ore in Virginia, but the best testimony before us is that we have it in the largest quantities in the Dakotas. I remember that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Cummings], upon a visit which he made to that region, wrote some most interesting letters to the New York Sun upon this subject, showing, as he thought con clusively, that all the Black Hills awaited was the pick of the miner to develop this hidden treasure. But even if we had no tin ore in this country, I say to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Henderson] that pig tin is absolutely free ; there is no duty upon it ; it is on the free list, and we can import it from any part of the world. We can import it from Wales, from Australia, from the Straits of Malacca, from any place where it is produced. Mr. NiEDRiNGHAUs. And as cheap as England can. And as my friend says, as cheaply as England can. England pro duces a portion of her tin ore, but she imports a very considerable quantity. I have somewhere seen that she imports more than 50 per cent of her consumption. Mr. Niedkinqhaus. About nine tenths. Now, sir, I say if we have tin ore we ought to develop it, but if we have no tin ore we can import it from other countries, as England does, and manufacture the tin plate profitably, because we make the sheet iron and the sheet steel, which constitute from 95 to 97 per cent of the value of the tin plate. I want to call attention to another matter, while I am on this subject, and that is the question whether we can and will go into the business provided adequate duties are provided for. I want to read a letter which I will print in my re marks, with the statements of more than a dozen leading men, repre senting capital to the amount of thirty, forty, or fifty millions, who say that if this duty is put upon tin plate they will at once embark in 416 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the manufacture. At this point I want to read a letter from the firm of which the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Niedringhaus) is the head, as follows : St. Louis, Noverriber 27, 1888. Dear Sir : In answer to yours of the 32d instant, in reference to the manu facture of tin or terne plates, we are at liberty to state that one of our mills has already been arranged for tin-plate work, and if a sulflcient duty is put on the article to cover the difference between the English and American scale of wages, we will be ready to turn out plates on short notice. It is also very evident that in case a proper duty is fixed on tin and terne plates a large number of English manufacturers will move their works over to this side. The question as to whether these plates will be made in this country, therefore, depends solely upon proper legislation. We have for the last few years contemplated building an additional mill, but did not, under existing circumstances, consider the invest ment a safe one. This danger, however, is in a measure removed by the Repub lican victory, and if the fact, as I believe it to be, can be generally established in the minds of the people that the Republicans will continue to govern this country in the future, there will be plenty of money forthcoming to embark in the manu facture of tin and terne plates. Youi-s very truly, P. G. Niedringhaus, President. W. C. Cronemeyer, Esq., Demmler, Pa. There are letters also to be found in the Senate hearings of last year from Schomberger & Co., Kirkpatrick & Co., Chartiers Iron and Steel Company, Linden Steel Company, of Pittsburg, Pa., McDaniel, Harvey & Co., from Marshall Brothers & Co., Alan Wood Company, Cambria Iron Company, Whittaker Iron Company, of Wheeling, West Va., and others, declaring that if a suitable duty was put upon tin plate they could and would engage in the business of tin-pate making [Applause.] Now, as to the question whether our tin plate is as good as other tin plate, I have before me two letters (and I could multiply the number) from gentlemen who have tested the tin plate that has been made in the United States, and who say that it is just as good for all purposes as the tin plate made in Wales or in England : Tub Geo. D. Winoheli. Manufactueing Compaht, Cincinnati, February 3, 1S90. Gentlemen : We are in receipt of the sample plates of your own production sent us, together with your letter asking for our opinion of the same. So far as the body of the plate is involved it is quite up to the standard of the best Eng lish plate imported. The tin coating is not as smooth and perfect as the higher grades of imported charcoal plates, but is quite equal to the lower grades of coke plates, and perhaps better, although not as smooth a surface. If Congress will plaoe a suitable protection upon the production of tin plates, it will not be long THE TARIFF OF 1890. 417 before this country can supply the world with a better article than is now fur nished us by England. Very truly, Geo. D. Winchell, President. The American Tinned-Plate Association, Pittsburg, Pa. St. Looia Stamping Company, St. Lonis, Feii-uarry 14, 1890. Dear Sir : We received some days ago a number of sheets of tin plate whioh you claim were made at the experimental plant at the Pittsburg exposition last fall. In reference to sarae we beg to say that we have raade up two or three arti cles in staraped ware out of the plates sent us. We now desire to say that we find the plate equal to the work, and the quality and finish of the goods every bit as good as, if not better than, plates we are now regularly iraporting frora England for similar work. Yours very truly, St. Louis Stamping Company, Thos. V. Niedringhaus, Secretary. W. C. Cronemeyer, Esq., Secretary American Tinned-Plate Association, Pittsburg, Pa. The bill proposes a change of duty on Eoman, Portland, and other hydraulic cement from 20 per cent ad valorem under ex isting law to 8 cents per 100 pounds. There were imported into the United States last year 1,515,316 barrels, at a value of $1,459,- 875.98, an average of 96.3 cents per barrel. We have made the duty specific on this commodity in place of ad valorem, on account of the frauds committed upon the revenue by undervaluations. The average cost of a barrel of cement in Germany is from $1.94 to $2 for 380 pounds net. The duty at 30 per cent would be 19.2 on the valuation, as shown by the imports. If the duty was paid on the actual value and market price, say, $2 a barrel, the duty would be 40 cents instead of 19.2, and that is the sum which ought to be paid under existing law and would be paid but for undervaluations. At the duty of 8 cents per 100 pounds they would pay 30 cents duty on a barrel of 380 pounds. If they paid 20 per cent upon the actual value they would pay 40 cents, or 8 cents less under the proposed specific duty than under the present law if the duty was paid upon the actual purchasing price. Therefore, while this seems to be an increase of duty, it in fact, under honest valuations, is a decrease on the present rate. We have taken from the free list and placed upon the dutiable eighteen articles ; ten are products of agriculture and the other eight are muriatic and sulphuric acid, gold size or Japan, aluminium and mica, crin vegetal or vegetable fiber, camel's hair, and amber beads. If these eighteen articles are imported in the same quantities dutia ble as now the revenue will be increased in the sum of $2,456,030.14. We have taken from the dutiable list and placed upon the free list 418 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. forty-four articles, which last year yielded a duty of $60,936,536 ; of which $55,975,610 is from sugar alone. We have increased the duty, as I have already said, upon carpet wools, and that has necessitated an increase of the duty upon carpets themselves. The Committee believed that this increased duty would be doing even justice not only to the wool grower, but also to the car pet maker and to the consumers of the United States. There is no industry in this country that more splendidly illustrates the value of a protective tarifl than the carpet industry, which has had such mar velous growth in the last twenty-three years. In 1810 the entire product of carpets in this country was about 10,000 yards. The tariff of 1828 gave some encouragement, and in 1834 there were twenty carpet factories in the country, operating 511 hand looms producing annually about 1,000,000 yards of carpet. In 1860, under the low tariff, there were only 8,000,000 pounds of wool consumed in making carpets in the United States, and only 13,000,000 yards of carpet were produced, valued at a little over $7,000,000. Six thousand six hundred and eighty-one hands were employed, and the wages paid were less than a million and a half dollars annually. The value of the plants in 1860 was less than $5,000,000. Under the tariff of 1867, that first protective tarifl law so far as wool and the manu factures of wool were concerned, this industry grew and prospered, and in 1870 there were 215 factories in the United States, valued at over $12,500,000, consuming more than 33,000,000 pounds of wool, employing 13,000 hands, paying in wages $4,681,000 annually, and producing 22,000,000 yards of carpet every twelve months. One fourth of our total consumption was imported from England in 1872. In that year there were 170 looms manufacturing body Brussels ; in 1880 the manufacture had risen to 590 looms. In 1873 our product in Brussels was 1,275,000 yards ; in 1880 we produced over 7,000,000 yards. In 1872 we imported 1,500,000 yards of body Brussels ; in 1880 we imported only 80,000 yards. We doubled the looms for manufacturing Wiltons between 1870 and 1880. Now take tapestry Brussels — " the poor man's carpet," if you please. In 1872 we had 143 looms ; in 1880 we had increased to 1,073 looms. In 1872 we produced 1,500,000 yards of tapestry Brussels ; in 1880 we produced 16,950,000 yards of tapestry Brussels. In 1872 we im ported 3,670,000 yards of tapestry Brussels from England ; in 1880 we imported only 100,000 yards. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] All this time the prices were being reduced. In 1872 the price of body Brussels by the wholesale was over $2 per yard; in THE TARIFF OF 1890. 4I9 1880 the wholesale price had gone below $1.50 a yard, and to-day you can buy it for 93 cents a yard. [Applause.] In 1872 tapestry carpets averaged $1.46 per yard ; in 1880 the price had gone down to 90 cents, and to-day you can buy the best quality for 65 cents per yard. The extra super ingrain carpet which in 1872 sold for $1.20 can be bought to-day for 45 cents per yard, all wool and a yard wide. The total production of carpets in the United States (estimated) in 1880 was 39,373,000 yards; capital invested, $21,486,000 ; operatives employed, 30,371 ; paid out in wages, $6,- 435,000. It is estimated that to-day there are 204 carpet factories in this country running 11,500 looms (of which 7,597 are power looms), employing 43,000 hands, in 1889 consuming over 90,000,000 pounds of wool, and turning out 76,880,000 yards of carpet. Why, sir, in the city of Philadelphia alone there is produced 20,000,000 yards of carpet annually — 16,000,000 less than the entire output of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. And all the while the price of carpet had gone down. But the ad valorem has gone up ; and that is what troubles the gentlemen on the other side. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] It is the high ad valorems that you gentlemen advocating tarifl reform keep before your eyes. You shut your eyes to the diminish ing prices. The favorite assault of the Democratic free-trader or revenue-tarifl reformer is to parade these high percentages and ad valorem equivalents to show the enormous burdens of taxation that we impose upon the people of the United States. Now, let us look at this for a moment while we are passing. When steel rails were $100 a ton we had a duty on them of $38 a ton. What would be its equivalent ad valorem? Twenty-eight per cent. That is not enormous. My friend from Texas [Mr. Mills] even would not hold that as too high an ad valorem equivalent. But the very in stant we reduced the price of steel rails to $50 a ton, because of that duty of $28, which encouraged our own producers to engage in this business — when the price went down to $50 a ton the ad valorem equivalent went np to 56 per cent; for $28 a ton duty, with steel rails at $50 a ton, would be equivalent to 56 per cent. They are troubled about the ad valorem equivalent. They look to percent ages ; we look to prices. We would rather have steel rails at $50 a ton and an ad valorem equivalent of 50 per cent than to have steel rails at $100 a ton and an ad valorem equivalent of only 25 per cent. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] They pursue a shadow; we en joy the substance. [Applause.] What do we care about ad valo- 420 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. rems ? But you will hear of high ad valorems in this debate from its beginning to its close. Why, sir, when you bought a crate of ware in 1855 at $96, the ad valorem was only 24 per cent. You buy the same crate of ware to-day for $46 ; but the ad valorem has gone up to 55 per cent. Which would you rather have, low ad valorem equivalents and high-priced goods, or high ad valorem equivalents and low-priced goods ? [Applause.] Why, sir, you can not eat a^ valorems [laughter] ; you can not wear ad valorems ; you can not carpet your floors with ad valorems ; you can not roof your honse with ad valorems ; you can not furnish your table with ad valorems. We do not care how high they go up if the price of the commodity goes down ; and when they go up it is because we have by our pro tective tariff reduced the price to the consumer. Why, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen on the other side take great comfort in a quotation which they make from Daniel Webster. They have thought it so valuable that they have put it in their minority report. It is from a speech made by Mr. Webster in FanenU HaU in 1820 when he condemned the protective policy. I want to put Daniel Webster in 1846 against Daniel Webster in 1820. Listen to an extract from his speech of July 25, 1846 — the last tariff speech and probably the most elaborate tariff speech that he ever made in his long public career. He then said : But, sir, before I proceed further, I will take notice of what appears to be some attempt, latterly, by the republication of opinions and expressions, argu ments and speeches of mine, at an earlier and a later period of my life, to place me in a position of inconsistency on this subject of the protective policy of the country. Mr. President, if it be an inconsistency to hold an opinion upon a sub ject of public policy to-day in one state of circumstances, and to hold a different opinion upon the same subject of public policy to-morrow in a different state of circumstances, if that be an inconsistency, I admit its applicability to myself. And then, after discussing the great beneflts of the protective tariff, he added : The interest of every laboring community requires diversity of occupations, pursuits, and objects of industry. The more that diversity is multiplied or ex tended the better. To diversify eraployment is to increase employment and to enhance wages. And, sir, take this great truth ; place it on the title-page of every book of political economy intended for the use of the Government ; put it in every farmer's almanac ; let it be the heading of the column in every me chanic's magazine ; proclaim it everywhere, and make it a proverb, that where there is work for the hands of men there will be work for their teeth. Where there is eraployment there will be bread. It is a great blessing to the poor to have cheap food, but greater than that, prior to that, and of still higher value, is the blessing of being able to buy food by honest and respectable employment. THE TARIFF OF 1890. 421 Eraployraent feeds and clothes and instructs. Employment gives health, sobriety, and morals. Constant employment and well-paid labor produce in a country like ours general prosperity, contentment, and cheerfulness. Thus happy have we seen the country. Thus happy may we long continue to see it. In this happy condition we have seen the country under a pro tective policy. It is hoped we may long continue to see it, and if he had lived long enough he would have seen the best vindication of his later views. Then he continued, and I commend this especially, in all kindness and with great respect, to the gentlemen of the minority of the Committee : I hope I know more of the Constitution of my country than I did when I was twenty years old. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] I hope I have contemplated its great objects more broadly. I hope I have read with deeper interest the sentiments of the great men who framed it. I hope 1 have studied with more care the condition of the country when the Convention assembled to form it. . . . And now, sir, allow me to say that I am quite in different, or rather thankful, to those conductors of the public press who think they can not do better than now and then to spread my poor opinions before the public. [Great applause.] What is the nature of the complaint against this bill — that it shuts us out of a foreign market ? No, for whatever that is worth to our citizens will be just as accessible under this bill as under the present law. We place no tax or burden or restraint upon American products going out of the country. They are as free to seek the best market as the products of any commercial power, and as free to go out as though we had absolute free trade. Statistics show that protective tariffs have not interrupted our export trade, but that it has always steadily and largely increased under them. In the year 1843, being the first year after the protective tarifl of 1842 went into operation, our exports exceeded our imports $40,392,229, and in the following year they exceeded our imports $3,141,226. In the two years following the excess of exports over imports was $15,475,000. The last year under that tarifl the excess of exports over imports was $34,317,249. So during the five years of the tarifl of 1842 the excess of exports over imports was $63,375,000. Under the low tarifl of 1846 this was reversed, and, with the single exception of the year 1858, the imports exceeded the exports (cover ing a period of fourteen years) $465,553,635. During the war and down to 1865 the imports with two exceptions exceeded the exports. From 1876 down to 1889 inclusive (covering 422 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. a period of fourteen years) there were only two years when our im ports exceeded our exports, and the total excess of exports over im ports was $1,581,906,871 of the products of our own people more than we brought into the United States. [Loud applause on the Ee publican side.] The balance of trade has been alraost uninterrapted- ly in our favor during the protective tarifl periods of our history, and against us with few exceptions during revenue-tarifl periods. This would seem to indicate a healthful business condition with the out side world, resulting from the Eepublican economic system, and an unhealthful condition where we had to send money out of the country to pay our balances under the Democratic system. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] The chief complaint against this biU comes from importers and consignees here, on the one hand, and the foreign mer chants and consignors abroad. Why do they complain ? Manifestly because in some way this bill will check their business here and in crease the business of our own manufacturers and producers ; it wUl diminish the importation of competing foreign goods, and increase the consumption of our homemade goods. This may be a good reason to influence the foreigner to oppose its passage, but is hardly a sound reason why Americans should oppose it. [Applause on the Eepub lican side.] If the bill checks foreign importations of goods competing with ours, it will increase our production and necessarily increase the de mand for labor at home. [Applause.] This may be a good reason why the cheap labor of other countries should be unfriendly to the bill, and it surely furnishes the best of reasons why the workmen of the United States should favor it, as they do. We do not conceal the purpose of this bill ; we want our own countrymen and all man kind to know it. It is to increase production here, diversify our pro ductive enterprises, enlarge the field, and increase the demand for American workmen. What American can oppose these worthy and patriotic objects? Others not Americans may find justification for doing so. This bill is an American bill. It is made for the American people and American interests. [Applause.] The press of other countries has denounced the bill with unmeas ured severity ; the legislative assemblies of more than one distant country have given it attention in no friendly spirit. It has received the censure of foreign powers and diplomats — for all which there is manifest reason; it may pinch them, but no American citizen surely can object to it on that account. We are not legislating for any nation but our own ; for our people and for no other people are THB TARIFF OF 1890. 423 we charged with the duties of legislation. We say to our foreign brethren : " We will not interfere in your domestic legislation ; we admonish you to keep your hands off of ours." [Loud applause on the Eepublican side.] We hear much talk of " foreign trade " and " foreign commerce," as though these were the all and only essentials to National development and prosperity, wholly disregarding our doraestic commerce and our domestic trade. What boots it whether our commerce is on the seas to foreign ports or on inland seas and lakes to domestic ports ? What boots it whether our products of the East go to Chicago, St. Louis, St. Paul, and Minneapolis, and San Francisco, to Portland, and throughout the great West and Northwest, and are consumed there, or to Australia, China, and Japan — A Member. Or by water or by rail ? And, as my friend suggests, or carried by water or by rail ; or that the products of the West are carried to Cincinnati and Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New Y^'ork, and Boston, and there consumed, or that they go to London and Liverpool? We do not depreciate the value of our foreign trade ; we are proud of it. It is of great value, and must be sacredly guarded and promoted, but what peculiar sanc tity hangs about it which does not attach to our domestic trade ? Is not an American consumer as valuable to us as a foreign consumer ? Is not he a better consumer, and therefore a better customer to the American producer ? [Applause.] If our trade and commerce are increasing and profitable within our own borders, what advantage can come by passing it by, confess edly the best market, that we may reach the poorest by distant seas ? In the foreign market the profit is divided between our own citizen and the foreigner, while with the trade and commerce among our selves the profit is kept in our own family and increases our National wealth and promotes the welfare of the individual citizen. Yet in spite of all the croaking about foreign trade our exports were never so great as they are to-day. We send abroad what is not consumed at home, and we could do no more under any system. Contrast the imports and exports of the United Kingdom, under free trade and unrestrained commerce, with the imports and exports of the United States. In 1870 the total value of imports and exports of the United Kingdom was $2,663,620,718 ; in 1888 itwas $3,336,087, 844, an increase in eighteen years of $672,467,136, equivalent to 35 per cent. The total value of the imports and exports of the United Statesin 1870 was $917,794,431; in 1889, $1,487,533,037; an increase 424 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. of $569,738,606, or an equivalent of 62 per cent, so that it wUl be observed that under the revenue-tariff system of Great Britain her imports and exports between 1870 and 1888 increased but 25i per cent, while under the protective system of the United States, which is characterized by our opponents as exclusive and restrictive and like " a Chinese wall," the imports and exports of the United States in creased between 1870 and 1888, 62.8 per cent, a gain over Great Brit ain of over 37 per cent. We sent out in those years much more than we brought in. Notwithstanding the complaint that is made about the " decadence of our foreign commerce," Mulhall informs us that Great Britain's proportion in the foreign commerce in 1830 was 27.2 per cent, of the commerce of the world ; but in 1870 it had fallen to 24.5 per cent ; and in 1880 her proportion was but 21.2 per cent. In 1830 the United States had but 3.7 per cent of the commerce of the world ; in 1870 she had risen to 9.2 per cent, and in 1880 she had 11.5 per cent. While Great Britain lost, between 1870 and 1880, 13 per cent of her trade, the United States gained 23 per cent. And if the United States would give the same encouragement to her merchant marine and her steamship lines as is given by other nations to their ships this commerce on the seas under the American flag would increase and multiply. When the United States will expend from her treasury from five to six millions a year for that purpose, as do France and Great Britain to maintain their steamship lines, our ships will plow every sea in successful competition with the ships of the world. [Loud applause on the Eepublican side.] Will you gentlemen join us in encouraging our merchant marine ? [Eenewed applause on the Eepublican side.] But, Mr. Chairman, in the presence of our magnificent domestic commerce, the commerce along our inland seas, our lakes and rivers and great railroad lines, why need we vex ourselves about foreign coramerce ? The domestic trade of the United States is 95 per cent of the whole of our trade. Nowhere is the progress of the country so manifest as in this wonderful growth and development. Our coast ing trade more than doubled our foreign trade in 1880. It was 34,- 000,000 tons as against 16,000,000 of foreign, including all our ex ports and imports, carried in all the ships of the world, in 1880. Our inland water tonnage was 35,000,000 ; our foreign, 16,000,000. The water carriage of the United States along its coasts and its rivers is five times greater than the foreign commerce of the United States. Why, the movement of tonnage through the Detroit Eiver THE TARIFF OF 1890. 425 in 1889 was 10,000,000 tons more than the total registered entries and clearances at all the seaports of the United States, and it was 3,000,000 tons in excess of the combined foreign and coastwise regis tered tonnage of the ports of Liverpool and London. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] What higher testimony do we want of the growth of our internal commerce ? We try nations as they appear on the balance sheet of the world. We try systems by results ; we are too practical a people for theory. We know what we have done and are doing under the economic sys tem we advocate. We know that almost every month the balance of trade in our favor is in excess of $30,000,000. We know the manu factures of the United States in 1889 amounted to $1,126,000,000, as against $816,000,000 of Great Britain. We know that in 1887 we manufactured 3,339,000 tons of steel rails, and that the manufactories of England turned out only 3,170,000. We know that the United States in 1887 produced 2,308,000 tons of iron, and England 1,711,- 000 tons. On the Atlantic seaboard there will be produced this year 100,000 tons of steel shipping built in our own ports from our own material. [Applause.] The shipyards of the lakes for the past four years have been constantly engaged. In 1886-'87 we built thirty-one boats, with a capacity of 65,750 gross tons, valued at $4,074,000. In 1887-88, sixty boats; gross tons, 108,525; value, $8,325,000. In 1888-'89, fifty-nine boats; gross tons, 100,950; value, $7,124,000. In 1889-90, fifty-six boats ; gross tons, 124,750 ; value, $7,866,000. A total of 206 boats ; capacity, 399,975 gross tons, and a total value, $37,389,000. The Chicago Tribune recently said : The inland marine, representing an aggregate capital of $53,000,000, has car ried during the season [that of 1889] now closed 145,000,000 bushels of grain of all classes and flour reduced to grain, 6,000,000 tons of iron ore from the Lake Superior mines to the blast furnaces, and brought back 4,300,000 tons of coal from Lake Erie. It has brought into Chicago 450,000 tons of general merchan dise, valued at $50,000,000, and carried away 535,000 tons, valued at $10,500,000. It has brought to Duluth merchandise valued at about half that sum, and carried away to Buffalo goods worth $15,000,000. These figures, vast as they are, repre sent only the business of the inland marine between Lake Erie and Lakes Michi gan and Superior. The great lumber trade and the local trade on the five Great Lakes, each representing a tariff of many tens of million dollars, are not included. Our railroad mileage and tonnage further illustrate the growth and extent of our domestic trade and commerce. In 1865 the num ber of miles of railroad in operation in this country was 35,085 ; in 1887 there were 150,000 mUes. We now have one half of the rail- 426 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. roads of the world. Estimating the cost of road and equipment at $35,000 per mUe, the amount expended in twenty-two years equaled $4,037,495,000, a yearly expenditure of over $183,000,000. According to Poor's Manual, the total tonnage for 1882 was 360,490,375 tons; for 1883, 400,453,439 tons ; for 1884, 399,074,749 tons ; for 1885, 437,040,099 tons ; for 1886, 482,345,354 tons ; for 1887, 553,074,752 tons. I will not stop, Mr. Chairman, to give the figures that I have before me. I am already very much wearied myself, and I must not detain the Committee much longer. [Cries of " Go on ! "] According to the statement of Mr. Poor, the tonnage of the Penn sylvania Eailroad for 1865 was 3,555,706 tons ; in 1887, 30,147,635 tons, the increase equaling 37,591,939 tons, the rate of increase in the twenty-two years being nearly 1,100 per cent. The tonnage of the New York Central Eailroad increased from 1,767,059 in 1865 to 14,- 636,951 in 1887, the rate of increase being over 700 per cent. The tonnage of the Erie Eailroad in 1865 was 2,234,350, and in 1887, 13,- 549,360, the rate of increase being over 500 per cent. The tonnage of the three roads in 1865 equaled 6,557,115 ; in 1887, 58,333,884 tons, the increase equaling 51,766,732, the rate of increase being very nearly 800 per cent. Poor estimates that the net tonnage of 1887 of all the railroads in the country equaled 412,500,000 ; the number of gross tons moved in 1887 on all the railroads of the United States per head of population equaled nine tons. In 1865 the gross tonnage moved equaled only two tons per head. The same authority esti mates that the value of the total net tonnage of the railroads of the United States is equal to the sum of $13,337,830,000, and at this esti mate the value of the tonnage moved in 1887 equaled $322 per head of the population of the country. The increase in value of the rail road tonnage of the country in 1887 equaled $1,660,000,000 or $960,- 000,000 in excess of the value of the exports for the same year. Could all this have been secured under your economic system ? Would it have been possible under any other than the protective system ? We have now enjoyed twenty-nine years continuously of protec tive tariff laws — the longest uninterrupted period in which that policy has prevailed since the formation of the Federal Government — and we find ourselves at the end of that period iu a condition of inde pendence and prosperity the like of which has never been witnessed at any other period in the history of our country, and the like of which has no parallel in the recorded history of the world. In all that goes to make a nation great and strong and independent we have made extraordinary strides. In arts, in science, in literature, in THE TARIFF OF 1890. 427 manufactures, in invention, in scientific principles applied to manu facture and agriculture, in wealth and credit, and National honor we are at the very front, abreast with the best, and behind none. In 1860, after fourteen years of a revenue tariff, just the kind of a tariff that our political adversaries are advocating to-day, the business of the country was prostrated, agriculture was deplorably depressed, manufacturing was on the decline, and the poverty of the Govern ment itself made this Nation a byword in the financial centers of the world. We neither had money nor credit. Both are essential ; a nation can get on if it has abundant revenues, but if it has none it must have credit. We had neither, as the legacy of the Democratic revenue tariff. We have both now. We have a surplus revenue and a spotless credit. [Applause.] I need not state what is so fresh in our minds, so recent in our history, as to be known to every gentle man who hears me, that from the inauguration of the protective tarifl laws of 1861, the old Morrill tariff — which has brought to that veteran statesman the highest honor and will give to him his proudest monu ment — this condition changed. Confidence was restored, courage was inspired, the Government started upon a progressive era under a system thoroughly American. With a great war on our hands, with an army to enlist and pre pare for service, with untold millions of money to supply, the pro tective tariff never failed us in a single emergency, and while money was flowing into our Treasury to save the Government, industries were springing up all over the land — the foundation and cornerstone of our prosperity and glory. With a debt of over $2,750,000,000 when the war terminated, holding on to our protective laws, against Demo cratic opposition, we have reduced that debt at an average rate of more than $62,000,000 each year, $174,000 every twenty-four hours for the last twenty-flve years, and what looked to be a burden almost impossible to bear has been removed under the Eepublican fiscal sys tem until now it is less than $1,000,000,000, and with the payment of this vast sum of money the Nation has not been impoverished. The individual citizen has not been burdened or bankrupted. National and individual prosperity have gone steadily on, until our wealth is so great as to be almost incomprehensible when put into figures. The accumulations of the laborers of the country have increased, and the working classes of no nation in the world have such splendid deposits in savings banks as the working classes of the United States. Listen to their story : The deposits of all the savings banks of New England in 1886 equaled $554,532,434. The deposits in the savings 28 428 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. banks of New York in 1886 were $482,686,730. The deposits in the savings banks of Massachusetts for the year 1887 were $302,948,624, and the number of depositors was 944,778, or $320.67 for each de positor. The savings banks of nine States have in nineteen years increased their deposits $628,000,000. The English savings banks have in thirty-four years increased theirs $350,000,000. Our opera tive deposits $7 to the Bnglish operative's $1. These vast sums rep resent the savings of the men whose labor has been employed under the protective policy which gives, as experience has shown, the largest possible reward to labor. There is no one thing standing alone that so surely tests the wis dom of a national financial policy as the national credit, what it costs to maintain it, and the burden it imposes upon the citizen. It is a fact which every American should contemplate with pride that the public debt of the United States, per capita, is less than that of any other great nation of the world. Let me call the roU : France's public debt, per capita, is $218.27 ; Great Britain, $100.09 ; Italy, $74.25; Spain, $73.34; Belgium, $72.18; Germany, $43.10; Eussia, $35.41 ; United States, $33.92 on a population of 50,000,000 ; and now, with our increased population, the per capita is under $25. [Applause.] England increased her rate of taxation between 1870 and 1880 over 24 per cent, while the United States diminished hers nearly 10 per cent. We lead all nations in agriculture, we lead all nations in mining, and we lead all nations in manufacturing. These are the trophies which we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tarifl. Can any other system furnish such evidences of prosperity ? Yet, in the presence of such a showing of progress, there are men who talk about " the restraints we put upon trade " and " the burdens we put upon the enterprise and energy of our people." There is no country in the world where individual enterprise has such wide and varied range and where the inventive genius of man has such encouragement as in the United States. There is no nation in the world, under any system, where the same reward is given to the labor of men's hands and the work of their brains as in the United States. We hare widened the sphere of human endeavor and given to every mau a fair chance in the race of life and in the attainment of the highest possibilities of human destiny. To reverse this system means to stop the progress of the Eepublic and reduce the masses to small rewards for their labor, to longer hours and less pay, to the simple question of bread and butter. It means to turn them from ambition, courage, THE TARIFF OF 1890. 429 and hope, to dependence, degradation, and despair. No sane man will give up what he has, what he is in full possession of, what he can count on for himself and his children, for what is promised by your theories. Free trade, or, as you are pleased to call it, " revenue tariff," means the opening up of this market, which is adraitted to be the best in the world, to the free entry of the products of the world. It means more — it means that the labor of this country is to be remitted to its earlier condition, and that the condition of our people is to be leveled down to the condition of rival countries ; because under it every ele ment of cost, every item of production, including wages, must be brought down to the level of the lowest paid labor of the world. No other result can follow, and no other result is anticipated or expected by those who intelligently advocate a revenue tariff. We can not maintain ourselves against unequal conditions without the tariff, and no man of affairs believes we can. Under the system of unrestricted trade which you gentlemen recommend, we will have to reduce every element of cost down to or below that of our commercial rivals or surrender them to our own market. No one will dispute that state ment ; and to go into the domestic market of our rivals would mean that production here must be so reduced that with transportation added we could undersell them in their own market ; and to meet them in neutral markets and divide the trade with them would mean that we could profitably sell side by side with them at their minimum price. First, then, to retain our own market under the Democratic sys tem of raising revenue by removing all protection would require our producers to sell at as low a price and upon as favorable terms as our foreign competitors. How could that be done ? In one way only — by producing as cheaply as those who would seek our markets. What would that entail ? An entire revolution in the methods and condi tion and conduct of business here, a leveling down through every channel to the lowest line of our competitors ; our habits of living would have to be changed, our wages cut down fifty per cent or more, our comfortable homes exchanged for hovels, our independence yielded up, our citizenship demoralized. These are conditions insep arable to free trade ; these would be necessary if we would command our own market among our own people ; and if we would invade the world's markets, harsher conditions and greater sacrifices would be demanded of the masses. Talk about depression — we would then have it in its fullness. We would revel in unrestrained trade. Every- 430 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. thing would indeed be cheap, but how costly when measured by the degradation which would ensue ! When merchandise is the cheapest, men are the poorest; and the most distressing experiences in the history of our country — aye, in all human history — have been when everything was the lowest and cheapest measured by gold, for every thing was the highest and the dearest measured by labor. We want no return of cheap times in our own country. We have no wish to adopt the conditions of other nations. Experience has demonstrated that for us and ours, and for the present and the future, the protec tive system meets our wants, our conditions, promotes the National design, and will work out our destiny better than any other. With me this position is a deep conviction, not a theory. I be lieve in it and thus warmly advocate it because enveloped in it are my country's highest development and greatest prosperity ; out of it corae the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manly aspirations, with the largest rewards, dignifying and elevating our citizenship, upon which the safety and purity and permanency of our political system depend. [Long-continued applause on the Eepublican side, and cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"] //^ y//^^^^' D.Ajplcliir ULYSSES S. GEANT. Address at the Celebration of the Seventy-first Anni versary OF His Birth at Galena, Illinois, on April 27, 1893. [From the Galena Gazette.] Me. President, Citizens of Galena, Ladies and Gentle men : I can not forbear at the outset to express to you the very great honor that I feel in being permitted to share with you, at the city of Galena, in the observance of the seventy-flrst anniversary of the birth of that great soldier who once belonged to you, but now, as Stanton said of Lincoln, " belongs to the ages." No history of the war could be written without mentioning the State of Illinois and city of Galena. They contributed the two most conspicuous names in that great civil conflict, the civil and military rulers — Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. [Applause.] No history of Ulysses S. Grant can be written without there coming unbidden from every lip the name Galena, and no faithful biography of the great soldier will ever omit the name of his cherished friend. General John A. Eawlins, also a resident of your city. [Applause.] You have a proud history; Grant gave his sword and his services to his country at Galena, and gave the country back to the people at Appomattox. [Applause.] He presided over the first Union meeting ever held in Galena, and he presided over the greatest Union meeting ever held beneath the flag at Appomattox. [Great applause.] He was little known at the first meeting ; the whole world knew him at the last. [Eenewed and long-continued applause.] We are not a Nation of hero-worshipers. Our popular favorites are soon counted. With more than a hundred years of National life, crowded with great events and marked by mighty struggles, few of the great actors have more than survived the generation in which they lived. Nor has the Nation or its people been ungenerous to its great leaders, whether as statesmen or soldiers. The Eepublic has 432 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. dealt justly, and I believe liberally, with its public men. Yet less than a score of them are remembered by the multitude, and the stu dent of history only can call many of the most distinguished but now forgotten names. How few can recall the names of the Presi dents of the United States in the order of their administrations; fewer still can name the Governors of Illinois, and the United States Senators who have represented this State in that great legislative body. They were popular favorites in their day, representative men, in every sense worthy the high stations to which their fellow-citizens called them ; but they have passed from public thought and memory, and it is left for the relic-hunters to unfold their greatness and dis close their names. The narrowest circle, the gifted few, alone sur vive. Those whose labors were not alone for their age and genera tion, but whose work reached out into the future, broader and deeper than the want of their time, still live in the recollections and hearts of their countrymen. Let me call the best remembered : Washington and Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison, Mar shall and Webster, Jackson, Clay and Calhoun, Lincoln and Douglas, Chase and Seward, Stanton and Garfield. [Applause.] These so impressed the times, so shaped and controlled events, so guided legis lation, so promoted an enlightened public sentiment, as to overleap the limit of their lives and sweep beyond and into the future. They represented ideas ; they stood as the leaders of men and of parties ; they battled for principle. Most of them accomplished results for the welfare of their fellows and the good of mankind ; they marked eras in the progress of the Nation, and they will be remembered because their labors rest upon tbe bed rock of great results, and a mighty Nation and a generous people have crowned them with un fading laurels, and will guard with sacred vigil their illustrious names. We assemble to-day to celebrate the seventy-first anniversary of the birth of one of the grandest and most illustrious of our public men. [Applause.] Fit companion of the distinguished band of statesmen and soldiers who preceded him, he was in many respects the peer of the brightest name in our National galaxy, and it is but right and proper that we should unite in rearing to his memory a suitable monument, to attest the love and reverence of his former fellow-citizens. The whole world is familiar with his history, but it seems appropriate, and may not be unprofitable, for us to briefly review it. On Thursday morning, July 23, 1885, at a few minutes past eight o'clock, Ulysses Simpson Grant died at Mount McGregor, in the ULYSSES S. GRANT. 433 State of New York, aged sixty-three years. He had been an intense but patient sufferer for many months from a dread and fatal disease, and while death had been looked for at any mo ment, when at last it came it sent grief into the hearts and horaes of the American people, and penetrated with sorrow all lands and all nations. This distinguished citizen, whose life we commemorate, and the anniversary of whose birth we pause to celebrate to-day, was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, on April 27, 1822. His early life was not eventful. It did not differ from that of raost of the boys of his time, and gave no more proraise than that of the multitude of youth of his age and station, either of the past or present. Of Scottish descent, he sprang from humble but industrious parents, and with faith and courage, with a will and mind for work, he confronted the problem of life. At the age of seventeen he was sent as a cadet to the West Point Military Academy ; his predecessor having failed to pass the neces sary examination, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of young Grant. At the Academy he was marked as a painstaking, studious, plodding, persistent pupil, who neither graduated at the head nor the foot of his class, but stood number twenty-one in a class of thirty- nine. His rank at graduation placed him in the infantry arm of the service, and in 1843 he was commissioned a brevet Second Lieutenant in the Fourth United States Eegulars. No qualities of an exceptional nature showed themselves up to this point in the character of the young officer. His first actual experience in war was in Mexico. Here he dis tinguished himself, and was twice mentioned in general orders for his conspicuous gallantry. He was twice brevetted by the President of the United States for heroic conduct at the battles of Monterey, Palo Alto, Eesaca de la Palma, Chapultepec and Molino del Eey. After the war with Mexico he was stationed with his regiment on the Northern frontier, and subsequently on the Pacific coast in Oregon and California, in which latter stations he saw much trying service with the Indians. On July 31, 1854, he resigned his com mission in the Army, after eleven years' service therein — a service creditable to him in every particular, but in no sense so marked as to distinguish him from a score of others of equal rank and oppor tunity. As a private citizen he was little known either at St. Louis, Mo., where he first took up his residence, or at Galena, IU., where he sub- 434 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. sequently located his home. In business he did not get on well. His early undertakings, in Missouri, proved mortifying failures, and at that time he would have been called a very unsuccessful man. His father-in-law had given him a tract of land near the city of St. Louis, and there he built a log house for the family residence. As indi cating his ill luck and hard lines at that period, and with that un affected frankness always so conspicuous with him, he significantly called his humble home "Hard Scrabble." Joining his father in Galena in the leather business, he was more fortunate, and when the war came on he was fairly comfortable, nothing more. In his years of poverty he demonstrated one high quality, that of industry ; he was not afraid of hard work. He made a full hand in felling timber and hauling it to market. He labored with his hands in his father's tannery. These were accomplishments not taught at West Point, but his strong and sturdy nature, so marked in later years, did not shrink from the roughest and most menial labor to provide for his family. He was thirty-nine years old when Sumter fell, and within ten days he was in the city of Springfield, Illinois, with a corapany of his and your fellow-townsmen, offering their services for immediate duty at the front. Although friendly to the South, as he had always been, his old Army associates and closest friends being chiefiy from that section, and with whom he had always been in political accord, he was not for an instant irresolute or in doubt as to the pathway of duty, but was swift to tender his skill, his experience, and, if re quired, his life, for the cause of the Union. On April 19, 1861, when other men were hesitating and wavering, he wrote to a friend : " Now is the time for men to prove their love of oountry ; now all party dis tinctions should be lost sight of, and every true patriot be for maintaining the integrity of the glorious Stars and Stripes, the Union, and the Constitution. . . . No impartial man," said he, " can conceal from himself the fact that in all these troubles the Southerners have been the aggressors, and the administration has stood purely on the defensive — more on the defensive than she would dared have done but for her cor\seiousness of strength and the certainty of right prevailing in ths end." These were noble, patriotic words from the young Captain, uttered at the right time, without apology or equivocation, and disclose the sturdy elements of his character and the directness of purpose which distinguished his illustrious career. Then his eyes penetrated the future, and in the same letter he declares that " in all this I can but see the doom of slavery." His broad vision saw with clearness what few others were given to see or believe at that early day ; and he ULYSSES S. GRANT. 435 lived to witness his prophecy of 1861 ripen into glorious fulfiUment, and to him more than to any other man, living or dead, citizen or soldier, was Abraham Lincoln indebted for the power to enforce his great Proclamation of Emancipation. [Great applause.] He seemed also to comprehend the power and determined spirit of the North, for on the same day he said : " The Government can call into the field not only 75,000 troops, but ten or twenty times 75,000, if it should be necessary ; and find the means of maintaining them too." He realized the mighty resources and strength of his country. Who at that early period would have thought that in less than three years the United States would have mustered for duty his extreme estimate of twenty times 75,000 soldiers — a million and a half of men battling for the Union — and that he would be their supreme com mander in the field? [Cheers.] The letter from which I quote clearly shows that the young soldier had been growing in the years of his seclusion and poverty, and that the opening guns of the war found him thoroughly equipped in mind and soul for the great con flict in which he was later to be the central figure. Once in the city of Springfield, his military knowledge was called into immediate requisition, and until June 17, 1861, he assisted the Governor in the muster and organization of the fast-arriving troops, when he was commissioned Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois In fantry. Prom this loyal Prairie State he marched with his regiment to the turbulent State of Missouri, where outbreaks were rife and open war was threatened, joining the forces under General Fremont. On August 7, 1861, he received a commission as Brigadier General of Volunteers, which was his first recognition from the President of the United States. He had offered his services to the National Government in a letter written on May 24, 1861, but no answer was ever made to it, though his commission as Brigadier General was dated back to May 17th. He was successful from the very beginning of his military com mand. His earliest, like his later blows, were tellingly disastrous to the enemy. First at Paducah, then defeating Polk and PiUow at Belmont ; again at Fort Henry, which he captured. Then he deter mined to destroy Fort Donelson, and with rare coolness and de liberation he settled himself down to the task, which he successfully accomplished on February 16, 1862. After two days of severe battle, 12,000 prisoners and their belongings fell into his hands, and the vic tory was sweeping and complete. He was immediately commissioned 436 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Major General of Volunteers, in recognition of his brilliant triumph, and at once secured the confidence of the President and trusting faith of the loyal North, while the men at the front turned their eyes hopefully to their coming commander. His famous dispatch to General Buckner, who had proposed commissioners to negotiate for capitulation — " No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted ; I propose to move immediately upon your works " — electrified the country, and sent cheer to every loyal heart at home and to the brave defenders in the field. It sounded the note of confidence and victory, and gave to the Union cause and lovers of the Union new and fervent hope. It breathed conscious strength, disclosed immeasurable reserve power, and quickened the whole North to grander efforts and loftier patriotism for the preser vation of the Union. [Applause.] From that moment, my fellow-citizens. Grant was stamped as a soldier raised to conquer, and with almost uninterrupted step he won unrivaled victories upon every field he fought. Following Donelson came bloody Shiloh, almost lost to the Union arms on the first day, turned by his skill and persistent determination into a glorious victory on the second. Then luka and Corinth, succeeded by a series of desperate engagements — on to the unmatched triumph at Vicksburg on Independence Day, 1863. [Cheers.] This waa the crowning glory of Grant and his noble army. It surpassed all former victories. He literally bagged the Confederate forces under Pember ton. Thirty thousand ofiicers and men stacked their arms and sur rendered to the victorious leader, and nearly two hundred pieces of artillery, which had been thundering their deadly missiles against his brave army, fell into Union hands. He had won this signal victory after repeated assaults, after siege and battle, with the odds against him, confronted by a powerful, well-disciplined, and determined army, protected by almost impenetrable intrenchments and com manded by one of the ablest of the Confederate generals. He had fought it against the advice of political generals and the suggestions of the strategic commanders in the rear. He started out to do it, and he did it — for that was a habit Grant had. [Cheers and ap plause.] His plans were well conceived and carefully executed. He permitted nothing to divert him from his origiual design. He heeded not the clamor of the meddlesome nor the severe criticism of envious rivals. He moved right on, steadily, directly, strategically ; made no parade of his expected victory ; was without the usual trappings and paraphernalia of great commanders. He was on duty, ULYSSES S. GRANT. 437 with earnest work before him, and he relaxed not until he achieved a victory without a parallel in American annals. He was promptly com missioned Major General in the Eegular Army. His name became a household word ; his pictures were everywhere seen, and made his face familiar for the first time to his countryraen ; his farae was the theme of every tongue. The press and the platform joined in high est eulogy ; public meetings were held to do him honor ; thanks giving and praise went out from every pulpit, and he was at once the acknowledged hero of the war. President Lincoln publicly thanked hira, for hiraself and in the name of the people, for " his inestimable services to the Union cause," and begged to say to him that during the campaign against Vicks burg he had believed him wrong in his plans, and had little hope of his ultimate success, but he wanted to acknowledge that Grant was right and he was wrong. Was ever such generous and manly confes sion made by the Executive of a mighty Nation to one of his subordi nates ? Lincoln felt that this acknowledgment was due to Grant, and with manly candor publicly proclaimed it. In the midst of all these honors the Silent Soldier stood unmoved, except with gratitude, and never for a single instant lost his steady head. Fawning flattery did not spoil him, nor public acclaim shake his rugged nature. He moved among his men and before the country the same great, unostentatious, self-reliant commander — such as you see in yonder statue unveiled in your beautiful park to-day, erected by your friend Mr. Kohlsaat,* here in Galena. [Long-continued cheers and applause.] He looked, the first time I saw him, much as his statue looks there on the lawn to-day. He preserved his even course after Vicksburg. He was better than ever equipped for new duties and higher responsibilities, if in the wisdom of his countrymen he should be called to assume them. He was not content to stop with laurels already won or victories safely achieved. The complete overthrow of the opposing army and the downfall of the Confederacy was the victory for which his patri otic soul yearned, and for which his sword was drawn. After Vicks burg he directed the operations at Lookout Mountain and Mission Eidge, where " fighting Joe Hooker " led the charging forces up the slopes and onward in the " battle among the clouds," and drove the enemy in dismay from its mountain fastnesses. Chattanooga now being secure to the National troops. General Grant turned his atten- * Mr. H. H. Kohlsaat, proprietor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 438 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. tion to relieving Knoxville, which accomplished he was called to the East to assume new and greater responsibilities. As a result of his sweeping and successive victories. Congress passed a bill creating the office of Lieutenant General. It was openly avowed upon the fioor of the House, and in the Senate, that this new rank was intended for the hero of Vicksburg. President Lincoln promptly signed the bill, and, in accord with his own and the popular judgment, at once nominated Ulysses S. Grant for the exalted office just created, and assigned him to the coramand of all the armies of the Union. He was now endowed with the military rank previously given to George Washington alone, but to no other American soldier. It is a remarkable fact that the two great leaders in the mighty struggle for the Union met now for the first time. Both from the same State, the one the Commander in Chief by the Constitution, the other his trusted subordinate in the field, who had received from his own hands promotion after promotion in nearly every grade of the service to the highest, and always his faithful and unstinted support ; yet they never crossed hands nor looked into each other's earnest faces until March 9, 1864, when, in the Cabinet room of the Presi dent, in the presence of his great constitutional advisers, the one placed in the hands of the other the high commission which the Father of his Country had surrendered back to the Government eighty-one years before. [Applause.] And here it is interesting to note what the earnest and confiding Lincoln thought of the man who henceforth was to sway such mighty power. The President was asked by a visitor and friend : " How about Grant's generalship ? Is he going to be the man ? " To which he re plied, with great emphasis of tone and gesture : " Grant is the first general I've had. He is a general.'" " How do you mean, Mr. Lin coln ? " his visitor asked. " Well, I'll tell you what I mean," replied Lincoln ; " you know how it's been with all the rest. As soon as I put a man in command of the array he'd corae to me with the plan of a campaign, and about as much as say, ' Now, I don't believe I can do it, but if you say so I'll try it on,' and so put the responsibility of success or failure on me. They all wanted me to be the general. Now it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know them, and I don't want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead without me and do something." [Applause.] On March 17, 1864, a little more than three years from his de parture from Galena, where he was drilling your local company as a ULYSSES S. GRANT. 439 simple captain. Grant assumed the control of all the Federal forces, wherever located, and in less than fourteen months Lee's army, the pride and glory of the Confederate Government, surrendered to the victorious soldier. It was not a surrender without resistance — skill ful, dogged resistance. It was secured after many battles and fierce assaults, accompanied by indescribable toil and suffering, and the loss of thousands of precious lives. The battles of the Wilderness, Spott sylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor, and the siege of Petersburg, witnessed the hardest fighting and the severest sacrifices of the war, while the loss of brave men in the trenches was simply appalling. The historian has wearied in detailing them, and the painter's hand has palsied with reproducing the scenes of blood and carnage there en acted. General Grant not only directed the forces in front of Eich mond, but the entire line of operation of all our armies was under his skillful hand and was moved by his masterful mind. The entire field was the theater of his thought, and to his command all moved as a symmetrical whole, harmonious to one purpose, centering upon one grand design. In obedience to his orders, Sherman was marching^ fighting, and winning victories with his splendid army in Georgia, extending our victorious banners farther and deeper into the heart of the Confederacy ; and all the while the immortal Thomas was engag ing the enemy in another part of the far-stretching field, diverting and defeating the only army which might successfully impede the tri umphant march of Sherraan to the sea. Sheridan, of whom General Grant said the only instruction he ever required was " to go in," was going into the Shenandoah VaUey, that disputed fleld, the scene of Stonewall Jackson's fame. Here his dashing army driving by storm and strategy the determined forces of Early, sent thera whirling back, stripped of laurels previously won, without either their artillery or battle flags. Schofleld had done grand work at Franklin, and later occupied Wilmington and Goldsboro, on the distant seacoast, with a view to flnal connection with Sherman. These movements and more, absorbed the mind of the great commander. Sheridan soon left nothing in the Shenandoah Valley to fight, and was called to Grant's side to command all the cavalry in the flnal and triumphant conflict which was to be waged against the chivalrous forces of Lee. Then the flghting was in earnest all along the line — with a desperation born of conviction, with a determination not to be thwarted by any host nor turned back by any slaughter. I could not and would not undertake to describe those closing scenes. They were mighty in conception, quick and irresistible in execution. 440 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. bold, almost to rashness. Sweeping like a mighty storm, unchecked by any resistance, right on in the face of death, until the great goal, for which so many had fought and fallen and so many had prayed and wept, was reached. The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to the matchless Ulysses, and the wicked conspiracy to destroy the Union was dead — forever dead. [Great applause.] The Union was saved with Liberty, and we pray both may be eternal. The liberal terms given to Lee at Appomattox revealed 'in the breast of the hard fighter a soft and generous heart. He wanted no vengeance ; he had no bitterness in his soul ; he had no hates to avenge. He believed in war only as a means of peace. His large, brave, gentle nature made the surrender as easy to his illustrious foe as was possible. He said with the broadest humanity : " Take your horses and side arras, all of your personal property and belongings, and go horae, not to be disturbed, not to be punished for treason, not to be outcasts, but go, cultivate the flelds whereon you fought and lost. Yield faithful allegiance to the old flag and the restored Union, and obey the laws of peace." Was ever such magnanimity before shown by victor to vanquished ? Here closed the great war, and with it the active military career of the great commander. His civil administration covered eight years — two full terms as President of the United States. This new exaltation was not of his own seeking. He preferred to remain General of the Army, with which he had been so long associated and in which he had acquired his great fame. The country, however, was determined that the suc cessful soldier should be its civil ruler. The loyal people felt that they owed him the highest honors which the Nation could bestow, and they called him from the military to the civil head of the Gov ernment. His term commenced in March, 1869, and ended in March, 1877. It constituted one of the most important periods of our Na tional life. If the period of Washington's administration involved the formation of the Union, that of Grant's was confronted with its reconstruction, after the bitter, relentless, internal struggle to destroy it. It was a most delicate era in which to rule. It would have been difficult, embarrassing, and hazardous to any man, no matter how. gifted or what his previous preparation or equipment might have been. Could any one have done better than he? — we will not pause to discuss. Diflerent opinions prevail, and on this occasion we do not enter the field of controversy ; but, speaking for myself, I believe he was exactly the man for the place, and that he filled to its full measure the trust to which his fellow-citizens called him. He com- ULYSSES S. GRANT. 44I mitted errors. Who could have escaped them, at such a time and in such a place ? He stood in his civil station battling for the legitimate fruits of the war, that they might be firmly secured to the living and to their posterity forever. His arm was never lifted against the right ; his soul abhorred the wrong. His veto of the Inflation Bill ; his organiza tion of the Geneva Arbitration Commission to settle the claims of the United States against England ; his strong but conciliatory foreign policy ; his constant care to have no policy against the will of the people ; his enforcement of the Constitution and its Amendments in every part of the Eepublic ; his maintenance of the credit of the Government and its good faith at home and abroad, marked his ad ministration as strong, wise, and patriotic. Great and wise as his civil administration was, however, the achievements which make him " one of the immortal few whose names will never die " are found in his military career. Carping critics have sought to mar it, strategists have found flaws in it, but in the presence of his successive, uninter rupted, and unrivaled victories it is the idlest chatter, which none should heed. He was always ready to flght. If beaten to-day, he resumed battle on the morrow ; and his pathway was all along crowned with victories and surrenders, which silence criticism, and place him side by side with the mighty soldiers of the world. [Applause.] With no disparagement to others, two names rise above all the rest in American history since George Washington — transcendently above them. They are Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. [Applause.] Bach will be remembered for what he did and accom plished for his race and for mankind. Lincoln proclaimed liberty to four million slaves, and upon his act invited " the considerate judg ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." He has received the warm approval of the one, and I am sure he is enjoying the generous benediction of the other. His was the greatest, mighti est stroke of the war. Grand on its humanity side, masterly in its military aspect, it has given to his name an imperishable place among men. Grant gave irresistible power and efficacy to the Proclamation of Liberty. The iron shackles which Lincoln declared should be loosed from the limbs and souls of the black slaves. Grant with his matchless army melted and destroyed in the buming glories of the war ; and the rebels read the inspired decree in the flashing guns of his artiUery, and they knew what Lincoln had decreed Grant would execute. [Applause.] He had now filled the full measure of human ambition and drunk from every fountain of earthly glory. He had commanded mighty 442 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. legions upon a hundred victorious fields. He had borne grave re sponsibilities and exercised almost limitless power. He had exe cuted every trust with fidelity, and, in the main, with consummate skill. He had controlled the movement of a larger army than had been commanded by any other soldier, the world over, since the inven tion of firearms. [Applause.] He was made General of the United States Army by Congress on July 25, 1866 — a rank and title never given to American soldier before. He had won the lasting gratitude of his fellow-countrymen, and whenever and wherever he went among them they crowned him with fresh manifestations of their love and veneration — and no reverses of fortune, no errors of judgment, no vexatious and unfortunate business complications ever shook their trustful confidence. [Applause.] When he sought rest in other lands, crowned heads stood uncovered in his presence and laid their trophies at his feet, while the struggling toiler, striving for a larger liberty, oflered his earnest tribute to the great warrior who had made liberty universal in the Eepublic. Everywhere he went grate ful honors greeted him, and he was welcomed as no American had been before. He girded the globe with his renown as he journeyed in the pathway of the sun. [Applause.] Nothing of human longing or aspiration remained unsatiated. He had enjoyed all the honors which his lavish countrymen could bestow, and had received the re spectful homage of foreign nations. His private life was beautiful in its purity and simplicity. No in-everent oath passed his lips, and his conversation was as chaste and unaffected as that of simple childhood. His relations with his family were tender and affectionate, and with his officers and soldiers cordial and considerate. He was a typical American, free from osten tation, easily approached. His whole life gave proof of his nation ality — a man from the people, of the people, for the people, and never above the people. [Applause.] For weeks during the siege of Vicksburg he was without baggage or servant, camp chest or tent, sharing the rations of the private soldier, and sleeping on the ground with no covering but the heavens above him. On one occasion, in the Department he was command ing, steamboat captains discriminated against the private soldier, and would not permit him to ride as a cabin passenger on equal terms with officers and the traveling public generally. This coming to the General's knowledge, he issued an immediate and peremptory order forbidding such un-American treatment, and punishing with extreme severity any future discriminations against the bravest and best — his ULYSSES S. GRANT. 443 allies in the great conflict. His tenderness and respect for the volun teer soldier was proverbial in every army wherein he served, and any slight to him Grant always repelled as a personal indignity. Only a few years ago, in one of his journeys through the South, when he was receiving a great ovation, some colored men crowded his hotel to look into the face and to grasp the hand of their great de liverer. To this intrusion objection was made, and the colored men were about to be ejected, wheu the General appeared, and in his quiet way, full of earnest feeling, said : " Where I am they shall corae also." [Great applause.] He believed in the brotherhood of raan — in the political equality of all men — he had secured that with his sword, and was prompt to recognize it in all places and everywhere. But, my friends. Death had marked him for a victim. He fought Death with his iron will and his old-time courage, but at last yielded, the first and only time the great soldier was ever vanquished. He had routed every other foe, he had triumphed over every other enemy, but this last one conquered him, as in the end he conquers all. He, however, stayed his fatal hand long enough to permit Grant to finish the last great work of his life — to write the history he had made. True, that history had been already written — written in blood, in the agony of the dying and in the tears of the suffering Nation ; written in the hearts of her patriotic people. The ready pens of others had told more than a thousand times the matchless story ; the artist had, a hundred times, placed upon canvas the soul -stirring scenes in which Grant was the central figure ; the sculptor had cut its every phase in enduring marble, yet a kind Providence mercifully spared him a few months longer, that he who had seen it and directed it should sum up the great work wrought by the grand army of the Eepublic under his magic guidance. He was not an old man when he died, but, after all, what a completed life was his ! Mighty events and mightier achievements were never crowded into a single life before, and he lived to place them in enduring forra, to be read by the millions living and the millions yet unborn. Then laying down his pen, he bowed resignedly before the Angel of Death, saying : " If it is God's providence that I shall go now, I am ready to obey his will without a murmur." Great in life, majestic in death ! He needs no monument to perpetuate his fame; it will live and glow with increased luster so long as liberty lasts and the love of liberty has a place in the hearts of men. Every soldiers' monument throughout the North now standing or hereafter to be erected will record his worth and work as well as those of the brave men who 29 444 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. fought by his side. His most lasting memorial will be the work he did, his most enduring monument the Union which he and his heroic associates saved, and the priceless liberty they secured. Surrounded by a devoted family, with a mind serene and a heart resigned, he passed over to join his fallen comrades beyond the river, on another field of glory. Above him in his chamber of sickness and death hung the portraits of Washington and Lincoln, whose disem bodied spirits in the Eternal City were watching and waiting for him who was to complete the immortal trio of America's first and best loved; and as the earthly scenes receded from his view and the celestial appeared, I can imagine these were the first to greet his sight and bid him welcome. We are not a Nation of hero worshipers. We are a Nation of generous freemen. We bow in affectionate reverence and with most grateful hearts to these immortal names, Washington, Lincoln, and Grant, and will guard with sleepless vigilance their mighty work and cherish their memories evermore. " They were the luster lights of their day. The . . . giants, Who clave the darkness asunder And beaconed us where we are.'' COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, Mat 14, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under considera tion the bill (H. R. 9,416) to reduce the revenue and equalize the duty on imports and for other purposes, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : I want to say there has not been a single in terest in this country that asked for a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee that has not been heard. [Applause on the Ee publican side.] Manufacturers, laborers, consumers, importers, con signors, consignees — free-traders and protectionists — all who have presented themselves at the door of the Committee on Ways and Means have been heard [applause], and they are being heard now while we are considering this bill in the House. This morning at half past nine o'clock the Committee met, and sat continuously until eleven, to hear a gentleman upon certain schedules. We are to meet to-morrow morning ; and we shall continue to meet and hear all the great interests of this country until this bill shall finally be passed through this House. [Applause.] I want to say another thing, Mr. Chairman. The imputation of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Bynum] that we have closed up the passage to this Hall in order that we might have a private con sultation room for members of the majority of the Committee is false ; it is untrue. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] I want to say to him that the Committee on Ways and Means, crowded as it was by the representatives of the great interests of the country, found that it had no room for consultation, no room in which the Committee could go into executive session. Bvery member of that Committee, Demo crat and Eepublican, signed a request to the Speaker of this House asking to have an additional room, a private room, assigned to the 446 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Committee ; and the selection of the room was made by the Speaker, in company with Mr. Carlisle, the leader on the other side of the House, and myself, it being the best we could possibly do under the circumstances. I want to say further that the minority of the Ways and Means Committee have always had access to that room— Is not that so, gen tlemen of the minority ? — and have used it whenever they wanted to use it. And when they were preparing their minority report they had almost exclusive use of that Committee room. Mr. Chairman, I do not permit any man to impute to the majority of that Committee improper motives or want of courtesy toward the minority. The minority members know that any imputation of that kind is abso lutely false, and, if made, is made by some one ignorant of the per sonal relations of the gentlemen on that Committee. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] I supposed I had stated, but, if not, I want to say now, that the farmers have been fully heard by the Committee. The President of the National Grange and his associates have been before the Com mittee over and over again. Only yesterday we heard the Farmers' Alliance ; we heard them again to-day, and we have agreed to hear them to-morrow, and the next day if necessary, for the completion of the arguments which they desire to present. And while I am on my feet I wish to say that we not only heard everybody that I have named, but we heard also at great length the " Parsee merchant," Mr. J. S. Moore, a gentleman who is known to be almost the leader of the Democratic party upon the revenue-tarifl theory which they advocate here. [Laughter and applause on the Eepublican side.] WILLIAM D. KELLEY. Address in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, March 15, 1890. [From ihe Congressional Beeord.] Mr. Speaker : I can not refrain from claiming for a moraent or two the attention of the House to bring my tribute of respect and affection to my old friend, for whom living I had the most affection ate regard, and whose death takes from all of us an honorable asso ciate, a wise counselor, and from some of us a very close and dear friend. I first met Judge Kelley in the Forty-fifth Congress. In the following Congress I was associated with him on the Committee on Ways and Means, and from that time until the close of the last Congress I served with the distinguished statesman on that Commit tee, to which he devoted so much of the labor of his life, and with whose business, for almost a quarter of a century, his name will long be associated and gratefully remembered. No eulogy that I could speak would do justice to the noble life which has closed. His life-work is his highest eulogy. What he wrought for his fellow-men and the impress he made upon the legis lation of the country will be his best and most enduring memorial. That which most impressed me in my long acquaintance with him was his thoroughness, his industry, his capacity for work, his sturdy integrity, his wide range of information. Every subject he touched he became master of. Not content with scratching the crust merely, he penetrated the strata and foundation, and his public speeches and contributions to magazines evidenced a grasp of the subjects he was considering which few men possess. He was a great student, and did his work with method and therefore with dispatch. The long hours he gave to his public duties, to the critical investigation of the ques tions with which he was charged as a member of the House, will never be known, and they told awfully upon his strength. His work 448 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in his Committee was of the most laborious character ; the days were too short, and the nights which should have been given to rest were exacted by the stern demands of duties placed upon him. His intellectual resources were almost without limit. His knowl edge of economic, financial, and scientific questions was vast and com prehensive. He was not only a reader of books and of current litera ture, but a keen and intelligent observer of forces, of causes, and events. Scarcely a subject could be discussed with which he was not familiar and which was not illuminated from his storehouse of knowledge. His work in the Forty-seventh Congress as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means so drained his vital forces as to be the beginning of that physical impairment which ended in his death. It was a fearful draught upon his strength. As a student and master of political economy he was probably without a superior in the present generation ; and as the advocate of the doctrine of protection he was for twenty years the unquestioned leader, always in the very front rank, always on the extreme outpost. He was devoted to the principle, because it was a conviction with him, and because he believed it would best subserve the interests of his fellow-citizens and secure the highest prosperity of his country. His narae in that field of public duty will pass into history linked with the name of that other great protectionist, Henry Clay. As an orator, at his best he was powerful and persuasive. His voice was full and musical ; his sentences were clear and rhetorical ; his information was great and his illustrations were always striking and forceful. I recall some of his speeches in this Hall as the most impressive I have ever listened to ; and whether on this fioor or on the hustings, where vast crowds delighted to greet him, he carried his audiences by the irresistible force of his logic and the fervor of his eloquence. He was an honest man, and that, after all, counts most and is best. Never did suspicion fasten upon him — he was far above it. For thirty years in public life, a member of the House of Eepresenta tives during the war, with its waste and destruction, followed by doubtful schemes and wild speculations ; called upon as he was to deal with great public and private interests, and much of the tirae in touch and control of legislation which affected vast enterprises, while others fell before the temptations of the hour, he passed through all unscathed and unsullied, uncorrupted and incorruptible, and leaves to his family, his friends and his countrymen that highest of all hon orable titles, an honest man. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 449 He had a wonderful hold upon the people, and especially so upon his immediate constituency. For thirty years he represented the same district ; fifteen times in succession he was returned to this House by an intelligent and discriminating constituency ; and while not at all times in accord upon every public question with those he represented, such confidence did his people have in his honesty and capacity and usefulness that they would elect no other Eepresentative to displace him. This was a rare distinction, given, I believe, to no other man of the present or past, no other statesman living or dead ; and at the end he was more firmly intrenched in the respect and affection of his people than at any other period of his career. He devoted his whole life, his vigorous youth, his matured man hood, and his declining strength and energy — to the public service, and his name will be associated with the greatest events of our Na tional history. That public which he served so well owes him a debt that it can never repay. Men of all classes and conditions tumed to him as their friend, and he served them faithfully and well. We shall miss him from these halls. We have already missed him. We will honor him most by emulating his many virtues. FREE MATERIALS FOR THE FOREIGN TRADE. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, May 17, 1890. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9,416) to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, the question being upon agreeing to the amendment allowing a drawback equal in amount to the duties paid, less one per cent, Mr. McKinley said — ' Mr. Chairman : I simply want to say that this rebate principle has existed in our law since 1797, and in every tarifl bill that has ever been presented by either side of the House a rebate upon imported materials for manufacture and* export has always been recognized and encouraged. I want to call the gentleman from Ohio's [Mr. Owens] attention also to the fact that in the Forty-eighth Congress, which was controlled by his own party, when the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means was the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Morrison], that Committee, without a dissenting vote, reported a bill recommending a drawback, not of 99 per cent, but of 100 per cent, upon all imported materials that entered into manufactures for the export trade. And, Mr. Chairman, let me read what was said upon that subject by Mr. Hewitt, of New York, a busi ness man and an accoraplished statesman. Mr. Hewitt said : The general idea is to remove all unnecessary obstacles to the growth of our domestic industries and to its competition in the open markets of the world with the products of other countries. A tax upon raw materials which enter into our exports is a practical bonus to other nations who do not pay such taxes. It is un doubtedly a wise policy to give as much employment as possible to our own peo ple, and this object is obtained when we prepare the commodities entirely ready for use, instead of shipping them in a cruder form to be manufactured elsewhere. No domestic interest will be injured by the return of the duty on the materials thus exported ; but many branches of domestic industry will be greatly benefited and enlarged. That is the language of Mr. Hewitt, of your own Committee on Ways and Jleans in the Forty-eighth Congress ; and if rebates are a FREE MATERIALS FOR THE FOREIGN TRADE. 45 1 " bribe" as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Owens] declares, your Democratic Committee offered the largest bribe that has ever been offered by any Congress since the foundation of the Govemment. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] I ask the Clerk to read the re port of Mr. Hewitt to which I have referred : The Committee on Ways and Means report bill H. R. 7651, entitled " A bill to amend section 3019 of the Revised Statutes, relating to drawbacks on duties on imported material when manufactured and exported," with a recommendation that the same be enacted into law. As the law now stands, 90 per cent of the duty which has been collected on foreign materials used in manufactures and ex ported in manufactured form is refunded to the manufacturer ; in the case of sugar, 99 per cent is so refunded. The theory of the law was to retain a suiBcient amount of duty to cover the cost of keeping accounts, but in practice it has been found that only about one tenth of 1 per cent is necessary for the purpose. Inas much as it is desirable to remove all possible obstacles to the growth of our export trade, the Committee are of opinion, which is concurred in by the Secre tary of the Treasury, that it is no longer wise to retain any portion of the duties which have been collected on materials thus exported. The general idea is to remove all unnecessary obstacles to the growth of our doraestic industry, and to its competition in the open markets of the world with the products of other coun tries. A tax upon the raw materials which enter into our exports is to that ex tent a practical bonus to other nations who do not pay such taxes. It is undoubt edly a wise polioy to give as much employment as possible to onr own people, and this object is attained when we prepare the commodities entirely ready for use, instead of shipping them in a cmder form to be manufactured elsewhere. No domestic interest will be injured by the return of the duty on materials thus ex ported, but many branches of domestic industry will be greatly benefited and enlarged. Your Committee therefore recommend the passage of the bill. Also the following letter, which accompanied that report : THEAsrBY Department, Jamiary 9, 1885. Sir ; I am in receipt of your letter of this date, inclosing a bill introduoed by you into the House of Representatives, entitled " A bill to amend section 8019 of the Revised Statutes, relating to drawback of duties on articles exported, manu factured in the United States out of foreign materials." Section 3019, Revised Statutes, which relates to drawback on exported articles, provides for the reten tion of 10 per cent of the duties upon the materials entering into the manufacture of the exported article. The object of this bill is to abolish the retention of 10 per cent, so as to pay back all the duties exacted upen tho materials. The bill follows the exact language of section 3019, Revised Statutes, down to and includ ing the word " Treasury," but omits the requirement of the retention of 10 per cent. I think the language of the bill is well calculated to aceomplish the object in view, and it does not occur to me that any other form would improve it in that respeet. Very respectfully, Hugh McOullooh, Secretary. Hon. M. C. George, House of Bepresentatives, Washington, D. C. - THE DUTY ON SUGAR. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, May 20, 1890. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9,416) to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Chairman : The Committee on Ways and Means, looking to the average sentiment of the country, wishing on the one hand to give the people free and cheap sugar, and desiring on the other hand to do no harm to this great industry in our midst, have recommended an entire abolition of all duties upon sugar ; and then, mindful as we have ever been of our own industries, we turn about and give to this industry two cents upon every pound of sugar produced in the United States, a sum equal to the duties now imposed upon foreign sugar imported into this country. We have thus given the people free and cheap sugar, and at the sarae tirae we have given to our pro ducers, with their invested capital, absolute and complete protection against the cheaper sugar produced by the cheaper labor of other countries. Now, what have we accomplished by this ? We pay an nually $55,000,000 upon the sugar we import. The gentlemen on the other side claim rightfully that this is a revenue duty. It is a revenue duty ; it is a Democratic duty ; and, being a Democratic revenue duty, every dollar of it is paid by the American consumer. Last year we paid $55,000,000 out of our own pockets to protect whom? To protect the men in the United States who are producing just one eighth of the amount of our consumption of sugar. Now we wipe that out, and it will cost us to pay the bounty just $7,000,000 every twelve months which furnishes the sarae protection at very much less cost to the consumer. So we save $48,000,000 every year, and leave that vast sum in the pockets of our own people. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Why, my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge] talks about the number of houses that could be built if we would only remove the tariff upon cotton and woolen goods. Sir, when we lift from the American people this vast sum of $48,000,000 of taxes they can put THE DUTY ON SUGAR. 453 up every twelve months, 48,000 houses, costing $1,000 apiece. " Ah, but," they say, " this appropriation will not last." Some gentleman on the other side says that if we should pass this bill a Democratic Congress would refuse to make the appropriation. Fearing that — fearing that the Democratic party would do such a gross injustice to a great American industry— we have provided in the bUl that the sum required for bounties shall be a perraanent appropriation. [Ap plause on the Eepublican side.] But my time is almost consumed, and I must hurry on. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Mills] said the other day that the bill that we had reported to the House gave more duties and pro tection to the sugar refiners than the bill which he brought into the House in the last Congress. I think he must have by inadvertence made that statement. Let me tell you what his bill did for the re finers of the United States. His bill placed sugar of 75 degrees at $1.15 ; sugar of 90 degrees at $1.63 ; sugar from No. 13 to No. 16 at $3.20 ; sugar from No. 16 to No. 20 at $2.40 ; and above No. 20 it gave a duty of $2.81. He gave as a differential duty, commencing at No. 13 and running up to No. 16, .57 of one per cent to the sugar re finers of the United States. We give no duty to the sugar refiners up to No. 16. Above 16 and up to 20 he gave them .77 ; we give them .40, just .37 less than was given by the Mills bill. Above 20 he gave $1.17, and we give .40 — just .77 less than the Mills bill gave to the refiners of the United States. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] The refiners should have whatever duty will protect them against their foreign rivals in the difference of the labor cost. But my friend from Tennessee tells us that because we have reduced the differential duties below the Mills bill we have sent up the trust certificates. Now, since that statement was made I have received, and hold in ray hand, a letter from the President of the Havemeyer Sugar Eefinery, in which he says : New Yoke, May 12, 1890. Dear Sir : Referring to the use made in the House of the fact that sugar cer tificates have advanced since the publication of the Committee's schedule, I de sire to say that it is not true, as charged, that the advance has been caused by such schedule. The simple fact is, that the advance is a reaction from the very low prices, and due to the manipulation of Wall Street operators, who put the stock down from 115 to 50 at a time when the old tariff was undisturbed and the busi ness more prosperous than now. Now they are on the other side. It is not just that the sugar schedule in the bill before the House should be held accountable for the action of a speculative clique who are not connected with nor controlled by the sugar-refining companies. Yours, very respectfully, Jno. B. Searles, Jr. THE SILVER BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, June 25, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 5,381) directing the pur chase of silver bullion, and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, with various amendments by the Senate, Mr. McKinley said— Mr. Speaker : It seems to me that the subject now under con sideration is grave enough in every aspect to cause us, even at this last moment of the discussion, to pause and thoughtfuUy consider whether by our votes here to-day we shall reverse the well-established financial policy of the country. From 1793 to 1873 we had the free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States, the two metals fluctuating in value from time to time, rarely if ever at a parity, sometimes so varying and unequal that the President of the United States was compelled to suspend the coinage of the sUver dollar — a rule made by Jefferson in 1805 and followed for thirty years after ward. What we are considering here to-day, and what we have been considering almost without interruption for the last ten days, has been only the struggle of the century which has vexed the statesmen of all periods of our history, and that struggle has been to preserve the concurrent circulation of gold and silver, each on a parity with the other. And we have never been able to do it until now. At no time in the history of the United States have gold and silver so circu lated side by side, in equal volume, as gold and silver have circulated concurrently since 1878. Now I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we should preserve these two moneys side by side. And it is because I want to preserve these equal standards of value that I have opposed and shall oppose concurrence in the Senate amendraents. I do not want gold at a premium, I do not want silver at a discount, or vice versa, but I want both metals side by side, equal in purchasing power and in legal-tender quality, equal in power to perform the functions of money with which to do the business and move the commerce of the United States. To tell me that the free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, in the THE SILVER BILL. 455 absence of co-operation on the part of other commercial nations, will not bring gold to a premium, is to deny all history and the weight of all financial experience. The very instant that you have opened up our mints to the silver bullion of the world independently of international action, that very instant, or in a brief time at best, you have sent gold to a premium ; and when you have sent gold to a premium, then you have put it in great measure into disuse, and we are remitted to the sin gle standard, that of silver alone ; we have deprived ourselves of the active use of both metals. It is only because of the safe and conserv ative financial policy of the Eepublican party, aided by the conserv ative men of both parties, which has more than once received the approval of the country, that since 1878 by our legislation we have compelled gold and silver to work together upon an equality, both employed as safe means of exchange in the business of our country. Let the bullion of the world come into this market from Europe and Asia, and then, whether gold flows out of this country or not, it flows out of the channels of business and the avenues of trade, and we are in danger of being driven to the use of silver alone. I oppose the Senate amendments because I want the use of both silver and gold. The gentleraen who favor the amendments of the Senate want silver to do the work alone, to be the sole agency of our exchanges. Those of us who believe in conservative legislation want to utilize both metals and make both respond to the wants of trade. They talk about silver being cheap money. And gentlemen no longer conceal on that side and on this that the reason they want silver is because it is cheap. I am not attracted by the word " cheap," whether applied to nations or to men, or whether it is applied to money. Whatever dollars we have in this country must be good dollars, as good in the hands of the poor as the rich ; equal dollars, equal in inherent merit, equal in purchasing power, whether they be paper dollars, or gold dollars, or silver dollars, or Treasury notes — each convertible into the other and each exchangeable for the other, because each is based upon equal value and has behind it equal security ; good not by the fiat of law alone, but good because the whole commercial world recognizes its in herent and inextinguishable value. There should be no speculative features in our money, no opportunity for speculation in the exchanges of the people. They must be safe and stable. And I stand here to day speaking not for a single section, but for my country and for the whole country. I say that it is for the highest and best interests of all that, whatever money we have, it must be based upon both gold and silver, and represent the best money in the world. [Loud applause.] THE FEDERAL ELECTION BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, July 3, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 11,045) to amend and supplement the election laws of the United States, Mr. McKinley said— Mr. Speaker : I rise only to say that, in my judgment, it wiU not do to adopt the amendment proposed by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Hemphill] ; nor is the interpretation he places upon the section justified by its language. If his amendment is passed by this House, it will take from the President of the United States all the power he would have under section 1989 to enforce judicial pro cesses under the provisions of the bill now being considered by the House. And it must be reraerabered that in the bill we are now considering the judiciary has very much to do with its administra tion ; and judicial processes will be constantly and ever recurring in the course of the administration of this law. Therefore I say, if we should pass this araendment to-day, we deprive the President of the United States of a power which he has held since the foundation of the Government, to use the Army and the Navy to execute the judicial processes of the Federal courts of the land. You might just as well destroy this bill at once if you deprive the United States Govern ment, through its Chief Executive, of the authority to use the entire Federal force of the Government to execute the judicial processes under the proposed measure. We must not take from the Govern ment the power to execute judicial decrees and processes of its own courts, and this amendment should be voted down. And now, Mr. Speaker, having said that, I want to add that this bill ought to be passed. I have not indulged in this discussion here tofore. This bill may not be, in all its provisions, what I would like to have it, but it is a bill looking to an honest representation on THE FEDERAL ELECTION BILL. 457 the floor of the American House of Eepresentatives, and to honest voting and the fair counting of votes in every part and section of the American Eepublic. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] That is all there is of the biU, and no honest man can object to it, and no lover of fair play can afford to oppose it. It is said that this measure is harsh. It will rest heavily only upon districts and upon States which violate the laws and the Constitution of our common country. Let every citizen of this Eepublic vote, and then see to it that his vote is counted as it is cast and returned as counted, and you never need invoke any of the provisions of the bill or subject yourselves to what you term its harsh provisions. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] But they say that it is expensive ; that it will cost $10,000,000, to be taken out of the National Treasury. That assumes that the three hundred and thirty districts of this country will invoke the operation of the law. But there is not a man on this floor who does not know that not a hundred districts in the United States will invoke its oper ation when it goes into effect. It will not be required even in that number. And let me remind gentlemen on the other side of this Chamber, as well as my friends on this side of the Chamber, that you will diminish the cost of the administration of this bill in the ratio that you diminish fraudulent voting, false counting, stuffing of ballot- boxes, and suppressing the voice of the Eepublicans in the South. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] It will cost nothing if it is not used, and it will not be used if there is no need for it. Honest elec tions will make the law unnecessary ; dishonest ones should be stopped by the strong arm of the law. My friend from Mississippi [Mr. Allen] quotes from General Grant. Let me quote from an utterance of his, made in speaking of the condition of affairs in Mississippi, the gentleman's own State. Said President Grant : How long these things are to continue or what is to be the final remedy the Great Ruler of the Universe only knows ; but I have an abiding faith that the remedy will corae, and come speedily, and earnestly hope it will come peacefully. Let me quote from him another utterance made two years before his death. Speaking of this very question of the suffrage, he said it would " never ie settled until every man who counts, or represents those who do count, shall cast one ballot and have that lallot counted precisely as he cast it." [Applause on the Eepublican side.] Now, I want to say here to-day, for I have but a few moments, that this question will not rest until justice is done ; and the con sciences of the American people will not be permitted to slumber 458 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. until this great constitutional right — the equality of suffrage, the equality of opportunity, freedom of political action and political thought — shall be not the mere cold formalities of constitutional en actment as now, but a living birthright which the poorest and the humblest citizen, white or black, native-born or naturalized, may confidently enjoy, and which the richest and most powerful dare not deny. [Prolonged applause on the Eepublican side.] Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House, remember that God puts no nation in supreme place which will not do supreme duty. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] God keeps no nation in supreme place which will not perform the supreme duty of the hour [renewed applause], and He will not long prosper that nation which will not protect and defend its weakest citizens. It is our supreme duty to enforce the Constitution and laws of the United States " and dare to be strong for the weak." Gentlemen of the other side, I appeal to you to obey the laws and Constitution ; obey them as we obey and observe them ; for I tell you the people of the North wUl not con tinue to permit two votes in the South to count as much as five votes in the North. [Prolonged applause on the Eepublican side.] THE FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS. Speech at the Eepublican Convention at Orrville, Ohio, Accepting a Eenomination to Congress, August 26, 1890. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : I ac cept the nomination that you have unanimously tendered me, and for that honor I beg you will receive my sincere thanks, my most grateful acknowledgments. I appreciate more than I can find words to express the cordial confidence shown by your action. Public station has its cares and its compensations, and one of the chief compensations is the approval of a just and intelligent constituency. Nothing so sustains the Eepresentative ; nothing so gives him courage for the work before him. It inspires him to the highest efforts in the service of his coun try ; it encourages him to the most faithful work of which he is ca pable, that he may deserve the trust reposed in him. The relation becomes closer, and the ties stronger, between Congressman and con stituent in the continued and unbroken association of years. I freely acknowledge my affection for the old district, which has honored me so long, and which in all weather and under all circumstances has given me faithful and unfaltering support. With the generous assurances I have received to-day, I turn to the new district and its faithful Eepublicans with hope and courage, and with a resolute purpose to join in bearing to the front the flag of our faith, and in resisting every assault upon the principles which are so essential to the Nation's growth and prosperity. It can not be said that the new district is altogether new. We are not total strangers, although the counties constituting the district are for the flrst time in the history of the State brought into Congressional relations. With one of the counties — that of Stark — I have been iden tified in all the political changes of the last two decades, for even a Democratic Legislature has not yet been able to separate me from my home county, where all the years of my manhood have been spent, 30 460 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. and where most that is near and dear to me in memory and associa tion is to be found. Nor are Wayne and Medina strangers to each other, or to me, in political association. Wayne has been twice in the district I have had the honor to represent — in 1878, and again in 1884 ; in which latter year Medina was also associated in the same Congressional district. These were memorable years — each memora ble in this, that a Democratic Legislature had carved out the district for a Democratic triumph, which, after one of the most notable local contests in the State, was happily and gloriously turned into a Eepub lican victory. Nor are we strangers to Holmes County. The little band of enthusiastic Eepublicans of that Democratic stronghold are known the State over as faithful and unwavering in their devotion to the Eepublican party and to Eepublican principles. Mr. Chairman, while this is a Eepublican Convention, through and through, it would not be true to say that it originated with the Ee publican party. The leaders of the Democratic party, by an act in which the rank and file had no part, made this convention necessary. A Democratic Legislature, without any demand from the great body of their constituency, in disregard of the rights of a majority of the voters of this State, and with the single purpose to increase unduly the political power of the Democratic party in the National House of Eepresentatives, made this district and fourteen others to be surely Democratic, and to insure fifteen Democratic Eepresentatives from this State in the Fifty-second Congress, out of the twenty-one to which Ohio is entitled. The Congressional district, therefore, in which we find ourselves is not of our own making nor of our own seeking. It was not made by our party friends, but by our party opponents in the Legis lature ; made at the close of a decade, with the new census already taken and a new apportionment soon to be had ; out of time, against precedent, and against the wishes of many Democrats, that they might seize political control in a State where they are fairly in the minority, and thereby secure a party majority in the popular branch of Congress. This was the sole and unconcealed purpose of the Democratic gerrymander in Ohio — an example of base partisanship the like of which has no precedent in the State, and which deserves the condemnation of fair-minded men of all parties. Nothing remains for us but to meet them and join issue upon the field which they have chosen — chosen for partisan advantage — chosen with all the odds against us, with a majority of thousands in their favor. We can only meet them in fair and fuU debate, car- THB FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 461 rying our principles to the people, submitting them to their judg ment, without passion or prejudice, and leaving the result with the people, before whose decree all parties and policies must yield. We must realize that the contest will be a hard one, probably the hardest we have ever had, and that without the most determined spirit, the most resolute purpose, the severest eflort, moved by high considera tions of duty and public policy, our eflorts will be in vain. Moved by such sentiments, we can go to the people and rely upon that sense of fair play so characteristic of the American citizen to join in rebuk ing the party leaders who have sought without justification or prece dent to override the will of the majority in the State. The contest this year throughout the country is a National one. Elections will be held in every State of the Union — elections which will determine party supremacy in the House of Eepresentatives from March 4, 1891, to March 4, 1893, up to and including ths election and inauguration of a President to succeed General Harrison. The importance of these elections can not be overstated, and their very importance demands the fullest discussion and most enlightened judgment. Whether or not the House shall be Eepublican will , depend, and should depend, upon how well the Eepublican party has administered its trust through the first session of the Fifty-first Con gress, now drawing to a close ; and to that record I invite the most scrutinizing examination, and upon it am willing to base our claims for party supremacy in the National councils. The House organized in December last, and has been in continu ous session for nine months. Its work thus far is made up, and must speak for itself. First of all, and essential to all, was the change of rules, which would enable the majority, chosen by the people, to con duct the public business. The House has settled that, not only for the present but I believe for all time, by declaring that a quorum of Eepresentatives in their seats, sworn to perform their pnblic duties under the Constitution, drawing their salaries for the performance of such duties, can not by their silence stop the public business and interrupt the power of the majority to enact needed legislation ; and that their presence shall be noted and counted to make a constitu tional quorum, if, sitting in their seats, in full view of their associates and the country, they shall refuse to vote. This common-sense rule has enabled the present House of Eepresentatives to make great progress with the business of the country, and has given the fullest expression to the public will as represented by a majority on the floor ; for which rule the country is indebted largely to that able and 462 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. courageous statesman from Maine, the Speaker of the House, the Hon. Thoraas B. Eeed. Nor can I recall any legislative body which has so thoroughly kept the pledges of the party electing it as the present majority in the House of Eepresentatives. The Eepublicans entered upon the Presi dential campaign of 1888 with a platform of principles and declara tion of party purposes upon which, after the fullest discussion, the country called it back to power. The people responded to that plat form and those pledges by electing a Eepublican President and a Eepublican House of Eepresentatives, placing that party in full con trol of the Government. Prom March 4, 1889, the Eepublican party has been charged with the administration of the Government, and is therefore responsible to the people for its character, and can not if it would, and would not if it could, escape accountability. The Executive department under the administration of President Harrison has been clean, conservative, patriotic, and able. He has met party expectations ; he has fulfilled party pledges ; he enjoys the confidence of the great party which elected him, of the business men of the country, and of the public generally. So far as the House of Eepresentatives is concerned, the party pledges of 1888 are no longer professions, but a complete fulfill ment ; no longer a promise, but a performance ; not a pledge but has been kept ; not a purpose but has been executed. We declared in that platform, " the supreme and sovereign right of every law ful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white or black,_to cast one free ballot in public elections and have that ballot duly counted " ; and we demanded " eflective legislation to secure the in tegrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority." The House, weeks ago, passed an Election Bill giving force and efficiency to that pledge, which bill is now pending in the Senate of the United States. To cast upon it prejudice and opprobrium, to give it a character which does not belong to it, it is designated by our political opponents as a Force Bill. It is wrongly named ; that is a misnomer, and a willful one. It is, in fact, an Anti-Force Bill. It is a bill to prevent force from seizing our elections and overriding a constitutional majority. It is a bill to protect the ballot box from the fraud and the force of an illegal and unscrupulous minority. It is called a harsh measure. It will rest lightly upon every honest voter who is willing to accord to every other honest voter the same right that he enjoys. If it is harsh, it is only harsh upon law- THB FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 463 breakers ; if severe, it is only severe upon the nuUifier of the Consti tution, the stuffer of ballot boxes, and he who would " doctor returns " to reverse the will of the people. It will never be needed and never be enforced if every section of this country will protect the citizen in the fuUest enjoyment of the constitutional right of suflrage. Where that is denied or withheld, whether by fraud or by violence, the Elec tion Bill which the House of Eepresentatives passed at this session of Congress steps in and protects the legal voter, and counts the legal vote. When that great constitutional right is denied or suppressed, in any part of the Union, the whole power of the Federal Govern ment will be at hand to punish those who would poison the springs of political authority, to give force to the Constitution, aud to pre serve the sanctity of our citizenship. Another purpose we declared in Chicago, another pledge we raade to the people, was to revise the tarifl on the lines of protection. How ? " By such revision as will tend to check imports of such arti cles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor ; and to release from import duty those articles of foreign production (except luxuries) the like of which can not be produced at home." The Eepublican party, unlike the Demo cratic party, has always lowered duties when that was in the interest of the people ; and it has had the courage to raise them when to do so was to inaugurate and promote great industries and enlarge the field of employment for American men and women. If any doubt ever existed that the House Tarifl Bill was a piece of American legis lation for the benefit of the American people and in the line of the country's largest prosperity, that doubt has long since been removed by the manifestations of opposition which have come from the lead ing and competing nations of the world. We said in our platform of 1888 : " We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We protest against its destruction as proposed by President Cleveland and his party. They serve the interests of Europe ; we will support the interests of America." We have given legislative sanction to this declaration in the bill that has passed the House with a fidelity of purpose which even our enemies will not question. The public meetings that have been held in England, and the exhibitions of temper which have been witnessed in some of the great manufacturing centers of England, and in the parliamentary bodies of other nations, protesting against our proposed tariff law, must have convinced the most doubting that our foreign rivals regard. the bill not in the interest of Europe, but in the interest of America. 464 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. They see nothing in it but a loss of their American trade and a cor responding gain to our own producers. Of course, it does not please other nations. It was not framed after that fashion. The Mills Bill did. President Cleveland's free-trade message received only acclamations of praise from the nations of the world ; our bill receives only condemnation and bitter denunciation ; that is the precise difference. The bill now pending in the Senate was not made to please other nations. It was framed for the people of the United States as a defense to their industries, as a protection to the labor of their hands, as a safeguard to the happy homes of American workmen, and as a security to their education, their wages, and their investments. If it shall be enacted into law, I but assert a fact, which will be fully verified, and that thoughtful men every where will confirm, when I declare that it will bring to this country a prosperity unparalleled in our own history and unrivaled in the history of the world. And let me assure you that the bill will become a law. A Eepublican Senate will pass it, a Eepublican President will put upon it his seal of approval as soon as it shall reach him, and another great pledge of the Eepublican party wUl be kept and ful filled. The Fifty-first Congress has passed (and it is now a law) what is known as the " Customs Administrative Bill," a part of the great tariff system of the country. This is a bill to protect the hon est importer in the United States against the unscrupulous and dis honest importer ; to protect our own producers and citizens from the undervaluations that have been too common ; and, it is hoped, to take the great business of importing into this country out of the hands of dishonest men, and place it, as it once was, in the hands of honest merchants. It looks also to the protection of the revenues of the country ; for it is a notorious fact that for twenty-five years past, by a system of consignments and undervaluations, and the establish ment of foreign agencies on this side, we have not collected by from twenty-five to fifty per cent of the proper duty on the true valuation of the merchandise imported. The House of Eepresentatives has passed a " Bankruptcy Bill," demanded by Boards of Trade and Chambers of Comraerce and other commercial bodies, and by the business interests of every section of the country. It will give relief to honest men who have been unfor tunate enough to faU in business through no fault of their own, and afford them an opportunity to recover their lost ground and com mence life anew, unburdened with debt and unharassed by judgments THE FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 465 and executions. It has passed a bill creating a Circuit Court, which will reheve the overburdened docket of the Supreme Court of the United States. It will give to suitors and litigants an opportunity to have their causes tried within a lifetime. It has passed a bill, and the same has been approved by the President, known as the " Original Package Law." This gives to each State the right to control and regulate the liquor traffic within its own borders. The House has also passed what is known as the " Anti-Lottery Bill." This will be speedily passed by the Senate and signed by the President, and it is believed that it will give a death-blow to the vicious system of gambling which has been so prevalent for years in some of the States ; that system which has robbed the poor of untold millions, and enriched the lottery corporations of Louisiana and other States — corporations that have grown so rich that they dominated State governments, controlled Legislatures, stifled the press, and de bauched public and private morals in the most shocking manner. This Congress has passed the bill, after years' delay, giving to the Agricultural Colleges of the several States a proper and generous an nual appropriation for the better education of the people in agricul ture and mechanics. Under this law, which President Harrison cheerfully approved, Ohio will receive annually a handsome contribu tion to aid its excellent Agricultural College of the State University. The Fifty-flrst Congress has also passed the " Meat Inspection Bill." This is a measure of great protection to the farmers, breeders, and packers of the country, and will insure a larger exportation to foreign countries of American pork and beef, which has been dis criminated against for years to the great injury and loss of our farmers. The House has passed the " Compound Lard Bill," which, like the " Oleomargarine Law," requires that lard shall be branded for what it really is. If it is pure lard, it shall be so marked ; if it is made of cotton-seed oil, or any other foreign substance, it shall be so designated, that the buyer may not be deceived and the consumer cheated. We must have honest trading and pure food. The " Anti-Option Bill," to stop gambling in stocks, buying " fu tures," and controlling the agricultural crops of the United States on paper, is now being considered, and, I believe, will receive the ap proval of the House. If it does not, it will be no fault of the great majority of the Eepublican members. This Congress has also passed the " Anti-Trust Bill," by Senator Sherman — the first bill of the kind known in our National legislation 466 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. — a bill which strikes at trusts, or unlawful combinations of capital to raise prices according to their own sweet will, and extort undue prof its from the mass of the people. This is in response to our National platform of 1888, in which we declared " opposition to all combina tions of capital organized in trusts to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens." We pledged in our platform of 1888 that the bills then pending in the Eepublican Senate to enable the people of Washington, North and South Dakota, and Montana to form Constitutions and establish State governments " should be passed without unnecessary delay." This pledge was kept, through Eepublican votes, in the closing hours of the last session of the Fiftieth Congress. We pledged ourselves " to aid in the admission of other Territories," and in answer to that pledge the present Congress has admitted Idaho and Wyoming into the sisterhood of States, adding two new members to the Union and two stars to the National flag. On the subject of " the forfeiture of unearned public lands," here tofore given to railroads, the Eepublican party made a distinct pledge. It was that these lands should be restored for homesteads to American citizens and actual settlers. In furtherance of that pledge the House has at this session forfeited over 8,000,000 acres, equal to about one third of the area of Ohio, and will, before the session is closed, place that vast acreage within the reach and enjoyment of our own citizens for homestead purposes. We made another solemn pledge in that platform. We declared that we would do full justice to the soldiers and sailors of the Union ; that we would bind up their wounds ; that we would care for their widows and orphans. That pledge, too, has been fulfilled, not by the House alone, but by the Senate and President ; and the " DisabUity BUl," which is the most liberal pension measure ever passed by a legislative body, is now a law. Under its just and generous provi sions, thousands of disabled soldiers, their widows and chUdren, will be deservedly placed upon the pension roUs of the United States Government. The promise of Lincoln will never be forgotten or broken so long as the Eepublican party holds the reins of power. Nor has the House forgotten the rights of Eepublican Eepresenta tives in the South, although cheated out of the certificates of election that were given to their Democratic opponents. The Eepublican House has given the seats to those who were fairly elected, and thus vindicated the majesty of the majority, the sovereignty of the Con stitution, and the sanctity of law. It has boldly and rightfully put its THE FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 467 condemnation upon the practice altogether too prevalent in the South of tampering with popular elections, of poisoning the foun tains of political power. We made another pledge — " that the Eepublican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver as money " ; that the one should not be discriminated against in favor of the other, but that both should be equally and alike recognized as standards of value by the Govern ment. This pledge also has been kept. The financial department of the Government has been managed prudently and ably by that distinguished financier. Secretary Win- dom. The large sum of money that was deposited by the Cleveland administration with favored banks is being rapidly withdrawn, and used for the payraent of the debts of the Governraent as speedily as it can safely be done. Since the advent into power of the Harrison administration the average purchase of bonds has been $8,306,000 monthly, while during the preceding administration no bonds of the Government were bought from March 4, 1885, to August 3, 1887. The debt has been reduced $150,000,000 under the present administra tion. The interest-bearing debt of the Government to-day is a little less than $700,000,000, whUe three years ago it was $988,000,000. The Government finds the greatest difficulty in getting its own bonds. The credit of the Government is so high, and this class of securities so safe, that investors are slow to part with their bonds, and it has become a serious problem how to get them, even with the Govern ment having the money on hand constantly in the Treasury to pay for them. This is in great contrast with the condition of the Treas ury when the Eepublicans took control of the Government in 1861. Then we could not get anybody to take our bonds at any price ; now we can not get the people holding them to give them up without a large premium. Then we relied upon loans to meet current ex penses ; now we have a large surplus above our current needs, and instead of loaning it without interest to the banks, as was the custom of the last administration, we are striving to apply it to the extin guishment of the National debt. Mr. President, this briefly is the work of the Executive and of Congress, especially the House of Eepresentatives, since the last National election. I may be pardoned if I ask our political oppo nents to match it with the achievements of any of its predecessors in the last twenty-five years. Time will not permit me to make com parisons; you can make them. It is on this record that I invite your judgment ; it is upon this record that the people of the country 468 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. must determine whether the party making it deserves and shall re ceive a continuance of their confidence. The Eepublican House found two great industries in the United States prostrated by a decision of the courts growing out of an error in the tariff law of 1883. These were the manufactures of silk and worsted goods. They had appealed to a Democratic House over and over again without heed or relief. Their spindles had been stopped, and in the case of worsted goods the injury not only applied to the manufacturers and their workmen, but to the wool growers of the entire country. Worsted goods wrought from foreign wools were driving from our market woolen goods made from American wool. The wool-growing industry was suffering as well as manufacturing and transportation interests. The House responded to the appeal of these suffering industries and passed a joint resolution which received the approval of the Senate, and of the President, giving immediate relief. This is but one example of a number that I might mention showing the alacrity with which the House has responded to every appeal from the people. It has devoted its time and attention more closely to the public business than any other Congress of which I have had the honor to be a meraber or of which I have any knowl edge. Whatever may be the verdict of the people at the poUs in November, the future can be safely relied upon to give to the Fifty- first Congress its meed of praise, and I have no doubt but that it will stand well in comparison with any predecessor in the history of the Eepublic, under the rule of the Eepublican or any other party. THE EIGHT-HOUR LAW. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, August 28, 1890. [From the Congressional Record.] The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 9791) constituting eight hours a day's work for all laborers, workmen, and mechanics eraployed by the Govemraent, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : I am in favor of this bill. It has been said that it is a bill to limit the opportunity of the workingman to gain a live lihood. This is not true ; it will have the opposite effect. So far as the Government of the United States as an employer is concerned, in the limitation for a day's work provided in this bill to eight hours, instead of putting any limitation upon the opportunity of the Ameri can freeman to earn a living, it increases and enlarges his opportu nity. [Applause.] Eight hours under the laws of the United States constitute a day's work. That law has been on our statute-books for twenty or more years. Several Members. Since 1868. They say around me that it has been on our statute-books for twenty-two years. In all these years it has been " the word of prom ise to the ear," but by the Government of the United States it has been " broken to the hope." [Applause. J The Government and its officials should be swift to execute and enforce its own laws ; failure in this particular is most reprehensible. Now, it must be remem bered that when we constitute eight hours a day's work, instead of ten hours, every four days give an additional day's work to some workingman who may not have any employment at all. [Applause.] It is one more day's work, one more day's wages, one more oppor tunity for work and wages, an increased demand for labor. I am in favor of this bill as it is amended by the motion of the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. McComas]. It applies now only to the labor 470 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. of men's hands. It applies only to their work. It does not apply to material, it does not apply to transportation. It only applies to the actual labor, skUled or unskilled, employed on public works and in the execution of the contracts of the Government. And the Govern ment of the United States ought, finally and in good faith, to set this example of eight hours as constituting a day's work required of labor ing men in the service of the United States. [Applause.] The tendency of the times the world over is for shorter hours for labor, shorter hours in the interest of health, shorter hours in the interest of humanity, shorter hours in the interest of the home and the family ; and the United States can do no better service to labor and to its own citizens than to set the example to States, to corporations, and to in dividuals eraploying raen by declaring that, so far as the Government is concerned, eight hours shall constitute a day's work, and be aU that is required of its laboring force. [Applause.] Therefore, Mr. Speaker, this bill should be passed. My colleague, Mr. Morey, has stated what we owe the family in this connection, and Cardinal Manning, in a recent article, spoke noble words on the general subject when he said : But if the domestic life of the people be vital above all ; if the peace, the purity of homes, the education of children, the duties of wives and mothers, the duties of husbands and of fathers, be written in the natural law of mankind, and if these things are sacred, far beyond anything that can be sold in the market, then I say, if the hours of labor resulting from the unregulated sale of a man's strength and skill shall lead to the destmction of domestic life, to the neglect of children, to turning wives and mothers into living machines, and of fathers and husbands into — what shall I say, creatures of burden ? — I will not say any other word— who rise up before the sun, and come back when it is set, wearied and able only to take food and lie down to rest, the domestic life of men exists no longer, and we dare not go on in this path. Mr. Speaker, we owe something to the care, the elevation, the dig nity, and the education of labor. We owe something to the working- men and the famUies of the workingmen throughout the United States who constitute the large body of our population, and this biU is a step in the right direction. [Applause.] THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, September 27, 1890. [From ihe Congressional Record.] In submitting the report of the Committee on Conference on matters of dif ference between the two Houses on the bill (H. R. 9,416) to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and for other purposes, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : An agreement has been reached by the Committee of Conference after ten days' most careful and patient consideration. The bill which the House of Eepresentatives passed last May, con taining nearly 4,000 items, was amended by the Senate in 445 partic ulars. More than 100 of these amendments were purely verbal — a change of the number of a section or the transposition of a paragraph or a word. A number of the amendments were serious and substan tial, showing a wide and what seemed to be an alraost irreconcilable difference. By far the larger number of amendments, however, were so slight and unimportant that an agreement was quickly reached. In the first schedule, that of chemicals, the differences were unimpor tant, and in most instances the House receded from its provisions in cluded in that schedule and accepted the Senate rates. Sulphuric acid for agricultural purposes, which had been put upon the dutiable list by the House, has been transferred to the free list by the con ferees as provided in the Senate amendments. The next schedule is that of earthenware and glassware. The rates passed by the House were retained by the conferees, so that the duty on decorated pottery and decorated china will be 60 per cent, and upon plain earthen ware 55 per cent. This will encourage that industry to a higher development, and eventuaUy give the home producers a larger share of the home market than they now enjoy, as well as secure the benefit of lower prices to the consumer. In the glassware schedule slight reductions were made from the rates fixed by the House, which are 472 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. much in advance of those fixed by the Senate ; they are believed to be such as will in no way interfere with this great and valuable in dustry, and will be found a vast improvement over present rates and classifications. The metal schedule, which occupies twenty-five pages of the bill, has received earnest consideration, because of the importance of the great industries it represents. All shades of opinion relating to its details have been carefully considered, and every effort has been made to reconcile the claims of conflicting interests and the conflicting clairas of various sections of our country. No tariff bill was ever framed that was not largely made up by compromises, and the present raetal schedule is an illustration of this truth. It is confldently be lieved that upon examination it will be found to be fuUy protective of every branch of our iron and steel industries. There may be dis appointment over sorae of the rates that have been adopted, but the sober second thought will be one of satisfaction that so much has been done that is good, and so little that is likely to produce even tem porary inconvenience. Nothing has been done that can result in loss of business or prestige, and nothing that can call for a reduction of wages or a diminution of the number of workingmen employed. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe, and I do believe, that the new metal schedule will largely increase the demand for all our iron and steel products, and that consequently it wUl largely increase the demand for labor, and especially for highly skilled labor. I be- lieive further that the metal schedule which is now submitted is the most harmonious and the most surely protective of any metal sched ule of this generation. Looking at the details of this schedule as it has flnaUy been adopted, and without confining our attention exclusively to the amendments proposed by the Senate, it wiU be found that we have retained iron ore and pig iron, also scrap iron and scrap steel, all of which are sometimes erroneously called raw materials, at the same rates which are found in the present tariff. To have reduced the duties on iron ore and pig iron would have encouraged the importa tion of foreign ore and foreign pig iron, for which there would have been no excuse, as we need to encourage the developraent of new iron- ore fields, and can now produce and are producing all the pig iron we need, except a small quantity of spiegeleisen, and our production of this kind of pig iron is constantly increasing. If we had reduced the duty on scrap iron and scrap steel we woidd have interfered with the prosperity of our pig iron industry, scrap iron and scrap steel be- THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 473 ing substitutes for pig iron. The duties on the various forms of bar iron, which is the product almost exclusively of hand labor, and not of the labor-saving machinery which has worked such wonderful rev olutions in other branches of the world's iron and steel industries, have been retained substantially as they are in the present tariff. Such slight reductions as have been made will not in the least en courage the importation of foreign bar iron. The duty on all forms of structural iron and steel has been re duced from $38 per ton to nine tenths of one cent per pound, or $20.16 per ton. This is the rate which was embodied in the House bill ; and while it is nearly $8 per ton less than the rate in the present law, it is $2.24 per ton higher than the rate proposed by the Senate, which reduction we were convinced was too sweeping. The rate which we have adopted will sufficiently protect our manufacturers of structural iron and steel. The production of these articles has be come a great National industry, consuming annually large quantities of iron ore and pig iron and employing directly many workingmen. This industry has been built up under the present protective duty, but it is no longer necessary that the whole of this duty should be retained. The paragraph relating to boiler or other plate iron or steel has been changed by the Conference Committee by adopting a new clas sification for all iron and steel plates valued at two cents per pound or less. All plates valued at one cent per pound or less, and thicker than No. 10 wire gauge, are to be subject to a duty of five tenths of one cent per pound ; valued above one cent and not above 1.4 cents, the duty is to be sixty-five one hundredths of one cent per pound ; valued above 1.4 cents and not above two cents the duty is to be eight tenths of one cent per pound. These are reductions on a uniform rate of one cent per pound which was embodied in the House bill, which rate we are convinced was too high upon the lower grades of plates. On all plates valued above two cents per pound the House rates have been retained. The new rates taken as a whole will afford much surer protection to our manufacturers of steel plates than the present duty of 45 per cent. The duty on forgings of iron or steel has been reduced from the present rate two tenths of one cent per pound, but a proviso has been added that no forgings shall pay a lower rate of duty than 45 per cent. In the paragraph relating to hoop iron we have included a proviso covering hoops for barrels and hoops and ties for baling purposes, which will encourage the home production of these articles and 474 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. check importations which have in recent years been so great as to seriously injure a worthy domestic industry, one which could not compete under a low duty with the cheap labor of women and chil dren across the Atlantic. This proviso has been inserted partly in the hope that the South wUl now make at least a large part of its own cotton ties, for the production of which it has abundant natural resources. The duty on rails has been made to apply uniformly to all sizes and shapes of iron and steel raUs. The rate adopted is $13.44 per ton, which is a reduction on light raUs of $7 per ton, and on those of ordinary use of $3.56 per ton. This reduction will not, however, impair the effectiveness for protection of the duty which is retained. Originally the duty on steel rails of standard sizes was $28 per ton ; but when the tariff of 1883 was framed this duty was reduced to $17 per ton, the higher duty having accomplished the work for which it was designed — the building up of a great steel-rail industry, the first in the world. It has now been thought safe to still further reduce the duty on steel rails, in obedience to a wise policy which wiU not impose any higher duty than is needed to prevent injurious foreign corapetition. With the march of invention and the increase of skill in the production of domestic steel rails it has been possible to reduce their cost since the passage of the tariff of 1883, although their manu facture is still burdened with heavy freight charges on the materials from which they are made, and on the rails themselves when shipped to points where they meet the competition of foreign raUs which can be cheaply transported by ocean vessels. A lower rate of duty on steel rails than is now proposed would not encourage the erection of additional rail mills, which it is believed the proposed duty will do. The hope is indulged that at least we may soon see steel rails made on the shores of Lake Superior and on the Pacific coast. The duty on steel sheets has been made specific, instead of ad valorem, as in the present tariff. The new duty will be found to be more protective than the present duty, under which the importations of steel sheets have been very heavy. The duty on galvanized iron and steel sheets has been retained as it reads in the present tariff. One of the best features of the metal schedule is the new rate which has been imposed on tin plates. The present duty of one cent per pound has been found to be a revenue duty only, no tin- plate industry existing in our country to-day. The new rate of 3.2 cents per pound is absolutely necessary if we would have a tin-plate industry of our own ; and that we should have such an industry wUl THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 475 not be denied when the large sums of money we annually send abroad for tin plates, and which might be kept in circulation among our own people, are considered. We can make our own tin plates if given a chance. The new duty will not materially advance the cost of tin plates to consumers after we make a beginning in their manu facture, while it is entirely certain that the quality of all the tin plates used by our own people will be improved when foreign and domestic competitors meet in our markets. The new duty is not to go into effect until July 1, 1891, and it is provided that if the tin- plate industry shall not be established in this country by 1897, tin plates shall then go on the free list. On taggers iron an adequately protective duty is also provided, which the present tariff does not contain. That feature of the bill which will provoke criticism — and it is the only one which will do so — is the paragraph relating to steel ingots, blooms, slabs, billets, etc. The rates agreed upon are lower than the rates provided in the House bill, and for which the House conferees earnestly insisted. Various propositions of compromise were submitted, but all were rejected by a majority of the Senate conferees. Unsatisfactory as the new rates are to the House con ferees and to the manufacturers, they will nevertheless in the main afford better protection to these manufacturers than the present very unsatisfactory and injurious duty of 45 per cent, the new rates being specific throughout. Improved processes now everywhere employed in the manufacture of steel billets, slabs, etc., will, it is hoped, en able our manufacturers to compete successfully with foreign raakers in our own markets. The duty on wire rods has been left as it is in the present law, with the exception that it is made to cover smaller sizes than are now specifically provided for. The duties on wire have also been retained substantially as they read in the present law. The duty on anvils has been slightly increased, to enable our peo ple to make their own anvils, which are now largely imported. The duty on anchors has been slightly reduced. The duty on axles has been reduced half a cent per pound. Many other reductions have been made in minor iron and steel products when this could be done without injury to home industries. The duties on cutlery have been increased to meet the continually increasing undervaluations and other frauds of foreign manufacturers. The duty on nickel has been reduced, and nickel ore and nickel matte have been placed on the free list, because after a long period of protection it has been found 31 476 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. that we need to go abroad for a large part of our supply of this use ful metal. Aluminum, a new metal, is provided for at rates which it is believed will afford ample protection to those who may engage in its manufacture. The duties on copper are reduced, whUe those on lead and zinc are retained as in the present law with slight change. It is not necessary to examine the metal schedule further. It wiU be found, on full examination, to embody features of great value to our iron and steel manufacturers, while carefully respecting the in terests of consumers. In the wood schedule the Senate rates were lower than the House rates on all kinds of lumber. The House conferees consented to a reduction of from $2 to $1 per thousand on white-pine boards, and a proportionate reduction on white-pine clapboards and shingles ; also to a duty of 20 per cent on telegraph and telephone poles and rail road ties. The woolen schedule as it left the House was amended in only two or three particulars by the Senate, and these two or three particu lars were necessary to make the bill in all its provisions logical. It will be remembered that we lost in the House two amendments that were offered by the Committee on Ways and Means as to worsted yarns and worsted cloths. They were lost by a very small vote ; that side of the House voting solidly against the amendments, with a few on this side, gave, when the House was not full, a majority against the Committee amendments. As I stated then, the rates proposed by the Committee were necessary, and the Senate, when the bill passed to its consideration, immediately accepted those rates. With these exceptions the wool and woolen schedules are precisely as they passed the House of Eepresentatives. I beg to say, in passing, that the rates given upon wool and woolens are assuredly protective. They correct the wrong against these industries inadvertently com mitted in the tarifl of 1883. They will help every farmer of the country who owns sheep, and will enable the manufacturers of woolen goods to better compete with their foreign rivals. This schedule has the hearty approval of the National Wool Growers' Association and of the several State Associations throughout the country. That is entirely true also of the tobacco schedule. In the cotton schedule there were some few changes, none of them, however, very important. They will be noticed by gentlemen who have the bill before them. With these exceptions the rates which passed the House have been maintained by the conferees, and are so reported. As to agricul tural products, to which the Qommittec on Ways and Means and this THB CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 477 House gave very careful attention, this bill has given to agriculture for the first time distinctively a place in the tariff. All the rates, I believe, with one single exception, that were fixed by the House were either adopted by the Senate, or, if not adopted by the Senate, the Senate conferees yielded to the House rates. The duties on agri cultural products have been increased, and the same meed of pro tection has been aflorded the farm as the factory. These rates were fixed after the fullest consultation with the representatives of the farming interests of the country, whose voice almost for the first time in the history of tarifl legislation has been heard and heeded in the House of Eepresentatives. On manufactures of fiax there was a very wide diflerence between the Senate and the House. The House, as gentlemen will remem ber, increased the duties upon flax and flax products to the end that we might inaugurate and establish a great industry in this country which would use our own fibers as well as foreign fibers, and we made the duties high enough, as we believed, to protect our people while they were engaged in establishing that industry. The Senate cut down the House rates in every particular, from the raw material up to the finished product. In conference a compromise agreement was reached very considerably above the Senate rates, although somewhat below the House rates, but sufficient, it is believed by the Committee of Conference, to enable our people at an early day to successfully and profitably manufacture all the coarser articles of flax that are so largely consumed in this country, and at no distant day manufacture the flner ones, which are now exclusively imported. This industry will require larger capital, and when established will furnish a larger demand for skilled and unskilled labor. On silk, which is the next schedule, the rates of duty were made specific in the House bill, about equivalent to the ad valorem rate under existing law. The Senate struck out the provision fixing .specific rates and substituted the old rate of 50 per cent. To that amendment the House conferees yielded concurrence. The paper schedule is the next in order, and it is practically the same as passed by the House. Not a single important change, I believe, was made in that schedule except that we dissented from the provision of the Senate bill, and gave to albumenized and sensi tized paper a duty of 35 per cent, and also laid a duty on tissue paper. On the sugar schedule, which is the one over which there was the most serious contention, the conferees, after a long struggle, finally 478 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. reached an agreement. The House bill provided that all sugars up to and including No. 16 Dutch standard in color should be admitted free of duty, and provided also that all sugars above No. 16 should pay a duty of four tenths of 1 cent per pound. That was to compen sate for the diflerence in the labor cost of refining in this country and the labor cost of refining in competing countries. It was in that shape that our bill went to the Senate. The Senate struck out No. 16 as the line of free sugar and inserted No. 13. The diflerence between these two sugars — No. 16 Dutch standard and No. 13 — is easily dis tinguished. The former is a yellow sugar fit for use, and the latter wholly without any domestic use. The Senate made No. 13 free, and provided that sugar above No. 13 up to No. 16 should be duti able at three tenths of a cent per pound, and all above No. 16 at six tenths of a cent per pound. The first great struggle was over this dividing line ; the Senate insisting that free sugar should be limited to No. 13, a sugar which could not be used for domestic purposes, and which is so impure that it never would go into any body's family. The House, on the other hand, insisted that sugar should be free up to No. 16 Dutch standard, which is the sugar that we used in our boyhood, and which, in case of excessive prices for refined sugar, would serve as a regulator to keep down the price, and if necessary be freely used for domestic purposes. It was on this line that the greatest controversy arose. Finally, the Senate con ferees yielded, and agreed that sugar up to and including No. 16 Dutch standard should be free. As I have already said, the House rate of duty upon sugar above No. 16 was four tenths of a cent per pound. The Senate rate was six tenths of a cent per pound, and we finally made a compromise rate, fixing it at five tenths of a cent per pound upon aU sugars above No. 16, and an additional rate of one tenth of a cent per pound upon all sugars coming from countries where an export bounty is paid to the domestic producer. That is the agreement that was finally reached between the conferees of the House and the conferees of the Senate on sugar. I beg to call the attention of the House for a moment to the present law in relation to sugar. All sugar not above No. 13 Dutch standard, test ing by the polariscope not above 75 degrees, pays a duty of 1.4 cents per pound under existing law. In the bill which passed the House of Eepresentatives of the Fiftieth Congress, commonly known as the " MiUs Bill," the duty upon all sugar not above No. 13 Dutch standard was fixed at 1.15 cents per pound. The duty under ex isting law upon all sugars above No. 13 and not above No. 16 Dutch THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 479 standard in color is 2f cents per pound. In the Mills Bill it was made 2.2 cents per pound. All sugar above No. 16 and not above No. 20 Dutch standard in color is dutiable under existing law at 3 cents per pound. Under the Mills Bill it was dutiable at 2.4 cents per pound. All sugar above No. 30 Dutch standard is dutiable under existing law at 3.5 cents per pound, and under the Mills Bill it was dutiable at 2.8 cents per pound. So it will be observed that up to and including No. 16 Dutch standard the report of the Committee makes sugar absolutely free, and above that grade the conferees report a duty of five tenths of a cent per pound, and one tenth additional upon sugars of that grade from countries paying an export bounty. It is proper I should state as to countries paying an export bounty, that only 16 per cent of that kind of sugar was imported last year. This leaves all the sugar of Great Britain and the British possessions, all the sugar of Cuba, above 16 Dutch stand ard, dutiable at five tenths of a cent per pound. The sugars of France and Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Belgium would pay the additional one tenth. It is believed that the burden put upon bounty-paid sugar imported here will influence the countries paying it to remove the export bounty, to the end that they may on equal terms compete with all other countries for this market. Upon the subject of art, the House placed paintings and statuary upon the free list. The Senate restored the old duty of 30 per cent, and the conferees of the House and Senate have made art produc tions dutiable at 15 per cent. One of the points of controversy between the House and the Senate was with reference to the article of binding-twine. The pres ent duty upon binding-twine is 2^ cents per pound ; the House bill made it IJ cents a pound. The Finance Committee of the Senate raised our duty from 1:^ to 1^ cents a pound, and thus reported the bill to the Senate. The Senate, after debate, put binding-twine upon the free list. Therefore, when we met in conference, the Senate conferees insisted upon binding-twine being free, and the House conferees insisted upon the rate flxed by the House, a cent and a quarter a pound. After very long, patient, and full consideration of the whole subject, the conferees finally agreed to fix the duty at seven tenths of a cent a pound. I wUl state in this connection that the Mills Bill made twine dutiable at 15 per cent ad valorem, equiva lent to 1^ or If cents per pound. We concurred in the adoption of the provision as to reciprocity, passed by the Senate, known as the "Aldrich amendment," which em- 480 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. powers the President, in the event that equal and reciprocal advantages are not accorded to us by those countries producing sugar and coffee and hides, to proclaim the fact, and it is made his duty to do so, in which event the duties proposed in the bUl as to these several articles are to be the duties thereafter to be collected against such countries. That is to say, coffee and hides have been on the free list by our laws for many years, and now it is proposed to make sugar free, in the inter est of our people and by way of encouraging reciprocal trade relations on the part of the countries producing these articles. If these coun tries give nothing in return for this, then the President shall proclaim the fact, and upon such proclamation the duties herein provided for sugar, coffee, and hides will be put in operation. We show by this bill our disposition to admit sugar free into the United States. We have already shown, by the legislation of the past, our disposition to admit coffee and hides free, from which, so far as reciprocal advan tages are concerned, there has been no equality. This provision is added to the bill in the expectation that it will induce sugar-growing and coffee-producing countries, in return for this concession, to admit our agricultural products free. It is believed by distinguished leaders of our party, to whose judgment and statesmanship we have always given the greatest weight, that large advantages wUl come from this provision, and all of us indulge the hope that the fuUest expectation in this direction may be realized. As to the internal-revenue sections, I only wish to say that the provisions of the House bill have in substance been maintained by the Conference Committee. It will be remembered that we reduced the tax upon tobacco and snuff from eight cents, which is the rate under existing law, to four cents. The Senate struck out all our internal-revenue provisions — every paragraph and every line. But we have been enabled to secure a reduction of the tax from eight cents to six cents a pound — a reduction of 25 per cent — upon to bacco and snuff. We yielded the fo"ur-cent reduction and agreed to fix the tax at six cents, and have provided for a rebate upon all unbroken packages. So far as concerns special licenses to dealers, special taxes, and all those vexatious and annoying restraints which have been put upon the tobacco-grower, the tobacco-dealer, and the tobacco-trader, we wipe them all out ; and over 650,000 citizens of the United States who have been paying these vexatious little taxes will, after the passage of this bill, be relieved from their payment. We have also provided that the farmers, the growers of tobacco, in every part of this country shall be immediately relieved from all THB CONFERENCE COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 481 taxation and all burdens. This provision goes into eflect at once, so that hereafter, if this bill should become a law, the farmers of the United States wUl be as free to sell their tobacco unrestrained by internal-revenue provisions as they are free to sell their wheat or their cotton or any other product of the farm. The bill is protective in every paragraph, and American on every page. It recognizes in its fullness the great economic principle which the Eepublican party has advocated so long and which it holds so dear, and which has secured to this country an unexampled pros perity. This legislation is not an experiment; it has the approval of experience. Our present prosperity, our advance since 1860 in all that goes to make a nation strong and great, and its people happy, contented, and progressive, bear testimony to the wisdom and patriot ism of the great principle which underlies this bill. NEW ENGLAND AND THE FUTURE. Address at the New England Dinner at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, December 23, 1890. [As Beported for the Society.] Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England So ciety OF Pennsylvania : I make grateful acknowledgment for the invitation which permits me to join in the observance of this inter esting anniversary. We dwell to-night in history. Eeminiscence and retrospect rule the hour and the occasion. We are in spirit with the Pilgrim and the Puritan. This Society is a living tribute to them, and serves to hold in perpetuity, for the present and those who shall come after, the character, courage, and example of those who gave birth to liberty on our soil, and secured political freedom and independence to thera selves and their posterity. Their descendants, and those not their descendants, in this year 1890, grateful for the inestimable blessings bequeathed to them by the fathers and founders of New England, who two hundred and seventy years ago landed at Plymouth and unfurled the standard of their faith, are meeting to-night in the cities and villages throughout the Eepublic, to cherish their memories and learn again the lessons of their trials and triumphs. Characterization of the Puritan has been undertaken by author and orator, friendly and otherwise, almost from the time he first set foot on this continent, and I present you that of George William Curtis, as embodying both criticism and eulogy, spoken only as that gifted orator can speak. This was his picture of the Puritan : He was narrow, bigoted, sour, hard, intolerant ; but he was the man whom God sifted three kingdoras to flnd, as the seed grain wherewith to plant a free Republic. He has done more for human liberty than any other man in history. We have a right to take just pride in such an ancestry, to proudly recall the noble men and true women who, braving all dangers and NEW ENGLAND AND THE PUTURE. 483 hardships, laid broad and deep the foundations of those institutions that have changed the whole face of the northern hemisphere, and given to the world a civilization without a parallel in recorded his tory, and to the struggling races of men everywhere assurances of the realization of their best and highest aspirations. We do not pause to discuss their religious forms and beliefs ; all will agree that, without loss to religion or piety, a broader and more comprehensive Christian philanthropy now prevails. Serious was the character of the Puritans — sober, earnest, stern, full of faith in God and man. They were direct and practical. They indulged little in theory or diplomacy. They dealt with facts and conditions. They were not circuitous or strategic. Their purposes were not veiled, and they struck straight at the mark. The jester and trifler had no place among them. Earnest men and true were re quired for pioneers in the cause of liberty, and none but such were numbered in that noble band. One hundred and one landed from the Mayflower. One half of their number, or nearly so, died from exposure and hardship during the flrst year, but those who survived have influenced the character and directed the consciences of the mil lions who have peopled and who now people this great American commonwealth. They struck the blow ; they endured the privations ; they kept the faith, not alone for themselves, but for mankind ; they looked forward, and not backward. It was to escape the past and its environments that led them from home, and ties, and kindred. Their opportunity was the new field, their hope and faith — the future which, under God, they were to make for themselves. For this they suflered ; for this they builded, and they builded well and strong. " No lack was in thy primal stock. No weakling founders builded here ; These were the men of Plyraouth Rock, The Huguenot and the Cavalier.'.' It has been said that New England blood floWs through the veins of one fourth of our entire population. But New England character and New England civilization course through every vein and artery of the Eepublic; and if the New Englanders are not everywhere found, their light illumines the pathway of our progress, and their aims and ideas permeate and strengthen our whole political structure. They have fought and bled upon every battlefleld of the Nation, from Concord and Bunker Hill to Gettysburg and Appomattox. They have shaped largely the course of the Eepublic in the past ; it will be well for the Eepublic if their influence shall be felt and enforced in 484 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. its course in the future. They were not the emigrants of fortune, of curiosity, or of venture, but a small and determined body of men who left the mother country to work out a better destiny for themselves and for those who were to follow, and to establish a community dedi cated to liberty and individual manhood forever. Here was a colony which would not brook oppression ; which loved God, and had faith in man. Upon these ideas there has been erected the mightiest union of free States and of a free people which ever existed upon the face of the earth. Forty-four free and independent commonwealths, sixty- two millions of people, acknowledging allegiance to one flag, each concerned in the welfare of the other, and all united in working out the common good and the common destiny ; with an industrial wealth and prosperity rivaling, if not excelling, the best and oldest nations of Europe ; with science and invention and literature keeping pace with commerce ; with raUroads and telegraphs unequaled any where ; with free schools whose doors swing outward, inviting the youth of the land to their treasures of knowledge. Imperishable monuments these to the truths which animated the fathers of New England and which have inspired their sons. The source and foun tain from which these blessings flowed, which we now hold and enjoy was love of liberty — liberty of conscience, liberty of thought and speech, liberty under just and equal laws, liberty of opportunity — the liberty which defends the manhood of the citizen, and recognizes as one brotherhood the whole human family. Mr. President, what has been gained through centuries of stmggle and sacriflce must be kept and preserved. The future must be worthy of the glories which have gone before. This is our trust. Nothing must be abated of vigilance or duty on our part, that we may hand over this priceless heritage unimpaired to our children. Nothing gives greater hope of the future than genuine respect and affectionate reverence for that which is noble and good in the past. The future is safe, if we will keep the spirit of New England alive in our hearts and horaes, and flrmly and resolutely adhere to the principles which they taught and which have thus far guided us in safety and honor. We must not yield to wrong, trifle with justice, or surrender to preju dice. The path of wrong must not be pursued, because for the mo ment it appears the easiest road to travel. The smoothest paths to human sight are soraetiraes the roughest to human feet. The words of Washington in his first message to Congress (April 30, 1789) should be borne in the minds and hearts of this generation as well as those NEW ENGLAND AND THB FUTURE. 485 to come after. " We ought to be persuaded," said the Father of his Country, " that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected upon a nation that disregards the eternal rules of right which Heaven itself has ordained." Noble sentiments, worthy their great author, worthy to be en graven upon the hearts of his countrymen. Commercial interests and material progress should have our constant concern and our close consideration, but human rights and constitutional privileges must not be forgotten in the race for wealth and coramercial su premacy. We must be just and deal righteously, bearing whatever exactions or inconveniences justice and righteousness may tempora rily impose. Duty must be master and right supreme. The govern ment of the people must be by the people, and not by a few of the people ; it must rest upon the free consent of the governed and all of the governed. Anything short of this fails in the fundamental pur pose of the fathers, whose memories we cherish to-night. Anything short of this is a nullification of organic law, the Magna Charta of our rights and privileges. The weak must be strengthened by the help of the strong. The powerful eleraents in our country must come to the help of the weaker elements, that all may be strength ened and lifted up, and the great plan of the Government be executed as it was ordained. Power, it raust be remembered, which is secured by oppression or usurpation, or by any forra of injustice, is soon de throned. We have no right in law or morals to usurp that which be longs to another, whether it is property or power. Both are repug nant to justice, both in contravention of law, both against good con science. I have an abiding faith in the ultimate justice of the people. In justice and wrong can not long triumph in popular government. The future glory of the Eepublic would seem to have no bounds set upon it, no limit to its development or destiny, if all of us practice the simple code of the fathers, " Liberty, justice, and equality," the trinity of their faith and the corner-stone of our hope. In forgetful ness of these fundamental truths lurks the danger and menace to the future. We need in this generation that earnest purpose, that rugged devotion to principle and duty, that faith in manhood and reliance upon the Supreme Euler which marked the early New England home and character, and that resolute firmness which gave force to their convictions, result to their resolves, and effect to their laws. This is our anchor of safety. These annual gatherings of the sons of New England serve a noble purpose in keeping alive the spirit of the 486 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. fathers. God grant that the fires of liberty which they kindled, and which have filled the whole world with hope and light and glory, may never, never be extinguished ! I bid you, in the language of the beloved Whittier — " Hold fast to your Puritan heritage ; But let the free light of the age. Its life, its hope, its sweetness add To the sterner faith your fathers had." And, speaking of our country and the future, I leave you those other words of Whittier : " We give thy natal day to hope, 0 country of our love and prayer Thy way is down no fatal slope. But up to freer sun and air.'' [Long-continued applause.] A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. Address at the Lincoln Banquet of the Ohio Eepublican League at Toledo, Ohio, February 12, 1891. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Ohio Eepublican League : It is worth something, in the discussion of economic ques tions, to have an avowal from our political opponents of the real meaning and effect of their economic theories. It is always well in political controversy to understand one another. It was, therefore, gratifying to the friends of protection to have that eminent Demo cratic leader from the State of New York, on a recent occasion in the capital city of our State, make open confession of the purposes which he and his party associates aim to accomplish by a free-trade tariff. Assigned to respond to the inspiring sentiment, " American Citizen ship," he made " cheapness " the theme of his discourse, and counted it among the highest aspirations of American life. His avowal is only that which protectionists have always claimed to be the inevitable tendency of his tariff policy, which exalts cheap goods from abroad above good wages at home. The tariff reformer gravely asks why we want manufacturing establishments in the United States, when we can buy our goods in other countries as cheap as we can manufacture them at horae, if not cheaper. Why maintain defensive tarifls at all ? Why not permit foreign goods to come in unfettered by any customhouse restraints ? Why not admit competing foreign products free, or at a low revenue duty ? The best answer — the most conclusive one — is written in our own experience under the last free-trade tarifl regime of the Demo cratic party, when cheap foreign goods, invited by the low tariff of that period, destroyed our manufactories, checked our mining, sus pended our public works and private enterprises, sent our working- men from work to idleness or to the already overcrowded field of agriculture, from remunerative to starvation wages or to no wages at all, surrendered our markets to the foreigner, giving work to his 488 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. shops and his men by taking it from our shops and our men, and diminished domestic production and domestic employment, thereby increasing those of other countries and other peoples. This was an era of " cheapness " and of " poverty," to which the great Democratic leader and his fraction of the party want us to return, and which they have " consecrated " themselves to secure. The masses of the people are in no temper for such a suggestion, and they will never consent to the inauguration of a policy which will scale down their wages and render it harder to obtain the neces saries of life. The "cheap coats" to which the gentleman is so much attached do not tempt them, for many remember that in pre vious free-trade eras of our history they were too poor to buy them at any price. No matter how low the nominal sum exacted for the merchandise, it was beyond their power to buy, for it was made cheap at the expense of their earnings and labor, the price of the merchan dise never dirainishing in proportion to the reduced wages which labor was forced to take. It is to maintain this character of " cheap ness " that the Democratic leader raises his voice and offers his serv ices once more to his countrymen. Hearken to his words : And when they [the laboring men] are borne down with burdens greater than they can bear, and are made the objects of scorn by hard taskmasters, we will not leave their side. Can any man familiar with the history of his own country beUeve that such an utterance was made in soberness and good faith by a leader of the Democratic party ? — a party which has imposed the only involuntary tasks and burdens ever borne by American citizens ; which for nearly three quarters of a century kept the labor of almost one half of our great country in slavery, bought and sold as chattels, and which repeatedly, by the enactment of free-trade tariffs, under took to place in industrial slavery the other half ; which strove by every possible means to dedicate our vast public domain not to free labor but to slave labor ; and which now offensively denies to labor in one section of the country the use of the ballot, which is the freeman's defense against wrong and oppression. " However much," says this disciple of Cobden, " others may mock and deride cheapness and the poor, we will stand forth in their defense." Strange words to those acquainted with Democratic history and Democratic practices ; strange in the light of existing Deraocratic purpose, which openly advocates a revenue-tariff policy to raake the poor poorer, and which offers to them in old age, when no longer able to work, the refuge of an almshouse as their hope and home ! They defend American labor. A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. 489 whose overwhelming and controlling majority has not now and never has had any regard for it ; who proposed in 1888, and again propose, if invested with power, to tear down the tariff barriers which alone stand between our labor and the cheap and less-rewarded labor of the Old World ! Their professed defense is a delusion and a snare — the kind of defense which destroys and degrades the dignity and charac ter of American labor, and forces it down to the level of the poorest paid labor of Europe. What think you of this policy to exalt the American home, the foundation and cornerstone of our citizenship, by degrading its head ? This cry of " cheapness " is not new. It rang through England nearly fifty years ago. It was the voice and philosophy of Cobden ; it was the false and alluring appeal urged for the reversal of Great Britain's industrial policy from protection to free trade. It was the hypocritical cant against which the beloved Kingsley thundered his bold denunciations — that dear and revered churchman, whose mem ory is cherished wherever the Bnglish tongue is spoken. Here is his characterization of it : Next you have the Manchester school, from which Heaven defend us 1 Por all narrow, conceited, hypocritical, and anarchic schemes of the universe the Cob den and Bright one is exactly the worst. To pretend to be the workman's friends by keeping down the price of bread when all they want thereby is to keep down wages and increase profits, and in the meantime to widen the gulf between the workingman and all that is time-honored and chivalrous in English society, that they may make the men their divided slaves — that is, perhaps, half unconscious ly, for there are excellent men among them, the game of the Manchester school. I am charitable enough to believe that many of our tariff reform ers, blind followers of Cobden, are wholly unconscious of the end, the ultiraate and disastrous end, of their doctrine and policy. Is Ameri can manhood to be degraded that merchandise may be cheap ? Are cheap goods at such a cost worthy of our high purpose and destiny ? And can we believe that he who would advocate them at such a sacri fice is the true friend of his countrymen, however loud his profes sions? Cheap coats at any price, at any sacrifice, even to the robbery of labor, are not the chief objects of American civilization, and to make them so is neither praiseworthy nor patriotic, nor does such a sentiment represent a noble aim in American life. We scorn cheap coats upon any such terms or conditions. They are " nasty " at such a price. Our philosophy includes the grower of the wool, the weaver of the fabric, the seamstress, and the tailor. Our tariff reformers have no 490 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. thought of these toilers. They can bear their hard tasks in pinching poverty for the sake of cheap coats, which prove by far the dearest when measured by sweat and toil. Our tariff reformers concern themselves only about cheap coats and cheap shoes. We do not over look the comfort of those who make the coats and make the shoes and who provide the wool and the cloth, the hides and the leather. I gratefully commend to the new leader of the Democracy the patriotic utterances of its old leader, Thomas Jefferson. I quote from one of his letters to Jean Baptiste Say : The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture, whieh prudence requires us to establish at home with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves, wiihout regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign de pendency. Also the following from his letter to Benjamin Austin : We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. Ex perience has taught me that manufacturers are now as necessary to our inde pendence as to our corafort, and it those who quote me as of a different opinion will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign, where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference in price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equal to our deraand. Jefferson was solicitous that the people should buy nothing abroad which could be had at home. He set the example of buying the domestic goods instead of the foreign goods, even though the former cost raore than the latter. He did not have that depth of sympathy for cheap foreign goods which the new leader of the Dem ocratic party boastfully confesses dwells in his breast. Jefferson was for the home product and the home producer, and his exalted patriot ism is commended to those who are leading the party from its ancient moorings. It is of very little consequence to men who have no means of pay ment, who are on half pay and half time, that foreign products are nominally cheap. The true test of cost, whether high or low, is not the nominal price but the comparative ease or difficulty of payraent. Does the return which we receive for our labor and the products of our labor and land make them cheap or make them dear? This is the question — the real question. Those things of necessity or com fort are the dearest which are the most difficult to buy and the hard est to secure by the fruits of human labor. I readily grant that persons living on money already accumulated —whose chief employment is clipping coupons; who have fixed A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. 491 incomes and inherited wealth, dedicated to selfishness and with drawn from the channels of trade ; who never earned the price of the " cheapest " and " nastiest " coat by their own exertions or labor — might be benefited for a time at least by cheap foreign goods ; but why should they of all others be singled out for the considerate care of the tariff reformers ? They can get on under any system of tariffs or taxation. As a rule, they raanage to escape many of the burdens of local taxation from which their poorer fellow-citizens can not flee. I have not failed to observe — nor have you— that the men who have their money unemployed in productive enterprises coraplain most of taxation and usually pay the least. Their capital is not in active busi ness. It is secure from the panics and financial difficulties which now and then sweep over the country. When lands go down their loans go up. The depression of prices and wages only serves to in crease the value of their money and mortgages. " Theirs is the capi tal," as Cardinal Manning puts it, " which pays no taxes and gives no charity ; laid up in secret, and barren of all good to the owner or his neighbor." The fiscal policy of our Nation is not fashioned for such as these. It is broader, more rational, and more humane. The poor and also the enterprising must have some care and consideration. To them we must look for our prosperity ; upon their intelligence and welfare rest the permanence and purity of our institutions. They are the strength and the pillars of the Eepublic. Prof. Huxley, the British scientist, says, and says truthfully : A population whose labor is insufficiently remunerated must become physic ally and morally unhealthy and socially unstable, and though it may succeed for a while in industrial competition by reason of the cheapness of its produce, it must in the end fall through hideous misery and degradation to utter ruin. Our population must be saved from such a fate. Our future must not rest upon such a citizenship. If " buying where you can buy the cheapest " narrows the field of employment at home, it will be the very dearest of all buying, the most expensive of all trading, the most unprofitable of all exchange. The more demands there are for labor, the more avenues inviting em ployment and enterprise, and the more opportunities for the capitalist to invest his money, the better each will be off, the better each will be remunerated, the wider the general prosperity ; and here is the con nection between varied industries, fair wages, and fair profits. There must be something for the American citizen more than cheap clothes. There must be some higher incentive than a cheap coat and a bare subsistence. The farmer's products must bring him 32 492 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. fair returns for his toil and investment. The workingman's wages must be governed by his work and worth, and not by what he can barely live upon. He must have wages that bring hope and heart and ambition, which give promise of a future brighter and better than the past, which shall promote his comfort and independence, and which shall stimulate him to a higher and better and more intel ligent citizenship. This was what Lincoln and Garfield taught. These were the principles with which they inspired the people. It was not the coats they wore, but the great ideas they stood for, which the people loved and still love. The Great Emancipator illustrated his aversion to " cheap men " when he made them free and gave them their own earnings and labor, and the beloved Garfield showed his sympathy with God's poor when he voted to make them citizens. The gentleman who is now so insistent for cheap necessaries of life, while in office and clothed with authority was unwilling that sugar, an article of prime necessity to every household, should come untaxed to the American people, when it was known that it was an annual burden upon them of $60,000,000. He stood then as the un compromising friend of dear sugar for the masses. During all his years at the head of the Government he was dishonoring one of our precious metals, one of our own great products. He endeavored even before his inauguration to office to stop the coinage of silver dollars, and afterward and to the close of his administration persistently used his power to that end. He was determined to contract the circulat ing medium and demonetize one of the coins of commerce, limit the volume of money among the people, make money scarce and therefore dear. He would have increased the value of money and dirainished the value of everything else — money the master, everything else its servant. He was not thinking of "the poor" then. He had left " their side." He was not " standing forth in their defense." Cheap coats, cheap labor, and dear money ; the sponsor and promoter of these, professing to stand guard over thd welfare of the poor and lowly ! Was there ever more glaring inconsistency or reckless assumption ? The tarifl reformer has at last, in his wild ecstasy over a so-called victory, been betrayed into au avowal of his real design. He believes that poverty is a blessing to be promoted and encouraged, and that a shrinkage in the value of everything but money is a National bene diction. He no longer conceals his love for cheap merchandise, even though it entails the beating down of the price of labor and curtails the comforts and opportunities of the masses. He has uncovered at last. He would make the cheapest articles of comfort and necessity A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. 493 dearer to the poor, for he would diminish the rewards of their labor. The Democratic victory has had still further uses. It has estab lished beyond dispute or controversy the partnership between the Deraocratic free-trade leaders of the United States and the states men and ruling classes of Great Britain. It is a powerful alliance — a resolute and aggressive combination. If you have any doubt of it, I beg you will read the Bnglish press and the Democratic press of the United States just before and since the elections, and you will be convinced that they are fighting in the same unpatriotic cause, en gaged in the same crusade against our industries. They rejoice together over the same victory. Theirs is a joint warfare against American labor and American wages, a plot against the industrial life of the Nation, a blow at the American Commonwealth. Is it any wonder that the chief of Democratic-tariff reformers, the Hon. David A. Wells, of Connecticut, should have felt constrained to ad vise his copartners across the Atlantic that they were retarding the cause they wished to promote by too open a demonstration ? In a letter in September last to the Eight Honorable A. J. Mun- della, M. P., whom Mr. Wells addresses as "My dear Mundella," he says : If it is the desire of the British people to induce the people of this country [the United States] to raaintain and extend their existing policy of imposing high or prohibitive duties on imports, I can conceive of no more effective way of achiev ing sueh results than the holding of a series of popular meetings, like that at Sheffield, for the purpose of denouncing the McKinley tarifl bill, and favoring retaliatory legislation on the part of the government of Great Britain. Such ac tion on the part of any considerable number of the people of Great Britain is suggestive of a desire to intermeddle witli our internal aflairs. There is nothing whioh the people of the United States will quicker resent than even a suspicion of suoh purpose. The high-tariff advocates in this oountry have been quick to see the opportunity aflorded them by the Sheffield meeting, and have tried to make capital for their cause by using the above ideas to create popular prejudice against the policy of tariff reform. He admonishes them to be less demonstrative and more diplo matic, and leave to the members of the firm in the United States the open manageraent of the crusade against our protective tariff and industrial independence. Mr. President, that country is the least prosperous where low prices are secured through low wages. Cheap foreign goods, free or practically free, in competition with domestic goods involve cheap labor at home or dependence upon foreign manufacturers. Those 494 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. who advocate duties solely for revenue see only as a result cheaper prices, which are but temporary at best, and do not see the other side, that of lower wages, cheaper labor, agricultural depression, and gen eral distress. The protective system, by encouraging capital to engage in productive enterprises, has accorded to labor, skill, and genius higher opportunities and greater rewards than could otherwise be secured, defending them against ruinous foreign competition, while proraoting home competition, and giving the American consumer better products at lower prices and the farmer a better market than was ever enjoyed under the free-trade tariffs of the Democratic party. England is the only country which imposes a tariff exclusively for revenue. This has been her policy for nearly half a century. It has therefore been tried, and under the most favorable circum stances. Does her condition present a picture inviting to Ameri cans ? Is the condition of the great body of her people encouraging, or hopeful, or assuring ? Listen to the words of Cardinal Manning, written in December, 1890, and published in the Nineteenth Cen tury, an English magazine. No one will question their sincerity and truth : There is no doubt that free trade, freedom of contract, buying in the cheap est market and selling in the dearest, are axioms of commercial prudence. They are hardly worthy of being called a science. Nevertheless, this freedom of trade has immensely multiplied all branches of commerce and developed the energies of all our industrial population. But it has created two things — the irrespon sible wealth which stagnates, and the starvation wages of the labor raarket. This cheapest market is the market of the lacklands, penniless, and helpless. In four of our western counties wages are so low that men come to London by thousands every year, and, being here, crowd the dock-gates and underbid the permanent workingmen, who have already reason not to be content with their hire. We have these two worlds always and openly face to face— the world of wealth and the world of want ; the world of wealth saying in his heart, " I sit as queen over all toilers and traders," and the world of want not knowing what may be on the morrow. Bvery city and town has its unemployed. Millions are in poverty. Agriculture languishes ; land is going out of cultivation ; trades are going down ; raills and furnaces are working half tirae ; strikes run through eveiy industry. Is there a blight upon our mountainous wealth ? At this day we have three millions of poor who in the course of the year are relieved in some way by the poor laws. Does this plain statement from this great Christian teacher and philanthropist, who speaks from knowledge, incline Americans to adopt a policy which has made these things possible and true? Do the conditions he describes offer anything to the agriculturist of this country better than he has already, or so good ; or to the laborer a hope or an aspiration which does not make the heart sick; or to A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. 495 our countrymen generally, whatever may be their occupation, a wish to transplant the want and misery here ? God forbid ! We want none of it. Our hearts go out in sympathy for the sufferers beyond the sea, and we shall contest every inch of the ground which points that way for our industrial people. Mr. President, we find nothing in history or in our own experi ence to justify the reversal of our protective system or change in our protective laws. We have nothing to take back; nothing to apologize for. A low tariff has always increased the importation of foreign goods until our money ran out ; multiplied our foreign ob ligations; produced a balance of trade against the country; sup planted the domestic producer and manufacturer ; impaired the farm er's home market without improving his market abroad ; undermined domestic prosperity ; decreased the industries of the Nation ; dimin ished the value of nearly all our property and investments; and robbed labor of its just rewards. The lower the tariff the more wide spread and aggravated have been these conditions which paralyze our progress and industries. This is the verdict of history. Industry and property were excessively depressed from 1784 to 1790, and again from 1818 to 1824, under the low tariffs then in operation. Also from 1837 to the end of 1842, under the compro mise act of 1833 ; and again from 1846 to 1861, under the free-trade tariffs of 1846 and 1857. The depression which prevailed during all these periods was felt in every individual pursuit and National in dustry. On the contrary, the industries and energies of the Nation revived as if by magic from 1825 to 1834, under the protective tariffs of 1824 and 1828 ; and also from 1843 to the end of 1846 under the protective tariff of 1842. Our progress in industrial developraent and prosperity from 1861 to the present time, under the MorriU tariff and its supplements, finds no parallel in the world's history. Labor was never better rewarded than it is now. Mr. Edward Atkinson, a careful student and himself a tariff re former, recently wrote : The share of the annual product which is now falling to workmen, in the strictest sense, is a bigger share of a bigger product than workmen have ever at tained before in this or in any other country. Invention, improved machinery, and new processes, stimulated by our industrial conditions, made possible by protective laws, have, im proved the products of our workshops, and have brought articles of comfort and necessity within the easy reach of the masses with no diminution of the rewards of their labor. Thirty years of pro- 496 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. tection have brought us from the lowest to the highest rank of industrial progress ; have lifted up our labor to that high plane so necessary to American citizenship and equal suffrage ; have given to agriculture a home market unrivaled on the globe; have given to the Nation's proraises a narae without a financial stain ; have raised our National credit from dishonor to honor, our National obliga tions from a discount to a preraium. Every American must have a feeling of pride in such a record. If we have cheap garments, they are woven here ; the wool was grown here ; the labor was em ployed here; the machinery made here; the wages paid here; and the purchase price kept here — all promoting the general good, all tending to the welfare and prosperity of the people. Shall we turn away from this ? The weight of the nations is overwhelmingly on our side. Which is right — the British Government, whose colonies and dependencies, with two exceptions, have protective tariffs (appli cable not alone to other nations but operative against England itself), or all the rest of the civilized world ? Call the roll of the nations : which are for protection ? Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Canada, South America, Portugal, Denmark, most of Australasia, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary, Eussia, Sweden and Norway, and the United States of America. Which are against protection ? Eng land, New South Wales, and New Zealand. It will be noted that " tariff for revenue only," or " tariff reform," is almost exclusively an English decoration. But how stand the people of the world on this question ? At least 430,000,000 people are in favor of protection ; 38,000,000 of Britons are against it, to whom must be added those Americans whose numbers are not known, who, while living under our flag, seem to follow another. That is how the world's jury stands. We have no controversy with Great Britain or her fiscal system. She is free to adopt the one which her statesraen believe will best subserve her welfare and that of her people. Each nation must settle its own doraestic policy ; each is supreme in that sphere, and should brook no interference from the outside. We exercise that undoubted fundamental right ourselves and for ourselves, repeUing all outside intrusion, and we accord the same right to our sister nations, free from any intrusion on our part. Each nation must work out its own destiny in its own way, and is accountable only to the Supreme Euler and to its own citizens. We believe the American policy is best adapted to our citizenship and civilization, and this belief is sustained by the highest American authorities from Washington down, and by a hundred years of ex- A REPLY TO MR. CLEVELAND. 497 perience. We know what it has already accomplished for a self- governed people. The world knows of the wonderful progress we have made. If this policy is to be reversed, it must be done not by clamor and misrepresentation, not by schoolmen and theorists, not by false hood and hypocritical solicitude for the poor man, not by exaggerated laudation of the cheap coat, but after the fullest discussion and in vestigation by the sober and intelligent judgment of the majority con stitutionally registered. It will never be so reversed, while we remain a Nation of political equals. Time and experience have vindicated the great system ; time and truth will vindicate the new law, which was founded upon it. False witnesses will be confounded by the un impeachable testimony of trade and experience. Their portents have already been irapeached. False prophecy must fall before good times and abounding prosperity. Campaign prices have already been con victed as campaign lies. New industries are being founded ; others now established are enlarging their capacity. Idle mills are being started. The only menace to our advancement and prosperity, to our wage-earners and farming interests, is the party which is pledged to the repeal of the new law and the substitution of the British system in its place. Free and full discussion will avert the danger. Nothing else will. THE DIRECT-TAX REFUNDING BILL. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, February 24, 1891. [From the Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration Senate bill No. 172, known as the Direct-Tax Refunding Bill, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : The rule which the Committee on Eules directed me to report is for the purpose of giving the House of Eepresentatives an opportunity to vote upon what is commonly known as the Direct- Tax Bill. This bill passed the Fiftieth Congress with very little division in the Senate and by an almost two-thirds majority in the House of Eepresentatives. Gentlemen have said that we give no tirae for the discussion of this bill. There is no public measure, I take it, that has been so thoroughly discussed in both branches of Congress and before the American people as the measure for the return of this direct tax to the several States which paid it during the period of the war for the prosecution thereof. As I have said, this bill passed the Senate and House in the Fiftieth Congress, and upon a conference report be tween the House and the Senate it passed without division in the Sen ate and byan overwhelming majority in the House of Eepresentatives. It went to the then President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland, and he vetoed the biU ; and in the Senate of the United States, upon the question whether the bill should pass notwithstanding the veto of the President, forty-eight Senators voted in the affirmative and only nine in the negative. And gentlemen will remember well that in the Fiftieth Congress the House had no opportunity to vote upon the veto message of the President. Now, Mr. Speaker, as to the equity of this proposition : Twenty- seven States of this Union paid this assessment levied by the Federal Government, and ten States did not pay half of their quotas. Of the ten seceding States, one paid all, two did not pay over 6 per cent, one paid 20 per cent, another 27 per cent, and the others about THE DIRECT-TAX REFUNDING BILL. 499 50 per cent. If all had paid the assessment, then it would be equi table, in my view, to leave this money in the National Treasury ; but twenty-seven States having paid and ten States not having paid, it is unequal and inequitable that this money should not be refunded to the States that paid, unless the Government means to make the de faulting States pay (which nobody suggests) the sums assessed upon them. It is said that this is unconstitutional. I see by the minority re port of the Committee on the Judiciary, made by my distinguished friend from Alabama [Mr. Oates], that he declares the bill to be un constitutional. The President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland, expressed the same opinion ; but my distinguished friend from Texas [Mr. Culberson], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and a very able lawyer, declares in his minority views that he does not oppose the bill on the ground of unconstitutionality. He says : I am opposed to the passage of this measure, not because of any constitu- -tional objection, but for the reason that, as it is intended as a measure of relief from the unequal burdens of the war, it stops short of even or fair justioe to those who have endured and are enduring manifest and confessed injustice from the same cause. The Sapreme Court has time and time again decided that the fund in the Treasury known as the " captured and abandoned property fund " ($10,000,- 000) does not belong to the United States, but is the property of those from whom the property was taken ; that the Government holds the fund as trustee for the owners, and that there was no legal impediment to its recovery except the bar of limitations against suits in the Court of Claims. For the reason that this money belongs to those who did not adhere to the Union in the late war (a reason denounced by the Suprerae Court as furnishing no legal irapediraent), Congress has refused to reraove the bar of liraitation. Any measure for the restoration of money wrongfully taken or unjustly withheld from the people of any particular section of the country (as in this case from the North) by reason of the exigencies of war, without a recognition or provision for a case of equal hardship and more manifest injustice, as herein cited, from the South, is doing justioe by halves and ought not to be encouraged. After the President's raessage, a gentleman who was a very promi nent member of this House, and a distinguished lawyer, an eminent Democrat, Mr. J. Eandolph Tucker, of Virginia, made an argument in answer to the message of the President, which he closed with these words : " It must be constitutional and right to retum this money because it is unconstitutional and wrong to retain it ; and it seems to me this clearly expresses the situation." The best lawyers of the House and the Senate are clear about the constitutionality of this bill, after the fullest investigation and discussion. As to the question whether or not we shall have money enough in 500 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the Treasury to pay this sum — a question that is raised by the gentle man from Alabaraa [Mr. Herbert] — I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that with the amendraent which will be offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Caswell] there need be no apprehension in that direc tion. The amendment to be proposed requires that the Legislatures of the several States shall take action touching the receipt of this money before it is paid ; so that it is not at all likely that the money can be paid out at once, but payment will extend over the period of one year or more. The Government is able, in my judgment — and in this opinion I am confirmed by those whose opportunities are better than mine for knowing — to meet every dollar of this indebtedness without causing any deficit. The gentleman complains that the large surplus in the Treasury at the close of President Cleveland's administration has been dissipated. True, there is less of a surplus there now than then, but there are less Government obligations out standing. We have used the money in paying our debts, which would seem to be the honest way of using our surplus income and revenue. The report of the late Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Windom, sent to this House at our meeting last December, shows what has been done in the use of the surplus. He says : The total araount of 4 and 4J per cent bonds purchased and redeeraed since March 4, 1889, is $211,833,450, and the amount expended therefor is $346,620,- 741.73. The reduction in the annual interest charge by reason of these trans actions is $8,967,609.75, and the total saving of interest is |5I,576,706.01. And there have been redeeraed and paid bonds to the amount of $95,000,000 since the first of last December. I submit a statement of the amount which will be refunded to the States and Territories under this bill, as follows : Amount eol- States akd Tehritohies. lected and to be refunded. Alabama $33,530 24 Arkansas 154,701 18 California 233,955 41 Colorado 23,189 96 Conneoticut 261,981 90 Dakota 3,241 33 Delaware 70,333 83 District of Columbia 49,437 83 Florida 4,766 30 Georgia 117,983 89 Illinois 974,568 03 Indiana 709,144 03 Amount col- States and Territories. lected and to be refunded. Iowa $384,374 80 Kansas 60,981 83 Kentucky 606,641 03 Louisiana 385,886 67 Maine 357,702 10 Maryland 371,399 83 Massachusetts 700,894 14 Michigan 436,498 83 Minnesota 93,245 00 Mississippi 113,334 66 Missouri 640,958 23 Nebraska 19,312 00 THE DIRECT-TAX REFUNDING BILL. 501 Amount col- Statbs and Territories. lected and to be refunded. Nevada $3,903 77 New Hampshire 185,645 67 New Jersey 383,614 83 New Mexico 63,648 00 New York 2,313,330 86 North Carolina 877,453 61 Ohio 1,333,035 93 Oregon 39,869 57 Pennsylvania 1,654,711 43 Rhode Island 99,419 11 States and Territories. Amount col lected and to be refunded. South Carolina $333,396 36 Tennessee 393,004 48 Texas 180,841 51 Vermont 179,407 80 Virginia 443,408 09 West Virginia 181,306 93 Washington 4,368 16 Wisconsin 446,535 41 Total $15,227,632 03 I now ask for a vote on the passage of this order. THE HAWAIIAN TREATY. Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Fifty-first Congress, February 28, 1891. [From ihe Congressional Beeord.] The House having under consideration the bill [H. R. 12,333] relating to the treaty of reciprocity with the Hawaiian Islands, Mr. McKinley said — Mr. Speaker : The only purpose of this resolution is to raake certain that nothing in the tariff act of 1890 shall be held to irapair the treaty which the United States has with the Hawaiian Islands. In the bill which passed this House, as already stated by the gentle man from Arkansas [Mr. Breckinridge], there was a distinct provi sion excepting all treaties from the operation of that tariff act. That was put there, out of abundance of caution, to save aU our treaties. It had been in the act of 1883, and had been in prior tariff acts. And so it went through this House. It went to the Senate, and the Finance Committee of the Senate struck it out. The Senate itself subsequently concurred in the action of the Finance Committee, and when we got into conference it was one of the points of disagreement between the two Houses. And I say here, to the members of this House, that in that Conference, since it is public now — and it was made public the other day by Senators who were members of the Comraittee — that I insisted on the part of the House that that provision should stand in the bill. There was a question raised as to the necessity of having any such provision in the bill at all. It was believed by gen tlemen who were in that Conference that it was wholly unnecessary for the preservation of the treaty that any such provision should be inserted in the law. Aside from that contention, I am sure no mem ber of the Conference Committee and no member of either House desired the annulment of the treaty by a tariff bill ; whatever may have been their opinion of the treaty itself, no one wanted it impaired through the revenue legislation of 1890. THE HAWAIIAN TREATY. 503 Mr. Breckinridge. Is the gentleman from Ohio informed as to how the Treasury Departraent construes the tariff bill of 1890 in respect to these treaty provisions H I can only say to the gentleman from Arkansas that at the time I introduced the resolution, or about that time, in a conversation I had with the late Secretary Windom, he requested with a great deal of urgency that we should pass this bill at once; that he would be brought soon to consider the question whether he would collect the duties imposed upon certain articles which were free by the treaty and raade dutiable by the tariff law of 1890, saying that he did not see how he could avoid enforcing the duties as fixed by the law of 1890. He was exceedingly anxious to be saved from embarrassment, and to avoid any act which might be held as a violation of the treaty. That is all the inforraation I have in respect to that subject. What course he took I am not advised. Mr. Coleman. What benefit does this country get by the terms of the treaty in consideration of having sugar and rice come in free ? Among other things I will say, in response to the gentleman from Louisiana, we get the Pearl Eiver harbor concession. Article II of the treaty is as follows : His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands grants to the Govemment of the United States the exclusive right to enter the harbor of Pearl River, in the Island of Oahu, and to establish and maintain there a coaling and repair station for the use of vessels of the United States ; and to that end the United States may improve the entranoe to said harbor, and do all other things needful to the pur pose aforesaid. But we get another thing, which in my judgment is of equal if not greater importance than even the Pearl Eiver concession. We have this provision in the treaty : It is agreed on the part of his Hawaiian Majesty that, so long as this treaty shall remain in force, he will not lease or otherwise dispose of or create any lien upon any port, harbor, or other territory in his domain, or make any special privi lege of right of use therefor to any other power, state, or government; nor make any treaty by which any other nation shall obtain the same privileges, relative to the admission of any articles free of duty, hereby secured to the United States. Now, in addition to the Pearl Eiver harbor, we have that conces sion from the King of the Hawaiian Islands — a most important con cession — that he will not lease, grant, or give rights to any power in any port or territory of his Majesty ; nor will he give to any other state or country the same privileges or concessions as to duties and 504 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. articles imported free that he has given under this treaty to the Gov ernment of the United States. The excess of our imports over our exports largely grows out of the free adraission of sugar. That was the concession given to the Hawaiian Islands. It was an exclusive privilege, but it is no longer so. Now, gentlemen say that it was a very bad bargain. Well, it may or it may not have been a bad bar gain at the beginning, but that can not be said of it now, since sugar is made free to every other country in the world, and tbe islands enjoy no exclusive privileges in this respect. But, good or bad, it was a treaty, made by a Eepublican adrainistration and extended by the administration of President Cleveland in 1887 for seven years, and must be faithfuUy and honorably kept by the United States. I beg to call the attention of the House to the fact that the only articles that are made dutiable by the tariff law of 1890, which are free under the treaty with the Hawaiian Islands, are castor oil, nuts, vegetables, dried and undried, preserved and unpreserved, rice-seeds, plants, shrubs, trees, and tallow. They are the only articles affected by the tariff law which are free under the treaty between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands ; and last year, upon the importation of those articles the duties would have amounted to about 8150,000. That is to say, we are giving up from $150,000 to 8'300,000 annually for the privilege of the Pearl Eiver harbor and the other concessions to which I have called the attention of this House. Mr. Cobb. I understood you to admit that in your opinion this "treaty was repealed. I did not admit that the treaty was repealed. I did say, in answer to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Turner], who put the inquiry to me, that in my judgment the treaty might be affected as to these articles which were free under the treaty, and which were made duti able by the act of 1890. At all events, that is the contention, and if you followed the report which I made you wUl see I only stated that it was claimed in certain quarters that it might abrogate the treaty to that extent. It is to save any question and remove .all doubt that I have reported this resolution. Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. Will the gentleman permit rae to suggest, if we have done anything whioh violates the treaty, if the other party accepts the violation and sets it aside, if we through Congress declare that we did not mean it, and that declaration is accepted by the other party, what harm is done? None whatever. That is the point which I was about to make. If this satisfies the other contracting party, then we ought to be will- THB HAWAIIAN TREATY. 505 ing to give it. It preserves our own honor, and disclaims any purpose to violate the sacred obligations of our treaty. Mr. Cobb. Will the gentleman allow me to prosecute the matter to whioh I wished to call his attention ? If the treaty has been repealed, then all the obliga tions hitherto resting upon this Hawaiian Government have been removed from them and they are under no further obligation to us. Is not that the fact ? I hope they do not feel that way. I do not think they do. At all events, by the passage of this bill we keep our own obligations. Mr. Cobb. That would be the effect in law, would it not ? The gentleman knows as well as I do what the effect in law would be. By Article I of the treaty the following products of the Hawaiian Kingdom were accorded exemption from customs duties on entering the United States : Arrowroot; castor oil; bananas; nuts; vegetables, dried and undried, pre served and unpreserved ; hides and skins undressed ; rice : pulu ; seeds ; plants ; shrubs, or trees; muscovado, brown, and all other unrefined sugar, meaning hereby the grades of sugar heretofore commonly imported from the Hawaiian Islands, and now known in the markets ot San Francisco and Portland as " Sand wich Islands sugar '' ; sirups of sugar-cane, melado, and molasses ; tallow. And by Article XI a large and valuable schedule of products and manufactures of the United States to be adraitted duty free into the kingdom of Hawaii is stipulated, as follows : i Agricultural implements; aniraals; beef, bacon, pork, ham, and all fresh, smoked, or preserved meats ; boots and shoes ; grain, fiour, meal and bran, bread and breadstuffs, of all kinds ; bricks, lime, and cement ; butter, cheese, lard, tal low; bullion; coal; cordage; naval stores, including tar, pitoh, resin, turpentine, raw and rectified ; copper and composition sheathing ; nails and bolts ; cotton and manufactures of cotton, bleached and unbleached, and whether or not col ored, stained, painted, or printed ; eggs ; fish and oysters, and all other creatures living in the water, and the products thereof ; fruits, nuts, and vegetables, green, dried, or undried, preserved or unpreserved; hardware; hides; furs, skins, and pelts, dressed or undressed ; hoop iron and rivets, nails, spikes, and bolts, tacks, brads, or sprigs ; ice ; iron and steel and manufactures thereof ; leather ; lumber and tiraber of all kinds, round, hewed, sawed, and unmanufactured in whole or in part ; doors, sashes, aud blinds ; raachinery of all kind.s, engines and parts thereof ; oats and hay ; paper, stationery, and books, and all manufactures of paper or of paper and wood ; petroleura, and all oils for lubricating or illurainating purposes ; plants, shrubs, trees, and seeds ; rice ; sugar, refined or unrefined ; salt ; soap ; shocks, staves, and headings ; wool, and manufactures of wool, other than ready- made clothing ; wagons and carts for the purposes of agriculture or of drayage ; wood and manufactures of wood, or of wood and metal, except furniture, either upholstered or carved, and carriages; textile raanufactures, made of a combination 506 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. of wool, cotton, silk, or linen, or of any two or more of them, other than when ready-made clothing ; harness and all manufactures of leather ; starch ; and to bacco, whether in leaf or manufactured. Mr. Speaker, the only thing we can do, and the only thing we undertake to do, is to say that by the tariff act of 1890 we did not mean to impair any part of the treaty. That was the understanding of the majority of the Committee of Conference. That is all we can say, and that is all we propose under this resolution. Good faith re quires us to pass it, independent and above every other consideration. We must keep our treaty stipulations, whether good or bad, and there are few, indeed, who do not hold that this is a valuable treaty commer cially and politically. My interest in this matter has been to pre serve the good faith of the Government, and this resolution is intended to show that the tariff law should not disturb that treaty. [Cries of " Vote ! " " Vote ! "] THE TRIBUNE'S JUBILEE. Eesponse to Toast, " The Tribune and the Cause of Ameri can Protection," Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding OF THE Tribune, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, April 10, 1891. [From the New York Tribune.] Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : I am glad to join in the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Tribune. Its record is worthy of this great demonstration. It has had a career of success, of usefulness, and of power, enjoyed by few, if any, of its contemporaries. It has been a veritable tribune of the people — has fought their battles, and sustained with force and courage their cause, which was the cause of freedom and humanity. Its discussion of pub lic questions has been fair and fearless — just to its adversaries and faithful to its friends. [Cheers.] It has in a marked degree shaped and molded public opinion, and made its impress upon public policies and public law for half a century. It has instructed boy and raan to right political thought, influenced statesmen, scholars. Presidents, and Cabinets, for it has always been upon the side of good morals, good citizenship, and good government. [Cheers.] It will not be expected, in the few moraents allotted to me, that I can enter upon any extended discussion of the subject assigned to me — that of the tariff. Indeed, I should have preferred, had I been left free, to have occupied my brief time in reminiscence and congratulation, rather than in the serious task of presenting an economic question, although of great public interest at this time, and perhaps more than any other for the moment claiming public attention. The tariff is now one of the chief questions of party division, and represents two schools of polit ical thought, which have divided the people more or less sharply from the beginning of the Govemment. The one holds to the doctrine of a revenue tariff and the other to a protective tariff, as the best agency 33 508 SPEEOHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. to provide the Government with needed revenue. Both have found expression in our public statutes. Protective-tariff laws extend over a longer period of our National life than revenue-tariff laws. Both have been tried by the severest test, that of experience — the one dur ing fifty-four years and the other during forty-seven years of our history. The revenue-tariff advocate can find no encouragement or support in the experience of our own country under his system ; the protec tionist can find nowhere stronger argument and support for his sys tem than the one furnished by our experience and history. [Cheers.] The late distinguished editor and founder of the Tribune, whose name lends luster to this anniversary, in 1869 summarized in a strik ing manner these great lessons of history. It has never been better done. Let me read : Our years of signal disaster and depression have been those in which our ports were most easily fiooded with foreign goods ; those which intervened be tween the recognition of our independence and the enactment of the tariff of 1789 ; those which followed the close of our last war with Great Britain, and were signalized by immense importations of her fabrics ; those of 1887-42, when the compromise of 1833 began to be seriously felt in the reduction of duties on imports ; and those of 1854-'57, when the Polk- Walker tariff of 1846 had had time to take full effect. No similarly sweeping revulsions and prostrations ever took place — I think none could take place — under the sway of efficient protec tion. Mr. Clay, in 1832, after premising that the seven years pre ceding the passage of the tariff of 1824 had been the most disastrous, while the seven following the passage of the act had been the most prosperous that our country had ever known, said : This transformation of the condition of the country, from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly tho work of American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry. This is the testimony of history, and can not be controverted. The progress of the country since 1861 in industrial development and National advancement makes the historical argument even stronger and more conclusive than the periods of which Mr. Greeley spoke. The whole subject is one of practical business, of National and in dividual well-being. [Applause.] Which tarifl system will best pro vide the public revenues with the least burden upon the people, and, while doing this, wUl promote rather than retard the welfare of the people and the prosperity of the country ? THE TRIBUNE JUBILEE. 509 Either system will raise the required revenue for the Government, if properly applied. A revenue tariff will do this, for the time at least ; a protective tariff has demonstrated what it can do in that direction in the last thirty years. But while a revenue tariff can secure needed revenue, it can do nothing else. It proposes to do nothing else. It seeks to do nothing else. It is unmindful of every thing else. It takes no thought of our industrial independence, of the employments of our people, of the wages of our labor, of a home market for our agriculturists, and, while professing to be the friend of the consumer, it is his concealed foe. Its sole purpose is to promote importations that it raay increase the revenue. It has no other object but to raise revenue, and only revenue ; when that is done its mission is ended. Its duties must in no case favor the domestic producer. If they do, they are protective, and to that extent are condemned by the revenue reformer, as a re straint upon foreign importations and free commercial exchanges and a check upon the revenue. It singles out, first, as subjects for taxation, those articles of foreign produce and manufacture of the soil or shop which we can not produce, and upon them imposes its tax or duty. If it taxes a foreign competing product it must make its tax or tariff so low as to discourage domestic and encourage foreign production, otherwise it would fail of its purpose. Low tariffs require the largest importations to secure needed revenue. Their effect is to stimulate foreign manufactures and foreign productions, stifle home manufac tures and home productions, and increase the demand for foreign labor by narrowing the opportunities of Araerican labor. A revenue tariff is always paid by the consuraer, for which the consumer gets no compensation. [Applause.] A protective tariff places all articles of foreign production and manufacture which we can not produce in this country, except luxu ries, on the free list, without tariff or tax. Luxuries are taxed, and heavily taxed, under the protective system, but necessities are never taxed. So, in 1872, in pursuance of this principle, tea and coffee, which had theretofore been taxed for revenue purposes, as an emer gency of the war, were admitted without customhouse charge to our ports and our people ; and so in 1890, when the time had come that the revenue could be spared, the protective party, following the prin ciple I have announced, removed the tariff from sugar [cheers], be cause after a hundred years of experience we had demonstrated that we were able to produce but eight per cent of what we consumed. And by the same law we put those fibers and drugs which we are not 510 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. capable of growing also upon the free list. The protective principle imposes its tariffs upon foreign products which compete with the prod ucts of our own land and labor, of our own mines and manufactories. It does not make its tax prohibitory ; it never has, and it never will. [Applause.] It makes the foreign product coming to the United States in competition with ours bear the duty, and, while supplying the needed revenue, discriminates in favor of our own producers and our own productions. [Applause.] As a tarifl has to be levied to raise revenue, we believe it better that it should be levied on the foreign products which compete with those produced by our own people, and to that extent protect our own producers, our own labor, and defend them reasonably and fairly in their own market. The result of this system of tariff has so quick ened the energies of our people, so stimulated production and de velopment, as to make us the greatest agricultural and mining and manufacturing Nation of the world. It has diversified our industries, given to the farmer-the best market and to labor the best wages any where to be found, and the consumers better products, at lower prices, than they ever before enjoyed. [Applause.] Under it we have had a larger foreign trade than in any revenue-tarifl period of our history. Our exportations have exceeded our importations ; our inland trade and commerce have grown to an extent as surprising to us as to the nations of the world. [Applause.] I can not better present another view of this question than by bringing to your attention a quotation from Mr. Greeley. It is specially apt now, when free-trade writers are seeking to create antagonism between the farmers and manufac turers. He wrote : It seems to me self-evident that protection tends to shorten the distance be tween the farmer and the artisan or manufacturer, hence to diminish the cost of exchanging their respective products, and thus to secure to the farmer not only surer and steadier markets for his produce, but an ampler recompense for his labors. Such are the conclusions that long ago made me a protectionist. Dis tant markets are all but inevitably inconstant, uncertain markets. Europe has deficient harvests one year and buys grain of us quite freely, but next year her harvests are bounteous, and she requires very little more food than she produces, no raatter how freely we may be buying of her fabrics. Hence our wheat now sells very far below the prices which ruled here when Europe had a meager har vest. A remote market virtually restricts the farmer to two or three great staples, while near markets enable him to diversify his products and thus main tain and increase the produotive capacity of the soil. [Cheers.] These words are as true as they were twenty-two years ago, when the great author penned them, and they have never been successfully THE TRIBUNE JUBILEE. 511 answered. [Cheers.] They come now with peculiar force to repel the free-trade argument that the farmer is being robbed by the tariff. The new tariff law puts no fetters on trade, but removes such as were no longer required for our own defense and the needs of the Treasury. It gives us wider, freer trade, regardful of our own inter ests and occupations, than we ever before enjoyed under any tariff law. It makes reciprocity possible, which has heretofore been next to impossible, and under the provisions of the new law and within four months of its passage. President Harrison and his illustrious Secretary of State [Mr. Blaine] have concluded a treaty with Brazil, valuable to our country in the extension of its trade. [Cheers.] We have opened up another avenue to the world's markets, regarded by sorae as better than our home markets (in which view I do not con cur), by giving the American manufacturer "free raw material" for the export trade. Under this provision, any citizen of this country can import any material he pleases, pay the duty fixed by law, take it out and manufacture it into the finished product, bring it back to the customhouse and enter it for the foreign market, and the Govern ment refunds him ninety-nine per cent of the duty paid on the im ported material — within one per cent of free trade. It makes all materials of foreign production for shipbuilding to be used in the foreign trade free. It has no prohibition in it, except that it pro hibits the importation of obscene literature, lewd pictures, debasing images, figures, and everything else of an immoral nature. It pro hibits the landing in this country of the products of the prison labor of other countries to compete with the free labor of this ; and in the interest of our own producers it prohibits the Government from im porting any foreign article except upon the terms exacted of its own citizens. Under this law the Government can not go abroad and buy what it can get at home without paying the duty. The result will be that the Government hereafter will buy more at home and less abroad — and it ought to. [Applause.] The misrepresentations of the new law by certain papers and orators have been so serious and persistent that many good people have been prejudiced against it. It is true that experience is fast removing that prejudice, and it will do still more in that way as time goes on and the law makes its own demonstration. The course of the free-trade journals of the country toward it is not novel in our his tory. They have never failed to make similar misrepresentations and false prophecies when a new protective law was substituted or 512 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY, passed. These critics and reviewers are as old as the tarifl, and will doubtless be with us whUe tarifls last. For example, here is an editorial of a New York evening journal of February 3, 1824, written after the Committee of the House of Eepresentatives had reported the protective tariff law of 1824. Let me read it : Pass the tarifl, as reported by the Committee, and you palsy the Nation. Pass it, and where will you any longer find occupants for your costly piles of stores and dwelling houses ? Pass it, and who will be exempt from its grinding opera tions ? The poorer classes, especially, must feel its effects, in paying an additional price for every article of clothing they and their families wear, and every mouth ful they eat or drink, save cold water ; and to that will they ere long be reduced. [Laughter.] What a familiar tone this has ! [Laughter and applause.] How like the editorials of the same paper written in October and Novem ber, 1890 ; and yet this was written sixty-seven years ago ! When I saw it for the first time a few days ago, it read for all the world like the one I had seen in the same paper last year, the day foUowing my report of the new tariff bill. [Laughter.] None of these awful prophecies were fulfiUed ; none of these dire results ensued. The Nation was not palsied, but quickened into new life. Yonr merchants did not move out of their costly piles of stores and dwelling houses ; they remained, only to require larger and finer and more costly ones ; the poorer classes were not driven to cold water as their only food and diet, but their labor was in greater deraand and their wages ad vanced in price. This city, this State, and the entire country, under that tariff moved on to higher triumphs in industrial progress, and to a higher and better destiny for all its people. History seeras to be repeating itself. The predictions of 1890 are already proving as fatal to the tariff prophets as those of 1824. [Ap plause.] Prosperity has silenced false prophecy. Trade and experi ence have been dispelling its omens of evil. The show windows have already contradicted the free-trade writer, and forced him to revise his figures. The advertising columns controvert the editorial col umns ; the merchant's daily price lists have impeached the false testi mony of the free-trade orator, and the false philosophy of the free- trade professor. [Applause.] May I uot be pardoned for suggesting that hereafter these statements shall be accepted not as carrying ab solute verity, but received with doubt and suspicion until confirmed by events and experience ? This will be safest, and will insure the people against deception. Protection never had an abler advocate and defender than Horace THE TRIBUNE JUBILEE. 513 Greeley. [Applause.] His work on Political Economy, published in 1870, is as clear an exposition of the whole economic subject as any work published before or since. It is within the comprehension of all — so' plain and lucid and simple that the commonest mind can grasp and understand it. His debate with Samuel J. Tilden was a valuable contribution to this vexed subject ; while his daily contribu tions to his paper, always forceful and logical, had much to do with dispelling free-trade theories and making and keeping public senti ment in favor of the American system. Since that great American editor laid down his pen the paper has under its present able manage ment never deviated in its devotion to the protective cause that was so near and dear to its founder. [Applause.] Mr. Greeley, if alive, would share in the pride we all take in his pupil and successor, the gifted Whitelaw Eeid, who has not only maintained the prestige of the Tribune, but who, in the field of diplomacy, has proved a worthy successor to Jefferson, Pinckney, Cass, Washburne, Noyes, and Mor ton. Its support to the great cause was never weak nor wavering. It has struck hard blows for the system. It has fought a hard fight in a city whose sentiraent was more frequently adverse than friendly, and whose press, with few exceptions, was fighting on the side of free trade. [Cheers.] I congratulate the Tribune and its managers that upon the pro tective ' issue it never failed to win a victory. [Applause.] During the whole of its half -century' of life, when the question of a protective tariff or a revenue tariff has been distinctly before the American people, the people were with it, and their verdict was in favor of the American and against the British system. [Applause.] Nor can we doubt that it will be so in the years of the future. The issue may be blinded by other considerations, it may be subordinated for a time to other questions, but when once and clearly presented, the plain people, whose interests and industries are involved, whose wages and occupations are affected, can not be induced to vote against them selves, against the interests of their families and fellow-citizens, and in opposition to the progress and glory of the Eepublic. I have an abiding faith in the justice of the people. Mr. Greeley's prophetic words.are full of truth and courage and hope, and we can well adopt them now. On December 1, 1869, he wrote : We are about to enter as a people upon a very general and earnest discus sion of economic questions, and I rejoice that such is the ease. I welcome the conflict, for I feel entirely assured as to the ultimate issue. BuU Runs and Chickamaugas may intervene, but I look beyond them to our Atlanta and our 514 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Appomattox. [Applause.] Industry has its campaigns and its battlefields, and is not yet beyond the need of intrenchments and fortifications. God grant us the wisdom and virtue to press forward on the shining path thus opened plainly before us, to the end that our labor may be fully employed and fairly recom pensed, and that age after age may witness the rapid yet substantial progress and growth of our people in all the arts of peace, all the elements of National well- being I I congratulate the Tribune to-night. Whether it faces the past or whether it faces the future, it can do it with pride and exultation. [Great cheering.] PENSIONS AND THE PUBLIC DEBT. Address before Canton Post, No. 25, G. A. E., at Canton, Ohio, May 30, 1891. Mr. President, Comrades of the Grand Army of the Ee public, AND MY Fellow-Citizens : I wish I was able to speak fit ting words on this Memorial Day — words of appropriate eulogy for the honored dead, whose deeds of valor we recall — words appropriate to the Uving, who have in keeping these sacred recollections of the past, who hold in trust for the present, and for those who shall come after, the great and inestimable work they did. The dead are be yond our praise or blame. Our words can bring to them neither good nor evil ; but what they did and what we say of them in commen dation of their services and sacrifices, freely offered in a righteous cause, must do us good. If no words were spoken, if no songs were sung, the silent service at the cemetery alone would do us good. The story of their heroism and devotion to country, of their unselfish patriotism, must make us better men, better citizens, better Ameri cans ; must imbue us with a higher appreciation of the privileges and liberties we enjoy under the Government which they saved. The American people love peace. They deprecate war. They have cultivated the friendliest relations with each other and with the peoples of the world. They have never gone to war for continent or commerce, territory or trade. They have endeavored in the strictest sense to attend to their own business, never intruding themselves into the affairs of other nations, and permitting no foreign nation to in trude itself into their affairs. It was reported in the public press, a few days ago, that the Secretary of State [Mr. Blaine], on March 27th, last, thus spoke to the representative of a great power at Washington : I do not recognize the right of any Government to tell the United States what it should do. We have never reoeived orders from any foreign power, and will not begin now. This has been the National sentiment ever since we have been a 516 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Government, and will continue so to be as long as the Government lasts. We are not seeking a quarrel with any nation, but we do not permit, and never have permitted, any nation to dictate to us, or de termine our domestic or foreign policy. We are not and never have been a military people. We have been too busy and too practical to carry arms in time of peace. War with us has always been a means of conquering an honorable peace, and has never been resorted to until everything else short of a surrender of principle and essential rights failed to bring peace. Only sixteen out of a period of one hundred and sixteen years, which includes the eight years' war for our inde pendence, have we been engaged in actual warfare, and then only in defense of our rights and liberties against a foreign enemy, and to preserve peace and an indivisible union within our own borders. Nor are we prepared for war, in the European sense of having a powerful standing army and a great navy, although within a few years we have increased our naval strength, and are now engaged in build ing a number of first-class ships of modern design which will rival the best of the world. But as contrasted with many other nations we are without ships and armament, without fortifications and coast defense. As viewed from a strictly military standpoint, therefore, we would be called almost defenseless on land and sea. And yet we are not defenseless. No nation is defenseless with such resources as we possess. Besides, we have demonstrated in every war in which we have been engaged our readiness and adaptation for any emergency — our inherent and almost resistless strength, founded upon a sincere affection for our country and her institutions ; and so long as that lasts we need fear no foe from any quarter. Our best endeavor should be to encourage and promote this love of country among the people, which is the very firmament of our power in war and peace. Our Civil War was a demonstration of what a people dedicated to peace and the pursuits of peace can accomplish when freedom and country and home and love of all inspire the masses. To hearts moved by the love of liberty, military discipline comes quickly ; to hands ready to use them, arms are promptly forthcoming. With the will there came the way, and as if by magic a mighty and irresistible army was raised and equipped. Within forty-eight hours from the receipt of President Lincoln's telegraphic call, two Ohio regiments were on their way to save the National Capital, and many, many more were ready, whose services were not needed. Before the War for Independence, and when resistance to British oppression had been determined upon, William Williams, of Connecti- PENSIONS AND THB PUBLIC DEBT. 517 cut, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, significantly said, " Our blood is more at their servioe than our liberties." This was the spirit of the Eevolutionary fathers ; and it was the same senti ment that moved the great North, and which resulted in the muster of her matchless Volunteer Army. It was not composed of soldiers of fortune ; it was not marshaled for territorial conquest and confis cation ; not for destruction, except as destruction was necessary to the salvation of the Union ; not in anger and malice was the mighty North moved to war. Any offers of peace, honorable among members of the same political family, would have been cheerfully accepted ; indeed, they were warmly invited. It is soraewhere told that when Harold, of England, received a messenger from his brother, with whom he was at variance, to inquire on what terms reconciliation and peace could be effected between the brothers, he replied in these generous words : " The terms I offer are the affection of a brother and the earldom of Northumberland." "And," said the envoy as he marched up the hall amid the warriors who graced the state of the king, " if Yoste, thy brother, agree to this, what terms will you allow to his ally and friend, Hadrada, the Giant ? " " We will allow to Hadrada, the Giant," said Harold, " seven feet of English ground ; and if he be, as they say, a giant, some few inches more." Harold's attitude toward his brother illustrates the spirit of the North to our misguided brethren of the South before the war and during its progress. Any concession to save the Union which did not involve the extension of slavery, which did not require the pro tection of slavery in the name of freedom, would have been accepted. This spirit animated Lincoln and Grant, and was shown in the final surrender at Appomattox, when Grant, with the affection of a brother, returned to Lee his sword, and when subsequently Congress gave uni versal pardon and amnesty to the South. Affection, fraternity, and union were the conditions for reconciliation, full equality of the van quished with the victors ; but slavery, the great enemy of the Union and freedom, the giant evil and cause of the war, must be buried in the sepulchre of the rebellion forever. Neither bounty nor pay nor pensions were thought of when the great North offered her best from every walk of life that the Union might be preserved. Native-born and adopted citizens were brothers and comrades in the great strug gle. Men of all nationalities mingled their blood in the coramon sacrifice and for the common good. When the news of the fall of Eichmond reached Washington, the people assembled in large num bers at the residence of Mr. Seward, Secretary of State. Eesponding 518 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. to their call, the great premier said among other things : " I am now about writing my foreign dispatches. What shall I tell the King of Prussia ? " He answered his own question with this glowing tribute to our Gerraan fellow-citizens : " I will tell him that the Germans have been as faithful to the standard of the Union as his excellent minister. Baron Gerolt, has been constant in his friendship to the United States." Our adopted citizens of every land knew in that great contest but one flag, the Flag of the Stars. What a mighty army was mustered ! The whole number of men in the military and naval service during the Civil War was 2,859,132, of which number nearly 200,000 were colored. About 1,400,000 men were in actual service ; 93,000 were killed in the field, and 186,000 died in hospitals and camps. More than 350,000 Union soldiers and sailors perished during the war, and presumably the same ghastly figures are required to reckon the Confederate loss. In addition, an untold number on both sides were more or less disabled for life. The wooden leg and armless sleeve, badges of bravery and sacrifice, are seen all over the land, and are grim reminders of the fearful contest. We little appreciate the great sacrifices of that war — its awful cost in blood and treasure. We of to-day but faintly comprehend what our soldiers then endured. American history is full of precious ex amples of love of country and of the sublime sacrifice in its behalf. But as the Eebellion was the greatest war in history, so its victims were almost innumerable. To recount its losses in the storm of battle and by the greater fatality of wounds, exposure, and disease, is to paint in blood the ghastliest picture in the annals of time. Let a single example, of the many, of the heroism and self-sacrifice of our citizen soldiery suffice : Go with me to AndersonviUe, view its horrors, and then tell me the American volunteer soldier, who enlisted under the banner of the Union, was sordid — that he was a soldier for greed and gain ! See that palisade : it incloses fifteen acres of ground. Within its bor ders are 33,000 Union soldiers. They are without shelter. The burning July sun pours down on their unprotected heads. They are suffering for food and water ; men are dying by the hundreds every day. In this condition there comes a message from the Confederate officials saying if they will renounce allegiance to the Union cause and enter the Confederate Army they shall be set free, released from their palisade of death. A private soldier, sick unto death, only able to catch the glad word " freedom," which brought recollections of PENSIONS AND THE PUBLIC DEBT. 519 home and family, raised himself on his enfeebled arm that he might better hear the message. The terms were repeated to him, where upon he said, in a voice scarcely audible, " Comrade, lift me up a little and take what you find from my left breast pocket." The com rade quickly complied, and drew forth a little American flag, and as the dying man seized it he murmured, " I can die for this flag, but I can never fight against it." Tell me that men of such mettle place pensions above patriotism ! Tell me that men who were thus willing to yield up their lives for their country would loot the Treasury and bankrupt the Government which they were willing to give their life- blood to save ! There is not a volunteer soldier before rae, there is not a volun teer of the Eepublic anywhere, who would exchange his honorable record in the service of his country in behalf of freedom and man kind, in behalf of the freest and best Government on the face of the earth, for any money consideration. His patriotism is above price. It can not be bought. It is not merchandise for barter. It is not in the market. I thank God there are some things that money can not buy, and patriotism is one of them. When the war was over this Government had two great debts. One was to its creditors who had loaned their money in its hour of necessity, thus expressing confidence in the ultimate victory of the Union arms ; the other debt was its obligation to the men who had saved it and made it possible to pay its money debt. The one debt could be computed ; the other was beyond human computation. I well remember, in 1865, to have witnessed that Grand Eeview of the Army in Washington on its return march home — the Army of Grant, of Sherman, of Sheridan, of Hancock, of Thomas, and of Logan. Stretched across the front of the great marble Capitol, which had been menaced so often by the Confederate Army and saved as often by the Army which was then passing in review, was this inscription : " The only debt this Government can never pay is the debt it- owes the brave men who saved the Nation." And nothing truer was ever written, and no patriot would now amend it. We were not able to pay the principal of the public debt incurred by the war when hostilities ceased. It had reached the enormous sum of nearly three thousand millions of dollars. Many thought we never could pay it. The Government could do nothing more than to pro vide for the interest on that debt and extend the payment of the princi pal until it had recovered from the waste of war. This it did. So that the two great items of debt at the close of the war were the interest 520 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. to the public creditor and pensions to the soldiers. These two items have never been so great in the aggregate as they were in 1867. Let me bring to your attention some figures which are both interesting and instructive. They show the annual interest paid to bondholders, and the annual pensions paid to the soldiers, for a series of years be ginning with 1867 : 1867. Pension roll $30,936,000 1867. Interest on public debt 143,781,000 Total $164,717,000 1868. Pensionroll $23,733,000 1868. Interest on public debt 140,434,000 Total 1164,156,000 1869. Pensionroll $28,476,000 1869. Interest on public debt 130,694,000 Total $159,170,000 1889. Pensionroll $87,634,000 1889. Interest on public debt 41,000,000 Total $128,624,000 1890! Pensionroll $106,936,000 1890. Interest on publio debt 36,000,000 Total $142,936,000 1891. Pension roll $126,000,000 1891. Interest on publio debt 82,100,000 Total $158,100,000 1892. Pensionroll $135,000,000 1892. Interest on public debt 27,000,000 Total $162,000,000 We have paid off the greater part of the public debt, and reduced the annual interest to $27,000,000, as against $143,781,000 in 1867. It wUl be observed that the two items of pensions and interest on the pubUc debt in 1892 are less than the two items were in 1867. The Govemraent has almost extinguished its debt to the bondholders, staraped out every suggestion of repudiation of that debt, and it pro poses now to keep faith with its other sacred creditors — the soldiers and sailors who saved the Nation. The soldiers waited for their pen sions, patiently waited, patriotically waited, while the Government was struggling under the mighty burden of money debt incurred by the war. They stood firmly for the payment of that debt ; they re sisted every form of repudiation under any guise. They had saved PENSIONS AND THE PUBLIC DEBT. 521 the country in war, they helped to keep its financial honor free from stain in peace. The great war debt is almost paid. Who shall say that the other Government obligation shall not be as sacredly kept ? Pensions are less expensive than standing armies, and attest the grati tude of a free and generous people. General Grant's farewell address to the arraies of the Union on June 2, 1865, at the close of the war, pays fitting tribute to his com rades — a tribute every soldier should cherish and every citizen adopt. It can not be too often repeated. He said : Soldiers of the Armies of the United States : By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, and your magniflcent flghting, bravery, and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, overthrown all armed opposition to the enforcement of the laws, and of the Proclamation forever abolishing slavery — the cause and pretext of the Rebellion — and opened the way to the rightful authorities to restore order and inaugurate peace on a permanent and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. Your marches, sieges, and battles, in distance, duration, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dim the luster of the world's past military achievements, and will be the patriot's precedent in defense of liberty and right in all tirae to come. In obedience to your country's call, you left your horaes and families and volunteered in her defense. Victory has crowned your valor and secured the pur pose of your patriotic hearts ; and with the gratitude of your countrymen and the highest honors a great and free Nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs and secure to yourselves, your fellow-countryraen, and to postority, the blessings of free insti tutions, tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy with their blood. The graves of these, a grateful Nation bedews with tears ; it honors their memories, and will ever cherish and support their stricken families. Thus spoke the Old Commander to the Veteran Army, nearly twenty-six years ago. The great Army he thus addressed is melting away. The past twenty-five years have thinned its ranks ; the coming years will thin them more rapidly, for the boys are growing old, and are less able, day by day, to resist the infirmities incurred in camp and prison, bivouac and battle, from 1861 to 1865. The muster roll here is diminishing in number ; the muster roll over yonder is in creasing, for it is daily recruiting from the living, while the living have no reserve from which to fill their decimated ranks. A large part of that vast Army has passed over and beyond, and the old and chief commanders have joined the Silent Army in " their low, green tents, whose curtains never outward swing." Few of the conspicuous leaders yet remain. The roll-call discloses that they are 522 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. gone — " not present, but accounted for." What a distinguished com pany ! — Lincoln and Grant, Thomas and McPherson, Sedgwick and Eeno, Meade and Pope, McClellan and Hancock, Sheridan and Logan, Garfield and Crook ; and the last, the much-beloved Sherman, has answered the dread summons since last Memorial Day, and is now, I doubt not, with the larger wing of that Army which he led to the sea. The circle is narrowing, the numbers diminishing, as every Me morial Day attests, but posterity will emulate the patriotism they dis played in service and sacrifice. It will enjoy undisturbed the victories they achieved for freedom and mankind, and will guard with sacred vigil the graves of our hero dead forever. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead ! Dear as the blood ye gave, No impious footsteps here shall tread The herbage of your grave ; Nor shall your story be forgot While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where Valor proudly sleeps. NO COMPROMISE WITH THE DEMAGOGUE. Speech accepting the Nomination for Governor at the Eepublican State Convention at Columbus, Ohio, June 17, 1891. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : I accept the nomination you have tendered me, sensible both of the honor and responsibility it implies. It is a summons of my party to duty which I can not disregard and to which I yield cheerful obedi ence. Coming, as it does, freely and heartily and without division, it is a manifestation of your confidence which I shall always prize and strive to deserve. With your hearty good will and generous assur ances, I take the post you have assigned me, relying upon you and the constituency behind you for that support and co-operation which will crown with victory the work of this day. The election this year is of unusual importance, not only because it determines the political character of the administration of the State for the coming two years, but because it involves the choice of a Legislature whose duty it will be to elect a United States Senator, who will serve for six years from March 4, 1893, and whose further duty it will be to district the State for Eepresentatives in Congress under the new census, and wipe from the statute-books the crime against Eepublican suffrage perpetrated by the present Democratic Legislature. The contest to which we invite our political opponents by this early convention is one of principle, and the administration of ideas and policies, and the issues we ofler must be fully presented and fairly tried before the tribunal of the people. We must meet them frankly and discuss them thoroughly. I need not remind you that the most efficient organization will be required, and that personal activity will be needed all along the line from now until the people's verdict shall be finally registered in November. There must be no overconfidence or indifference ; earnest and intelligent work, individ ual and united, is the demand of the hour and the requirement of duty. 34 524 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Conscious of party integrity, firm in the conviction that our party is right, that its principles are best adapted to the wants and welfare of the people, we invite the fullest discussion, and, in the end, the intelligent and well-considered judgment of the electors of the State. We avoid no issue, we shirk no responsibility, we run away from no party doctrine, we apologize for no public measure of our making, and are ready to defend our acts against assault from any quarter. We do not invoke our past record as our only warrant for the confi dence of the people, although we turn to it with pride and satisfac tion. There is not a page of it we would obliterate if we could, nor is there a line which any lover of freedom or mankind would strike from its glorious pages. Can this be asserted by, or of, any other political party ? There has been no lack of courage and patriotism and devotion to the people's interests by the party in the past, begin ning with the leadership of Lincoln and Chase, Seward and Wade, and continuing to that of Grant and Hayes, Garfield and Arthur, Blaine and Harrison ; and there will be none in the future. The party has met every emergency, has responded to every call of the country, has performed with fidelity every duty with which it was charged, and has successfully resisted every enemy of the Government and the people, whether that enemy was seeking the Nation's over throw in open war, the violation of its plighted faith, or the destruc tion of its industries. Whether against slavery or repudiation, fiat money or free trade, the Eepublican party has stood firm and im movable for right and country, for freedom and free homes, for the public credit, a sound currency, and for the maintenance of our industrial independence and the dignity and elevation of American labor. Its position upon all these questions has never been doubtful or deviating, and in regard to those which are applicable to the present situation it will take no backward step. If the party in any of these great struggles has lost here and there from its own ranks, it has more than supplied such loss from the other party, of its strong and conservative men, whose love of country and concern for its financial honor and industrial welfare have lifted them above and beyond party obligations. The Eepublican party occupies to-day the most brilliant post in the politics of civiUzation. Its achievements have no parallel ; its record is without a rival. It has lost none of its old-time courage and decision, and wUl abate none of its force and fidelity in the strug gle which is now upon us. The platform which you havo adopted meets my approval. It announces with clearness and courage the great cardinal doctrines of NO COMPROMISE WITH THE DEMAGOGUE. 525 the Eepublican party, while it proclaims the well-considered convic tions of Ohio Eepublicans touching the newer questions which now confront them. It does not narrow, but widens, the field of conten tion. It presents issues both State and National, and covers all the differences in both principle and administration between the Eepubli can and Democratic parties. The Eepublicans of Ohio approve the administration of President Harrison, and extend to him hearty con gratulation. It has been clean, conservative, able, and patriotic. It has been wise in its domestic policy, thoroughly American in its for eign. It has won the confidence of the people at home ; it commands universal respect abroad. The party is in favor of a regulated immi gration, which shall be just and reasonable and humane. Our shores should be made impassable to the vicious, the criminals, and public dependents of other lands, but not inhospitable to the honest and virtuous, and those who are well disposed to our institutions, seeking new and happier homes, ready to share the burdens as well as the blessings of our society. It deraands and will require a strict enforce ment of existing law, and such additional safeguards as will protect our citizenship and our labor. It is for liberal pensions to our soldiers and sailors, as the legislation of the last and previous Congresses faithfully attests. Although defeated temporarily, it has not aban doned the cause of honest elections. The cause survives — the crime against popular government continues, and it will not be condoned. The Eepublican party will not relax its vigilance until citizen suffrage shall be recognized, and a free ballot and honest elections, the active principle of onr Government, shall be secured in every part of the Eepublic. It can never consent to an irredeemable currency, whether issued by State or National authority. It will maintain the public faith and the public honor, and its face will be set against a debased coin and a depreciated currency now as heretofore. It will not forget the ad monition of Washington, who said, " Cherish the public credit as a most important source of our strength and security." It is in favor of gold and silver, and also paper money based upon coin, all equal and at all times interchangeable ; equal in fact and equal in law. It is in favor of a circulating medium large enough to do the vast busi ness of this country ; but insists that that circulating medium, whether silver, or paper, or gold, or of all, shall be sound and stable, secure from discount, or depreciation, or fiuctuation ; not only good among ourselves, but wherever trade extends. This has been and is now the Eepublican policy. 526 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Experience at home and throughout the world has demonstrated that a fiuctuating, irredeemable currency falls most injuriously upon the laborer and agriculturist of the country. They give the best they have — their labor and the products of their labor — and receive in payraent the worst form of money which passes current. The banker and broker, the grain dealer and wool buyer, like the rest of mankind, always pay out the poorest money which will circulate and retain the best. If thore is money of differing values, the best is practicaUy taken out of the channels of trade and from commercial uses — hoarded by those who can have accumulations — and the circu lating medium is thus contracted, and the country deprived of the active use of its best money. This results inevitably in one stand ard, and that the poorest. Do we want that ? The farmer when he sells his wheat is required to give a full bushel in measure. He should receive, and the buyer should be required to pay him, a full dollar in value. This can not be if we have different kinds of legal- tender money of unequal value. We do not want short weight or short measure to apply to what we buy, nor do those who seU want, or should they be required to receive, by the fiat of the Government, a short dollar in payment for what they sell. We all buy and all sell something — labor, or land, or skill, or products, or merchandise — and have an equal and reciprocal interest that our money shaU have fixed and unvarying standards of value. When the laborer performs a full day's work he should receive his pay in dollars of full value. There can be no legerdemain in legislation which will .secure to us money which does not belong to us, or which can provide the means to pay our debts. The Government was not ordained for any such purpose. It can only give to the citizen the widest opportanity of reward for his labor, energy, and investment. It can not supply his losses, nor can it loan its taxes to him. It can coin money and regulate the value thereof ; it can borrow money when its receipts fail to provide the necessary revenue to conduct the Government ; but it can not create money without creating a debt chargeable upon the people. It can not become the depository of the products of the people and advance money thereon, and if it had the power it would be unwise and suicidal to do it, and no man who will seriously refiect will be of any other opinion. We are confronted by a real danger, which prudent men of all parties should seek to avert before it is too late. We have reached the point where the ways part : One straight and honorable, the other crooked and beset with Uls ; the one leading away from the well-settled policy of the fathers, which can end only NO COMPROMISE WITH THE DEMAGOGUE. 527 in a revolution of values, the ruin of National and individual credits, and financial derangement generally, the other leading by a shining path to public safety and financial honor. There is but one path for Eepublicans to pursue — only one. It is that which they have always pursued ; pursued in the face of threat and danger, denunciation and claraor ; to the honor of the country and the good of the people. If any man doubts where the path of safety lies, let him recall our own financial history ; let him heed the warning of the wise statesman Webster, second only to Hamilton in financial wisdom, who said : A disordered currency is fatal to industry, frugality, and economy. It fosters the spirit of speculation and extravagance. It is the raost effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's flelds with the sweat of a poor raan's brow. The public credit and sound finances must be preserved, and every scheme to destroy them must be met with courage and intelli gence, and repelled by the mighty force of public opinion. Better risk defeat, which can be only temporary, than capitulate with the demagogue or surrender to dishonesty. The misguided citizen never forgives the misguided party. The man who is misled, honestly pur suing the wrong, never forgives his party for being wrong, even though for temporary advantage it agrees with him. He does not excuse his party, if getting what he wants proves to be what he ought not to have had. He respects his party for doing right, even as against his judgment, but he has no further use for it if, foUowing his judgment, harm and injury corae to State and country and business. The Ee publican party never'won a battle by truckling ; it never lost one when it was honest and courageous. The honest and conservative and well- raeaning have the largest battalions when they muster under one flag. The platform indorses a protective tariff, which has been the policy of the Government recognized in its fiscal legislation for more than half of its life, and which has brought to the Nation great streams of revenue, to meet every National demand, and to the peo ple the highest prosperity and the widest diversity of employment. It has for its support the wisdom and practice of the men who founded the Eepublic, and its more than half century of trial con firms their sagacity. Washington spoke true words in his Farewell Address when he said : That to have revenue there raust be taxes ; that no taxes can be devised which are not raore or less inconvenient and unpleasant ; that the intrinsic embarrass ment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of diifloulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the con duot of the Govemment in making it. 528 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. We welcome the closest analysis of the objects which the new tariff law singled out for taxation and the duties it imposed thereon, and we ask " a candid construction " of our legislation at the hands of the people. We have put duties upon those foreign products which come into the United States in competition with the products of our own land and labor. Is not that right ? What better means are there of raising needed revenues ? Are those not proper objects for taxation ? We have protected American products and American labor. We have looked after our own. " That is the sum of our offense." I can understand why the foreign producer does not like it, but I never could understand why an American citizen should be unhappy over it. So long as foreign products can be found to tax which compete with our own in our market, we propose to tax them rather than tax our own ; and where we find foreign products which do not compete with home products, except luxuries and those which encourage vice, we propose to permit them to come in free, without tax or tariff. We prefer to tax the imported rather than the domestic product. The Democratic party prefers to tax the domestic product rather than the imported. It prefers to tax a foreign product the like of which we can not produce at home, and the price of which the foreigner fixes absolutely to the American consumer — a tax which benefits no American interest and which is paid wholly bythe Ameri can consumer — rather than to tax the foreign product the like of which we do produce at home, although such a tax is a benefit to Araerican interests and Araerican labor and is not necessarily, or even generally, paid by the ximerican consumer. That is the difference between the two parties on this question. Their principles of taxation would fall most heavily upon our own people, and inure to the benefit of competing foreign countries and result in injury to our own. Their tariff legislation would benefit every country but our own. Ours would benefit our own without being unjust to any other. We follow in our tariff policy the teach ings of Washington and Hamilton, Clay and Webster, Lincoln and Garfield. They pursue the fallacies of Cobden and Bright and Cal houn, and the leaders of the late Southern Confederacy. They are pledged now to impede, if they can, the prosperity of the country until after the next Presidential election. That is their mission this year. Business disaster and reverses is the ladder of their hopes. Prosperity and contentment among the people bring them sure polit ical defeat. Idle furnaces, dismantled factories, silent mines, unem ployed workmen, general distress, are the sure harbingers of Demo- NO COMPROMISE WITH THE DEMAGOGUE. 529 cratic victory. They are discouraging industrial activity through their press and orators, everywhere and every day, and it breaks their hearts to see any manifestation of industrial advancement in the United States. They sneer at every attempt to establish new fac tories, and would gladly frown them down. It is the same sneer and frown which have been exhibited toward all our industrial enter prises since 1861. But in spite of them, we now lead the world in manufactures, agriculture, and raining, and we will prosper under the new law heedless of their false omens and discouraging prophecies. They insist that we can not make tin plate. So they said about steel rails ; so they said about plate glass, and cutlery, and pottery ; and when we take them to the factory and show them that we are making tin plate, they assert, with intense pleasure, that we are only making " a little." That is true ; but how much should we be making ? That we are making any is the surprise, for the protective duty on tin has not yet gone into effect, and will not until the first of July. They are determined that no new fires shall be started, no new field for the employment of labor shall be opened, no increased market for agri culture secured, if they can prevent it. They are so wedded to free trade and the British system tbat they are willing any calamity shall happen that will rob protection of its fruits and its blessings. They would rather have adversity and " hard times " than to witness any further demonstrations of the benefits of protection. They value their opinions more than the general good. Thus I speak of the leaders of the Democratic party. The rank and file are not with them in sympathy and purpose, and will not help them with their votes. Eeflect for a moment : there is no section of the country. North or South, which is not seeking by every manner of inducement to get manufactories established in their midst. They are giving donations, they are offering bounties, in some coramunities they are taxing them selves and burdening their property for the sake of securing indus tries which will employ labor and enlarge their neighborhood mar kets. In the South, the great center of free trade, they are offering freedom from taxation for ten and twenty years to those who will bring their capital and invest in productive enterprises ; and this by au thority of State law. And while all this work is going on, the lead ers of the Democratic party are proposing to tear down the protective tariff and inundate this country with foreign corapeting products, to displace those which these very manufactories propose to make and which the people are taxing themselves to establish. The people looking after business, and not politics, are trying to buUd up and 530 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. diversify industries in the villages and cities of our country, while the free-trade Democratic leaders are endeavoring to undermine by unre strained competition from abroad what we already have, and are offer ing every form of opposition to the inauguration of new enterprises. The people will corae to see and understand this, if they do not already, and their votes will go where their material interests lie. They will not spend their money to build up, and give their votes to pull down. There is much complaint, particularly in Europe and among free- trade theorists at home, about the increased duties under the new tariff law. It was framed on the principle I have already announced. True, we did advance some duties. It is said that they bear heavily upon the farmers. Let us see if the criticism is supported by the facts. Thirty-three and one third per cent of the advanced duties are for the better protection of the American farmer. Twenty-eight in number of the advanced duties are upon wine and spirits, which will hardly burden the farmer. Five of the advanced duties are upon tobacco, an agricultural product. In the framing of the law most careful consid eration was given to agriculture. No like recognition of this industry can be found in any previous tariff legislation. While securing to the farmer the home market by increased protection, the law provides a reciprocity clause which is intended to extend his foreign market and upon terras more favorable than those accorded to competing agri cultural countries. The bill was drafted after the fullest consultation with the farmers of the United States. It was made to meet their just demands and reasonable requirements, and with a single excep tion their requests were granted. The law, whUe protecting the farmers' products fully and ade quately, has reduced the duties on other products where it could be done with safety to home wages and the home market. It is a sig nificant fact that the articles which the farmer most frequently buys bear a less tariff than under the law of 1883, aud the products which he sells bear higher duties than ever before. The following articles, among others, have either had the old duties decreased or removed altogether : Sugar, leather, boots and shoes, lumber, rice, starch, trace chains, hammers, spikes, nails, tacks, needles, wire and wire rods, screws, nuts and washers, files, rasps, binding-twine, rope, cordage, log chains, iron piping, stove plates, horseshoes, copper and products of, lead and products of, nickel and products of, steel raUs, structural iron, bar iron, hoop iron, sheet iron, wire rope and wire netting, var nishes, turpentine, camphor, and glycerine. NO COMPROMISE WITH THE DEMAGOGUE. 531 There can be no contention as to the needs of the farmer. They are, first and foremost, a good home market. That is safely secured by the new tariff law. The consumers of the United States, who are the best in the world, are made his customers more securely than they have ever been before. No legislation can give him abundant crops ; thatis with him who plants and the Great Power over all who "giveth the increase." Next he wants a foreign market for his surplus prod ucts. That he is assisted in securing, so far as it is possible, by the reciprocity provision of the new law, and no part of the law interferes with his entering any foreign market with any product of his field or forests. Next he wants good money for his products. He does not want to exchange his wheat for a clipped dollar, nor his wool for a depreciated currency. He now has the very best money in the world, thanks to the Eepublican party. I have dwelt at length upon National issues, but the campaign will not be confined to these alone. It will be broad enough to com prise all State issues, the record of the present State administration and the work of the Legislature, which for the past two years has been under the control of the Democratic party. All these will re ceive examination at the hands of the people. Whatever of good can be found will receive their approval, as it should, and whatever of maladministration or bad legislation shall appear will as surely re ceive their condemnation. It must not be forgotten that a legally elected Lieutenant Governor was deprived of his seat without a legal contest, in disregard of all forms and precedents made and established in such cases, and that there was put in his place one who had not received a plurality of votes, but who was the minority candidate — a result reached by denying to the veterans at the Soldiers' Home and the students of the universities of the State the right of suffrage. This crime against the franchise should and will be rebuked. The Congressional gerrymander was also the work of the present Legis lature. A more unjust and partisan arrangement of the State for Congressional purposes was never before conceived or consumraated. A Eepublican State having by accident a Democratic Legislature was so notoriously manipulated as to give to the Democratic party sixteen out of twenty-one Eepresentatives — a deliberate disfranchise ment of more than half of the Eepublicans of the State. The State in 1890 gave a popular majority to the Eepublicans, and yet the Deraocratic party by its gerrymander secured a two-thirds majority of our members in the National House of Eepresentatives. The true voice of Ohio is suppressed in the popular branch of Congress, and 532 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the voice of the minority instead of the majority will speak and vote for the State. Econoray in the expenditure of the moneys of the State was a pledge of the party in power, and this, in common with all pledges, has been fiagrantly violated. Its record is one of unparalleled ex travagance. For the fiscal year 1890 the general appropriations were $3,483,301, which was $133,000 in excess of the receipts. Governor Hoadly's administration cost the State $6,422,858, and the people retired him with a single term. The first term of Governor Foraker's administration cost $6,399,730. The amount of the appropriations of the Democratic Legislature for Governor Campbell's adminis tration was $7,185,205, which is $2,306,597 more than Foster's first term, $1,495,532 more than Poster's second term, $762,247 more than Hoadly's administration, $968,902 more than Foraker's first term, and $785,475 more than Foraker's second term. Indeed, it was a most fortunate thing that a Eepublican Congress returned to the States the direct tax advanced by them for the prosecution of the war, from which Ohio received over $1,300,000. But for this timely in flow into our State Treasury we would have had a deflciency. The people of Ohio want not a parsimonious but a wise and economical administration of the State government. They demand that ex penses shall be kept within the annual revenue, and that taxation shall be diminished rather than increased. They would abolish needless offices which annually tend to deplete the Treasury, and which perform no good service to the State. They would improve the public institutions, and conduct them on business principles and not through partisan management. Those institutions in which the people have a peculiar interest should receive the most sacred care of the State, and ought to be free from politics and scandals, and admin istered with fidelity, economy, and integrity. The State should be a model of economy, and furnish an example to its own citizens of frugal management and business methods. But I must not further interrupt the necessary business of this Convention. Its spirit and unity, its numbers and enthusiasra, indicate an interest and purpose which are the forerunners of victory. We have never had a greater battle to fight — none where more vital issues affecting all the people were involved — none where " the plain people " had greater stake or deeper interests. To them and for them the appeal must be made. In them we repose our trust. To them we look for victory. JULY FOURTH AT WOODSTOCK. An Address at Woodstock, Conn., July 4, 1891. [From the New York Independent.] Mr. President, and my Fellow- Citizens : Since 1870 this spot has witnessed the celebration of the anniversary of our National independence. They have been memorable occasions. It gives me peculiar pleasure to meet the people of New England upon this day, and upon this ground, and especially is it pleasing to me to respond for the first time that I have been able to do so to the many generous invitations that I have received from Mr. Bowen, to whom you and all of us are indebted for this patriotic assemblage. I have liked Henry C. Bowen for a good many things. I have admired him since more than forty years ago, when, in the midst of great political agita tion, as a merchant of the city of New York, he said, " Our goods are for sale, but not our principles." [Applause.] It was this spirit that guided the Eevolutionary fathers, and that has won for freedom every signal victory since. There have been three events in the history of this Eepublic which have marked great epochs in its progress. The first was the triumph which resulted in the independence of the Colonies — a triumph without a parallel in the history of the world ; a triumph for conscience, for the cause of freedom and of mankind ; a triuraph of the conscience-directed few over the misguided but organized mul titude ; a triumph for free government and free men, which has stood the storms of more than a century, and which is stronger to-day than ever in the past. Our forefathers were bold and brave men. Why, in less than twenty-nine years from our final triumph in that first great struggle, and in only about twenty-three years from the forma tion of the Federal Union, the young Eepublic, believing that its rights had been violated upon the high seas by British officers under British authority, challenged Great Britain once more to war. We were destitute almost of resources ; we had not yet recovered from 534 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the waste of that first dreadful war ; we had no Army ; we had only an insignificant Navy. But our rights were trampled upon, and the young giant threw down the gauge of battle and invited war with the most powerful government on the face of the earth. [Applause.] And we won, as men who fight for human rights and liberty and jus tice must always win. [Applause and cheers.] After that — after we had disposed of our enemies on the outside, and conquered an honorable peace — we tumed attention to our own internal affairs, and we discovered that slavery was not a good thing to have in a free Government. Good men dared to say so, and then commenced the agitation against slavery. That continued until 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was agreed upon, and for a time the vexed question slumbered ; but it slumbered only to wake again. And then came the Mexican War, in 1846 and 1847 ; and when that was over this great slavery question reappeared with increased viru lence. Then came the struggle in Kansas between freedom and slavery, threatening the very unity of the Eepublic ; then the odious Dred Scott decision ; and then came the mighty Civil War, in which the men of the present generation were engaged. But the second great event in order of time, next to the Declara tion of Independence and the securing of our liberties, was the forma tion of the Federal Union under a written Constitution. That was the second epoch in the history of this Eepublic. It was a difficult and delicate undertaking. Our enemies believed it never could be done. Our friends looked on with solicitude. We were scattered Colonies, each acting for itself and each having customs laws of its own. One rate of duty on the coast of Ehode Island, another on the coast of South Carolina ; one rate of duty in Massachusetts, and another in New York. And so we were conducting a lot of little independent governments. Finally, it was resolved, " We will unite these governments into one, under a written Constitution, with a com mon flag, a common purpose and destiny"; and they did it, and from that time the stability, the permanence, and the perpetuity of the American Union were assured. [Applause.] The third great event in our National history was the war for the preservation of the Union. The dreadful cost never can be told; but we do know that for the time occupied we spent more money than was ever spent either by France or England in any of the ter rible wars in which they were engaged ; and we know that nearly half a million of the best and bravest men of the North went down amid the shock of battle never to rise again, aud that three hundred thou- JULY FOURTH AT WOODSTOCK. 535 sand Confederates were killed in that great struggle for the per petuity of the American Union. The only thought we had was to preserve the Union as our fathers had made it. That was the ex pressed purpose of Mr. Lincoln. He said, you will remember : " I will save this Union with slavery, or I will save it without slavery, or I will save it part slave and part free ; it is the Union I am deter mined upon preserving ; I have registered an oath in heaven to that eflect." But the Union could not be saved with slavery. A power higher than man decreed otherwise. [Applause.] And Lincoln issued his immortal words of Emancipation ; and I do not know any body now who is sorry for it. North or South. [Applause.] Now, what is the meaning of this day and celebration? Why, simply that what we have achieved must be perpetuated in its strength and purity, not giving up one jot or tittle of the victories won. More we do not ask, less we will not have. [Applause.] There never was a wrong for which there was not a remedy. There never was a crirae against the Constitution that there was not a way soraewhere and somehow found to prevent or punish ; there never was such an abuse that did not suggest a reform that pointed to justice and righteous ness. I am not so much troubled about how the thing is to be done as I am troubled that the living shall do what is right as the living see the right. [Applause.] The future will take care of itself if we will do right. As Gladstone said in his peroration presenting the remedial legislation for Ireland : Walking in the path of justice we can not err; guided by that light we are safe. Every step we take upon our road brings us nearer to the goal, and every obstacle, though it seera for the raoraent insurraountable, can only for a little while retard, never defeat, the flnal triumph. The fourth of July is memorable among other things because George Washington signed the first great industrial measure on that day. The very first industrial financial measure that was ever passed in the United States was signed by him on the 4th day of July, 1789, and therefore I did not think there was any impropriety in Senator Aldrich talking about the tariff on this day and occasion. [Laughter and applause.] It would not be proper for me to make a tariff speech here, although it has been suggested, but I may say with propriety, I am always for the United States. I believe in the American idea of liberty, so eloquently described by Chauncey Depew this morning. I believe in American independence — not only political independence, but industrial independence as well [applause] ; and if I were asked to tell in a single sentence what constitutes the strength of the 536 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. American Eepublic, I would say it was the American horae, and what ever makes the American home the best, the purest, and the most exalted in the world. It is our homes which exalts the country and its citizenship above those of any other land. I have no objection to foreign products, but I do Uke home products better. [Applause.] I am not against the foreign product, I am in favor of it — for taxation [laughter] ; but I am for the domestic production for consumption. Why, George Washington thought it important enough to record it in his diary that on his inauguration day he wore to the inauguration ceremonies a coat made in New England, and in this State of Con necticut, and buttons made in the State of Ehode Island. There are some men who want to be inaugurated President who wouldn't think so much of wearing American clothes. [Laughter and applause.] Our protective system was never in rebeUion against the United States; it has always been for the Union, and against its enemies whether at home or abroad. It has always sustained the flag of the country. It sustained Washington and Jackson, Lincoln and Grant and their armies in their great work for the establishment, safety, and perpetuity of the Union. It is a common thing to say, but a good thing to say, because it is true, that we have the best Governmeut in the world. It represents the best thought and the best civilization ; aye, more — it represents the hope and future of mankind ; and yet it has never been as good as its principles. It was not so from the beginning, and is not now in complete alignment with its principles as found in its organic law and public statutes. Our principles are always better than our prac tices. This is true of individuals as well as nations ; it is true of every human organization ; men rarely, if ever, live up to their professions. Nations lag behind their declared aims, and states fall short in fulfill ment of the precepts of their written constitutions. Our real lives do not measure up to the standard we have raised in our minds. We know better than we do, but our knowledge leads us to higher and better acts, and our principles, although in advance of our living, are constant monitors of good. We would all rather be judged upon what we believe, and hope to be, than upon what we do and are. It is well that our aims and principles, whether as individuals, or as a Nation, are better than our actual practices. Principles must always lead ; they are the advance guard of right thought and action, and we are in debted to them for the approach we make to right living and genuine progress. The founders of this Eepublic declared better than they did ; their practices often belied their announced purposes. The Dec- JULY FOURTH AT WOODSTOCK. 537 laration of Independence, which sounded the voice of liberty to all mankind, was in advance of the thought of the great body of the peo ple, and was in contradiction of the then existing and long-continued facts of our history. It took a hundred years of National life and Na tional thought and earnest agitation, and at last wasting war, to place this Government where the Declaration of Independence anchored it. Upon every statute-book of every State in the Union, in the statutes- at-large of the Nation, the laws are in advance of the actual admin istration of the States and the Nation. This has always been so, and doubtless ever will be. The ideal is always better than the real, and yet, with that ideal constantly before us, we grow to it, and liken unto its image, and all the time are improving and bettering National and individual life. May it never be said to us as De TocqueviUe said to France, " Are your principles losing their force through your exaraple?" But may we always illustrate our faith in their truth and immortality, and teach the world that we believe them by honor ing and observing them, if not always living and acting closely to them, at least always honestly and earnestly striving to do so ! In no country is there so much devolving upon the people relating to government as in ours. Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also. And the general sense of sixty-three , mUlions of free people is better and safer than the sense of any favored few, born to nobility and ruling by inherit ance. [Applause.] This Nation, if it would continue to lead in the race of progress and liberty, must do it through the intelligence and conscience of its people. Every, honest and God-fearing man is a mighty factor in the future of the Eepublic. Educated men, busi ness raen, professional men, should be the last to shirk the responsi bilities attaching to citizenship in a free government. They should be practical and helpful — mingling with the people — not selfish and exclusive. It is not necessary that every man should enter into poli tics, or adopt it as a profession, or seek political preferment, but it is the duty of every man to give personal attention to his political duties. They are as sacred and binding as any we have to perform. We reach the wider field of politics and shape the National policy through the town meeting and the party caucus. They should neither be despised nor avoided, but made potent in securing the best agents for executing the popular will. The influence which goes forth from the township or precinct meeting is felt in State and Na- 538 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. tional legislation, and is at last embodied in the permanent forms of law and written constitutions. I can not too earnestly invite you to the closest personal attention to party and political caucuses and the primary meetings of your respective parties. They constitute that which goes to make up, at last, the popular will. They lie at the basis of all true reform. It will not do to hold yourself aloof from politics and parties. If the party is wrong, make it better ; that's the business of the true partisan and good citizen, for whatever reforms any of us may hope to accomplish must come through united party and political action. We can not purify a party by deserting or de feating it. The country is too large for separate, independent, indi vidual action. A Eepublic of sixty-three millions of people must be governed through party organization. There must, I repeat, be a remedy for every wrong, a road some where and somehow to be found, which leads to righteousness. We can only pursue the right as it appears to us ; the rest we can leave to others, and the ultimate victory may be nearer than we think. When Lincoln entered upon the execution of his great office in the tur bulent year 1861 he had not formulated the immortal Proclamation of Emancipation. When Grant started upon his flnal campaign against Lee, in front of Eichmond, he had not thought of that famous letter to the Confederate chieftain announcing the condi tions upon which he would accept the surrender of the opposing army. Every great historical event in the world's progress has had its preceding steps. Those who guided and directed could not always foresee with precision the outcome and the end; they only knew what seemed right and true to them, and so pursuing the right and truth, mighty epochs have been marked in the world's history, and mighty results achieved for mankind. Men of New England, preserve the schoolhouse and the town meeting. The country owes you much. If your blood does not course through all our veins, your civilization runs everywhere throughout the Eepublic. THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OF 189L The Opening Speech of Mr. McKinley's Gubernatorial Campaign at Niles, Ohio, August 22, 1891. Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : The campaign in Ohio, formally opened to-day on the part of the Eepublican party, will be unusually interesting because of the importance to the State and the country of its results in November. It is fortunate that the issues are of that character which will excite no bitterness, but are well calcu lated to invite calm and dispassionate judgment. It is fortunate, too, that the issues are so well defined and clearly marked that no misun derstanding or evasion can arise. The platforms of the two parties, which constitute their official declarations, are singularly free from ambiguity and confusion. Both declare in bold and fearless terms their party faith, and both must be considered as the lines upon which the political contest is to be waged. I would not change or avoid them if I could, and my competitor can not change or avoid them if he would. Nor are the issues limited to local questions alone. They are general and National. Both platforms speak for their respective parties in the State upon those public questions which are the exclusive subjects of Federal jurisdiction and Federal legisla tion. The Democratic platform declares for the free and unlimited coin age of the silver of the world, to be coined, as freely as gold is now, upon the same terms and under the existing ratio. The platform of the Eepublican party stands in opposition to anything short of a full and complete dollar. The legislation of the last Congress is the strongest evidence which can be furnished of the purpose of the Eepublican party to maintain silver as money, and of its resolution to keep it in use as part of our circulating medium equal with gold. The law which the Eepublican party put upon the statute-book de clares the settled policy of the Government to be " to maintain the two metals upon a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law." 35 540 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. The free and unlimited coinage of silver, demanded by the Demo cratic Convention recently held in Cleveland, amounts to this : That all the silver of the world, and from every quarter of the world, can be brought to the mints of the United States and coined at the ex pense of the Government ; that is, that the mints of the United States must receive 412^ grains of sUver, which is now worth but eighty cents the world over, and coin therefor a silver dollar which, by the fiat of the Government, is to be received by the people of the United States, and to circulate among them as worth a full dollar of one hun dred cents. The sUver producer, whose 4121 grains of sUver are worth only eighty cents or less in the markets of this country and the world, is thus enabled to demand that the Govemment shaU take it at one hundred cents. Will the Government be as kind to the producer of wheat, and pay him twenty cents more per bushel than the market price? The silver dollar now issued under a Umited coin age has eighty cents of intrinsic value in it, so accredited the world over ; and the other twenty cents is legislative wiU — the mere breath of Congress. That is, what the dollar lacks of value to make it a perfect dollar Congress supplies by public declaration, and holds the extra twenty cents in the Treasury for its protection. The Govern ment buying the silver at its market value, takes to itself the profit between the market value of 412^ grains of silver and the face value of the silver dollar. Now it is proposed to remove the limit, and to make the Government coin, not for account of the Treasury, but for the benefit of the silver-mine owner. It does not take a wise man to see that, if a dollar worth only eighty cents intrinsically, coined without limit, is made a legal tender to the amount of its face value, for the payment of all debts, public and private, a legal tender in all business transactions among the people, it will become in time the exclusive circulating medium of the country. Gold, which is twenty per cent more valuable on every dollar, will not be paid out in any transactions in this country when au eighty-cent silver dollar will answer the purpose. Nor will the greenback be long in returning to the Treasury for redemption in gold. We shall do our business, therefore, with short dollars rather than with full dollars, as we are now doing. The gold dollar will be taken from the circulating medium of the country and hoarded, and the effect will be that the circulation medium will not be increased, but be reduced to tho extent of the gold now circulating, and we will be compelled to do tbe business of the country with a silver dollar exclusively, which under present conditions is confessedly the poor- THB OHIO CAMPAIGN OP 1891. 541 est, instead of doing our business with gold and silver and paper money, all equal and all alike good. The volume of our money will therefore be contracted. This question of silver is a business one, in which all the people, whatever may be their political affiliations, have a deep interest. If we could have an international ratio, which all the leading nations of the world would adopt, and the true relation be fixed between the two metals, and all agree upon the quantity of silver which should constitute a dollar, then silver would be as free and unlimited in its privileges of coinage as is gold to-day. But that we have not been able to secure, and with the free and unlimited coinage of silver adopted in the United States at the present ratio, we would be still further reraoved from any international agreement. We raay never be able to secure it if we enter upon the isolated coinage of silver. The leading nations of the world would be glad to put us upon a silver basis. There is little doubt that Europe only withholds con sent to an international ratio on account of her belief that we will inevitably go to silver. If she believed otherwise she would not be slow to give consent. The nations which are on a silver basis alone are the poorest nations of the world, and are in constant financial dis turbance and monetary disorder. The danger of free and unlimited coinage has been pointed out over and over again by leading states men of both political parties. The position of leading Eepublicans upon this question is so well known that I need not pause to quote from them. Let me call your attention, therefore, to what the leaders of the Democratic party, who are chief in its counsels, say. No one has spoken with greater ability on the Democratic side than the ex- President of the United States, Hon. Grover Cleveland. His letter written but a few months ago, taken in connection with his former utterances upon this subject,* shows that nothing could be more disastrous, in his judgment, to the business interests of the country, and to the best welfare of all the people, than the free and unlimited coinage of silver. Mr. Michael D. Harter, a Democratic Eepresentative in the Fifty- second Congress, is credited with saying : If we are unfortunate and unwise enough to make silver a party question and favor the coinage of seventy-flve cents' worth of silver into a legal-tender silver dollar (the profit going to the owner of the silver, as it does under free coinagel, I believe we will lose Now York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and that it will * See Mr. Cleveland's letter of February 25, 1885, to Hon. A. J. Warner, mem ber of Congress from Ohio. 542 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. prevent us carrying Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and six or eight other now doubtful States, all of which we can carry if we nominate a great party leader and steer clear of this free silver craze. The adoption of this wild idea will not bring into the Democratic column a solitary State in the Union. It will be polit ical suicide, and we might as well make an assignment as a party and have a receiver appointed. What Mr. Harter believed so unjust and unwise has occurred. He uses strong language, and forcibly presents the case of one wing of the Democratic party. My competitor [Governor Campbell] has said in his reported in terviews that in sentiment, upon this subject, " the Democrats of Ohio are very much divided ; that the vote in the Convention was a very close one." This close vote only emphasizes the danger of the free coinage declaration in the minds of a large number of the Demo crats in the State, and enjoins the importance and necessity of the friends of honest money standing together, as in all the contests of the past they have been forced to stand together for an honest cur rency. Governor Campbell declared in one of these interviews that while he had his doubts about it, he was willing " to chance free and un limited coinage of silver." I am not willing to " chance " it. Under present conditions, the country can not afford to chance it. We can not gamble with anything so sacred as money, which is the standard and measure of all values. I can imagine nothing which would be more disturbing to our credit and more deranging to our commercial and financial affairs than to make this the dumping ground of the world's silver. The silver producer might be benefited, but the silver user never. If there is to be any profit in the coinage of silver, it should go to the Government. It has gone to the Government ever since the Bland- Allison law went into effect. This new declaration would take it from the Government and give it to the silver pro ducer. Now, the people know that, if we had two yardsticks, one three feet in length and the other two and a half feet in length, the buyer would always have his goods measured to him by the shorter stick, and that the longer stick would go into permanent disuse. It is exactly so with money. A one-hundred-cent dollar will go out of circulation alongside an eighty-cent dollar, which is a legal tender by the fiat of the Government. And no class of people will suffer so much as the wage-earner and the agriculturist. If it is the farmer you would benefit, there is one way to do it. Make the bushel measure with which he measures his wheat for the buyer three pecks instead of THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OP 1891. 543 four, and require the buyer to pay as much for three pecks as he now pays for four. I ara in favor of the double standard, but I ara not in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States until the nations of the world shall join us in guaranteeing to silver a status which their laws now accord to gold. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the concurrent law of nations. It was the concurrent law of nations that made the double standard ; it will require the concurrent law of na tions to reinstate and sustain it. Until then for us to decree the free and unlimited coinage of the world's silver would be to ordain that our silver dollars must surely depreciate, and gold inevitably go to a premium. No man knows what the future may be, but in our present condition and with our present Ught every consideration of safety requires us to hold our present status until the other great mations shall agree to an international ratio. Besides being against a depreciation of our currency, on principle and for the reasons stated, I still have another reason, which, if it stood alone, would be conclusive to my mind, and would place me in opposition to the Democratic scheme of putting in circulation a short dollar. The money creditors of the Government, which include the bondholders, and those who loaned their money to the Government in the tirae of war, have been largely paid off, and in every in stance paid off in the best money of the country. The principal creditors of the Government to-day are not the bondholders, nor the men of capital and large means, but the soldiers who fought the bat tles of the Union in the most sacred and stainless cause in which mankind has ever engaged. In 1867 the Government owed to its creditors, whose evidence of indebtedness was in the form of bonds, nearly $3,000,000,000, upon which it annuaUy paid, in interest alone, $143,781,000. The pension roU of the country was then but $20,935,- 000. When the attempt was made at that tirae by the leaders of the party that now stands in opposition to the Eepublican party to re pudiate the debt to the bondholder, or pay it off in depreciated cur rency, insisting that we never could pay it in full, the soldiers stood with the party which represents good faith to our creditors and the honorable payment of every obligation, and swept back the tide of in flation and repudiation. They said that the Union which they saved from armed force should have no stain upon its financial honor, but every debt it had contracted to preserve the Union should be paid in the best coin of the Eepublic, and every obligation should be sacredly 544 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. kept and observed. They were willing to wait for their pensions until the great money obligation was discharged. The Government credit was therefore sustained, and over two thousand millions of that great debt has been paid off, not in a clipped dollar but in a full dollar. The positions are to-day reversed. The chief money creditors of the Government are now the soldiers ; they are in every Northern State, in most of the States of the South, and in every Territory and the District of Columbia. The interest on the public debt to the bondholder is only $27,000,000 annuaUy, as against $143,000,000 in 1867, and the pension roll of the soldiers, their widows and orphans, in 1891, is $137,000,000, as against $20,000,000 in 1867. ShaU not the soldier have his great debt paid off in the same coin as the bond holder ? Is it right to force upon him a dollar worth 80 cents when the other creditors of the Government were paid a dollar worth 100 cents ? Is it just to the pensioner who is given $12 a month to be paid in a silver dollar worth 80 cents, and thus receive $9.60 as his monthly pension rather than the $12 which the Government has contracted to pay him ? For one I shall never consent that the sol diers of the country shall be paid in any poorer coin than the most favored creditors of the Government. Ohio has never in the past given her vote for a debased currency and she will not do so in the future. When the country was wild for inflation, in 1875, under pressure of hard times (and they were hard), the sober sense of the people of this State, without regard to party, temmed that awful tide. The people of Ohio had more to do than, any other State or constituency of the Union in keeping the Nation upon the rock of honest finance and honest currency. Thousands of Democrats helped in that groat struggle — not through their own party organization, but by leaving their party and joining with the party which represented good faith and honest dealing with the public creditor. They can take no other course this year. And the people of Ohio will take no backward step. It may be worth while to know the per capita of our circulation at diflerent periods of our history. It is now greater in this country than at any other period before. The amount of money in circula tion was about $435,000,000, in 1860, and the amonut per capita was $13.85. In 1865 there were $723,000,000 in circidation, and the per capita was $20.83. On January 5, 1891, the circulation was $1,329,- 000,000 or $24.10 per capita. It may be necessary to increase this circulation, but it can not be done and must not be done with silver dollars that are worth less than ono hundred cents each in value. THB OHIO CAMPAIGN OP 1891. 545 On the subject of the tariff the issue is equally well defined. The Democratic platform declares for a purely revenue tarifl, and will not consent that the tariff shall perform any other service. Duties must be levied with a view to revenue, and upon those foreign products which will yield the greatest revenue, and which will not, incidentally or otherwise, favor domestic labor. Its one mission, and one mission only, is that of raising revenue. If in its operations it should favor a horae production, it would be obnoxious to the principle upon which it was originally levied, and must be repealed or modified. A revenue tariff, pure and simple, such as the Democratic party in Ohio advocates, can benefit and encourage and build up no home industry. It does not encourage labor save in foreign countries. It does not turn a single spindle save in foreign countries. It increases the demand for foreign goods and diminishes the use of doraestic goods. It is for the foreign shop and against the American shop. It supplies work for foreign labor and takes it from our own labor. It would not light a single fire in an American furnace or mill, but would extinguish those which now burn, unless our laborers would work at the same wages as the laborers of competing countries. In short, it is well conceived to benefit every other nation but our own. A revenue tariff has not in our experience been a success even as an agency for raising the money required for public purposes. It has more than once failed in our history to supply the revenue wants of the Government. It has found our country prosperous and our Treasury well supplied with revenue, and a few years under its opera tion has left the Treasury bankrupt and the business of the country in a deplorable condition. It is said that protection is a burden upon the people. If so, we should find sorae manifestation of it somewhere. We have been living under it for thirty years. Where does the burden rest? The masses of the people of our country were never so well off as they are to-day. They are better off than the rest of mankind. There never were so many men in this country who owned their own homes as there are to-day. There never were so many workmen who had accumulations in the savings banks of the country as there are to-day. There never were so many coraforts, refinements, and cultivated homes as there are in this country to-day. No nation of the world can present such a picture of progress, prosperity, and plenty. Again, is it true, as our opponents recklessly claim, that protect ive tarifls have piled up the debts of the United States ? Let the records answer : The monthly report of the Secretary of the Treas- 546 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. ury discloses how the National debt is being reduced. We have paid ofl more than two thirds of it. State debts have been reduced, and county and municipal debts also. See what has been done in this direction in twenty years, from 1870 to 1890 : In twenty years, from 1870 to 1890, inclusive, the Federal debt has been reduced from (1870) $3,386,000,000 to (1890) 988,000,000 The State debts have been reduced from (1870) 353,000,000 to (1890) 153,000,000 The county debts have been reduced from (1870) 187,000,000 to (1890) 115,000,000 In the same time our population has increased from 38,558,371 to 62,622,250, so that the per capita debt is only $28, compared with nearly $76 twenty years ago. The per capita debt of this country is less than that of any other country of the world. Here is the record : Belgium, $72.18 ; France, $218.27 ; Germany, $43.10 ; Great Britain, $100.09; Italy, $74.25; Peru, $140.06; Portugal, $104.18; Eussia, $35.41 ; Spain, $73.34 ; United States, $28. Free-trade England in creased her rate of taxation between 1870 and 1890 over 24 per cent. The United States has diminished hers in the same period nearly 10 per cent. Measured by its usefulness in the development of the country, the protective tariff is again unfailing. No nation in the world has reached such a degree of developraent as we have attained in the last thirty years. In every department of industry, in every avenue of human endeavor, we have illustrated the most marvelous advance ment, and in those years we have risen in industrial development to the very first rank in manufacturing, agriculture, and mining, leading every other nation in the world. But it is said by our opponents that this system enriches the few and impoverishes the many. Wealth in England has been concentrated in the hands of the few to a far greater extent than in the United States. The masses of our people, those who labor, whether in the factory or on the farm, are richer in real wealth than in any other country on the globe. It is also said that protective tariffs have increased the mortgages of the country. This is a false and absurd statement. Let me re mind you that mortgages are not always an evidence of poverty. They are much oftener striking evidences of prosperity. I admit that mortgages given for living expenses, for grocery bills, for taxes, etc., do give evidence of the poverty of the mortgagor. But if a workman in this city, having accuraulated a thousand dollars, con- THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OF 1891. 547 eludes that he wants to buy a home, and, finding one which costs him two thousand dollars, pays a thousand dollars cash and gives a mortgage for the remainder of the purchase money, that mortgage is not an evidence of poverty. It is the strongest evidence of the thrift and prosperity of the mortgagor. Take the farmer having 160 acres of land who wants to add 160 acres more to his farm. He has suf ficient accumulations to enable him to make the first payment, and purchases the adjoining land, giving a mortgage for the remaining payments. That does not mean that he is distressed and poverty- stricken. It means that he is getting on — that he has faith in him self and the future. You may try the system of protection by any test you will, I care not what it is, and it meets every emergency ; it answers every de mand. More than that, it has never been against the Government, either in peace or in war. It is the patriotic system. It is for the country. It believes in America for Americans, native and natural ized. It legislates for thera and nobody else. It preserves the home market for the people at home and secures them work and wages. Why is not the system that does these things the best ? There is nothing either in conscience or in good morals which can require us to give up this market to people beyond the jurisdiction of this coun try, who owe no allegiance to its flag, and who can not be reached by the Federal arm in war, nor by the Federal tax-gatherer in peace, ex cept upon terms which we shall prescribe favorable to our citizens. This is the testimony of history and can not be contradicted. Governor Campbell, in his speech accepting the nomination ofthe Deraocratic State Convention, speaking of the earlier tarifls, declared that " the tariff of Washington, of Hamiliton, and of Jefferson aver aged only 7^ per cent." These laws he commends, and would have us return to them. I fear he is not familiar with those early tarifl's. In the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's administration the average ad valorem rate on all imports, free and dutiable, was 19.75. In 1804, in the midst of Jefferson's administration, the average rate was 23.40, not 7|- per cent, as Mr. Campbell stated. In 1820 the average rate was 22.29 ; in 1830, 45.31 ; in 1840, 15.45 ; in 1850, 23.16 ; in 1860, 15.67; in 1870, 42.23; 1880, 29.7; and in 1890, 29.12. These are the average rates upon all articles, both free and dutiable. Under the act of 1789 — " the tariff of Washington " — the duty on common salt was ten cents per bushel, and later in Washington's time it was increased to twenty cents per bushel. Under the law of 1890 it is less than five cents a bushel. Would the Governor have us reimpose 548 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. this enorraous duty on salt ? The duty on coal under the Washing ton and Jefferson tariffs was equal to $1.40 a ton, while the tariff on coal under the new law is 75 cents a ton. The duty on cordage under the Washington and Jefferson tariffs was 2 cents and 2^ cents a pound ; under the new law it is 1^ cents a pound. The duty on nails under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 2 cents a pound, and under the new law it is 1 cent a pound. The duty on twine and pack-thread under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 4 cents a pound ; under Madison, 8 cents a pound ; and under the new from -^ of a cent to 1^ cents a pound. The duty on raw cotton under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 3 cents a pound ; under the new law it is free. The duty on molasses under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 3 and 5 cents a gallon ; under Madison it was 10 cents a gallon ; under the new law it is free. Tlie duty on sugar, brown and raw, under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 2^ cents a pound ; under the Madison tariff it was 5 cents a pound, and under the new law it is free. The duty on loaf sugar under the tariffs of Washington and Jefferson was 9 cents a pound ; under the Madison tariff it was 8 cents a pound, and under the new law it is a half cent a pound. Under the Washington tariff there were but seventeen articles free of duty, as follows : Saltpeter, tin in pigs, tin plates, lead, old pewter, brass, iron and brass wire, copper in plates, wool, dyeing woods and dyeing drugs, rawhides, beaver and other furs, and deer-skins. In the new law three hundred paragraphs are required to name the articles that are free of duty, and their number reaches into the hundreds. There was much said by Governor Campbell, in his speech at Cleveland, about the low price of wool. He stated incorrectly, and I have no doubt by inadvertence, that the farmer of Ohio was only getting 30 cents a pound for his wool. At the time he made this statement the farmer was receiving for his choice clips 28 and 29 cents. The inference from his speech would be that the increased duty on wool is the cause of depressed prices. If this be true, then the tariff is not a tax. This was not the Democratic doctrine in Ohio in 1883 and 1884. They then believed that the tarifl did help the wool grower, and that a great outrage had been committed upon him when the duty was reduced 11 per cent by the tarifl law of 1883. They so declared in a docuraent issued by the Deraocratic State Coramittee of that year, and demanded of the wool growers of the State that the party that committed that great outrage should be defeated at the polls. And I may say, in passing, that they were defeated. Their THB OHIO CAMPAIGN OF 1891. 549 statement was that the Ohio wool growers had been " fleeced out of " six million dollars by the reduction of 11 per cent of the duty. The Governor was one of those who believed it then. In 1884, when the Democratic party had the Legislature in Ohio, a leading Democrat, Mr. Bohl, introduced the following reso lution : H. J. R. No. 1 : Whereas, The Forty-seventh Congress reduced the tarifl on imported wool, against the protest of every wool grower of the State of Ohio, and of the United States ; and Whereas, The said reduction of tariff on iraported wool discrirainates against the wool growers of the West in favor of the manufacturers of the East, thereby compelling the wool growers of the West to compete with the cheap wool of foreign countries to their very great injury ; and Whereas, That tarifl was reasonable and not too high before the reduction, and stands now at a rate so low as to injuriously affect that large and respectable class of people who have devoted theraselves to wool growing ; and Whereas, An Ohio Congressman* has already introduced a bill in the House of Representatives of the Forty-eighth Congress to restore the tariff on wool as it stood prior to the recent reduction, which should be passed at the ear liest time possible ; therefore be it Besolved, by the General Assembly of ihe State of Ohio, That our Senators in Congress be and are hereby instructed and our Representatives requested to vote for this bill, and to use all honorable means to secure its passage, to restore the tariff on wool as it stood prior to the recent reduction, and the Governor be re quested to send a copy of this resolution to eaoh of our Senators and Representa tives at Washington. The question recurring on the adoption of the resolution, the yeas and nays were taken, and resulted — yeas 84, nay 1. It received the support of every Democrat in the Legislature who voted upon it but one, and was signed on January 23, 1884. The wrong of 1883 was righted at the very first moment that the Eepublican party secured control of Congress, and was not righted in all the years the Democrats were in control. The new law gives the wool grower better protection than he ever had before. The wool of the world has fallen in price. American tariffs do not fix the price of foreign wool, but they do stand as a wall of defense to the Ameri can wool grower against the wool produced on cheaper lands and by cheaper labor in other countries. The new tariff law went into effect October 6, 1890. It had been in operation, therefore, a few days short of nine months on the SOth of June last. The last official report we have of the statement of * Hon. George L. Converse, of Columbus, Ohio. 550 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. foreign commerce, issued by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, shows that the total value of imports of merchandise during those nine months was $630,206,000. During the correspond ing period of 1890 the total value of imports of merchandise was $598,769,305. There were, therefore, imported during the nine months of 1891, under the new tariff law, $31,436,100 more than in the corresponding period of 1890, under the operation of the old law. As showing the effect of the operation of the new law, it is impor tant to know what proportion of these imports were free and what proportion were dutiable, both under the old and new laws. During the nine months ending June 30, 1891, the foreign goods admitted free of duty were valued at $295,993,665. During the nine months ending June 30, 1890, the value of free imports was $208,983,873 — an increase of free importations in favor of the new law of $86,- 979,792. The foreign goods which were dutiable under the new law in that period were $334,242,340 in value, and for the nine months, under the old law, ending June 30, 1890, the foreign goods dutiable were $389,786,033, being a decrease in the value of merchandise paying duty under the new law in the sum of $55,543,692. Under the new law 46^ per cent of all of our imports in value were admitted free of duty, and for the same period under the old law 34^^ per cent were admitted free of duty. That is to say : Under the new law, which our opponents assert is prohibitory, and a great increase of duties over the old law, 46^ per cent in value of all our imports were free and 53-jV per cent paid a duty ; while under the old law, for a like period, 34^^ per cent of our imports were free, and 65^ per cent paid a duty. Such a showing of free imports can not be found under any tariff law since the beginning of the Government. Our foreign commerce for the year ending June 30, 1891, was greater than it has ever been before. The total value of the products we bought abroad and sold abroad, from June 30, 1890, to June 30, 1891, was $1,729,330,896— an increase over those of 1890 of $83,191,- 803, and an excess over those of 1889 of $241,797,867. The value of our imports for the fiscal year 1891 was the greatest of our history, and exceeded those of 1890 in the sum of $55,595,082. This increase is made up largely of the following articles : Coffee, tea, tin plates, hides and skins, chemicals, drugs, dyes, and medicines, fruits, raw wool, India rubber, gutta percha, sugar, and molasses, which for the most part we do not produce in the United States. Yet with this unprecedented importation our exports exceeded our imports in the sum of $39,579,314. So that a law which our opponents declare is THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OP 1891. 551 in restraint of trade, is in fact an encouragement of trade, with the balance fortunately in our favor, as it should always be. The predictions made by the enemies of the new law nine months ago have not been verified, but, on the contrary, have been shown to be mere assumptions, utterly without foundation. They served a political purpose, and worked a positive injury to the merchant and the manufacturer and the consumer. There are few merchants in the State of Ohio who have uot suffered from the exaggeration of the importer and the false prophet, whose dire prophecies of the effects of the new law caused them to increase their purchases and pay higher prices, which prices have since fallen ; and in some instances the goods that the merchant has on hand can be replaced at from 10 to 20 per cent less than he paid for them. Prices to-day in staple goods are less than they were during the months of October, November, and December of last year, and there is scarcely a manufactured article which goes into the family, and which is classed as a necessity, that has not fallen in price and is not less than it has been for many years. I have heard of hundreds of men who, relying upon what Demo cratic orators and Democratic newspapers and their importing allies were saying touching the great advance which was to take place, em barrassed themselves to lay in a stock before the prices advanced, to find they can now buy the same articles at retail at much less than they then paid. The people were deceived once, but are not likely to be beguiled into a similar mistake again. They will surely not follow the business advice of this class of political alarmists in the future. It is always better to be frank, and candid, and honest with the people. One thing is certain, and that is that the prices of manu factured articles have not advanced, but, as a rule, have diminished in price. Another thing is equally certain — existing industries have been stimulated to greater activity, and there is a wider demand for labor than there has been for many years, while new enterprises are springing up all over the land ; and this, too, in spite of the conspiracy of the Democratic leaders to destroy confidence and discourage in vestments. There are 842 articles on the various schedules of the new tariff law. Of these the duties on 190 were reduced. The duties on 80 of these articles were changed from ad valorem to specific, because ex perience has shown that ad valorem duties invite fraud upon the rev enue and operate unfairly against the honest merchant and importer. There are 249 articles in the new law on which the duties are identical with those under the previous law. Upon what articles 552 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. were the duties increased ? Forty-eight of the increases were upon agricultural products, forty-three upon wool and its products, twenty- four upon fiax and its products. Forty per cent of the increases was for the better protection of farm products. Twenty-eight of the in creases were upon champagne, wine, and spirits, five on tobacco, one on opium, three on silk. Duties were increased upon liquors, cham pagne, tobacco, silk, embroideries, laces, fine hosiery, broadcloth, fine linens, opium for smoking, fine cut glass, French and German china, firearms, playing cards, pearl buttons, jewelry, pianos, seal fur, and tin plate. The duties on 185 articles under the new law are the same as was proposed by the Mills bill. The reductions are upon sugar, molasses, leather, boots and shoes, lumber, rice, starch, trace chains, hamraers, spikes, tacks and nails, wire, screws, nuts and washers, files, rasps, ropes, binder's twine, log chains, iron piping, stove plates, horseshoes, sewing needles, copper and products of, lead and products of, nickel and products of, structural iron, bar iron, hoop iron, sheet iron, steel rails, wire rope and wire netting, books for the blind, varnishes, turpentine, camphor, chloroform, glycerine, and medicinal preparations. This plain statement of facts, taken from the new law, should be and is a conclusive refutation of the statements of free traders and ought to set right those who have blindly accepted the misrepresentar tion of our adversaries. There are no prohibitive duties in the law. Yes, there are. We prohibit the importation of obscene literature. We prohibit the importation of foreign goods bearing an Ameri can name or trade mark, and insist that the foreign goods shaU be marketed upon their own merits under their own trade mark. We prohibit the United States Government from importing anything which is dutiable except upon payment of duties. Heretofore the United States Government could buy its suppUes abroad free of duty, aud did it altogether too frequently. It must hereafter obey the law which it requires its citizens to observe. We prohibit the importa tion of goods produced by the convict labor of other lands. We had protected free labor at home against the convict labor at home, but never before against the convict labor abroad. This new law stops the products of European convicts from competing with those made by our free American labor, and will not permit such products to be landed on our shores. It is over and over again asserted that the farraer can not possibly be benefited by a tariff on farm products— that he has a surplus, and therefore that he must seek a foreign market to dispose of it. There THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OF 1891. 553 seems to be a general impression that no products come into the United States in competition with American farm products. An examination of the imports of 1890 most effectually disposes of this assumption. Let me enumerate some of them : Value of cattle, horses, and sheep imported in 1890, $3,270,277 ; breadstuffs, $6,034,- 272 ; fruits, $13,871,801 ; hay, $1,143,445 ; hops, $1,053,616 ; flax, $3,188,021 ; hemp, $7,341,956 ; meat and dairy products, $2,011,314 ; rice, $2,042,120 ; linseed, flaxseed, and other seeds, $3,530,631 ; leaf tobacco, $17,605,192; vegetables, $4,455,374; wool, $15,264,083; total, $79,812,102. Besides, 15,062,076 dozen eggs were imported in 1890, worth easily $1,500,000, on which no duty whatever was paid. It wiU be seen that in 1890 we imported fully $80,000,000 worth of farm products, many of which, it is believed, will be produced here under the protection given by the new tarifl law. The Democracy are now claiming that placing sugar on the free list is in the direct line of their economic theory and principle. They would have the country believe that they have always advocated free sugar, and that this is one of the items of the biU which they thor oughly approved. Such is most remote from the truth, as the history and record of the party will show, first and foremost : Every tariff bill which the Democratic party ever formulated and passed has placed a duty upon sugar, raw and refined. Every tariff bill which they have proposed to pass placed a duty upon sugar. Sugar was made dutiable under the Walker Tariff of 1846. It was dutiable under the first bill which the Democratic party offered after the war, known as the Wood tariff biU." It was made dutiable under the two Morrison bills and the Mills bill. Second, the record will show that every Democrat in the House voted against the clause of the new law making sugar free, and voted for the retention of the duty of two and a half cents a pound. In the Senate a united Democratic vote opposed the free sugar clause, and justified their opposition because it was a revenue duty and in strict accord with the economic principle advocated by the Demo cratic party. So that we have free sugar under a protective tariff, which has been impossible under free trade or a revenue tariff ; and we have it free under a protective tariff because under the principle of protection we do not tax those foreign products which experience and a thorough trial have demonstrated we can not produce in quan tities sufficient for our own consumption. By this one section of the law $55,000,000 is secured to the people. Instead of collecting this sum, as it would be under a revenue tariff, it is left in the pockets of the people. But it is said that free sugar is accompanied with a bounty 554 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. provision which is even more burdensorae than the tax itself. This is not true. We did provide for a bounty to the sugar producers of the United States. The Eepublican party was unwilling to do anything which would destroy this industry and make valueless the millions of dollars invested therein ; and so the Eepublicans provided that, the tariff having been removed, the sugar producers of this country should receive a bounty equal to the tariff. This will encourage and stimu late the production of sugar, if anything can, and it will cost the Gov ernment this year less than $11,000,000 — an actual saving of $44,000,- 000, for the duties amounted to $55,000,000. There is much criticism about the duty on tin plate, and fully as much misrepresentation as there is criticism. It is generally supposed that under the new law tin ore or block tin is now dutiable. Under section 209 of the law it will be seen that the duty on block tin goes into eflect on July 1, 1893. That is, the manufacturers of tin plate have free tin ore or block tin for two years. Then there is this further provision : That unless it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the President of the United States, who shall make known the fact by proclamation, that the products of the mines of the United States shall have exceeded 5,000 tons in one year prior to July 1, 1895, then all pig tin shall, after July 1, 1895, be admitted free of duty. The duty on tin plates went into effect on July 1, 1891. There is also a provision in the law that on and after October 1, 1897, unless it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the President, who shall thereupon make proclamation of the fact, that the aggregate quantity of such tin plates produced in the United States during either of the years next preceding June 30, 1897, is equal to one third the amount of such tin plates imported and entered for consumption during any fiscal year after the passage of this act, and prior to Octo ber 1, 1897, then thoy shall become free. It is said we can not make tin plate. How absurd ! — for we are already making it, and it will not be long untU we shall make the larger part of the home consumption. We are making tin plate to day. It is to be made here in Niles. There are preparations to make it at Irondale, in this State. It is made in Chicago, St. Louis, and iu the State of Pennsylvania. Democratic discouragement can not stop it ; foreign interference can not check American genius and reso lution. We know what foreign free traders are saying of the new law. It wiU be instructive to know what they said of the protective THB OHIO CAMPAIGN OP 1891. 555 law of 1861. Listen to this from the London Times of March 5, 1861: The bill called the " Morrill Tarifl Bill " is an act for the establishment of protective duties on a most extravagant scale. If it were designed to condemn the very principles of free trade, and to introduce those of protection as forming the only true theory of international commerce, it could not have been more strongly formed. The duties imposed by this bill are not only immoderately high, but they are levied upon imports of the flrst necessity. The articles taxed are not mere luxuries or commodities entering into the consumption of the opu lent alone. It is upon cotton goods, woolen goods, and hardware that the iraposts will fall. Cutlery is to be taxed upward of 50 per cent in the lowest instance ; in the highest, nearly 250. In addition to this, the bill enacts so raany complicated arrangements and throws such interminable obstructions in the way of business, that comraerce will be next to impossible under conditions so difficult. We need not enter into particulars of the aot, which is said to be scarcely intelligible even to Americans themselves ; but we can convey a very good idea of its character and purpose by observing that, if it should be passed, it will almost prohibit all imports into the United States from England, Prance, and Germany. That bill would be far more detrimental to the interests of America than to those of Europe. The blow would do little damage to this country ; but such a proposal, at such a moraent, will look like a new sacrifice of the Southern States to the exigencies of the Northem, and will intensify the quarrel between thera by jealousies which will survive after the political tempest has rolled away. It has now become per fectly known that protection in these matters is only another name for suicide ; and when a state establishes a prohibitory tariff, it is itself the sufferer from its own ordinances. If the backwoodsmen of America are to be deprived of good axes, and settlers of cheap clothing, the penalty will be paid by thom. At the same tirae, however, though we shall not think the less of Araerica for this meas ure, except as regards her financial wisdom, we must needs reraark, that as amity follows free trade, so is estrangement or indifference likely to follow commercial seclusion. It is rather an extraordinary reflection that what we have just been endeavoring to do, at some cost, as regards France, America should propose to undo as regards us. If the people of the United States should refuse to purchase in our markets what it is for their own interest to buy, and if they should decide upon manufacturing for themselves the articles which we could send them at a less priee aud of a better quality, they, and they only, will be the losers. I read this that you may realize that what is said of the law of 1890 was said of the law of 1861, and, for that matter, of 1842, of 1828, of 1824, and of every other American protective law. This editorial of the London Times, written thirty years ago, has been over and over again repeated, almost in the identical language, since the passage of the law of 1890, in the same paper, and iterated and reiterated by the free-trade journals of the United States. They were wrong in their prophecies then, they are just as wrong in their prophecies now. "The bill of 1861," says this paper, " will be far more detrimental 36 556 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. to the interests of America than to those of Europe." That is what they say of the present law. The law of 1861 detrimental to the interests of America ! Think of it ! It was the beginning of a new and better United States. It built factories ; it employed labor ; it encouraged genius and invention ; it built cities ; it opened mines ; it extended agriculture and gave the farmer a home market ; and, whUe doing this, supplied the revenue to keep the war going for the preservation of the Union, and since then has been rapidly extin guishing the National debt, and wresting from England the manu facturing supremacy she has so long enjoyed. Is it any wonder that British manufacturers feel the deepest interest and concern in our elections, which are to maintain or destroy the protective policy? They do not conceal their feeling of bitterness against the American policy. I wish I might read you the many thousands of extracts from the English press preceding and following the elections of 1890. Their alliance with one wing of the Democratic party can no longer be denied. They fairly hugged themselves over the defeat sustained by the Eepublicans last year, and gave vent to expressions which every true American citizen should heed. Let me cite you some British testimony : ShefBeld Daily Telegram, November llth : " The Democrats have won. Hur rah for the glorious triumph of free trade ! " Vanity Fair, November 8th : " It is probable that the bill as a bill has received far more attention in England than it ever did in America." English Standard, October 27th : " The indignation all over Europe against the United States is extreme." Leeds Weekly, November 28th : " Englishmen will naturally rejoioe over the downfall of the Republicans." Western Morning News, November llth : " The victory of the Democrats is very gratifying." The Manchester Examiner refers to the American system of protection as " our old enemy." The English press is much concerned about the American farraer ! England had better be more mindful of her own, under whose indus trial policy the farraer has been driven from the soil to make a living, and year after year, if he remains, is compelled to incur increasing debt and submit to distressing poverty. The tariff of 1890 will win its own way ; it will achieve its own victories, aud they will be victories for American labor, American enterprise, and American genius, and for the whole American people. We neither take our patriotism nor our political economy from other nations. If we had done so we would yet be in our swaddling clothes. THE OHIO CAMPAIGN OF 1891. 557 a dependency and province of Great Britain, instead of the first and best Government on the face of the earth, a Government of equal citizenship, equal opportunities, and equal laws. Much as the Eepublican party has done, it has great things yet to do. It will be a mighty force in the future as it has been a mighty force in the past. Its glories will continue to blaze on the heights, a beacon to the world, pointing to a higher destiny for mankind, and the upholding and uplifting of a Nation approved of God. It will not pause in its march and achievements until the Flag, the Flag of the Stars, shall be the unquestioned symbol of sovereignty at home and of American rights abroad ; until American labor shall be secure ly shielded from the degrading competition of the Old World, and our entire citizenship frora the vicious and criminal classes who are crowd ing our shores ; never while the advocates of a debased dollar threaten the country with its financial heresies ; and never until the free right to vote in every corner of the country shall be protected under the law, and by the law, and for the law ; never until the American bal lot box shall be held as sacred as the American home. THE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN. An Address at Cincinnati, Ohio, September 1, 1891. Mr. President and Members of the Labor Organiza tions OF Cincinnati : I am very glad to meet the laboring people of Cincinnati, and join with them in the celebration of this day, dedi cated to their pleasure and recreation. I come by invitation of your Committee, not to make a formal address, but to express by my pres ence the interest which I feel in the cause which you represent, and to participate with you in the suitable recognition of " Labor Day." There is nothing too good for the men who work. The days of rest and recuperation in our pushing, busy age are too few, altogether too few, and the setting apart of this public holiday is a step worthy our highest commendation, and is an honorable recognition of labor, which is the foundation of our wealth and production. I am for bidden, by the occasion and the proprieties which belong to it, of speaking of those matters about which there is division on political lines. We get quite enough of politics, and I forbear intruding such topics on this social assemblage. Nowhere in the world has the cause of labor, its rights and its dignities, been more triumphant than in the United States. Labor here is free and independent ; slave labor has been abolished, and the workman makes his own contracts and enters only into voluntary em ployment. He is his own master ; no man owns his laborer. He is respected and honored in every walk of life, he has by merit forged his way to the very front rank in mechanism and invention, and his trophies are seen on every hand. The advantages which we enjoy as a people, and which crown the opportunities we enjoy above all other nations, are the character and quality of our labor. American work men are, as a body, the most ingenious and intelligent of the world. Inventiveness has corae to be a National trait. The United States Government issues four times as many patents as Great Britain, our greatest competitor. From the Patent Office in Washington, during the past decade, there have been issued annually from 18,000 to 33,000 patents, the greatest number in the history of any country in THE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN. 559 any previous period of the world's history. At the International Electrical Exposition at Paris, a few years ago, five gold medals were offered for the greatest inventions or discoveries. How many of them, do you suppose, carae to the United States? Only five. Testimonials to our mechanical superiority abound on every hand. The Mechanical World, of London, a great trades organ of England, says that the United States has the best machinery and tools in the world. The French Minister of Commerce has made public an official report to him that the superiority of tools used here, and the attention to details too often neglected in Europe, are elements of great danger to the supremacy of European industries. What the late President Garfield said of our great Centennial Exposition, I doubt not, wUl be proclaimed of the World's Fair of 1893. In a speech in Congress, in 1878, General Garfield observed : Let it be remerabered that twenty-two per cent of all the laboring people of this country are artisans engaged in manufactures. Their culture has been fos tered by our laws. It is their pursuits and the skill which they developed that produced the glory of our Centennial Exposition. To them the country owes the splendor of the position it holds before the world more than to any equal number of our citizens. As more than twen ty-two per cent of our laboring people are now skilled artisans, and are now more advanced and skillful and pros perous than ever, so am I confident that the glory of our great Columbian Exposition at Chicago will be attributed in a larger de gree to them than to any or all other forces. It is our glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than his foreign competitor, and so far no call upon his greater inventive skill and genius has been made in vain. Herbert Spencer has testified, " Be yond question, in respect to mechanical appliances the Americans are ahead of all other nations." Superior tools would alone give us no small advantage, but the possession of the best machinery implies much more, namely, that we have also the best mechanics in the world. There are some things we should remember, however. Nothing is cheap which enforces idleness upon our own people. Invention does not follow idleness. Nothing is cheap which permits to slumber in our hills and mountains the rich raw materials that only await the manipulation of man to produce untold wealth. The first duty of a nation is to enact those laws which will give to its citizens the widest opportunity for labor and the best rewards for work done. You can not have the best citizenship without these encouragements; and with 560 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. US the best citizenship is required to secure the best Government, the best laws, and their wise administration. Our citizenship must be protected in every way possible, for upon it rests the permanency and glory of our institutions. If I were called upon to say what, in my opinion, constitutes the strength and security and integrity of the Govemment, I should say the American home. It lies at the very beginning and foundation of a pure National life. The good home makes the good citizen, and the good citizen makes wholesome public sentiment. Good govern ment follows. It matters little what our occupations may be. Every employment is honorable which is an honest employment. The capi tal of one may be in his hand and eye, the capital of another his brain and intellectual equipment. Both are equally honorable and useful and necessary. We need them both. We can not get on without both. Both contribute to National and individual welfare and the advancement and elevation of the people. There are many skilled workmen who eam more money than the average member of the learned professions. The family of the workingman is the unit of our National welfare. Many of ihe men who labored with their hands thirty years ago are now at the head of the great industrial institutions of the country. In the railroad service, the best and most responsible positions are now filled not from the ranks of capital but from the ranks of labor. The system of promotion upon merit is fast becoming the rule of the great corporations ; so that skUl and industry and adaptation to work are almost certain to secure advancement and promotion and independence. Good places are always open to beckon the industrious and intelligent employ^. The great editors of the country commenced at the very bottom. When Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune, in 1841, among the employes at eight and ten doUars a week were George WiUiam Curtis, the gifted editor of Harper's Weekly ; Mr. George Jones, lately deceased, who became the editor and proprietor of the New York Times, a great and influential journal ; and Charies A. Dana, who is now the brilliant editor and proprietor of the New York Sun. The men who control and manage other great enterprises of the country also, are, in the main, men who commenced in the shop or on the farm as laborers. And the conditions of labor are con stantly being improved. With shorter hours, better tools and machin ery, security and protection from accident, bad buildings, and bad ventilation, strictly enjoined by law upon those who employ labor. THE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN. 561 we have much which is the cause of congratulation. But much still remains to be done for the benefit and amelioration of labor. Im provement in every walk of life is the outgrowth of thought and discussion and ambition. We do better as we are better ourselves. The ideals of yesterday are the truths of to-day. What we hope for and aspire to now we will realize in the future if we are prudent and careful. If right is on our side, and we pursue resolute but orderly methods to secure our end, it is sure to come. There is no better way of securing what we want, and what we believe is best for us and those for whom we have a care, than the old way of striving earnestly and honestly for it. The labor of the country constitutes its strength and its wealth, and the better that labor is conditioned, the higher its rewards, the wider its opportunities, and the greater its coraforts and refinements, the better will be our civilization, the more sacred will be our homes, the more capable our children, and the nobler will be the destiny which awaits us. We can only walk in the path of right, resolutely insisting on the right, always being sure at the same time that we are right ourselves, and time will bring the victories. To labor is accorded its full share of the advantages of a Government like ours. None more than the laborers enjoy the benefits and blessings which our free institutions make. This country differs in many and essential respects from other countries, and, as is often said, it is just this difference which makes us the best of all. It is the difference between our political equality and the caste con ditions of other nations which elevates and enlightens the Ameri can laborer, and inspires within him a feeling of pride and manhood. It is the difference in recompense received by him for his labor and that received by the foreigner which enables him to acquire for him self and his a cheery home and the coraforts of life. It is the differ ence between our educational facilities and the less liberal opportuni ties for learning in other lands which vouchsafes to him the priceless privilege of rearing a happy, intelligent, and God-fearing family. The great Matthew Arnold has truly said, " America holds the fu ture." It is in commemoration of the achievements of labor in the past that Labor Day was established. It was eminently fitting that the people should turn aside on one day of the year from their usual vocations and rejoice together over the unequaled prosperity that has been vouchsafed to thera. The triumphs of American labor can not easily be recited nor its trophies enumerated. But, great as they have been in the past, I am fully convinced that there are richer rewards in store for labor in the future. THE OHIO VICTORY OF 1891. Speech at the Eepublican Jollification of the Old Eight eenth Congressional District at Canton, Ohio, Satur day, November 14, 1891. [From the Canton Bepository.] My Fellow-Citizens : I am very much indebted to the people of Canton and to the people of my old Congressional district for this cordial welcome. I can not forget if I would, and would not if I could, the kindness and generosity and devotion of the people of this city and county, and of the counties which constituted my old Con gressional district ; and I need hardly assure you that I rejoice with you to-night over the splendid victory of last Tuesday. [Cheers.] It was won after a long campaign, after the issues presented by the two great parties had been fully discussed and fairly considered before the people and by the people. It was determined purely upon party principles, representing party differences, and to my mind was the logical and natural outcome of a clear, painstaking, and concise pres entation of the issues involved. Indeed, I can recall no campaign wherein the real issues involved have been so squarely put before the voters of the State as in the one whose successful termination we are now celebrating. The American system or policy of a protective tariff has been fully vindicated, and the policy of a sound and uncor rupted currency has also again signally triumphed in Ohio. The Buckeye State has spoken with emphasis for both, and her voice and vote will resound in every quarter of this great country. [Great ap plause.] Passion, bitter personalities, and narrow prejudices had no place in the campaign just closed. It was singularly free from all. Extraneous and unimportant questions were altogether eliminated ; side issues were rejected. The lines were tightly drawn. Nothing crept in to divert the public mind from the actual issues involved, and the verdict of last Tuesday is, therefore, the full and free will of our people upon great National questions affecting every home and hearthstone in the United States. [Cheers.] I have said it was a THE OHIO VICTORY OP 1891. 563 long campaign. It commenced as early as the 17th day of June last, and continued uninterruptedly until the votes were finally counted on election night, Tuesday, November 10th. But it was a glorious campaign. The people were in it from start to finish. [Loud cheers.] They were fully awake to the situation, and the greatest interest was evinced all along the line up to the close. We celebrate their verdict and victory to-night. The result is full of significance and encouragement. We have elected the entire Eepublican State ticket by sweeping pluralities. [Great applause.] We have elected both branches of the Legislature by an unprecedented Eepublican majority. [Ap plause.] We have carried all the close and doubtful counties. Now we will elect a Eepublican United States Senator. [Applause.] We will district the State for Congressional purposes under the new cen sus of 1890 — and upon lines, too, that will be fair to the majority, fair to the minority, fair to all the people. [Loud cheers.] We will, raoreover, continue to choose Presidential electors in the good old- fashioned way of the fathers — by the State at large — just as we have always done ever since Ohio had a State governraent. Our glorious Commonwealth will neither be Michiganized nor Mexicanized, but the force and majesty of the will of the majority, as registered at the polls, will continue supreme in Ohio. [Great applause.] Ohio has by this election declared in unmistakable terms her opposition to free trade [cheers], or a revenue tariff, and stands immovable for the great American doctrine under which we have enjoyed such unexampled prosperity, under which labor and genius and skill are better rewarded than in any other quarter of the globe, and under which we have achieved the very first rank among all nations in manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. Our State has determined that her labor and industry shall be protected from ruinous competi tion with foreign countries ; and, further, that she wants no clipped or corrupt dollars with which to measure the exchanges of her peo ple, their products, and their labor. [Cheers.] And now, my fellow- citizens, having won the victory solely upon these great questions and party issues, let us use it fairly and honorably, that we may deserve the continued confidence and good will of the people. [Cheers.] I thank you, in behalf of the triumphant party, for this demonstration of public approval and these manifestations of popular satisfaction. I thank you, one and all, also, very heartily, for your personal good will and good wishes, and bid you good night. [Ee newed and long-continued applause.] ^ THE STATE OF OHIO. Address in Eesponse to Toast at the Lincoln Banquet of the Ohio Eepublican League, at Columbus, Ohio, February 13, 1892. [From the Ohio State Journal.] Mr. Toastmaster, and Gentlemen of the Ohio Eepub lican League : It is recorded that during one of the gloomiest periods of the Eevolution an American general asked what should be done if the king's troops should drive the Continental Army from the States. Washington answered, " We shall retire to the Ohio Val ley, and there we will be free ! " Ohio was thus early held as a home for the free and a haven for the oppressed. Since 1787 there has never been a moment of time that the territory of Ohio has not been consecrated to freedom, and its citizens its strongest advocates and adherents. [Applause.] Ohio people may indulge in a good deal of self-praise, and it may not always be prudent or opportune, but I think no student of Ohio history will assert that it is unrea sonable and without justification. A distinguished Senator from Massachusetts declared, not many years ago, that he could not help applying to Ohio the proud boast of Pericles concerning Athens: " Athens alone, among her contemporaries, is superior to the report of her." Of how few Hellenes could be said, as of them, that their deeds, when weighed in the balance, have been found equal to their fame ! Ohio was the seventeenth State to be admitted into the Union, but for fifty years it ranked third in population, wealth, and indus trial activity. By the census of 1810, reckoning Maine, then part of Massachusetts, as a member of the Union, Ohio was the thirteenth State, according to magnitude of population ; in 1820, the fifth ; in 1830, the fourth; and in 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880, the third State. The recent census places her fourth in population, giving to Illinois Ohio's old rank. I have seen that accounted for in this way : THB STATE OF OHIO. 565 That at the time the census was taken many Ohio people were abroad, while many others, traveling through Chicago on business [laughter], were found by the census-taker and counted in the population of that inland metropolis. [Laughter and cheers.] The early popula tion of Ohio was made up of New-Englanders, Virginians, settlers from the Middle States, Germans, French, and Irish, and it would have been difficult to procure a better class of inhabitants. The old States sent many of their best, while the foreigners who came to our Western wilderness were also very desirable citizens. Washington, in a letter written in 1788, declared : No colony in America was ever settled under suoh favorable auspices as that which has been commenced along the Muskingura. Inforraation, prosperity, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were raen better calculated to proraote the welfare of any community. If I were a young man just preparing to begin life, or had a family to raake pro vision for, I know of no country where I would rather flx my habitation. Lafayette, too, when a list of Ohio pioneers was read to him, in 1825, at Marietta, proudly said : I know them all ; I saw them at Brandywine, Yorktown, and Rhode Island. They were the bravest of the brave. Such a population insured a good beginning, and with the declara tion of the great Ordinance of 1787 for the organization of the North west Territory, gave an earnest of Ohio's matchless future : There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. This was the language of the corapact — the voice of freedora, the cry of conscience. From the beginning Ohio set her face toward lib erty. She believed in the largest freedom and in the widest oppor tunity and possibUity for individual effort. She has never reversed her face, nor turned backward in her pathway. She has been a lover of freedom and the Union from her beginning. She was created a free State. No slave was ever born on her soil, no serf ever dwelt there. [Loud applause.] The first attempt at treason, presented in the conspiracy of Aaron Burr, was met with prompt and eflective action. Governor Tiffin sent a message to the Legislature calling for authority to act in the emergency. Authority was given the Gov ernor to cause the arrest of all persons engaged in the conspiracy, and giving him power to call out the militia for that purpose. Thus this conspiracy against the Eepublic was met by the same prompt, earnest. 566 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. and patriotic answer from the loyal people of the State that has char acterized them in every assault against the authority of the Govern ment of the United States since. In the second war with England, although our entire vote for Governor in 1812 was but 19,752, there were more than 20,000 Ohio soldiers enlisted in the American army. [Applause.] In the great Civil War Ohio's contribution of troops was almost equal to her voting population, while eighty-five out of every thousand of her 320,000 enlisted soldiers gave their lives as a precious sacrifice for the Union. [Great applause.] William Dennison, the first war Governor, to whom this State and the country are much more indebted than his contemporaries were wont to acknowledge, said at the outbreak of hostilities, " Ohio must lead in the war," and no State for a single day, in all those years of dreadful conflict, disputed Ohio's leadership. [Applause.] To those grand men, David Tod and John Brough, also, much of the State's prominence is unquestionably due. Governor Tod especially behaved handsomely and most patriotically under very trying circum stances. He was an able, honest, and fearless Executive, a public serv ant whose official conduct deserved, as it received, the approbation of all loyal people. No State can boast three better war Governors, and certainly none a grander army than Ohio sent to the front. [Applause.] Our soldiers made their impress upon every one of the grand divisions of the grandest army of free men ever mustered. Our volunteers were upon every field and in the forefront of every battle, and our matchless commanders, whose names without mention rise to every lip, have encircled the globe with their fame. [Applause, and cheers for Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan.] It may be regard ed as an insignificant fact, but it was in reality a grand accom pUshment, and one of which we all should be proud, that the first regular organization in the country for the relief of Union soldiers through Aid Societies was formed and organized AprU 20, 1861, in the city of Cleveland. Ohio was prompt and eflective in that as in aU other patriotic eflorts, pointing the way for the Nation with un erring zeal and foresight. History records how quickly and grandly her example was followed, and how great the good that was accom plished. Ohio has not only been strong in her patriotism and devotion to liberty, but her civU administrations, from Tiffin's first term, have, as a rule, been distinguished for conservatism and strength, integrity and dignity. Her judiciary has been able, pure, and learned. Its decisions have coramanded confidence in every State and Territory of THE STATE OP OHIO. 567 the Union. Hon. Eichard A. Harrison, of this city, hiraself a dis tinguished lawyer, said not long ago, on a banquet occasion : Is there any State in the Union that ever had a bar of greater raen either as lawyers or statesmen, than the bar of whioh Judge Thurman was one of the most conspicuous members f [Applause.] Their names best answer his inquiry. The Ohio bar in Judge Thurman's time was graced by Hammond, Burnet, Chase, Waite, Ewing, Corwin, McLean, Boynton, Swan, Eanney, Stanton, Swayne, Stanley Matthews, Aaron F. Perry, Groesbeck, Day, Hoadly, Storer, and many others of exceptional strength and ability. There have been five Ohio men upon the Supreme Bench of the United States, two of them reaching the station of Chief Justice of the greatest judicial tribunal of the world, and death claiming a third and possibly greater before he could assume that exalted station. In science, art, music, poetry, and letters, Ohio has won a lead ing place. In journalism she has been conspicuous. The Bulga rian Liberator, as he is called, whose fame as a correspondent is in ternational, whose life was a chivalrous romance, whose pen was weighted with power and might, the heroic MacGahan, was a Buckeye boy. [Applause.] His body, transferred from the ancient seat of Eastern empire, now rests among the rugged hills of his native coun ty of Perry, where he spent his boyhood, and where was spent the boyhood of the greatest cavalryman of the Civil War — the dashing and intrepid Sheridan. [Eenewed applause.] Kennan, also, the daring traveler, whose articles and lectures on Eussian cruelty in Siberia have startled two continents, is a product of northern Ohio. And Edison, the Wizard of Menlo, most practical of scientists and greatest of electricians, first saw the light in an Ohio country village. The proud old State may well risk her rank in that field upon the work of this iUustrious son, but to Edison she can add Brush, and to Brush the great Dr. MendenhaU, foremost of professors in electrical science. In education Ohio has been no laggard. Her public schools and colleges are her pride. She expends in a single year for public in struction more than any other of the States of the Union except New York and Illinois. More than one tenth of all the money expended in the United States for school purposes is expended by Ohio, and she has a larger percentage of attendance upon instruction, accordiug to population, than any other State of the Union. [Applause.] The flrst prominence Ohio gained in National politics was in the election of William Henry Harrison. She has had two Presidents 568 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. since, and can fairly claim two others ; but if we can not wholly claim that great distinction, we can at least fairly divide the honor with IlUnois and Indiana— for here both Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Harrison were born, reared, and educated. No other State in the Union has made a more indelible impression upon the Senate of the United States than has our beloved Commonwealth. Worth ington and Morrow, Tappan and Allen, Ewing and Morris, Cor win and Chase, Pugh and Wade, Sherman and Thurman, Matthews and Pendleton— what State can boast stronger men? Wade, rug ged and resistless in his convictions, with his colleague Giddings, in the House, stood on the very outpost of liberty, fearless and defiant. They were the pioneers of freedom ; and the liberty which we enjoy to-day, and which is so universal in our country, and which represents more than any other civilization the hopes and aspirations of mankind, will be forever associated with their great names. During the Civil War, Wade was at the head of the Committee on the Conduct of the War in the Senate. Sherman was at the head of that Committee upon which rested the duty of raising the vast sums required for the prosecution of the war. At the other end of the Capitol were Schenck and Garfield, Shellabarger, Ashley, Delano, and Bingham. Schenck was Chairman of the Comraittee on the Conduct of the War, and was on the Committee on Ways and Means. Garfield was at the head of the Committee on Military Aflairs; Bingham, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee ; and Ashley at the head of the Committee on Territories, under whose administration West Virginia, Nevada, and Nebraska were admitted to the sisterhood of States — jointly controlling the important legislation of that most eventful period. It was Ashley — and we have almost forgotten it — the veteran statesman, who reported the bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia [applause], and he was the first Eepresentative to introduce the araendment to the Constitution to abolish slaveiy in the United States, and under his management on the floor it was adopted by the House of Eepresentatives. [Applause, and cheers for Governor Ashley, who sat upon the stage.] Stanton, in the war office, stood like a sturdy oak, unswayed and unbending. Upon him Lincoln rested, and his strong nature im pressed itself upon the arraies of the Union. He moved with but one purpose, actuated by the single motive of patriotism. That purpose he expressed in 1862, when he said : For myself, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, serving no man and at enmity with none, I shall strive to perform my whole duty in the THE STATE OF OHIO. 569 great work before me. Mistakes and faults I will no doubt comrait, but the pur pose of my action shall be single to the public good. [Great applause.] Chase was in the Treasury Department, devising and planning for the public credit and for the enormous revenue required daily to keep in motion the operations of the Army ; and for a time still another Ohio man. Governor Dennison, was in the Cabinet of the martyr President. It should not be forgotten also that when Mr. Chase re signed from the Treasury the first man in the country to whom Presi dent Lincoln turned as his successor was ex-Governor Tod, of Ohio, who declined the proflered portfolio. Lincoln early recognized the political importance of Ohio — recognized it before his own nomination and election in 1860. He was in this State during the campaign of 1859, making one speech at Cincinnati and another at Columbus. These speeches largely con tributed to Eepublican success ; as the Chairman of the EepubUcan Committee expressed it : " They were regarded as luminous and tri umphant expositions of the doctrines of the Eepublican party." It is fitting for Ohio Eepublicans to celebrate the birthday of Lin coln. They contributed somewhat at least to bring to him the op portunity which has made his name immortal. In 1860 the Eepub Ucan National Convention was held in the city of Chicago. The third baUot had been reached, 465 votes had been cast ; 233 votes were necessary to a choice. Lincoln had 231^, Seward 180, and the re mainder were for Chase and others. Lincoln lacked one vote and a half to give him the requisite number to make him the candidate of the party— the second National candidate for President the Eepub lican party had ever named. Supreme silence followed the conclusion of this baUot ; voices were hushed, but for an instant only. During this instant, my former fellow-townsman, David K. Cartter, a dele gate from Ohio, mounted his chair and transferred four votes from Salmon P. Chase to Abraham Lincoln [applause, and cheers for Lincoln and Cartter], and amid the huzzas of that crowded his toric wigwam Lincoln was made the nominee of the EepubUcan party. Some other State might have done it; some other State doubtless wonld have done it ; but the fact remains that it was Ohio that did accomplish it, that did give Lincoln the nomination. [Ap plause.] As Ohio's name is linked with that of Lincoln in the strug gles and sacrifices for the Union, so also is it known in the pathos of the death of the great Liberator. At his bedside stood his faithful Secretary of War ; and when, in the gray of that awful morning, the spirit of the immortal Lincoln ascended, the solemn silence was 570 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. broken by Stanton, who reverently said, " Noiu he belongs to the ages!" [Applause.] Gentlemen of the Ohio Eepublican League, we have much cause for exultation and encouragement — much to boast of. The past of our State, glorious in achievement, should fill us with serious refiec tion to-night, aud inspire us with a resolution to guard with sacred vigilance all that has been won, and by worthy aims and worthy ac tion secure grand things for the future. In the glories of Ohio her Eepublicans have had their full share. They have contributed their part ; they must have a share in her future glories, and make full con tribution thereto. We can not survive upon what our predecessors have done. We must win success by what we do ourselves ; and while having care that nothing of good in the past is lost, we must have a further and greater care that justice and righteousness shall characterize our present purposes and make a beneficent irapress upon the future. [Great applause, and cheers for McKinley.] OBERLIN COLLEGE. Address at the Annual Dinner of the Cleveland Alumni OF Oberlin College, Cleveland, Ohio, March 3, 1892. Mr. Toastmaster : I am indebted to your presiding officer [Mr. Daniel P. Eells] for the honor of meeting to-night with the alumni and former students of Oberlin College. This gives to me, I assure you, especial gratification and pleasure. I have had opportunity for many years of knowing the work your college has been accomplish ing in the field of higher and more liberal education. Established in 1833 — nearly sixty years ago — with forty-four jinpils, it now bears upon its rolls more than 1,400. Oberlin village and Oberlin College came together. The college was the occasion of the town, the town only the incident of the col lege. From small beginnings you have reached a rank scarcely sec ond to the best institutions of the country or the world. You rank fifth in number of students, exceeded only by Harvard, Yale, Colum bia, and Ann Arbor. You have sent forth more than 2,500 graduates. From a constituency limited to a few States you have extended your field of usefulness into practically every State and Territory of the Union. The munificent gifts which you are continually receiving are high tribute not only to the past but to the present of Oberlin. Your alumni are in every department of human industry and in every field of human activity in public and in private life, all bearing cheerful testimony in their own lives to the thoroughness and charac ter of their Alma Mater. You have a right to be proud to-night of the achievements of old Oberlin. It is unrivaled in university an nals. Yours is a proud history, proud because of its victories — victo ries achieved through suflering and sacriflce — victories won against prejudice and passion in the minds of the people, prejudice ingrafted in public law and enthroned in power. The prejudices which pre vailed against the institution in the early days of its history can hardly be credited now. In 1841 many petitions were presented to the Legis- 37 572 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. lature for the repeal of the charter of Oberlin College ; and in 1844 Mr. McNulty, of the House, introduced a bill to revoke the charter and deprive the institution of its corporate privileges. At one tirae the Legislature defeated a bill to incorporate the Dialectic Association of the college, because of the great prejudices which then existed against anything bearing the name of the Oberlin Collegiate Insti tute. It is due to history, however, to say that the vote which de feated the bill was afterward reconsidered, and an act passed granting the requisite authority. In the winter of 1834-'35 Oberlin College was the first to admit colored students. This was a mighty and majestic step forward, and it was never retraced. It favored, from its beginning, coeducation. It occupied the very outpost of liberty ; it has remained always upon the skirmish line. It is said that in 1840 one of the young students of the university said to father Keep, " When will slavery be abol ished ? " He answered, with the confidence born of his own faith and courage, " In about twenty years " ; and that which for so long was only hope and prayer, became performance and fulfillment almost within the prophecy of the venerable teacher. The institution was dedicated by its founders not only to the most liberal education, which should include both sexes, all classes, and all races, but was consecrated to liberty and equality among men. These great fun damental ideas have never been for a moment lost sight of since. They have been adhered to in trial and triumph. What influence Oberlin College has had upon the Eepublic and its citizenship and institutions no man can tell. It hated slavery and proclaimed it de fiantly. No slave was ever returned from its corporation into bond age, and no slave ever came within its gates who was not welcomed and protected. The case of John Price, the colored boy who was seized by the United States officers and rescued by the citizens of Oberlin, is now almost forgotten history. That was in 1858, and the whole authority of the General Government was enlisted for the re tum of that boy to slavery ; and yet, in less than five years, the spirit of Oberlin spread throughout the North. Then eame the proclama tion of Abraham Lincoln that made all slaves free, free to go to every corner of the country within the jurisdiction of the flag. They were earnest. God-fearing men who built your great university ; built it not alone for themselves and their immediate descendants, but for posterity. The students of Oberlin College were some of the pioneers in the early struggles to make Kansas a free State. They went wherever OBERLIN COLLEGE. 573 freedom was assaUed ; they literally flocked to that Territory which the South had said should be dedicated to slavery. Their teachers and their preachers went forth from your institution to teach the truth and justice of the Declaration of Independence. Your pupils were in every department of the Army. No more patriotic community ex isted anywhere in the United States than Oberlin. Your first con tribution was a company to the old historic Seventh Ohio, which Cap tain Shurtlefl, one of your professors, commanded. You made con tributions to other regiments and to other arms of the service, and every boy or man who went from your institution understood exactly what he was fighting for. Every shot he fired was directed by con science and for freedom. He fought not only for the Union as it was, but the Union as it is, with slavery destroyed and freedom national ized. I have read somewhere that my old friend Prof. Monroe, with whom I served so many years in Congress, a man of peace and op posed to contention, really made the first war speech that was ever made in your viUage, and made it in the old First Church, urging the boys to go forth and fight the battles of their country, and that it was his earnest appeal that led to the organization of the first company that went from the walls of your institution. It was from your in stitution General Cox, the distinguished soldier and statesman, went forth, who became a Major General, and was the first brigade com mander under whom I served. Hosts of others are prominent in business, in education, in the pulpit, in literature and in science. The old names should be dear to the alumni and friends of the in stitution : Asa Mahan, John Jay Shipherd, Stewart, Shepard, Wal do, Dascomb, Finney, Dr. John Morgan, Eev. Henry and John P. Cowles, with many others, contemporaries and successors. These names should not only be remembered and honored at your reun ions, but should be dearly cherished by you and by the friends of freedom everywhere. It is a great distinction to be on your rolls. I want to congratulate you all on your achievements, and I join with all in urging that a fund be raised to enable this distinguished pro fessor [Dr. G. Frederick Wright] to carry on his work. Do not give up your peculiarities. They are excellences peculiar to your own institution. Stick to them ! ISSUES MAKE PARTIES. Address at the First National Convention of Eepublican College Clubs, at Ann Arbor, Mich., May 17, 1892. Mr. President and Gentlemen : I am glad to meet the Eepub Ucan clubs of the colleges and universities of the United States, as sembled in their representative capacity here to-night. This is the first assemblage of the kind ever undertaken, and I tmst it wUl be but the beginning of successive meetings of the same character to be held annually in some college center of the country. This wiU be a mem orable occasion for one thing, if for no other, in that it is the first. I hope it may be memorable for another and a more important reason — that it will be the seed-planting of practical political thought which shall continue to grow and find root in every educational institution in the country. There is no such school for political education as the college and the university. What is inculcated here penetrates every corner of the country where the college man goes ; and where is there a spot to which the college man does not go ? And wherever he goes he is a mighty force in making and molding public sentiment. It was therefore a conception worthy of the college boy and man to or ganize these clubs, within their own college precincts, for poUtical discussion and education, that they may go forth well grounded in right political principles, prepared to defend their faith, and with an increased interest in the welfare of their country. Parties do not make issues. Issues make parties. We must first know what we think and believe, then those who think and believe as we do will unite with us in party association. A common conviction on public questions leads to the formation of political parties ; a com mon purpose springing from conviction inspires party unity. Polit ical parties are necessary to popular government. They have been with us from the beginning, and wUl renaain while our form of gov ernment lasts. They are the agents of popular wUl. Party names may change, but under some title and designation the same ideas and ISSUES MAKE PARTIES. 575 contentions appear to divide them. No student of American politics can have failed to note that the convictions and sentiments which led to the organization of the earliest political parties, in a great measure still control and dominate their successors. They carry the marks of their birth and beginning. They are easily recognizable as related to the ancestral parties from which they sprang. The same spirit and purpose dominate the Eepublican and Democratic parties to-day that shaped and molded their creation and the creation of those from which they sprang. The same great fundamental differences divide them ; the same leading-strings draw them. Two great ideas came with the creation of the Federal Govern ment by the Convention of 1787 : one was the " National " idea, the other was the " States-rights " idea, and from then until now they have been fundamental in the creeds of the two great parties. The old leaders are their idols still, and from them they draw inspiration. Jefferson and Calhoun, Jackson and Tilden, are the names most be loved and cherished by Democrats everywhere. Hamilton and Web ster, Clay and Lincoln, still inspire the highest and best sentiments of the Eepublican party, and are the silent but powerful leaders of Eepublican thought to-day. The Whig party sprang from the Federal party, which for a dozen years administered the general policy of the Government as it is administered now. The Eepublican party is the lineal descendant of the old Whig party, and included in its organ ization the Liberty, the Anti-Slavery, and the Free-Soil parties. The Democratic party sprang from the Anti-Federalist party, and was afterward designated for a while as the " Democratic Society," then alternated between the names Eepublican and Democratic, and finally adopted its present name, which has long been accepted as the Na tional designation. The chief service of the Democratic party in later years has been one of opposition and obstruction. The two great par ties of to-day are striving to enforce and maintain the public policies and keep in active play the principles enunciated by their political predecessors and inaugurated by the party leaders of a former genera tion. Leaders have differed now and then from party creeds, but the creeds have survived the dissenting leaders, and the great parties still live. The Wilmot Proviso of 1846, which forbade the existence of slavery in any part of the territory to be purchased by the money ap propriated in the bill then under consideration, brought together the lovers of liberty and the opponents of the further extension of slavery, and was the origin and beginning of a powerful political organization. 576 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. The issue was emphasized in 1853 upon the biU to organize Kansas and Nebraska into one Territory, when it was proposed that slavery should not be prohibited in the Territories by virtue of the Mis souri Compromise of 1820. From this moment adjustments and com promises were unavailing. Freedom had submitted too long to the encroachments of slavery, and would yield no longer. Slavery was no longer to be National and freedom sectional. Thereafter freedom was to be National, and limitations placed upon slavery. The de mand for " free men, free thought, free speech, and free homes " rang through the Nation, and stirred the consciences of the people from slumber and indifference to activity and aggression. The issue was no longer blinded or concealed, but emphasized in all the political struggles which followed thereafter. It was still further emphasized in 1859-'60, when in the Senate of the United States the question was presented whether the Homestead Bill of the House or the Senate Bill for the purchase of Cuba should be considered. Here was pre sented the question of acquiring more territory for the extension of slavery, or more free homes for the American people ; and the Senate, dominated by the Democratic party, voted for slavery and against freedom. The extension of slavery was to them more to be desired than the dedication of the public domain to freedom and free men. Liberty, justice, and equality are the cardinal principles of the Eepublican party, and represent to-day its high purpose as distinct ively as in 1856, when in the city of Philadelphia they were the bugle- call and drum-beat of its birth and beginning. Internal improvements on land and water are as surely a part of our political handbook as in the days when Hamilton and Clay announced and enforced them as the true National policy, dictated by patriotism and enlightened self-interest. National authority within the Constitution and opposi tion to the supremacy of the States over the Federal Government — National as contradistinguished from States rights — stand forth as great landmarks of Eepublican doctrine and policy ; and they at last triumphed — triumphed in an awful sacrifice, sealed by the lives of a mighty host of patriots. Protection to American industry and Amer ican labor against all the world without is as essential and funda mental in the code of EepubUcan principles as it ever was in the code of the old Whig party. Hamilton and Clay on this great question still animate the Eepublican party, direct its conflicts, and share in its victories. Opposition to all these constitutes the armor and arsenal of the Democratic party. They have no other. Their post is one of resist- ISSUES MAKE PARTIES. 577 ance and opposition. They have no line on the frontier of advanced thought. They are behind their battered and much- weakened in trenchments, and have not been out of them but once for more than thirty years. They stand in the way. They obstruct the progress and well-being and unification of the country. They were against the Homestead Law ; they were against any limitation upon slavery in the new Territories ; they were against the admission of Kansas as a free State. Freedom asserted itself in that great Commonwealth, when assailed, and triumphed at last in blood. The attitude of the Democratic party in the last war as a National organization was for " peace at any price," but countless thousands of its own members joined in the mighty effort to preserve the Union. The party was against the Eeconstruction measures — the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution ; they were against the greenback, the bonds, the resumption of specie payments; against sound money ; against a protective tariff. If you know anything that they have not been against, which the Eepublicans have advocated, you have observed what has escaped me. They are now and long have been against an honest ballot and a fair count ; against civil- service reform ; against clean city and municipal govemment. They are now for " tariff reform," and against the protective tariff of the Eepublican party. What is tariff reform, so called ? What does it, in fact, mean? Can anybody tell us? What part of the existing tariff is to be " reformed," and how ? Is there a voter in this country who knows ? Let us be frank with each other, and deal no longer with meaningless phrases. Has Mr. Cleveland fashioned it into form? No! You may study all he has said upon the subject from his earliest published expression in Albany, when he said he " did not know anything about the tariff," to his latest effort in Ehode Island, and you are absolutely uninformed and unenlightened as to its meaning. You tum away from all he has said, or written, ignorant of the thing caUed tariff reform. Is Mr. MiUs more lucid ? Yes, and more cour&,geous ; but we are stUl in darkness and confusion, because Mr. Springer, who is temporarily at the head of the tariff-reform party in the House, differs totaUy and radically from him. Where wUl you go for light? WUl you go to the present Deraocratic majority in the House of Eepresentatives, which, it is said, was elected distinctively upon the issue and to execute the principles of tariff reform? What does it present? What is its plan? Here it is : Tin plate free, and steel sheets, from which it is made, tariffed — that is, the raw material tariffed, and the finished product free. Free 578 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. wool to the manufacturer, and tariffed goods to the consumer ; free cotton ties to the cotton States, and tariffed hoop iron to the rest of the States, are their symbols of tariff reform. That being all, what do you think of it ? How do you like it ? Is this the sum total of tariff- reform effort ? Is this the best the reformers can offer ? If so, then tariff reform is a sham and a fraud and a delusion. The propositions of the Democratic majority in the House are illogical and indefensi ble, from whatever standpoint we view the tariff. They present the most odious forms of class legislation. They are narrow and sectional, and embody no principle worthy to be termed a National policy. If the thing called tariff reform has any meaning or mission, the people of the country are entitled to know it. I have been asking for many years of the tariff reformers that they shall indicate to the coun try what they propose to do. The protectionists have erabodied in public law their design and purpose. It is not concealed under mean ingless phrases. The world knows it. It exists as a fact. Why will not the opponents of this system deal as fairly with the public, and announce exactly their schedule of tariff rates upon the thousands of foreign products which are imported into the United States ? What will they make free and what will they make dutiable ; and what will be the rate of duty which they will impose under their so-called sys tem upon imported goods ? The trusting people are entitled to know, but nobody will tell them, because nobody knows. We have had, since the close of the war, three general tariff meas ures proposed by a Democratic majority in the House. All of them are as unlike as the American tariff law is unlike tbe English tariff law, none framed upon the same principle ; none with the same rates of duty on imported goods ; none of them with the same free list ; but all of them constructed by tariff reformers. The present House was unwUling — preceding the Presidential election, which everybody confesses is to be waged upon the tariff issue — to disclose to its constit uents and the voters of the country its real purpose. It was afraid of itself, and has confessed its infirmity by declining to present to the House a full scheme for tariff revision and tariff reform. It has con tented itself with a stray shot here and there. It has been firing at random. It has been an assault with popguns, the effort being to make a great deal of noise and hit and hurt nothing ; and it has suc ceeded. Its warfare has neither been pleasing to its friends nor dan gerous to its eneraies. Infirmity has not only characterized its assault upon the tariff, but the party has shown that it is equally incapable and insincere in its dealing with the silver question. With a two- ISSUES MAKE PARTIES. 579 thirds majority in the House, with a party committed by the plat forms of most of the States to the free and unlimited coinage of sil ver, it was unable to carry its purpose into law, although a majority of the Democratic members voted that way. The Democratic party is a mighty force in negation ; it is weak and trifiing in practical legislation. It is brave — no, not brave; only blustering — after a victory, but loses all its courage in the presence of a great National contest. It can boast the statesmanship of destruction, but it lacks every element essential to constructive legislation. Its vast majority in the House, after five months trial, is convicted before the American people as weak and vacillating, as cowardly and cringing, as wanting both the capacity and the courage to carry into practical legislation what they have professed before the people and upon which they allege they won the victory of 1890. They are the party of yesterday and the day before ; not of to-day and to-morrow. They say "the tariff is a tax." That is a captivating cry. So it is a tax ; but whether it is burdensome upon the American people depends upon who pays it. If we pay it, why should the foreigners object? Why all these objections in England, Prance, Gerraany, Canada, and Australia, against the tarifl law of 1890, if the American consumer bears the burdens, and if the tarifl is only added to the for eign cost which the American consuraer pays ? If they pay it, then we do not pay it ; and if the increased tarifl has not increased the price of commodities upon which the tarifl has been advanced, then we know we do not pay it. The price of wire nails in Pittsburg is 1.65 cents per pound ; the tariff is two cents per pound. Who pays that tax ? It is a fact which I would like to impress upon you, and all of you, that our exports during the last twelve months have increased 15.41 per cent over the preceding twelve months, while British exports under free trade decreased for the calendar year 1891, 5.6 per cent. One of the surest tests of the prosperity of the people is their savings — what they are able to " put by " after they have paid their expenses. Tried by this test, the United States holds first rank. In Great Britain, with a population of 38,000,000, where free trade prevails, there are $536,000,000 deposited in savings banks, or $14 per capita. In New York, with protected industries and a popu lation of 6,000,000, there are $550,000,000 deposited in savings banks, or $90 ^er capita. In Ehode Island the savings are %ltb per capita; in Massachusetts over $150. In the entire United States the whole savings banks deposits amounted in 1890 to $1,524,844,506. But this only represents a part of the savings of American workingmen. Mil- 580 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. lions of dollars are now put in building and loan associations, insur ance corapanies, benefit associations, and raany other places, for future safety and use. And yet with all this the laborers of this country, because of the high wages assured them by our protective tariff, live far better than the workmen of other countries. We are getting on better than we ever got on during the revenue-tariff periods of our history. We are getting on better than any of our sister nations. We have made matchless progress in the thirty-one years of protec tion, and no single year has been more satisfactory than the one just passed. Are we to abandon the policy under which we have advanced to the first rank in development and prosperity ? I bid my country men to pause and ponder before taking that fatal step. Why should we ? Let the theorists and doctrinaires answer. England is the only free-trade country in the world. Is there anything in her progress and civilization, great as they are, in the condition of her masses, in her opportunities and possibilities, to in vite us to turn away from our ancient policy ? No American citizen would exchange what we have and enjoy for what England offers. Does this revenue-tariff policy offer more work and better wages, more opportunities for labor and skill and effort, more possibilities to the plain people, more comforts, more independence, or better homes ? Let the men who have tried both systems answer. Let those who have witnessed with their own eyes the condition of the United States and Europe answer. Let those of our countrymen who have felt the pinch of the revenue tariff from 1846 to 1861 upon their own incomes and wages, upon their own earnings and investments, answer. Let those who are too young to have observed the condition of our coun try during the low-tariff period read its history. If they wiU, no young man will associate himself with that political organization which is pledged to fasten that policy upon us again. I need not say to you what the world knows : That this country, after nearly one third of a century of protection, has reached the proud position of being of all the nations of the world the first in manufactures, first in mining, first in agriculture, first in invention, and first in educational advantages for the masses ; that labor is better rewarded here ; that skill and genius command higher returns here ; and that the great body of the people have wider and better opportunities for advancement here than can be found anywhere else in the wide, wide world. Protection builds up ; a revenue tariff tears down. Protec tion brings hope and courage to heart and home ; free trade drives them from both. Free trade levels down ; protection levels up. NOTIFICATION ADDRESS TO MR. HARRISON. At the Executive Mansion in Washington City, D. C, June 20, 1892. President Harrison : This Committee, representing every State and Territory in the Union, are here to perform the trust committed to them by the Eepublican National Convention which convened at Minneapolis on June 7, 1893, of bringing you official notification of your nomination as the Eepublican candidate for President of the United States. We need hardly assure you of the pleasure it gives us to convey the message from the Eepublicans of the country to their chosen leader. Your nomination was but the registering by the Convention of the will of the majority of the Eepublicans of the United States, and has been received in every quarter with profound satisfaction. In 1888 you were nominated after a somewhat prolonged strug gle, upon a platform which declared with clearness the purposes and policies of the party, if intrusted with power, and upon that platform you were elected President. You have had the good fortune to wit ness the execution of most of those purposes and policies during the administration of which you have been the head, and in which you have borne a most conspicuous part. If there has been failure to embody into law any one of those purposes or policies, it has been no fault of yours. Your administration has more than justifled your nomination four years ago, and the confidence of the people implied by your election. After one of the most careful, successful, and bril liant administrations in our history, you have received a renomina tion, an approval of your work, which must bring to you the keenest gratification. To be nominated for a second term upon the merits of his administration is the highest distinction which can come to an American President. The difficult and embarrassing questions which confronted your administration have been met with an ability, with a fidelity to duty, and with a lofty patriotism which fills the American 582 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. heart with glowing pride. Your domestic policy has been vrise, broad, and statesmanlike ; your foreign policy firm, just, and truly Amer ican. These have won the commendation of the thoughtful and con servative, and the confidence of your countrymen, irrespective of party ; and will, we hope and believe, insure your triumphant election in November. We beg to hand to you the platform of principles unanimous ly adopted by the Convention which placed you in nomination. It is an American document. Protection, which shall serve the highest interests of American labor and American development ; reciprocity, which, while seeking the world's markets for our surplus products, shall not destroy American wages or surrender American markets for products which can be made at home ; honest money, which shall rightly measure the labor and exchanges of the people, and cheat nobody ; honest elections, which are the true foundation of all public authority — these principles constitute for the most part the platform, principles to which you have already by word and deed given your earnest approval, and of which you stand to-day the ex ponent and representative. These and other matters considered in the platform will command and receive your careful consideration. I am bidden by my associates, who come from every section of the Nation, to assure you of the cordial and hearty support of a harmo nious and united Eepublican party. In conclusion, we desire to ex tend to you our personal congratulations, and to express our gratifica tion at the rare honor paid you by a renomination, with a firm faith that the destinies of this great people will be confided to your care and keeping for four years longer. JULT FOURTH AT LAKESIDE. Address before the Baptist Young People's Assembly, at Lakeside, Ohio, July 4, 1893. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow-Citi zens : This is a day of education. Its lessons are those of American patriotism. It teaches love of country and obedience to law. It awakens patriotic memories ; it unites the past with the present and connects both with the future. It is a study and a stiraulation. It unfolds to the understanding the wisdom of the founders of free gov ernment, and brings to us admiration of their courage and constancy. It demonstrates the faith and force of conscience, the strength of a just cause, the resistless power of God-fearing and freedom-loving men when united and consecrated to the cause of man, which, after all, is the cause of God. It illustrates how the few can triumph over the many, when the few are moved by the love of justice and liberty, carrying the banner of righteousness in the interest of mankind. It recalls a race of men who hated oppression and who loved liberty, who were willing to give up all, even life, that they might do their own thinking, do their own ruling, and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. These were a race of men who recognized no dictator but conscience, no master but God. They an nounced their ultimatum, and won full recognition from a proud and unwilling foe. They resolved, and then fought and suffered and sac rificed for what they had deliberately and prayerfully declared were their inalienable rights, and at last secured them against an enemy which would have appalled and disheartened less heroic men. They gave to the world the star of liberty. They enthroned conscience. They erected a free altar. They made men free. They dethroned the old sovereign and made every man his own sovereign. They in augurated self-government and proclaimed the people king. These were the mighty achievements of our ancestors — these the mighty results they secured to their race and to mankind. 584 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. They changed the whole face of the Western Hemisphere and set hope and heart in every man's life, and turned huraan aspirations and human destiny into the pathway of light and progress and civiliza tion. What a debt we owe them ! What a debt mankind everywhere owes them ! What a debt liberty owes them ! — a debt which can never be repaid. We can best show our obligation to these great, leaders by cherishing the institutions which they established, by pre serving unimpaired the freedom which they secured. Tons of bronze of costliest and most patriotic design would fail to record their full measure of priaise and patriotism and sacrifice. Sober, earnest, and at tiraes possibly severe, was the character of the Eevolutionary father. He was determined. He was serious. To have been less serious, he would have fallen short of the great require ments of the contest in which he had staked all. He was neither a trifler nor a time-server. He marked out the path of duty and then pursued it. His cause was just, and his conscience was Unked to his cause; his faith firm and his courage sublime. There was a sentiment of reverence for religion, a reliance upon an overruling Providence, which marked every step in the Eevolution and the formation of the Government. The manifestoes, the proclamations, the speeches, the resolutions, the orders of these early patriots — all carried a faith in religion and piety which have given character to our institutions and National policy ever since. While insisting upon the absolute separation of Church and State, reUgion with our people is not abandoned, but commended and will always continue to be. When General Washington was inaugurated President of the United States for the first time, on April 30, 1789, in the city of New York, he uttered these noble words in his Inaugural Address : It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act ray fervent supplication to that Almighty Being who rules over the univeree, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids oan supply every human de fect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Govemment instituted by themselves for these es sential purposes, and may enable every instrument eraployed in its adrainistration to execute with success the functions allotted to its charge. In tendering this horaage to the Great Author ot every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow- citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the aflairs of man more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent Nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of provi dential agency : and in the iraportant Revolution just accomphshed, in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of JULY FOURTH AT LAKESIDE. 685 so many distinct communities frora whioh the event has resulted can not be cora pared with the means by which most governments have been established without sorae return of pious gratitude, along with a humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. These refiections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none, under the in fluence of which the proceedings of a new and free government ean more aus piciously commence. The Senate, in making its reply to the President's Inaugural Ad dress, said : When we contemplate the rise, progress, and termination of the late war, which gave this people a name among the nations of the earth, we are, with you, inevitably led to acknowledge and adore the Great Arbiter of the Universe, by whom empires rise and fall. And then closing : We commend to you, sir, the protection of Almighty God, earnestly be seeching Him to long preserve the life so valuable and dear to the people of the United States. What more befitting beginning for a Government of free people ! And, adding its sanction. Congress passed unanimously the following resolution : Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the I'resi- dent, he, attended by the Vice-President and the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, proceed to St. Paul's Chapel to hear divine services to be performed by the Chaplain of Congress already appointed. And in a body the executive and legislative branches of the Fed eral Government sought the sanctuary and invoked the blessings of the Divine Father upon the new Government then launched and the offi cers who were charged with its administration. This sentiment of reliance upon Divine Power has marked the progress of the Eepublic at every stage. Lincoln, like Washington, illustrated in his life and administration his faith in God. It is seen in his first Inaugural Address, and in most of his public utterances which followed. On March 4, 1861, he said : If the Almighty Ruler, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or yours of the South, that tnith and justice will surely prevail by the justice of this great tribunal of the American people. Intelligence, patriot ism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken His favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present dif ficulties. Marked and conspicuous is it shown in his inaugural on March 586 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. 4, 1865. He uses this language, which should rank with the highest of the inspirations of the great Liberator's writings : Neither party expected for the war the magnitude nor the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of tho confiict might cease with or even before the confiict itself should cease. Bach looked for an easier triuraph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read tho same Bible and pray to the same God ; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seera strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread frora the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offenses ! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whora the offense coraeth I " If we shall suppose that Araerican slavery is one of those offenses whioh, in the providence of God, must needs corae, but whieh, having continued through His appointed time. He now wills to reraove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure frora those Divine attributes whioh the believers in a living God always ascribe to Hira ? Fondly do we hope— fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judg ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Mr. James Bryce, a member of the Bnglish Parliament, has writ ten a most interesting work called The American Commonwealth, and has shown great intelligence and knowledge in the study of our laws, customs, and polity. He states the relation of religion to our Government as follows : The whole raatter raay, I think, be summed up by saying that Christianity is, in fact, understood to be, though not the legally established religion, yet the Na tional religion. So far frora thinking their Coramonwealth godless, the Araericans conceive that the religious character of a government consists in nothing but the religious belief of the individual citizens and the conforraity of their conduct to that belief. They deem the general acceptance of Christianity to be one of the raain sources of their National prosperity and their Nation a special object of the Divine favor. They have an intelligent interest in that form of faith they pro fess, are pious without superstition, and zealous without bigotry. It is an old saying that " monarchies live by honor, republics by virtue." The more demo cratic republics beoome, the raore the raasses grow conscious of their own power, the raore do they need to live not only by patriotism but by reverence and self- control, and the more essential to their well-being are those sources whence rever ence and self-control flow. The past of our National life has been glorious in achievement — a veritable blessing and benediction to all mankind. What of the JULY FOURTH AT LAKESIDE. 537 future? It must depend upon the intelligence and virtue of our people. That has been our rock of safety in the past ; it must be the cornerstone of our security in the future. I have an abiding faith in the integrity and wisdom of the American people. If that people observe the golden rule, and the plain American home, with its pure and wholesome influence, shall lead in the future as it has led in the past, there is, as Mr. Lincoln once said, " no equal hope in the world." Our public-school system and establishments of learning must be a mighty force in the continuance of our institutions. Upon educa tion and morality rest the strength and destiny of the Eepublic. They are the firmament of its power. They constitute the force and majesty of free government. European nations look to their stand ing armies to enforce obedience to law. We rely upon the public sentiment of our own people to secure obedience to the laws which they love because they make them. We are free and equal, and owe allegiance only to that written Constitution which Mr. Gladstone, the greatest statesman of the British Empire, has declared to be " the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." We have passed through many severe trials. Self-government has been subjected to tests the most searching. We have conquered all our foreign foes, and suppressed the most gigantic rebellion known to history. We had a severe test in 1876 in a close Presi dential contest, but the conservative and patriotic judgment and sav ing common sense of the people settled it, and Congress recorded its decree by submission to peaceful arbitration. It was a great strain upon popular government, and yet it was so happily settled that it serves as another tribute to the saving judgment of a free people. Our growth has been marvelous. A single State of the forty-four — more than one — exceeds in population that of the whole of the United States when it was organized under the present Constitution. Not only have we grown in population, but we have advanced in civilization, in art, in science, in literature, in invention, and have reached the first rank in manufacturing, mining, and agricultural development. We have but to keep pure the fountain of power, we have but to guard the foundation of public authority, and the future wUl be even more glorious than the past. We must never lose sight of the fact that citizen suffrage — constitutional suffrage — is the basis of all power and authority in a free government like ours. That suffrage must be free — free from corruption, free from bribery and venality, free from force and intimidation. It must express the un- 38 588 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. trammeled judgment of the citizen. It must register the will of him who exercises it, and not the will of somebody else. It must be cherished by him who holds this priceless privilege, and its exercise must not be denied nor prevented nor abridged under any pretext whatever. It is the most sacred privilege of the citizen, and its sanc tity is the citadel of our security and power. Nothing but the pollu tion of the ballot can withhold from this favored people the highest possibilities in civilization and destiny. In 1878 Gladstone, writing for the North American Eeview, and speaking of the American Ee public, said : She will probably become what we are now, the head servant in the great household of the world, the employer of all employed, because her service will be the most and the ablest. The England and the America of the present are prob ably the two strongest nations in the world, but there can hardly be a doubt as between the America and the England of the future that the daughter, at some no very distant time, whether fairer or less fair, will be unquestionably yet stronger than the mother. This was written fourteen years ago. May not I confidently ven ture the judgment that the " no very distant time " has been reached, and that America, " whether fairer or less fair " — certainly freer — is now " stronger than the mother " — stronger because her power lies in a free and intelligent and progressive people, whose only sovereign is the popular will constitutionally registered, and whose greatness and glory are linked with every heart and home of the Eepublic THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. Address before the Nebraska Chautauqua Association, at Beatrice, Nebraska, August 3, 1892. My Fellow-Citizens : I am glad to meet the citizens of Ne braska. I am glad to visit your progressive and prosperous city, and heartily congratulate you upon the advancement of your State in population, in wealth, and industrial activity. I am here upon the invitation of the Chautauqua Committee to discuss before this assem blage the question of " Tariff and Taxation," which has given to it added importance this year because of the sharp divisions among the people as expressed in the latest platforms of the two leading parties of the country. I learn that on this platform you invite the freest discussions, and welcome men of every phase of party and poUtical belief ; that all of the parties except the Eepublican party have been heard, and you have been kind enough to assign to me the presenta tion of Eepublican belief and conviction upon the great issues which divide the parties this year. I will not discuss former issues, but the living one, the one which affects the revenues of the Government and the occupations and employments of the people. I suppose that no one will question that citizens of other countries desiring to bring their products into this country can do so only upon the conditions this Government may prescribe — the terms of their admission here to be fixed by us as it may seem best to us. This plain principle will be admitted by all. The question of difference will be the conditions to be prescribed, and this difference marks the divisions among our people and between the two great political parties of the country. The terms which both parties would prescribe recognize primarily the revenue needs of the Government, and both propose to provide for them. The one has that for its sole purpose ; the other has that for one of its purposes, coupled with another which takes into account home and country, andfexes the conditions so as to pro mote our largest industrial prosperity and the highest development of 590 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. our natural resources. The terms which our political adversaries would fix regard only revenue. The terms which we prescribe secure ample revenue for the Treasury and the highest rewards to the indus try and activity of our own people. The latest National platform of the Democratic party is a bolder recognition of free trade than any of its predecessors. An analysis of it is necessary to its full understanding, and to that full understand ing we must know what was reported, what was stricken out, and what was adopted as a substitute for all. The report, as it came from the Committee on Eesolutions, declared that : When customs taxation is levied upon articles of any kind produced in this country, the difference between the cost of labor here and labor abroad fuUy measures any possible benefits to labor. That is stricken out, and this difference in favor of the American workingman is no longer to be recognized by the Democratic party in its arrangement of the tariff. Again : But in making reductions in taxes it is not proposed to injure any domestic industry. That is stricken out, and in their revised edition the Democracy take no thought of any domestic industry, and the reductions here after to be made in the tariff will be heedless of the injury that may follow to our industrial interests. Again the report declares : From the foundation of this Governraent taxes collected at the customhouses have been the chief source of Federal revenue ; such they must continue to be. That is stricken out, which indicates most strongly that the new leaders of the Democratic party propose to abandon their old policy of raising revenue from customs and rely solely upon direct taxation for the revenue needs of the Government. They give up their old theo ries of taxation, and are ready to accept the land-tax scheme of Henry George, or adopt the system of direct taxation which Thomas Jeffer son declared was too odious and onerous to be thought of except in a great National emergency. Again, the Committee's report declares : So that every ohange of law must bo at every step regardful of the labor and capital involved. That, too, is stricken out, and any change of law hereafter to be made is not to be regardful of the labor employed and capital invested in the great industries of the country. Again : The processes of reform must be subject to the exeoution of these plain dic tates of justice. THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 591 That is stricken out, and the new process of Democratic reform is not even to be framed on the plain principles of justice nor tempered with a single quality of mercy. No quarter is to be given, but aU our vast enterprises must surrender without terms to the demands of tariff reform. And having stricken that all out, the Democratic leaders de nounce " Eepublican protection as a fraud " : The robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. They declare that Congress has no constitutional power to enforce and coUect tariff duties which are protective in their nature. The constitutionaUty of a protective tariff has not been seriously ques tioned before for more than one hundred years. Never before, I be lieve, was it questioned in the National platform of any party. The platform of to-day reads like the Ordinance of Nullification which passed a general convention in South Carolina sixty years ago. In deed, after carefully reading the two documents, you may gravely suspect that the former was copied from the latter. If it is found that in any particular the platform differs from the Ordinance of Nullification, it is because the former has more closely adhered to the Confederate Constitution than to the Ordinance of Nullification. Protection unconstitutional! — a policy which is as old as the Gov ernment ; a policy which coramenced with the Governraent ; a policy which was recognized in the second act ever passed by the Congress of the United States, by a Congress participated in by many of the framers of the Constitution, fresh from the preparation and promul gation of that great instrument. That Congress passed a law in 1789, the preamble of which declared it to be : For the support of the Government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and for the encouragement and protection of manufactures. That law was passed by a unanimous vote in the Senate of the United States and by a majority of five to one in the House of Eepre sentatives, was reported by Mr. Madison, who was afterward Presi dent of the United States, and was approved by George Washington. If it is in violation of any Constitution, it is not that of the United States. It is a manifest violation of the Constitution of the Con federate States. Possibly that is what our Democratic friends mean. Happily for us, howeyer, we do not recognize that instrument, and never did, and we are not operating under it. It went down before the resistless armies of the Union, commanded by Grant and Sher man, and the Constitution of Washington and Lincoln was sustained. 592 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. which from its birthtlme until now has recognized and justified the principle of a protective tariff. Hamilton and Madison, Jefferson and Calhoun, Webster and Clay, Adams and Jackson, always asserted and maintained the constitutionality of protection. I wish the modern Democrat who is crying out against the constitutionality of the tariff would read the message of Andrew Jackson, dated December 7, 1830. He says : The object of the tariff is objected to by some as unconstitutional. Then follows : The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to the several States. The right to adjust those duties with a view to the encouragement of do mestic branches of industry is so completely identified with that power that it is difficult to suppose the existence of the one without the other. The States have delegated their authority over imports to the General Govemraent with out limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable reservation relat ing to their inspection laws. This authority having entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise it for the purpose of protection does not exist in them, and consequently if it be not possessed by the General Govemment it must be extinct. Our political systera would thus present the anomaly of a people stripped of the right to foster their own industries and to counteract the most self ish and destructive policy which might be adopted by foreign nations. This surely can not be the case ; this indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be within the scope of the authority on the subject expressly dele gated to Congress. In this conclusion I am confirmed by the opinions of Presi dents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each repeatedly recomraended the exercise of this right under the Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued acquiescence of the States and general under standing of the people. That is the old Democracy ! The free-trade platform of the Chicago Convention represents the new Democracy, but by no means a united Democracy, for there were 343 delegates to the last National Convention who voted against it, while 564 voted for it. The con stitutional question has no life ; it is dead. It is scarcely worthy the passing comment I have given it. It is the threadbare objection of the Democratic party against every good measure, and it is the objec tion they offer when every other fails. Now, upon what terms shall we admit foreign goods to the United States ? What is best for us ? What is best for the people at large ? What terms will secure the greatest good to the masses of our coun trymen ? The terms proposed by those who difler from us on this question — the Democratic party — are, that everything shall come into this country free from abroad, except those products which we can THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 593 not ourselves produce. Having in view revenue and only revenue, and being opposed to protection in any degree to domestic industries, they impose a tarifl upon foreign products the like of which can not be grown upon our soil or made in our shops. Eoger Q. Mills put this in a frank and forceful way on April 24, 1878, in the House of Eepresentatives, in the discussion of the Wood Tarifl Bill. He said : Our policy should be to take the smallest amount of taxes that we can by cus toms, and we should gradually decrease the amount until our customs taxes come alone from no competing articles entering our customs. Mr. Samuel S. Cox, long a Eepresentative from the States of Ohio and New York, and a very distinguished Democrat, said in 1888, in the discussion of the Mills bill : It would be a glorious consummation of this debate could we only have gen tlemen on the other side join with us to clear the way for British Cobden free trade. " British Cobden free trade " imposes its tarifls upon noncompet ing foreign products, upon those articles which their people must im port ; and while England raises more than $100,000,000 from customs duties, it is principally upon the food and drink of its people, and upon such food and drink as can not be and are not produced at home. That is the Democratic way as well as the British way to have a tarifl for revenue only. A tariff upon noncompeting foreign products does nothing but produce revenue. It encourages no domestic enter prise, because there is none in this country making the product upon which they put the tariff. A low tariff upon a foreign product which competes with a home product would to a small degree favor the domestic industry ; but when it does that it ceases to be a tariff for revenue only, because it gives some slight protection to the domestic producer, and is at once condemned by the tariff reformer. It is proper, I should say in passing, that a tariff levied upon a non- competing foreign product is always paid by the importing country. And why? Because there is no production at home to compete with the foreign article imported which might influence its price to the consumer. The foreign producer controls the market, and the price to the consumer on such noncompeting article is the foreign price with the tariff added. But the other principle, and the one to which the Eepublican party adheres, is exactly the opposite of the one I have just described. It permits all foreign noncompeting prod ucts, except luxuries, to come into our markets free, but imposes its tariffs upon those foreign products which we produce at home or pro- 594 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. pose to produce at home, which tariff, while raising revenue, is a dis crimination in favor of the domestic producer and against the foreign producer. That is, we say : " Bring what you have to us that we can not grow or make, without burden or restriction, without tariff or condition ; but if you want to bring here what we do produce and can produce, to compete with our producers and share this market with them, then such product must bear the burden of a tariff." Is not that right ? If we were just beginning anew as a Govemment and never had a tariff law, would not that be the correct principle ? The things we can not make for ourselves or produce for ourselves we raust buy elsewhere, and therefore we want no tax upon them ; but it is economy for our people to buy from each other the things we can produce among ourselves and for ourselves ; and if the foreign producer wants to enjoy any part of this market, he must be subject to the terms we shall fix in the interest of our own countrymen. That is the principle of protection. That is the doctrine of patriotism. That is the prin ciple of our country first and our countrymen first. That is the prin ciple of home and family. That is the doctrine of true Americanism. The Eepublican party has never hesitated to impose duties upon noncompeting foreign products whenever the revenue necessities of the Government required it, but believe in it only as a public neces sity. We have free trade among ourselves throughout our forty-four States and the several Territories. That is because we are one family, one country. We have one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. That is why we have free trade among ourselves. Our relations with the nations outside are necessarily different from our relations among ourselves. They are a separate organism — a distinct and independent political society organ ized to work out their own destiny. They are our commercial rivals. We deny to those foreign nations trade with us upon the same terms we enjoy among ourselves. The foreign producer is not entitled to equality with us in this market. He pays no taxes ; he is not amen able to our laws ; he performs no civil or military duties ; he is ex empt from State, county, and municipal taxes ; he contributes noth ing primarily to the support of the Government or its progress and prosperity. Upon what principle, I pray you, should he enjoy equal privileges and profits in our markets with our producers, our laborers, our taxpayers ? We have no way of reaching him except through the customhouse. He is unknown to our tax collector, who visits us an nuaUy ; but this official can not visit him. The arm of the State is THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 595 too short and the power of the Federal Government too limited to touch anything he has or possesses. And so we say to him, " When you want to bring your products here to compete with ours, this being our home, our natural market, those products must have attached to them a condition; and that condition shall be the payment of duties, which shall go into the Federal Treasury, to relieve in part the taxpayers of the United States from the burdens which rest upon them." Free trade gives to the foreign producer equal privileges with us, Upon what principle of fair play should he have thera ? It invites the product of his cheaper labor to this market to destroy the do mestic product representing our higher and better-paid labor. It destroys our factories or reduces our labor to the level of his. It in creases foreign production but diminishes home production. It will kindle fires in the furnaces of England, and extinguish the fires in our own. It will close the iron mines of the great Northwest, and leave untenanted the coal and coke regions of the East. It will do all this with unerring certainty, unless the standard of Anierican labor shall be pulled down to the plane and condition of foreign labor : one or the other is inevitable. In any event it destroys the dignity and independence of American labor, diminishes its pay and eraployraent, decreases its capacity to buy the products of the farm and the com modities of the merchant. We can not have free trade in this coun try without having free-trade conditions. The Deraocratic platform demands it upon these conditions, and is bound to have it at any cost. The world knows what these conditions are. The farmers of Eng land know what they are. The workingmen of England understand them. Thousands of men who have worked on both sides of the ocean and under both systems know them well. To introduce them here wiU be a costly experiment. It wiU bring widespread discontent. It wiU revolutionize values. It will take away more than one half of the earning capacity of brain and brawn. Worse than all that, it wUl take away from the people of this country who work for a living — and the majority of them live by the sweat of their faces — it wUl take from them heart and home and hope. It wUl be self-destruction. Pree trade results in giving our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations. Protection keeps money, markets, and manufactures at home. But they say. Protection is a burden upon the people. Mr. Cleveland joins the choir of calamity. He said in his speech the other day at Madison Square Garden, in accepting the nomination for the Presidency : 596 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. Tuming our eyes to the plain people of the land, we see thera burdened as consumers with a tarifl system that unjustly and relentlessly demands from them, in the purchase of the comforts and necessaries of life, an amount scarcely met by the wages of hard and steady toil. We see the farmer listening to a delusive story that fills his mind with visions of advantage while his pocket is robbed by the stealthy hand of high protection. Mr. Cleveland, I fear, has not consulted the markets since 1890. He had in mind the campaign prices then prevailing, and seems to have been unadvised of what has occurred since. Mr. Cleveland had not then read the report of the Senate Committee appointed by joint resolution of that body to investigate the effects of the new tariff law upon the consumer and producer and upon the wages of labor. I commend the careful reading of that document to the distinguished gentleman, with the hope that he may correct the error into which he has fallen, and, with that rugged honesty which his friends ascribe to him, publicly proclaim the wrong he has done to truth and the false impression he has made of the legislation of his own country. The value of the report, the reading of which I commend to the gentle man, will be seen when I state that it was made by the foUowing Sen ators : Aldrich, Allison, Hiscock, Jones, Harris, and CarUsle, and that the report is a unanimous one. This report has ascertained and stated the cost of food, clothes and clothing, fuel and lighting, house furnishing, foods, drugs and chemicals, metals and implements, lumber and buUding material, for each month, commencing June 1, 1889, and ending September 1, 1891. The result of the investigation, which has been most careful and scrutinizing, and absolutely nonpartisan, shows the decline in the retail prices of 314 selected articles — articles of comfort and ne cessity — to be .64 of 1 per cent less, by one method of computation, and 1.8 per cent less by another, in September, 1891, than during any of the months preceding and covered by the investigation. The Committee, in addition to the investigation for the twenty-eight months noted, asked the Commissioner of Labor of the United States to ascertain the retail prices in three cities — namely. Fall Eiver, Mass., Chicago, UL, and Dubuque, Iowa — of the 314 articles referred to. The result of his investigation shows a further decline in the cost of living in May, 1893, as compared with September, 1891, of 2.1 per cent, and as compared with June, July, and August, 1889, of 3.4 per cent.. This report also shows in every part of it a constant tendency to lower prices of the necessaries and comforts of life. This would seem to dispose of Mr. Cleveland's assertion that the tariff has THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 597 increased prices to the consum'er, and leaves his statement devoid of that essential element of strength— truth. The report also shows that, while the cost of living has decreased here, it has during the same period in England increased 1.9 per cent. Now, turning to wages : It appears from the report of the Statis tician that, in the fifteen general occupations selected by the Commit tee, wages were three fourths of 1 per cent higher in September, 1891, than during the three months selected as a basis in 1889 ; and that the wages in special industries selected was .31 of 1 per cent higher than at the beginning of the period in June, 1889 ; and that the wages in the same occupations in the United States averaged 77 per cent greater than in Great Britain, which is under a Democratic free-trade revenue tariff. Then, as to the farmers, to whom Mr. Cleveland so plaintively refers, this report says that tbe average price of all the agricultural products, except flaxseed, when put at their proper rela tive importance, were 18.67 per cent higher in September, 1891, than in June, 1889. May I not, in the light of this report and the facts everywhere observable, remind Mr. Cleveland that in the year 1893 we are confronted by a condition and not a theory? The truth is that manufactured goods are cheaper to-day than they were under the revenue-tariff policy inaugurated forty-six years ago, and which continued down to 1861. They are for the most part cheaper than before the passage of the tariff law of 1890. A day's labor will buy more to-day than it ever bought before. The products of the farm will buy more of the every-day necessities of life, more cloth and cotton, more iron and steel, more glass and pottery, more sugar and salt than the same quantity would ever buy before. Substan tially, every manufactured article which protection directly affects has been reduced in price. Labor alone has been able, amid the most general reductions of prices, to maintain its own. Mr. Edward Atkinson, a free trader and a Cleveland Democrat, said in the May Forum : There has never been a period in the history of this or any other country when the general rate of wages was as high as it is now, or the prices of goods relatively to the wages as low as they are to-day, nor a period when the working- man, in the strictest sense of the word, has so fully secured to his own use and enjoyment snch a steadily and progressively increasing proportion of a constantly increasing product. The sarae gentleman recently said in the Boston Herald : Since 1880 there has been a marked increase in the rate of wages or earnings of all occupations of every kind above the grade of comraon laborers. So far as 598 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. the writer has been able to obtain the data, this advance in rates of wages may be estimated at from 10 to 30 per cent as corapared with the rates of 1880, the pro portionate advance in each case being in ratio to the relative skill required in the work. The wages of the comraon laborer have not advanced very muoh, but he has been rendered able to buy more for his wages on aooount of the reduction in prices. The skilled laborer has secured the highest rate of wages ever known in this or any other country, and can also buy more for each dollar. The advocate of free trade who denies this advance makes a mistake. It is said that the tariff law of 1890 is a grievous wrong upon the consumer. I have before me the Bermuda Colonist, a paper pub lished in Hamilton, Bermuda, dated April 23, 1892, containing the proceedings of the Colonial Parliament, which had under considera tion at that date the American tariff and how its burdens were to be removed from the inhabitants of that island. You will observe that the producers of Bermuda believe they pay the increased tariff nnder the new law, notwithstanding the tariff reformer's claim is otherwise. And they have appointed a Commission to come to the United States to secure a reduction of the tariff upon their products. This is the language of the message to the Governor : We are directed by the House of Assembly to bring to the notice of your Ex cellency the serious loss that the people of Bermuda have suflered, and which they are likely in the future to sustain, by the high rate of tariff that by the pres ent laws of the United States is charged on Bermuda products shipped to that oountry, and to especially request that your Excellency will be pleased to take into consideration the following statement, which is submitted with a view of en deavoring to obtain — with the sanction of the Iraperial Govemraent and the Gov ernraent at Washington — a reduction in the tariff above referred to. The amount of Bermuda products shipped to the United States from January to Jnne inclu sive, in 1890, amounted in value to $560,755.12. On this araount, under the old tariff rates, the duties araounted to not less than .$55,234.08. In 1891 the quantity of produce shipped to the United States from January to June amounted to $531,- 113.12. On this araount, under the new or McKinley tariff, duties were paid araounting to not less than flS4,876.28. Thus, while the value of products shipped to the United States in the year 1891 was $18,400 less in value than in 1890, the amount paid as duties was $79,642.30 in excess of the duties paid in the former year, raaking a direct loss to the growers in eaoh case of a large percent age of the araount, as the market value of our products in the United States will not allow of any advance in price coraraensurate with so heavy a tariff. That being so, who pays the tax ? They assert they can not add the tariff to the price to the American consuraer, so he gets it at the old price, notwithstanding the increased tarifl ; that is, the consumer pays no more for Bermuda products than he did previous to the new law, the Bermuda producer gets less, and the American Treasury more money. Who contributes that money to the Treasury — the foreign THE TRIUMPH OP PROTECTION. 599 producer or the American consumer ? This will indicate to you how foreign countries regard this tariff. They hold it to be burdensome upon them — a tax upon them which they must yield up to our Treasury if they want to enter this market. Similar discussions are going on in Canada, in France, in England, and in other countries. We increased the tariff in the new law upon a number of foreign products which compete with home products, but in no single in stance, except possibly in the case of pearl buttons, has there been any advance in prices to the actual consumer. Yet Mr. Cleveland, in his recent speech in Ehode Island, said : " The consumer has found life harder since the passage of the new tariff law than before." That is not true. The consumer has not found life harder, for the commodities which enter into his daily life are, in a great majority of cases, lower than they were before the new tarifl law went into eflect. He has had cheaper sugar, cheaper clothing, cheaper boots and shoes, and cheaper nails than before. A careful investigation of prices of woolen and cotton goods made in the city of New York, and em bracing over 2,000 quotations of articles for a comparative period under the new and old tarifls (and this was made by an expert who has reported prices for forty years), shows that in about 98 per cent of all these quotations and articles there has been an actual decrease in price since the new tarifl went into effect, as compared with the same prices of goods under the old tariff. Furthermore, the old industries have been stimulated and very many new industries started, which are now estimated to have given eraployment to from 200,000 to 250,000 eraployes; and it is a fact weU established by reports from aU other countries that at this time, whUe depression and anxiety exist in their industries, there is prosperity in the United States alone. When the tariff has been increased upon a foreign article, and it does not increase the price to the American consumer, how does the American consumer suffer? He gets the commodity at as low a price as he got it under the old tariff, notwithstanding the increase of the tariff ; so he loses nothing ; but labor in America gains every thing. Take the case of carpets, one of the most marked increases under the new law. We advanced the tariff on wool, which lies at the foundation of the carpet industry, to protect the wool growers of the country. We advanced the tariff on carpets, the finished product, to compensate the manufacturer for the increased duty on wool, and yet to-day the prices are no higher than they were before the enact ment of the new law. It is true, prices went up on carpets immedi ately after the passage of the law, but these prices were speculative 600 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. rather than real. But to-day there is no line of carpets that you can not buy as cheaply as you could prior to October 6, 1890 ; and as to ingrain and other lower grades of carpets, they are even cheaper now than then ; so that the increased protection that we give to the wool grower, and which he required as a defense against ruinous competi tion from abroad, has cost the American consumer nothing, and to the wool grower and farmer has been a positive beneflt. They say that a protective tariff shuts us out of a foreign market. I have before me a statement from the Treasury Department, cor rected to July 14, 1892, showing our foreign commerce. The total value of imports and exports of merchandise attained its highest point, amounting to $1,857,726,910, in the last flscal year, as against $1,729,307,006 during the fiscal year of 1891, an increase of $128,- 329,904, and an increase of $370,198,883 over 1889. The excess in value of exports over imports during the last fliscal year was $202,- 944,342. The value of our imports of merchandise during the last fiscal year amounted to $824,301,384, as against $844,916,193 in 1891, a decrease of $20,614,909. There was an increase in our imports of coffee, unmanufactured silk, sugar, and molasses, and the decrease was in tin plate, manufactured silk, manufactures of tobaccos, manu factures of wool, vegetables, fruits, and textile grasses. Notwith standing the cry that under a protective tariff we can npt sell abroad if we do not buy abroad, yet during the last fiscal year we sold abroad nearly $203,000,000 more than we bought abroad ; $203,000,000 was the excess in our favor which the foreigners paid to us, and which we have at home circulating among our own people. Dutiable mer chandise has decreased under the operation of the new law, as shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. The value of mer chandise imported upon which duty was paid for the year ending June 30, 1892, was $369,300,139, while for the preceding year it was $478,674,844, showing a decrease in the value of merchandise paying duty of $109,374,705. It will also be observed that, under the operation of the new law, the free list has been increased, while the dutiable list is decreased. The value of free imports for the last year exceeded the value of duti able imports by $88,000,000. During the last fiscal year the value of imported merchandise free of duty was over $458,000,000, an increase over the preceding year of $91,759,793. The average ad valorem rate per cent of duty on the aggregate of imports has gradually decreased since the passage of the new tariff law. The average rate per cent for the year ending March 31, 1892, of free and dutiable goods, was THB TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 601 20.65 per cent ; in 1891, 28 per cent ; 1890, 28.92 per cent ; and in 1889, 30.69 per cent. The average rate to-day is less than it has been at any time before for thirty years. More than one half of the value of aU our imports is absolutely free. In 1889 the percentage of free goods was 34.42 per cent, and in 1892, 55.36 per cent. We collected during the last fiscal year $65,810,670 in duties less than the duties coUected during the preceding year. So, if " the tarifl is a tax," as our adversaries assert, we should at least be credited with having wiped out $65,810,670 of " burdensome taxes " from the people. The value of our exports of merchandise during the fiscal year 1892 was $1,030,335,626. The value of our exports in 1891 was $884,480,810, an increase of $145,854,816 — a wonderful and marvelous increase of our foreign trade under a tariff law which was to close the foreign market to our products ! Our exports never before reached that point in any given year in all our history. The story is told so often that many good people have come to believe it that protection has destroyed our foreign trade. The cus tomhouse figures conclusively refute this, and I wish they might be studied by every voter. In 1870 we were under protection. We ex ported that year products of the value of $376,616,473. This year we exported more than a billion dollars' worth of American products. In 1870 we imported products to the value of $435,958,408, and this year $827,381,284. Our exports have trebled in twenty-two years and our imports doubled, and all the while under protection. Our export trade under the tariff law of 1890 increased 15|- per cent, and the ex ports of Great Britain in the same period under a Democratic free- trade tariff decreased 5 J per cent. What protection will do and has done, what a Democratic revenue tariff will do and has done, is not left to speculation. Our own history records the story of both. From 1847 to 1861 under a free-trade revenue tariff the balance of trade against us was more than $431,000,000 ; and there were but two years of the fifteen when the balance of trade was in our favor ; whUe from 1876 to 1891, a period of fifteen years, there were just two years when the balance of trade was against us. We were then under protection, thirteen years when the balance of trade was in our favor, and the balance aggregated $1,649,445,346. Which period was the most profitable to the American people ? It is maintained by the Democratic leaders, but rests wholly in assumption, that the farmer would be benefited by a revenue tariff — that his export trade in agricultural products would be increased. Let us refer again to our own history : From 1846 to 1861, during 602 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the entire revenue-tariff period, we exported 65,440,173 bushels of wheat. We exported in a single year under protection, that of 1878, 72,000,000 bushels of wheat, or 6,000,000 more than the aggregate of the entire fifteen years under a revenue tariff ; and in 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1887, 1891, we imported more wheat in each year than we sold abroad in all the years from 1846 to 1861 under the Walker free- trade tariff of 1846. We export now in a single year rnore wheat than was exported from 1790 to 1861, a period of seventy-two years — more wheat in a single year than in all the years from Washington to Lincoln. Can the farmer justly complain of this showing, and does the tariff reformer extract any comfort from it ? Whether you consult the question of domestic trade or foreign trade, protection in our own country has given us the best results. It has given us the largest activity at home and the largest sale of our products abroad. Protection not only directly benefits the great indus tries of the country by making it possible to establish them — and thus furnishing employment to labor — but it makes a demand for raw materials of every kind and character, which but for our manufactur ing enterprises at home would be practically useless and without value. Protection is a positive benefit to the farmers of this country. There is no class of our fellow-citizens more clearly benefited by the protective tariff than the farmers of the United States. It makes a home demand for their products, and home consumers are always better than foreign consumers, because they are nearer the field of pro duction. They enable the farmer to dispose of perishable products at a profit, which it would be impracticable to ship abroad. It therefore increases to that extent the demand for the products of agriculture and widens the use of the farm. Millions of dollars annually of the products of the farm are sold in our industrial towns which would not be raised at all but for the deraand which they make. What the farmer wants are consumers, and the more consumers and fewer com petitors he has the better will be his profits ; and he wants these con sumers steady and regular and at all times reliable. He has such in the 65,000,000 consumers in this country, who are the best and most profitable consumers to be found anywhere on the globe. He is sure of them, while his foreign market is fitful, far removed, less certain, aud dependent upon agricultural conditions in the foreign countries whether there is a short crop or a long crop. There he has competi tion ; here he has practically the field, with little or no competition except with his own fellow-citizens. As illustrating the difference in value between the domestic con- THE TRIUMPH OF PROTECTION. 603 sumer and the foreign consumer, I have but to state that the work ingman in the American shop consumes more than $90 worth of agri cultural products annually of the American farmer, whUe the foreign workingman consumes less than $5 worth of American agricultural products annually. The American consumer is, therefore, worth eighteen times more, and is eighteen times a better customer of the farmer here than is the foreign workingman. The Democratic leader of to-day seems to think there is some peculiar sanctity about the for eign consumer that does not attach to the domestic. I do not. I pre fer the domestic consumer because he is the best ; he consumes more, and has more money to pay for his living, than any other consumer in the wide, wide world. The agriculturists of this country do not want more farmers. They want more people who do not raise their own food and whom they can supply. Every farmer would rather have a factory for his neighbor than another farmer. Every factory that is built up increases the farmer's customers, the value of his product, and the value of his land. Every factory that is broken down dimin ishes the farmer's customers, the value of his product, and the value of his land, and increases his competitors. If the workingmen of this country can not get employment in the factories they raust seek it elsewhere. They can not find it in any other mechanical pursuits, so they must go to the land. There every man can go when he can not find work at his accustomed occupation ; and when he goes there he takes out of the ground a living, and he is no longer the con sumer of your products, but produces for himself and becomes a competitor of yours instead of a customer of yours, as he is to day. Every new industry increases the farmer's home market and furnishes him what he most wants — profitable customers. It is no fault of the new tariff law if the farmers of the United States do not supply every agricultural want of our entire population. We framed that law to give them this market ; and we framed that law not only to give them exclusive control of this market, but to encourage industries which would increase the consumers by increas ing the factories and the demand for labor therein. Every product of the farm is protected by the new law directly, and, by the main tenance of our thousands of great enterprises, it indirectly secures for the farmer the best market in the worid for his products. How do agriculturists fare in free-trade England ? Let Mr. Glad stone answer : We have in many parts of the country not only a stationary but a decreasing rural population. There are no just sacrifices that ought not to be encountered 39 604 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. in order to stop the process which leaves the rural laborer in a condition where he can hardly hope to keep his wife and children even with an insufficient supply of the necessaries of life. Cardinal Manning wrote, a year and a half ago, that land was go ing out of cultivation in parts of England. Fair Play, an English publication, gives the rate of wages paid to agricultural laborers at Berwick, Carlisle, Whitby, and Thirsh, the four principal agricul tural centers of England. The wages paid to young men run from $15 to $37.50 a year ; to men, ordinary laborers, from $40 to $55 a year ; for managers of farms, from $80 to $150 a year ; plowmen, $60 to $90 a year ; for girls, $25 to $50 a year ; female managers of farmhouses and dairies, $80 to $100 a year. There is nothing in the condition of agriculture in England under free trade to induce our farmers to exchange what they have for what it offers, and there is no market abroad so valuable to them as the one they have at horae. It should be the aim and purpose of every farmer to retain it. The enemies of protection talk unceasingly about its burdens, but do not particularize. If there is anything that the free trader shrinks from it is facts and conditions. They can not designate the charac ter of the injury which they so persistently allege follows the pro tective tariff. Everything around them contradicts their theories. Trade and business, wages and prices, all unite in destroying their argument. Nor do they propose any remedy or present any relief. If protection is a real injury to the American people some eri dence of it should be at hand — something which we might see and feel and know. The individual citizen should know it from personal realization ; he should know it from increased prices of the neces saries of life, from scanty employment and still scantier wages. But whatever knowledge comes to him from his own actual experiences gives him no realizing sense that protection is a burden, but, on the contrary, that it is a blessing and a benefit. If it is not a burden upon the citizen, is it a burden upon the Governraent itself, or the States, or any of our municipal organizations ? Under it the Nation has marched to a prosperity unrivaled in the world's history. Under it, in part, the United States was enabled to furnish the money with which to prosecute a mighty war, and has been able in the last twenty years to reduce the National debt so that to-day it is less by two thirds than it was at the close of the war. Its credit has steadily im proved since protection was made the National policy in 1861, and at this hour it has a credit unequaled by any other commercial nation, and unequaled ever before in its own history. The States and the THB TRIUMPH OP PROTECTION. 605 municipalities have in ten years made a substantial reduction of their public indebtedness. While all this has been going on the great masses of the people have prospered, and their earnings, as represented in the savings banks of the country, are greater by far than the earn ings of any other people on the face of the earth. Thirty years of protection has brought us to the first rank in agri culture, in mining, and in manufacturing development. We lead all nations in these three great departments of industry. We have out stripped even the United Kingdom, which had centuries the start of us. Her fiscal policy for fifty years past has been the free-trade rev enue tariff policy of the Democrats, ours for thirty-one years the pro tective tariff policy of the Eepublicans. Tried by any test, measured by any standard, we lead all the rest of the world. Protection has vindicated itself. It can not be helped by eulogy nor hurt by defama tion. It has worked out its own demonstration, and presents in the sight of the whole world its matchless trophies. It can not be cried down by false names nor injured by offensive epithets, nor can it any longer suffer from falsehood, nor the forebodings of the false prophet. It has triumphed over all its traducers at home and abroad. It has made the lives of the masses of our countrymen sweeter and brighter, and has entered the homes of America carrying comfort and cheer and courage. It gives a premium to human energy, and awakens the noblest aspirations in the breasts of men. Our own experience shows that it is best for our citizenship and our civilization, and that it opens up a higher and better destiny for our people. AN AUXILIARY TO RELIGION. Address at the Dedication of the Y. M. C. A. Building in Youngstown, Ohio, September 6, 1892. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am very glad to join with the citizens of Youngstown in celebrating the completion of this beautiful building, dedicated to the young men for physical, moral, and religious training. I congratulate the young men upon their good fortune, and unite with them in gratitude to the generous, public-spirited people through whose efforts this Christian home has been estabUshed. It will stand a monument to your city, and an honor to those who have shared in its erection. It will be an auxil iary to all moral and religious effort. It will be the vestibule to the Church, and the gateway to a higher and better Christian Ufe. It will not take the place of the Church, and other agencies for good, but it will supplement and strengthen them all. It is a good omen for our civilization and country when these As sociations can be successfully planted as a part of the system of per manent education for the improvement and elevation of the masses ; it is another step upward and onward to a higher and grander Chris tian civilization. It is another recognition of the Master who rules over all, a worthy tribute to Him who came on earth to save fallen man and lead him to a higher plain. It is an expression of your faith in an overruling Providence, and strengthens the faith of every believer. You have been made better by the gifts you have bestowed upon this now completed undertaking ; you have the approval of not only your own consciences, but you have the gratitude of the present generation, and you will have, in all time to come, the blessings of those who are to be the future beneficiaries of this institution. Ee- spect for true religion and righteous Uving is on the increase. Men no longer feel constrained to conceal their faith to avoid derision. The religious believer commands and receives the highest consider ation at the hands of his neighbors and countrymen, however much an auxiliary to religion. 607 they may disagree with him ; and when his life is made to conform to his religious professions, his influence is almost without limitation, widespread and far-reaching. No man gets on so well in this world as he whose daily walk and conversation are clean and consistent, whose heart is pure, and whose life is honorable. A religious spirit helps every man. It is at once a comfort and an inspiration, and makes him stronger, wiser, and better in every relation of life. There is no substitute for it. It may be assaUed by its enemies, as it has been, but they offer nothing in its place. It has stood the test of centuries and has never failed to help and bless mankind. It is stronger to-day than at any previous period of its history, and every event like this you celebrate increases its permanency and power. The world has use for the young man who is well grounded in principle, who has reverence for truth and religion, and courageously follows their teachings. Employment awaits his coming and honor crowns his path. More than all this, conscious of rectitude, he meets the cares of life with courage ; the duties which confront him he discharges with manly honesty. These Associations elevate and purify our citizenship, and establish more firmly the foundations of our free institutions. The men who estab lished this Government had faith in God and sublimely trusted in Him. They besought his counsel and advice in every step of their progress. And so it has been ever since ; American history abounds iu instances of this trait of piety, this sincere reliance on a Higher Power in all great trials in our National affairs. Our rulers may not always be observers of the outward forms of religion, but we have never had a President, from Washington to Harrison, who publicly avowed infidelity, or scoffed at the faith of the masses of our people. It is told of Lincoln that he once called upon General Sickles, who had just been brought from the field to Washington City, having lost a leg in one of the charges at Gettysburg. His call was one of sympathy, and after he had inquired into every detail of that great and crucial battle. General Sickles said to him : "Mr. Lincoln, what did you think of Gettysburg? Were you much concemed about it ? " Lincoln replied, " I thought very little about Gettysburg, and I had no concern about it." The General expressed great surprise, and said that he had un derstood that the capital was in a great panic as to the outcome, and asked: " Why were you not concerned about the battle of Gettysburg?" 608 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. " Well," replied the simple-minded Lincoln, " I will tell you, if you will not tell anybody about it. Before that battle I went into my room at the White House, I knelt on my knees, and I prayed to God as I had never prayed to Him before, and I told Him if He would stand by us at Gettysburg I would stand by Him ; and He did, and I shall. And when I arose from my knees I imagined I saw a spirit that told me I need not trouble about Gettysburg." May this institution meet the fullest expectations of its founders and projectors, and prove a mighty force in the weU-being of the community ! Interested as I am in every department of work in our State, I can not avoid especial and peculiar interest in anything which benefits the Mahoning Valley, the place where I was bom, and where I spent my younger manhood, and around which cling tender and af fectionate memories that can never be effaced. I am glad to share this day with you, to participate in these exercises which open the doors of this building to the young men of this valley, consecrated to honorable uses, and for their lasting good. I wish you prosperity in your workshops, love in your homes, and bid you God-speed in this laudable work. THE ISSUES OF 1892. Speech at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., September 23, 1892. Mr. President and my Fellow-Citizens : I am glad to meet the citizens of Philadelphia in public assemblage to-night, for public discussion. I am glad to look into the faces of the business men, manufacturers, mechanics, and trades people, who have not alone con tributed to the building of this great city, but from whose ranks have gone forth thousands who have shared in the building of the cities of the Middle and Westem States. The energy and spirit of the Quaker City are shown in every section of the Eepublic. Your history is a part, and a most interesting part, of the history of our country. Here the political independence of the United States was declared. Here the great framework of the Government, the Constitution itself, was constructed. Here, from that time until this, every thought and aspiration of the people of this city have always been for the well being and prosperity of the country ; every sentiment of your com munity has been for the safety, the perpetuity, and the glory of the Union. Here you have demonstrated, as probably no other city in the Union has demonstrated, the ability to secure industrial independ ence, and have illustrated by your skill, industry, and capital that we need be dependent upon no foreign nation for the comforts, the ne cessities, the luxuries and refinements of civilized life. You have shown in the most impressive way how handicraft and manufactures, fostered by just laws, enrich a community, giving to capital fair re ward and to skill and labor happy and contented homes ; for I believe there is no city in the Union where so many men own their own homes as here in your own good city. And, after all, it is tho home that lies at the foundation of good government. Through the home comes the best citizenship, and through the best citizenship comes the freest, purest, and best government among men. But, Mr. President, I have come here at the request of the Manu- 610 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. facturers' Club of your city, not to indulge in felicitation, but to ad dress you upon the condition of the country, and the effect upon such condition of the public policies which are advocated by the two great political parties of the United States, and upon which the people must give their verdict in November next. These policies are before you. What the one or the other of the two great political parties will do, if clothed with power by the suffrages of the people this year, is not in doubt. Fortunately (and it has not always been so) every voter can know the design and purpose of the Eepublican and Demo cratic parties by their National platforms. Before passing to the discussion of the tariff I desire to call your attention to a most remarkable declaration of purpose upon the part of the Democratic leaders, as expressed in the Chicago platform. It is a demand for the abolition of the 10-per-cent tax upon State banks of issue. This tax was laid during the war, for the purpose of dis placing State bank circulation with National money. It had the effect intended. It was necessary to the conduct of the war and the preservation of the Government. We had a Nation to save, and Na tional agencies were required. The State bank notes went out of circulation, and the National greenbacks and the National bank notes came into circulation. There can be but one purpose in the abolition of the tax upon State banks, and that purpose must be to restore them. The result of such action on the part of the Democratic party would give us a circulating medium in the forty-four States and the several Territories under different rules and regulations and with dif ferent securities for the notes to be issued — forty-four different kinds of money, under such regulations as the several States, through their Legislatures, might prescribe — all subject to local influences and to the greed of the speculator and the usurer. I can imagine nothing so disastrous to the business of the country as the restoration of that kind of money with which to measure the exchanges of the people. It means that our currency is to be denationalized ; that it is to be local in its character, unstable and varied in its value ; good possibly within the State where issued, but at a discount whenever the State line is crossed. I can not believe that, with the experience this country had under that system which prevailed before the war, it will want to return to it again. Few if any of the notes of the best banks, in the oldest and richest States, were then ever at par ; while the counterfeiter did as profitable a business as the banker, and all at the expense of the peo ple. Scarcely a citizen who lived in that time, in any of the States, but suffered loss from such money ; and in many families of the land to- THE ISSUES OF 1893. 611 day will be found the old bank bills of broken State banks — striking protests against the soundness of the system under which they were established. I fear the people do not realize the full force of the Democratic declaration in favor of State banks of issue. Let me give you in the briefest manner possible the condition of State bank money on December 1, 1859, as shown by Peterson'.? Philadelphia Counterfeit Detector and Bank-Note List, which I hold in my hand, and to which I now refer. The first announcement that greets you is made with respect to " the counterfeit 50's and lOO's on the Philadelphia Bank," with this warning in bold type, '¦'¦LooTc out for them" Then follows the announcement, " Seventy-nine new counterfeits have been put in circulation.within the last month, three being issues of Pennsylvania banks." On December 1, 1859, Phila delphia had twenty-one banks, all at par, with the exception of the Bank of Pennsylvania, which was at a discount of 65 per cent ; and quite all, if not all, of their issues were counterfeited. There were eighty-one country banks, so called, in he State of Pennsylvania. Of these, only twenty-one were at par ; the notes of one being un salable, and those of the other fifty-nine at a discount ranging from a half of 1 per cent to 90 per cent. In the State of Arkansas " all the banks are uncertain," according to the statement made here. In Alabama there were seven banks, six at a discount of 2 per cent, and the other at 1 per cent. In Con necticut there were seventy-eight banks, with the notes of three un salable, and those of seventy-five at a discount of from a quarter of 1 per cent to 25 per cent. In Delaware there were ten banks, nine at par and one at a half of 1 per cent discount. In the District of Co lumbia there were six banks, five at one half per cent discount, the other at 1 per cent. In Georgia there were thirty- one banks, all of them at a discount ranging from a half of 1 per cent to 10 per cent ; one quoted with the warning, " DonH buy," and the notes of two others unsalable. The banks of Florida were not reported. In IlU nois there were eighty-eight banks, not a single one of them at par, and the notes of nearly all at 2 per cent discount, and two of them at 35 per cent discount. In Indiana there were forty banks, the notes of not one of them at par, those of most of them at 1-^ per cent dis count, four at 30 per cent discount, and the notes of two unsalable. In Iowa there was the State Bank with twelve branches, all of them at a discount of 3 per cent. In Kentucky there were twelve banks, none at par, with a prevailing discount of 1 per cent, and with one bank doubtful. In Kansas there were four banks, the notes of three 612 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. unsalable and the other pronounced " a bogus concern." In Louisi ana there were thirteen banks, the notes of all of them at a discount of from one half of 1 per cent to three quarters of 1 per cent. In Maine there were eighty-three banks reported, with not one of them at par ; the average discount being one quarter of 1 per cent, with one of them at 10 per cent, one at 15 per cent, and one with its notes wholly unsalable. In Massachusetts there were 181 banks, with not a single one at par. The average discount there was a quarter of 1 per cent, and all the notes of one were wholly unsalable. In Mary land there were forty banks, with the notes of all at an average dis count of one quarter of 1 per cent, those of one at a discount of 75 per cent, the notes of another declared bogus, and those of two un salable. In Minnesota there were twenty-five banks, all of which were pronounced doubtful. For Mississippi none of the banks are quoted, but all are pronounced "uncertain." In Michigan there were six banks, of which the notes of four were at 1^ per cent discount, and of one at 5 per cent discount, the other not being quoted. In Missouri there were eleven banks, the prevaUing discount being llJ per cent. In Nebraska Territory there were four banks, three of them being too little known to be quoted, and the fourth declared to be a fraud. In Utah Territory the notes were declared unsalable. In New Hampshire there were fifty-one banks, with the notes of all at a quarter of 1 per cent discount. In New Jersey there were fifty-nine bauks, of which twenty-one had their notes at par, those of the others being at a discount of from a quarter of 1 per cent to 50 per cent. In New York there were 346 banks, of which the notes of not one were at par. The prevailing discount in the sixty-one banks of New York city was one eighth of 1 per cent ; and in the banks through out the State it was one half of 1 per cent, one being rated at 10 per cent discount, one at 15 per cent, two at 30 per cent, one at 25 per cent, and two at 30 per cent, and nearly all of them with counterfeits in circulation. In Ohio there were twenty-nine free banks, and the State Bank of Ohio, with forty branches. The prevailing discount was 1 per cent, with one at 3 per cent, one at 50 per cent, and one unsalable ; with counterfeits and " raised bills " without number. The warning is given as to all lO's — that unless it is clear that they are genuine they should be refused. In Ehode Island there were ninety banks, with a prevailing discount of a quarter of 1 per cent, one with a discount of 30 per cent, and two unsalable. In South Carolina there were nineteen banks, all at a discount of from a half to three quarters of 1 per cent. In Texas there was one bank, at a dis- THE ISSUES OP 1892. 613 count of 10 per cent. In Tennessee there were thirty banks, the dis count ranging from one quarter of 1 per cent to 35 per cent, and the notes of one unsalable. In Vermont there were forty-three banks, the notes of all at a quarter per cent discount. In Virginia there were thirty-one banks, the prevailing discount being five eighths of 1 per ceut, while one bank was at 20 per cent discount, one at 35 per ceut, one unsalable, and several doubtful. In Wisconsin there were 135 banks, with a prevailing discount of 2 per cent, with counterfeits in circulation on about one half of their issue. The total number of banks reported by Peterson's Philadelphia Counterfeit Detector, exclusive of the State bank branches, was 1,570. The banks reported by the same authority as " broken, closed, failed, fraudulent, and worthless," are apportioned as follows : Pennsylvania, 76, with 23 in Philadelphia ; Alabama, 8 ; Connecticut, 9 ; Delaware, 3; District of Columbia, 37 ; Georgia, 32; Illinois, 24; Indiana, 76 ; Kansas, 1 ; Kentucky, 7 ; Louisiana, 15 ; Maine, 54 ; Massachusetts, 60 ; Maryland, 22 ; Michigan, 23 ; Nebraska, 4 ; New Hampshire, 21 ; New York, 189 ; New Jersey, 33 ; North Carolina, 2 ; Ohio, 61 ; Rhode Island, 17 ; South Carolina, 2 ; Tennessee, 21 ; Vermont, 17 ; Virginia, 5 ; Wisconsin, 14 ; making a grand total of 832 banks whose notes were in circulation among the people, and had been re ceived by them for their labor and their products, that were absolutely worthless and of no more value than the paper on which they were printed. Yet it is proposed by the Democratic platform of 1892 to make this condition again possible — aye, to invite it. Against it every workingman, every mechanic, every farmer and producer, and every business man should enter an emphatic protest, and should make that protest effective by voting against the party which dares to suggest so base a proposition. We have to-day the best currency in the world. Our gold, our silver, and our paper money are at par, each the equal of the other in debt-paying and legal-tender power. Our dollars are either coin dollars or paper dollars redeemable in coin. Our paper money is so good, and has been since the National system was inaugurated by Secretary Chase, that no noteholder has ever lost a dollar, and never can lose a dollar. Our notes are not only good at home, but they are good in every business corner of the world. The banker may fail, the bank may go into liquidation, the property and assets of the bank may be all squandered and lost, but the notes issued by the bank can suffer no loss or depreciation. They are good because the Govern ment stands behind them as security, and holds for its indemnity 614 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the bonds of the United States, which are at a premium the world over. No man in this audience to-night who has National bank notes in his purse knows what bank issued them, or in what city, county, State, or Territory the bank is located. He does not know whether they were issued in Pennsylvania or in Texas, and he does not care. They are good in every part of the Nation, whether issued in our greatest commercial cities, in the remotest town of the most distant State, or in some frontier trading-post of the poorest Territory in the Union. My fellow-citizens, there is one thing which this country can not afford to trifle with, and that is its currency, its measure of value, the money which passes among the people in return for their labor and the products of their toil or of their land. There is no contrivance so successful in cheating labor and the poor people of the country as unstable, worthless, and easily counterfeited currency. With our present paper-money system the citizen or the business man does not have to carry with him a Bank-Note Detector. They need not con cern themselves lest the bank should fail. H the note is genuine, it is good and is always good. The money of this country should con tinue forever to be National as its flag, as sacred as the National honor, and as sound as the Government itself. That is the character of tho money that we have to-day. That is the kind of money which it is the paramount interest of every citizen of this country, no raatter to what political party he may belong, to want to maintain and continue. The proposition to go back to State bank circulation is perhaps the worst manifestation of flnancial unsoundness that has ever ema nated from the Democratic leaders, mischievous and prolific as they have been in such schemes for generations past. It is more danger ous than their wildest propositions during the inflation era through which the country has happily passed, although inflation and repu diation were encouraged by those who were then in control of the Democratic party. It is infinitely more harmful than the irredeem able greenback in unlimited volume, as was once proposed by that party. It would be a thousand times more hurtful, more destructive to business and trade, more disastrous to every interest, than the free and unlimited coinage of silver — bad as that would be. For forty years the Democratic leaders have been unsound in their financial policies. This unsoundness has not always taken the same form, but its effect has always been to corrupt and debase the currency of the country. Driven from their opposition to resumption by the thoughtful men of their party, who voted against them when THE ISSUES OF 1893. 615 that issue was presented, they then deraanded an inflation of the cur rency and the payment of the bonds in greenbacks. Eouted from that position by the sober sense of the country, they became the ad vocates of the free and unlimited coinage of a dollar worth less than 100 cents. Driven from that by party exigency, they now pronounce for a financial policy which would inflict upon the country the most worthless currency we have ever had. If this was all there was in the campaign, if that were the sole declaration made by the Democratic platform, it ought to be enough to defeat the party, which, in a de liberate convention of the representatives of the National Democracy, has resolved to go back to the wildcat currency of forty years ago. The other question to which I ask your attention is that of the tariff, which is receiving more consideration — thoughtful considera tion, I hope — at the hands of the American people than it has ever before received in any National contest. The issue is so sharply made between free trade and protection that every voter will have an oppor tunity, such as he probably never had before, of voting his real con victions upon this economic question. The platform of the Eepub lican party declares for a tariff upon foreign products so levied as to meet the revenue needs of the Government and so discriminating as to give our own people and our own producers a preference in this market over the producers of the other countries of the world. The platform of the Democratic party declares for a tarifl which shall be iraposed on foreign products for revenue, and for no other purpose. It de clares for a free-trade tariff, as free as the English tariff, which is pronounced by all political economists to be free trade, pure and sira ple. It is by far the boldest utterance the party ever raade in favor of the British doctrine. It not only declares for a revenue tariff without qualification or limitation, but declares that a tariff imposed for any other purpose is in contravention of the Constitution of the United States. It denounces protection as a fraud, as well as unwar ranted by the organic law of the land. It is a little late, I submit, to raise the question of the constitutionality of the protective tariff, and can only be accounted for by a general tendency on the part of the Democratic leaders in the last National Convention, to go back ward rather than forward. The power to levy duties not only for revenue but for the general welfare was never questioned by the men who framed the Constitution of the United States, who were its ear liest and best interpreters. It was perfectly understood, at the time of the formation of the Federal Union and the adoption of the Con stitution, that Congress not only had the power to levy protective 616 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. duties, but that it would exercise that power. Not only did the early statesmen so understand it, but the plain people of the country so understood and accepted it. It is an interesting fact that the flrst petition ever presented to the National House of Eepresentatives, as shown by the Journal of the House of April 1, 1789, was for the exercise of this power. It was from the city of Baltimore, and the minute about it was in these words : A petition of the tradesraen, manufacturers, and others, of Maryland, whose names are thereunto subscribed, was presented to the House, and read, stating certain matters, and praying an iraposition of such duties on all foreign articles which can be made in America as will give a just and decided preference to the labors of the petitioners, and that there may be granted to them, in coramon with the manufacturers and mechanics of the United States, such relief as in the wisdom of Congress may appear proper. The third petition presented to the House was from the city of New York and was of the same purport. In the entry about it the doctrine of protection is well stated, in these words : A petition of the mechanics and manufacturers of the city of New York, whose naraes are thereunto subscribed, was presented to the House and read, setting forth that, in the present deplorable state of coraraerce and manufactures, they look with confidence to the operations of the new Govemment for a restorar tion of both, and that relief which they have so long and anxiously desired ; that they have subjoined a list of such articles as can be manufactured in the State of New York, and humbly pray the countenance and attention of the National Legislature thereto. The constitutionality of a protective tariff is not only sustained by the opinions of Washington, Madison, and Jefferson, but it received practical recognition in the first tariff law ever passed by the Con gress of the United States, which was as early as July 1, 1789. You do not have to state the paragraphs and schedules of that law to as certain its protective character, for you find in the very title of the bill the purpose of the law in language which can not be misunder stood. Here it is : 'Whereas, It is necessary for the support of the Governraent, for the discharge of the debts of the Nation and the encouragement and protection of manufac tures, that duties be laid on goods, wares, and merchandise iraported ; therefore, be it resolved, etc. This bill was reported by Mr. Madison, a member of the Consti tutional Convention, who afterward became President of the United States. It was passed by the unanimous vote of the House of Eepre sentatives, by a majority of five to one in the Senate, and was signed THE ISSUES OP 1893. 617 by George Washington. Jefferson, Jackson, Benton, Van Buren, Wright, and nearly all of the other iUustrious men of the Democratic party have maintained the constitutionality of the protective tariff. As early as 1832 the Democratic National platform, without question ing the constitutionality of it (as does its successor of sixty years later), resolved, " that an adequate protection of American industry is indispensable to the prosperity of the country," and that the aban donment of that policy would be attended with consequences ruinous to the interests of the Nation. During more than half of the life of the Government we have had in operation protective laws ; and the Supreme Court of the United States, in all those years, has never announced any opinion other than in support of the constitutionality of such laws, and within the last year has given its high judicial sanc tion to the protective tariff law of 1890. Not only is a protective tariff within the authority of the Con stitution, but in its operation and effect it has been a benefit and a blessing to the American people. It has been the opportunity of capital, industry, and labor, which has been so improved that, while we are yet one of the youngest nations of the world, we lead them all in manufactures, in mining, and in agriculture. Through the opportunity which protection has afforded, the prices of the every day necessities of life have been reduced, and a scale of remunerative wages has been maintained such as is unknown in any other part of the world. While practically everything else for the use of man has fallen in price, the wages of labor have been kept up, and in some branches have been increased ; so that to-day, in the United States, a day's work will buy more of the comforts and necessities of life than a day's work would have ever brought in this country before, or in any other country of the world. The wealth of the country is more generally distributed among the masses of the people than in any other quarter of the globe. There are more homes owned by our fellow-citizens, and more comforts in those homes, than can be found among any like number of people or homes in any other country under the sun. The savings of labor which find their way into the savings banks of the country are without precedent or parallel any where ; and there is in the savings banks of New York alone, owned by the laborers of that great Commonwealth, more money than is to be found in the entire savings of the laboring people of England. The protective tariffs of our history have been distinguished for the prosperity which they have brought to all our people, while the free- trade tariffs have been noted for general business depression, failures. 018 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. and widespread prostration. Tried by any rule, tested by history or experience, protection has fulfilled every expectation, has met every emergency, either in war or in peace; has provided revenue for public purposes, and stimulated the highest development of our National resources. It has served the Treasury well in every re quirement, and, while doing that, has served the people in pro viding for them occupations at living and remunerative wages. Match it, if you can ! It has always been for the United States — for the progress, development, and unity of the Nation. It never struck a blow against the Governraent. Free trade has done this; both those who advocate it at home and those who advocate it abroad have not hesitated to make war upon this country. As a matter of history, free trade has more than once failed to provide the necessary revenues for the Govemment, and it has never faded to break down the industries and cripple the enterprises of the people. As a means of raising revenue a protective tariff is surer and safer than a revenue tariff. A revenue tariff proposes to do nothing else but raise revenue. It has no other aim or purpose, and disclaims any other. A protective tariff, therefore, does all that a revenue tariff does, or proposes to do, and with greater certainty. In addition, it opens opportunities for the capital of the country, invites it to invest in productive enterprises, and gives to labor, skill, and genius their highest rewards, while receiving from them the highest and best efficiency. Senator Hill, in his recent speech in Brooklyn, rejects the tariff plank in the National platform of his party, but announces one for himself. His favors a tariff for revenue only, with incidental or acci dental protection. But, that I may do the Senator no injustice, I will read his exact language as taken from his speech published in the Associated Press report. He said : We believe in revenue with incidental protection, and not in protection with incidental revenue. In so far as the tariff is necessary to meet the necessities of the Govemment, it raay be imposed, and any other benefits which may be legiti mately derived from its imposition may, and do necessarily, accompany it. If the burden imposed would operate to prevent foreign competition the benefit is indi rect and unobjectionable. Mr. Harrison, in his ingenious letter of acceptance, endeavors to place our party in a false attitude by calling attention to the fact that, while our platform in 1884, readopted in 1888, contained an express plank upon this question of the equalization of wages, yet it was omitted in 1892, and asserts that we have changed our position. I beg to differ with hira. There has been no ohange. It is not always practicable to place in a platform the details of proposed legislation. The platforms of 1884 and 1888 were elaborate and lengthy, THE ISSUES OF 1893. 619 and it was desirable to simplify them. General principles were stated in 1893 rather than particulars, as in 1884. There is no conflict between thera. If I were asked to define as concisely as possible the whole Democratic policy, I should state it substantiaUy as follows : " We favor a tariff for revenue only, liraited to the necessities of the Governraent economically administered, and so adjusted in its application, as far as practicable, as to prevent unequal burdens, encourage pro duotive industries at home, and aflord just eompensation to labor, but not to create or foster monopoly." These are the cardinal principles upon which the details of tarifl legislation should be based. This platform of Mr. Hill's is all very well, and might go without serious controversy, as it has gone in many campaigns in the past, but for the fact that the Democratic National Convention by an over whelming majority rejected it. He has only announced what the Committee on Platform of the National Convention proposed to the Convention, but which was swiftly and impressively rejected. It might also pass unchallenged but for the further fact that Mr. Cleve land, the candidate of the party, has approved the Convention plat form in his Madison Square Garden speech, and accepted the nomi nation on that platform. This ipse dixit of Mr. Hill's might be ac cepted as the cardinal doctrine of the Democratic party, if the Presi dent of the Democratic National Convention — the Hon. William L. Wilson, of West Virginia, one of the most distinguished tariff reform ers in the country — had not characterized the language which Mr. HiU employed and such limitations as he makes as a " straddle " and " a piece of ill-jointed patchwork." Listen to what he says in the North American Eeview of the pres ent month. This is his language : When the recent Convention met at Chicago, the representatives of the Demo cratic party were united and zealous in their devotion to tarifl reform, and fuU of the confidence born of many victories freshly won under its banner. They ex pected a clear and courageous statement of fundamental party principle and of the party's attitude to existing law. The resolution, as reported by the Commit tee, left nothing to be desired on the latter head (that is, the party's attitude to the tarifl law of 1890), but, instead of the former, contained a preliminary para graph or two in which, with much that was admirable, appeared sorae of the familiar but now unsatisfactory phrases of the makeshift of 1884. The Con vention, with very slight protest from the Coramittee on Platform, took tho risk of striking out these phrases and their setting, and of inserting in place of them a clear declaration of fundamental party doctrine. The inserted words are these: "We denounce Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the Amerioan people for the benefit of the few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Gov ernment has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue only, and demand that the coUection of such taxes shall 40 620 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. be limited to the necessities of the Govemment honestly and economically admin istered." This is no new doctrine. It is a retum to the frank and explicit declara tions of 1876 and 1880, showing that the party is now ready to avow in the thick of battle what it then avowed before the combat opened. There is Uttle need for comment upon the paragraphs of the report of the Committee whioh was stricken out in Convention. They were no longer aids but incumbrances in the fight. The temper and courage of the party are mightily diflerent in 1893 from what they were in 1884 What was necessary prudence then would be cowardice now. Will Senator Hill please observe this scorching rebuke adminis tered to him by the President of the Democratic National Conven tion ? I quote further : The Convention responded fully and heartily to the feeling of the party it represented. It showed its confidence in tarifl reform as the great and winning issue by its nominating Mr. Cleveland in the face of warning that would have driven it from a man who did not also stand for a cause. It meant that there should be nothing ambiguous about the party's attitude to the cause, and that the stateraent of its prinoiples should not be overlaid with cumulative limitations. In all this the Convention was right. We have passed that stage in the great tariff controversy where it is necessary or proper to encumber party platforms with limitations, promises, and protests. They had reached a stage in the fight, in the opinion of the ma jority, when they could speak the truth, and announce, without quib bling or qualification, the party doctrine ; and they did it. It wiU hardly be claimed that Mr. Hill is in a position to authorize him to speak for his party ; for not only was his tariff plank (which he an nounced in his Brooklyn speech) repudiated by the recent National Convention, but (speaking with the greatest respect and with entire courtesy) I trust it will not be regarded as unwarranted in honorable debate for me to remind him that he also was repudiated by the Na tional Convention. He wants to perpetuate a " straddle," to use the language of Mr. Wilson. He wants to be " a Democrat," and, whUe alleging that he is for a tarifl for revenue only, he is in favor of inci dental protection. That is, he is in favor of protection by casualty — for tarifl for revenue only with protection hit or miss. If protec tion is a fraud, as the Democratic platform declares, then incidental protection is an incidental fraud. Mr. Hill can not change the issue. He seeks now to place the party where for so many years that dis tinguished Pennsylvanian, so long an honorable Eepresentative from this city in the National House of Eepresentatives, Samuel J. Ban dall, kept his party ; but it will never be forgotten — certainly never in this city — how that great commoner was ignored and sought to be humiliated by those who are now in the control of the Democratic THE ISSUES OF 1893. 621 party. Mr. Hill can not turn the tide which has set in against him by the free traders of his party by any such subterfuge. Mr. President, the new tariff law has now been in operation in all its provisions about fifteen months; and what it has done for the United States or against the United States can be seen and read of all men. The Democratic platform at Chicago announces it as a " cul minating atrocity," and points to the dullness and distress, the wages and the reductions and strife, as the best and most forcible evidence that no prosperity has resulted from the act of 1890, and promises its repeal as one of the beneficial results that will follow the action of the people in intrusting power to the Democratic party. Now, let us see what this " culminating atrocity " has accomplished within the last year. First, what has been the effect of the tarifl law of 1890 upon the revenues of the Government ? It was charged at the time of its passage that it would not reduce but increase the revenues of the Treasury and the burdens of the people. Has it given any relief in the direction of reduced taxation? In the fiscal year of 1893, according to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, the revenue collected in that year was $51,367j650 less than the revenue collected for the flscal year ending June 30, 1890. So that the burden of more than $51,000,000 of annual " taxes " has been removed from the shoulders of the American people. How has it affected our foreign commerce ? Let the official figures answer. The total foreign commerce for 1892 was $1,857,697,693, an increase of up ward of $300,000,000 over the total commerce of 1890, and of $128,000,000 over that of 1891. How has it affected our exports, our sale of American products abroad ? In 1893 the value of ex ports of merchandise was $1,030,378,030, an increase of $173,449,346 over 1890. Our exports of cotton in 1892 exceeded in value those of 1890 by the sum of $7,492,449, though the price of cotton was much lower in 1892 than in 1890. The value of the exports of breadstuffs in 1892 over 1890 was $144,437,190. The value of our exports of breadstuffs (which includes dairy products) shows an increase of $4,000,000 in 1892 over 1890. The value of our ex ports of cattle, sheep, and hogs in 1892 was $3,211,031 in excess of 1890. The increase of the value of exports of breadstuffs, provisions, cattle, sheep, hogs, (all of which are classed as agricultural prod ucts), in 1892 was $159,288,323 in excess of 1890. The value of our other exports during 1892 shows an increase over 1890 of $11,199,860. The value of exports of domestic manufactures shows an increase over 1890 of $8,384,357. This statement shows our sales abroad during 622 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. the twelve months in which every part of the new tariff law has been in operation, and is an unanswerable refutation of the oft-made as sertion that the law would shut out our products from foreign markets. Now turn to the other side. What have we bought abroad ? The value of our imports during the fiscal year of 1892 was $827,401,573, or $38,000,000 more than we imported during the fiscal year of 1890. As showing the operations of the new law, nothing is more gratifying than the increase of free imports made possible by that law. In 1890 the value of our free imports was $265,668,629, and in 1892 the value of free imports was $458,000,772. In 1890 the percentage of free imports was 33.66 ; in 1892 it was 55.35. There was an increase in the value of free imports in 1892 over 1890 of $193,333,143, the de crease in value of merchandise paying duty being $154,240,979. The duty, if calculated per capita of the population in 1892, is $3.67 ; in 1873 it was $5.38 per capita, or lower than it had been at any time since 1863. In 1890 it was $3.62, and for ten years prior to 1891 it averaged that sum. So that it is now between 95 and 96 cents less per capita than the average for the preceding ten years. The increase of the free list is made up largely of articles which we can not produce in our own country, or which for the most part we have been unable to produce in quantities adequate for our home consumption. There are transferred from the dutiable to the free list such articles as sugar, molasses or fibers, and textile grasses. We have a decrease of $89,137,854 in sugar and molasses, resulting from the transfer of these articles to the free list. There was a decrease in the value of manufactures of wool imported of 621,000,000 ; a de crease in the value of flax, hemp, etc., of m^re than $16,000,000 ; a decrease of over $13,099,000 in the imports of iron, steel, and tin plate ; and a decrease of $7,153,000 in the manufactures of silk, and of $7,274,000 in leaf tobacco. This decrease in the importations of raanufactures of wool, iron, steel, tin plate, silk, and leaf tobacco has increased the production of those articles in the United States and kept that vast sum of money at home, to the advantage of our own producers and our own people. The decrease in the imports of agricultural products is striking and impressive. The importation of horses, cows, eggs, hemp, flax seed, jute, textile grasses, oats, barley, rye, and hops was $20,000,000 less in 1892 than in 1890. If the tariff on sugar had remained as under the old law, or as the Mills bill placed it, and we had imported the same quantity in 1892, the tariff upon it would have amounted to up- THE ISSUES OP 1892. 623 ward of $90,000,000, all of which would have been paid by the con sumer here. The sugar tax is purely a revenue tax. It is a favorite Democratic tax — one that party have always advocated, and such as they would reimpose if they had the power to-day. It must not be forgotten that the entire Democratic party of the House and Senate opposed the repeal of the sugar tariff in 1890, because it was a revenue tariff. Such a tarifl is always paid by the consumer ; and with this enormous importation, nearly one hundred millions of dol lars would have oome out of the pockets of the consumers of the United States. But it is said that the bounty is even more odious than the tariff. The bounty paid to the domestic producer of sugar in 1892 was less than $8,000,000 ; so that the people actually saved after paying this bounty, more than $82,000,000. What new markets have been reached since the passage of the new law? The trade we have opened up under the third section of the tariff law, known as " the reciprocity clause," should have the atten tion of every voter of the country. The increase since the passage of the law of our trade with Brazil, Cuba, Porto Eico, Santo Domingo, the British West Indies, and Guatemala, with the gain in our exports of hogs to Denmark, Germany, and Italy, make an increase in the enormous sum of $10,386,881. In the five months ending June 30, 1892, the total exports from the United States to Germany, being almost wholly of provisions and other agricultural products (including breadstuffs), were $12,748,513 in excess of the exports for 1891. This is, in brief, our foreign and domestic trade under the first twelve months of the new tariff law. What has been the eflect of this law upon prices and wages? This every citizen, eve*y workingman, can know and does know for himself. The laborer'knows what he gets for his day's work, and knows what he pays for the necessaries of life and for the uses of his household. So that, however much campaign orators may difler upon this subject, the individual citizen who has a vote to cast on the Sth of November knows the wages he receives and the relation of those wages to the purchase of the necessities of his household. We have, however, some testimony upon the subject which is entitled to our confidence. A subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee, composed as it was of four Eepublicans and two Democrats (all of them distinguished for their learning on economic subjects), report that there has been a decline in the necessaries of life of three fourths of 1 per cent, and an advance in wages of three and one fourth per cent, from the date of the passage of the new law up to May, 1, 1892, 624 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. as compared with a like period prior to the adoption of the tarifl law of 1890. The Commissioner of Labor for the State of Massachusetts, Mr. Horace G. Wadlin, who I am informed is a careful statistician, in his recent report, makes a valuable contribution on this subject. The report is based on returns from 4,865 establishments, having a total value of $669,935,835. The total amount disbursed in wages in 1891 was $130,416,248, as against $126,080,303 in 1890— an increase of $3,335,945, or 2.65 per cent. Another table showed the average yearly earnings per capita to have increased almost one per cent. Still another table is devoted to 75 chief industries, and he gives the in crease of the year in wages paid as 2.65 per cent, the table having this addendum : The total amount paid in wages to the establishments represented in the sev enty-five industries considered increased 2.65 per cent. In carpetings the increase was 3.66 per cent ; in cotton goods, 4.67 per cent ; in machines and machinery, 3.58 per cent ; in metals and metallic goods, 3.38 per cent ; in paper and paper goods, 4.70 per cent ; and in woolen goods and worsted goods, 7.15 per cent and 1.58 per cent respectively. In boots and shoes, however, the total araount paid in wages decreased 3.75 per cent, and in leather 8.88 per cent. The average yearly earnings per individual, without regard to sex or age, employed in the sev enty-five industries, were $437.93 in 1890 and |441.90 in 1891, an increase of 0.91 per cent. The range from highest to lowest average yearly earnings was from $676.35 to $278.93 in 1890, and from $687.76 to $381.33 in 1891. The highest earnings ruled in the industries demanding greater skill and employing males chiefly, and in the lower factory industries employing a large proportion of females and young persons. The report of the Commissioner of Labor of the State of New York — Mr. Peck — is confirmatory of the figures already given, show ing that in the great Empire State not only have the prices of house hold goods diminished, bnt the wages of labor in many industries have increased; while the report of the State Bank Inspector or Commissioner shows how vastly the savings of labor have accumu lated, as represented by the deposits in the savings banks of that State. The Commissioner of Labor for the State of Indiana, whose report has been recently published, fully sustains the figures or con clusions of the reports already iaade. These figures have increased value because of their nonpartisan character. The Labor Commis sioner of New York is a Democrat ; so is the Commissioner of Indi ana ; and I doubt not they have given these figures reluctantly, under the requirements of their oaths of office, believing with Mr. Cleve land that " public office is a public trust." These reports, coming, as THE ISSUES OF 1892. 625 they do, thick and fast, have confounded the Democratic leaders, and have scattered to the winds their baseless predictions. Facts and ex perience have so overtaken their false prophecies that they have sought to destroy the force of them by extraordinary measures. They have sought to restrain the facts by the process of the courts. They may arrest Mr. Peck, bnt, thank God, they can not arrest the pros perity of the country. That is beyond their control. What a spec tacle to behold — a public officer in the State of New York indicted for demonstrating by facts and figures the prosperity of his State and the well-being of its citizens ! It is true there has been some advance in the price of agricultural products, but in all articles of manufacture made possible by protec tion, prices to the consumer have not risen, but in the great majority of cases have fallen. What eflect has the new law had in increasing domestic production and in a corresponding demand for labor ? We are now manufacturing a great variety of the finest cotton and woolen goods, all of which were imported prior to 1890. We are not only making plush in Philadelphia, but we are making lace in Texas. The manufacture of woolen goods, which was depressed and un profitable for a long time, is in a most prosperous condition to-day. The Boston Herald, the leading tariff-reform paper in the country, under date of July 15, 1892, said : Where is the idle woolen mill to-day f Not only is the great majority of the woolen miUs employed, but many of the manufacturers are contemplating en largements, and improvements are already begun. What does all this mean ? It means simply the greatest consumption of wool in this country that has been known for years. It means more than that : It means that labor is employed, and profitably employed. Thousands of men are em.ployed in new in dustries. We have demonstrated that we can manufacture tin plate in the United States, and do it successfully. We have produced in the last twelve months, of tin and terne plate, 13,646,719 pounds, and over 5,000,000 pounds were had from black plates manufactured in the United States. The Democratic success in 1890 retarded the growth of this industry, and deterred much capital from being in vested which otherwise would have been invested, but notwithstand ing this the industry has forged to the front, and if the protective policy be maintained in the contest of 1892, it will be only a short time until we will manufacture all we consume. The new tariff law has revived the cotton-tie industi:y of the United States, which the foreigner had controlled absolutely since 1883. We are now produc- 626 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. ing substantially all the cotton ties used in the South, and the price is lower than it was before the enactment of the law. Here is anoth er of the many cases where an increased duty has not added to but has resulted in reducing the cost to the consumer. The knitting in dustry has been greatly stimulated all over the country. There are three knitting mills in Hudson, Columbia County, New York, and twelve in all the country. They give employment to 2,000 hands, and their annual product is about five millon dozen knit underwear, the selling value of which is $2,500,000. In these mills there is disbursed $750,000 annually in wages. Before the new law went into effect the country was flooded with foreign materials. So excessive were the importations prior to that date that all the foreign goods have as yet not been disposed of, and thus the new law has not had a fair chance to vindicate itself. Shut-downs were frequent ; but lately the market has recovered from the effect of the fresh importation. A new impetus has been given to the American mUls, and now the domestic manufacturer has so many orders that he has in many in stances enlarged his mill, and has had to run day and night. Here in your city you have a new industry made possible by the law of 1890. I can not better present it than to quote from a letter received from J. J. Allen's Sons, chemical manufacturers, of No. 3 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. The letter reads as follows : The phosphorus consumed in the United States for many years has been fur nished almost exclusively by a very aggressive EngUsh manufacturer, who was determined to control this market, and has repeatedly announced that he has put aside a large sum of money, as a permanent fund, to be used in ruining any one who felt disposed to go into the manufacture of phosphorus. In pursuance of this policy, and under the duty of 10 cents per pound which obtained before the passage of the McKinley law, whenever the manufacture of phosphorus was attempted in this country, the English manufacturers lowered the price to a point at or below the cost of making it in this country untU. they succeeded in closing up the American works, when they promptly raised the price again, and main tained a high price on the goods until the American factory attempted to start up again, when the same programme was repeated. The works which we are oper ating were built in 1871, which was the first attempt to make phosphorus in this country. It was then selling here at $1.30 per pound. The American works ran along until 1873, by which time the English inanufacturei-s reduced the price to 76 cents por pound, thereby ruining the American manufacturers and causing the works to be sold out by the sheriff. The price was then restored to $1.10, and remained at about this price until the Araerican works started up again under new management in Maroh, 1874. The price was then gradually cut until it reached 55 cents, which at that time was below the cost of manufacture in this oountry, and the American works were accordingly closed. A higher price was again placed on the article, but since the passage of the McKinley law, in which the THB ISSUES OF 1892. 627 duty on phosphorus was increased from 10 cents to 20 cents per pound, the Eng lish manufacturers have been offering the goods in small lots at 45 cents per pound, which is the lowest price it has ever been sold for in this country. Our works are running on full time, and are doing a prosperous business, which we think is one of the most instructive object-lessons in regard to the effects of the protective tarifl. This letter well illustrates the struggle and success of American manufacturers and the benefit to all of a protective tarifl. There are many other industries and enterprises that have been stimulated by the new law and by which the great mass of our countrymen have been benefited. Where, I ask, are the " disasters and dullness," as depicted by the Democratic National platform ? Prosperity every where abounds, and the country at large, in its business operations, has never been in a better or more healthful condition than it is to day. I can not believe that the people of this country will consent to the overthrow of the economic policy under which they have enjoyed such unexampled prosperity. I can not believe that the people of this country will reverse a policy which has been in operation now for more thau thirty years of our history, and which presents at its close results which could not have been attained by any other system and which cer tainly have not been accomplished in any other country of the world. I can not believe that the people of this country can be induced to return to free trade and wildcat money — free trade which will dis turb all values, revolutionize the business of the country, and reduce the wages of labor, and a State-bank circulation which will bring dis aster to the laborers and producers of the country. When a man gives a full day's work to his employer he is entitled to be paid in a dollar worth 100 cents, whether he works under free trade or under protec tion. Free trade will bring down the wages of our producers to the level of that of their former rivals, and State-bank circulation will rob them still further of their earnings by compelling them to take, in pay ment for their labor, a debased and worthless currency. The adoption of either or both of these platform declarations of the Democratic party is fraught with the gravest consequences, which every good citizen should unite to avert. Mr. President, and my fellow-citizens, there is no honorable place in American politics for a party which bases its claims to public con fidence on the misfortunes of the people. There can be no perma nently successful place in America for a party which appeals to pas sion, prejudice, and ignorance, and which would build itself upon the disappointments of the people and the disasters of the country. We 628 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. are getting on better than any other nation. In everything that goes to make a nation strong we lead the world, in spite of the opposition and discouragements within and without. It wUl be a sad day for this country in all its varied interests when we shall have abandoned Ee publican principles and Eepublican policies. But I have detained you already too long. I can not better close my address to-night than by quoting from a speech made by Daniel Webster on the subject of the tarifl, in this city, on December 3, 1846, at a public dinner given by the business men of that early day to that distinguished orator and statesman. The Hon. Samuel Beck presided. Mr. Webster said : Will you pardon rae, gentlemen, for reoalUng to the recoUection of your older fellow-citizens an interesting celebration which took place in this city on the 4th of July, 1788 ? On that day the citizens of PhUadelphia celebrated the Dec laration of Independence made by the thirteen United States of America on the 4th of July, 1776, and the establishment of the Constitution or frame of gov emment then recently adopted by ten States. A procession was formed, the military and corapanies of the various trades and professions uniting in it. It was organized and commanded by Generals Mifflin and Stewart and some other well known personages. The various companies displayed their flags and banners with appropriate devices and mottoes. Richard Bache, Esq., on horseback, as a herald, attended by a trumpeter, proclaimed " A New Era." The Hon. Peter Muhlenberg carried a blue flag on which were the words, in sUver letters, " 17th of September, 1787." Chief Justice McKean and his associates, in their robes of office, were seated in a lofty car shaped like an eel and drawn by six white horses. The Chief Justice supported a taU staff on the top of which was the cap of Ub erty. Under the cap appeared " The New Constitution," framed and omamented, and immediately under this were the words, " The People," in large gold letters. Next followed varied corps and troops, associations, consuls, coUectors, judges, and others. Then came the Agricultural Society, with its flag and motto, "Ven erate tho Plow"; then the Manufacturing Society, with their spinning and carding machines, looms, and other machinery and implements. Mr. GaUaudet carried the flag, the device on which was a beehive standing in the beams of the sun, bees issuing from the hive ; and on the flag of blue silk the motto, " In its rays we shall feel new vigor." This was foUowed by a carriage holding men weaving and printing. A lady and her four daughters sat upon it, pencUing a piece of chintz, aU dressed in cotton of their own manufacture ; and over them aU, on a lofty staff, was a flag with this motto, " May the Union never forget the manufacturers of America." The Federal ship " llnion " followed next, and then boat builders, saU makers, merehants, and others interested in commerce. Then other trades suoh as cabinet or ehair makers, with a flag and motto, " By unity we support society." Next carae the bricklayers, with a flag on whioh there was a brickyard and a kiln burning, hands at work, and in the distance a Federal City buUding, with this raotto, " It was hard in Egypt, but this prospect makes it easy." Then came the potters, bearing on their flag the motto, " May industry ever be encouraged I " After them various trades came, and then the whipmakers and canemakers, with the motto, "Let us encourage our own manufactures." THE ISSUES OF 1893. 629 After them came stUl others, and among the last the brewers, with a fiag with this motto, " Home brewed is the best." And now I ask you, gentlemen, whether these sentiraents and banners indicated that the Government was to lay duties only for revenue and without respect to home industry I Do you believe the doc trines of Mr. Polk, or those of the citizens of Philadelphia in 1788 ? It is said that the great audience shouted "eighty-eight!" and that there was long-continued cheering. If Mr. Webster could look down upon this wonderful city to-night with its population of 1,300,000, with its factories and forges, its shipyards and its com merce, its manufactures of every form and variety, its well-paid artisans and happy homes, he would not need to be told that PhUa delphia, during all the forty-six years which have gone by since his great speech was delivered, has always steadily adhered to the patri otic policy of the men of 1788, without the shadow of turning; he would know and rejoice that in 1893, on the 8th day of November, it would again assert its unwavering faith in the sentiments on the ban ners of 1788 by voting for Harrison and Eeid, who represent the same sentiments and carry the same banners. DEDICATION OF THE OHIO BUILDING. Speech at the Columbian Celebration at Chicago, III., October 32, 1892. President Peabody and the Members of the World's Fair Commission of Ohio, and my Fellow-citizens : I receive the Ohio building, the keys of which you have just handed me, in be half of the State, and for the uses of its people. I believe all will agree that your work has been well and faithfully performed, and that the Ohio home you have provided will be both cheerful and comfortable, as it is centrally and conveniently located. It is not comraodious enough to hold all of the Ohio people who will attend the great exposition, but they will not all be here at the same time, and I hope, therefore, that it will be found adequate for the purposes designed. The assemblage of so large a number of Ohio men and women, with the State officials. Senators and Eepresentatives in Congress, tbe members of the Legislature, a worthy representation of the Ohio National Guard, and an ex-President of the United States, whom we all delight to honor, is of itself an event of historical interest. We meet iu the chief city of the great Northwest — a city which has demonstrated within the past two days that Congress made no mistake when it assigned to its enterprising citizens the preparation for the groat exhibition which is to coramemorate the discovery of America. We are all proud of Chicago and of the great State of Illinois. Ohio, the first-born of the States carved out of the great North west, greets her younger sister, and congratulates her that within her jurisdiction the greatest exhibition of the advancement of the arts and manufactures and of civilization ever known to the world is soon to be assembled. In participating in the dedicatory exercises we not only join in the world's tribute to the courage and perseverance and the inspired purpose of Columbus, but we do homage to the wonder ful products of man's genius and skill which are soon to be unfolded DEDICATION OF THE OHIO BUILDING. 631 before the vision of mankind. This exposition is not only a thank - oflering to the memory of the discoverer of the New World ; it is in its highest sense the hallelujah of the universe for the triumph of civU liberty and Christian civUization. Columbus himself said he " only opened the gates" ; those who carae after builded, and how well, will be shown in these vast and imposing structures in 1893. Here in the New World on the North American continent, in the United States of America, the Almighty has permitted raan the full development of his God-given rights and faculties, and opened up to him the widest possibilities and the attainment of the highest destiny. Here as nowhere else has been wrought out the great problem of a free and self-governed people, and the advantages and blessings springing therefrom. Ohio has performed no insignificant part in the advanced position which the country now occupies. Her people have given their energy and enterprise and their blood without stint for the accomplishment of what we enjoy to-day. Columbus, in one of his letters to Isabella describing the land and people he discovered, enthusiastically declared : This country excels all others as far as the day surpasses the night in splen dor. The natives love their neighbor as theraselves, their conversation is the sweetest imaginable, their faces always smiling, and so gentle are they that I swear to your highness there is not a better people in the world. We can almost imagine Columbus had Ohio and her people in mind when he wrote these words. Ohio is the gateway of both the South and the West, and she possesses unequaled facilities for both industry and distribution. With such a territory, and the progressive population we possess, under our just laws, Ohio has surpassed the wild est dreams of her founders. It was as William P. Cutler, the son of the founder of the Ohio Company, said, "Massachusetts and Vir ginia joined in holy wedlock, and Ohio was the firstborn." We are justly proud of our State. In the Centennial World's Fair in 1876, in the city of PhUadelphia, Ohio made suitable demonstrations of her ad vancement. She will now show the marvelous progress she has made in the succeeding sixteen years. In that period her population has increased over 30 per cent, and to-day our State possesses nearly 4,000,000 citizens, over 74 per cent of whom were born in the State. What a bond of union among Ohio people, connected by ties of birth ! What a permanent element of citizenship this constitutes ; and may it not account for that native pride, that aflectionate regard, that tender love for the old State which beats in the heart of every Ohioan ? 632 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. It is gratifying to know that the children of Ohio enjoy the very best opportunities for education. It is noteworthy that Ohio employs 25,000 teachers, and that a half million of chUdren daily crowd the doorways of her schoolrooms. Is not this a promising assurance for the future of our great State ? I can hot refrain from expressing in this presence the pride that I felt at the appearance and bearing of the National Guard of the State, and the other Ohio military com panies, which have participated iu the events of this week. It is not generally known, but ought to be, that this large body of men came here to participate in the opening of the World's Exposition volun tarily, and with no expense to the State. I know of no better ex hibition of interest and loyalty anywhere, and am certain it will not pass unappreciated. Their presence has contributed much to the success of the demonstration, and has filled Ohioans with pride. The Supreme Court, the Legislature of the State, and aU the State officials and members of Congress whose presence we observe to-day, have also given to all Ohioans speoial and peculiar pleasure. This, however, Mr. President, is but the beginning of Ohio's part in the Columbian Exposition. She wUl be here when the world assembles at this place — here with the fruits of her skill, genius, and invention, the products of her fields as well as of her factories, and I am sure no State in the Union will present a greater variety of productions, or better. It should be the aim of every citizen of the State to have Ohio appear at her best ; her rank must be maintained ; she must be kept to the front. Upon the Commission, which has thus far done so well, very grave responsibilities stUl rest, and I confidently trast to them, with the co-operation of the Legislature, to see that Ohio does not lose, but gains, in the respect and admiration of all the peo ple, and makes valuable contributions to the world's storehouse of learning. THE DEFEAT OF 1892. In Eesponse to the Toast, " The Eepublican Party," at the Lincoln Banquet of the Ohio Eepublican League, at Columbus, Ohio, February 14, 1893. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Ohio Eepublican League : The Eepublican party values its principles no less in defeat than in victory. It holds to them after a reverse, as before, because it believes in them ; and believing in them, is ready to battle for them. They are not espoused for mere policy, nor to serve in a single con test. They are set deep and strong in the hearts of the party, and are interwoven with its struggles, its life, and its history. Without discouragement, our great party reaffirms its allegiance to EepubUcan doctrine, and with unshaken confidence seeks again the public judg ment through public discussion. The defeat of 1892 has not made Eepublican principles less true nor our faith in their ultimate triumph less firm. The party accepts with true American spirit the popular verdict, and, challenging the interpretation put upon it by our polit ical opponents, takes an appeal to the people, whose conrt is always open and whose right of review is never questioned. The Eepublican party, which made its first appearance in a Na tional contest in 1856, has lost the Presidency but three times in thirty-six years, and only twice since 1860. It has carried seven Presi dential elections out of ten since its organization. It has more than once witnessed an apparent condemnation of Eepublican policy swiftly and conclusively reversed by a subsequent and better-con sidered popular verdict. When defeat has come it has usually fol lowed some measure of public law or policy where sufficient time had not elapsed to demonstrate its wisdom and expediency, and where the opposing party by reason thereof enjoyed the widest range for popular prejudice and exaggerated statement and misrepresentation. Of the fitness of the Eepublican party for public trust, its record for thirty years is its best testimonial. In this particular it is unmatched. 634 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. It never lacked courage when in power to put into public law its de clared purposes, and the statutes of the United States register its proudest achievements. For more than a quarter of a century it has made the laws of the country, which have withstood every assault, and in the end have won public approval. We are living under these laws now, and except for the uncertainty hanging over us by reason of the election of 1893, the country is in a most prosperous and assuring condition. Nothing but the result of that election can stand in the way of our continued prosperity. If we could strike from the history of the country all that has been done and accom pUshed through the agency of the Eepublican party, what would we have left ? Little to be proud of. Eepudiation of the public faith ; a disordered currency ; a bankrupt treasury ; a broken Union, with discordant and warring States ; a dishonored flag ; human slavery with the lash and chains and the auction block, not in the South alone, but in the great free Northwest as well ; a discredited name among the nations of the earth, and the universal verdict that free govern ment had failed. If, since the war, the Democratic party could have made eflective in administration and legislation the declarations of its National platforms, what would we have witnessed? Eepudiar tion of the Constitutional Amendments ! Eepudiation of the war debt ! The wildest inflation of irredeemable currency ! The repeal of the Eesumption Act ! British free trade and its dire conditions ! We do not shrink from contrast. In 1861, when the Democratic party went out of power, the total wealth of the country was $16,000,- 000,000 ; in 1893, when the Eepublican party goes out of power, the wealth of the country is more than $63,000,000,000. We had estab lished since October 6, 1890, the date when the new tarifl law went into effect, up to election day last November, 345 new manufacturing enterprises, and had extended 108. The new capital invested is over $40,000,000, and the additional employes required are 37,285. We have not revised our views, nor reversed our Unes, notwithstanding the Democratic victory of 1892. We still do not believe that Eepub lican protection is a " fraud and a robbery " ; nor that it is " uncon stitutional " ; nor do we believe that the tariff law of 1890 was or is " the culminating atrocity of class legislation," nor that reciprocity is a " sham," nor that State bank money should constitute the " cur rency to raeasure the exchanges of the people." We dissent from the Democratic National platform of 1892 in each and all of these opin ions, and repudiate them as unsound, unpatriotic, and libelous. Nor do we believe that the 8th of November election can be interpreted THE DEFEAT OF 1893. 635 as meaning that a majority of the people indorse these convention declarations. The leaders of the Democratic party profess to believe them, but the majority of the people, I am sure, do not. Let those charged with the administration of public affairs, after the 4th of March, so interpret the victory, if they dare. Some of you may say you hope they will. I do not share in that sentiment. I hope they wiU not. It might be to the advantage of the Eepublican party, but it would be a serious and almost irrepa rable injury to the country ; to every American interest except the sheriff and usurer it would be an unfortunate blow — to the wage- earner an almost irretrievable loss. For let it be remembered that when labor is once reduced in wage, it is hard, very hard, to advance it. This is the experience of the civilized world, and our own obser vation teaches us that when industrial . adjustments come wages are the first to fall and the last to rise. I do not seek to interpret the election of 1892. That devolves upon those who by the suffrages of the people are given the control of Congress and the executive power of the Government. Theirs is the responsibility and the peril. We can not interpret for them, nor would they accept our interpreta tion if offered. For their interpretation they must answer to the peo ple. The people may help them in that interpretation, and doubtless will, through the elections to be held before the assembling of Con gress. These will be impressive lessons, and Ohio can be depended upon to emphasize its unwavering opposition to free trade and Brit ish economic conditions. Mr. President, we do not hear so much about the repeal of this Eepublican tariff legislation as we did before and immediately follow ing the election — although that is the promise of the Democratic platform ; and if they keep it, the law must go. Will they do it ? I answer. No ; they may affect to repeal it, but it will be a repeal only in name. I observe the programme now is a " revision of the tariff " — not in the usual and Constitutional way — but through the agency of the Cabinet of the President. That body, unknown to the Constitu tion, with no legislative power, is to prepare a bill and the Congress is to accept and adopt it. The Constitution of the United States gives to the House of Eepresentatives the sole power to originate tariff biUs. The Senate can not do it. The President can not do it. No department of the Govemment save and except the House of Eepresentatives has any such authority. Why ? Because the theory of the founders of the Government was that the taxing power should be kept as near the people as possible ; that the House of Eepresenta- 41 636 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. tives, selected every two years, fresh from their constituents, could be raore safely trusted in the interest of the people, with the origination of tax laws, than any other body. This wise provision is to be set aside, and the executive power of the Government is to usurp the power given by the Constitution to the people's representatives alone. No reason for this extraordinary course has been suggested except that the House of Eepresentatives can not be trusted. While this may be true, it is an extraordinary proclamation of a Democratic President, made a year before its assembling — that he has no confi dence in a Democratic House just elected by the people. With all this, however, we have nothing to do but to wait and observe, resolved in the mean time that our principles shall be fairly and fearlessly pre sented to the people, and that there shall be no abatement of fidelity to our cause. What our political enemies may do is no measure of our duty. Whatever they raay do or fail to do, our course is plain. Whether they keep faith or break it, let us keep ours unsullied and in honor. We must stand for EepubUcan doctrines and for every one of them. The best our opponents can do will be bad enough ; little or much, it will unsettle business and force industrial changes. Even inaction will produce anxious suspense which will shake confidence. There are those who boldly assert that all fears are groundless ; that noth ing will be done by this administration ; and in support of their confidence point to the fact that during Mr. Cleveland's first admin istration business received no shock, but proceeded uninterruptedly. That is true for the most part, but it should be borne in mind that the political conditions then are not the political conditions now. Then Mr. Cleveland and his party could do nothing, for a Eepubli can Senate, undoubted in its majority, stood in their way. Not a new law of any public character was passed, and no law could pass, which did not have Eepublican sanction. That we had no disturb ance of business was because during his entire four years Mr. Cleve land administered the laws made by the Eepublican party, and no others, for no others could be enacted. His financial policy was that of the Eepublican party. He did what Grant and Hayes and Gar field and Arthur and Sherman had pointed out as the path of safety, and which Eepublican legislation had made the only path of official duty. The tariff laws which he administered were protective in every feature. They were made by the Eepublican party in 1883 against united Democratic opposition, and the average rate of duty was higher under the act of 1883 than it is under the act of 1890. He THE DEFEAT OP 1893. 637 did as to these great matters substantially what a Eepublican Presi dent would have done. He could do nothing else. He administered the laws which embodied Eepublican principles because he and his party were stripped of all power to change them. That there oc curred no serious disturbance to business was because the disturbers had their hands tied. That was our safety in the past. The junior Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brice, in his speech in this city on the Sth day of January last, said : No world is so quick as the business world to discount future dangers. At the faintest delicate scent of trouble the shook is reoeived and carried to every branch of the business of the world. All our dangers from the revision of the tariff laws have already been endured. What consolation this contains : the business world has already discounted the revision of the tariff which is to be made by the Democratic party ! How can that be ? — when nobody knows what the revision will be. You may make preparation for something fixed and definite which is to transpire in the future, but you can not well discount a thing the character and extent of which you know noth ing. It may be true — and doubtless is — as the Senator's language would indicate, that business is already feeling unfavorably the refiex action of the election of last fall ; that some enterprises, out of an abundance of caution, are running only on orders, and are diminish ing their output, because buyers are purchasing more closely and in less volume than before. And it may be true that labor in some quarters is suffering in its earnings from this diminished production. However, what is yet to be " endured," if the proposed free-trade re vision be accomplished, no man can tell, and certainly no business man can fully provide against. If the Senator had announced officially what the tariff revision was to be, if he knew, he would have rendered valuable service to his country, and the business world might have discounted, in part, future dangers. The Senator is a business man. And yet I venture to suggest that he does not know what the rate of duty in the proposed tariff will be upon a single article of the more than 2,000 now in the tariff schedules. He does not know what wUl be made free and what wUl be tariffed, what wUl be put on the free list and what wUl be taken from it. If he does, he is carrying a mighty fact which the business world would be glad to know, and which I am sure his associates in Congress would pay a premium to obtain. If he would teU, he would not only relieve the business world of painful suspense, but Mr. Cleveland and the Demo- 638 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. cratic leaders of painful embarrassment. If his "delicate scent" has discovered what his party will do with the tariff he is the wisest of his brethren, and is large enough for two States like Ohio and New York. And his transcendent knowledge should entitle him to succeed the venerable Senator Morrill as Chairman of the Finance Comraittee of the Senate. It is comforting to be told by the Senator that the dangers from a revision of the tariff have already " been en dured " ; that the suffering is over before the Democratic surgeons have applied their knives. I wish this rainbow view was real and that every interest in the country could see and realize it ; that labor could feel there was to be no loss in wages and no diminution of em ployment. It will be accepted as real, let me assure the Senator, when it is demonstrated by actual experience that we can buy our goods abroad and still make them at home ; that foreign labor can be employed in foreign shops to make our goods and our home labor still have the same adequate employment and the same remunerative As a party we have nothing to recall and little to regret. The past is secure and its glories can not be dimmed. The future will yet commend the latest Eepublican legislation and approve the present Eepublican administration. Eepublican purpose is written in public law. It can be read by all men. The country knows what it has ac complished and is accoraplishing. It does not rest in the breath of orators nor in the declaration of campaign platforms. It is an endur ing statute. Criticism will no longer avail our political adversaries. Positive enactment must be met by positive enactment. Carping at our laws must give way to construction of theirs. A Democratic tariff law must now stand actual comparison with a Eepublican tariff law. That is the real test, and it must come, or the Democratic party must stand convicted by its own confession of obtaining power under false pretenses. We do not fear the contrast. Nay, we invite and welcome it. The business interests, the wageworker, the agriculturist of the country await with anxious solicitude the promised reforms. They should not be delayed. The Eepublican tariffs which have been so persistently characterized as artful devices to rob the poor should not be tolerated a single day after the Democracy takes power. Prompt action is the test of good faith and capacity ; procrastination is a sure proof of insincerity and infirmity. Which will it be ? In a few days the country passes into the control of the Demo cratic party, in a condition of matchless prosperity in every depart ment of industry. We do not leave them a legacy of hard times, idle THE DEFEAT OP 1893. 639 industries, unproductive enterprises and unemployed labor. We turn over to them a country blessed with unprecedented activity in every avenue of human employment, with labor in active demand and better paid than in all our history before ; a Government with unparalleled resources and credit, and with no stain upon its honor. " The year 1892," says Dun's Eeview of Trade, " has been the most prosperous ever known in business." This is the nonpartisan testimony of the triumph of the revenue and financial policies of the Eepublican party. This is the business indorsement of thirty years of Eepublican rule. This was a year, too, of " unconstitutional tariffs " and " sham reciprocity." This was the year, according to our adversaries, that the Eepublican policy was robbing the people. It was in this year, 1892, while in the enjoyment of unexampled prosjierity, that the Ee publican legislation which made this condition possible was, as the Democratic leaders would have us believe, repudiated by the people, and the Democratic policy of British free trade and wildcat money in dorsed. I do not believe it. If they act upon that belief they will be promptly repudiated by the people. Not only has the year 1893 reg istered an era of conspicuous progress and unexampled prosperity, but it witnessed a National administration under President Harrison unexcelled in honesty, power, and patriotism by any of its predeces sors. Of this rich inheritance the Democratic party becomes the trustee for the people. It is my hope that it may suffer no loss or waste in their hands. I wish the country could be assured it would not. If it does, the trust will come back to us — and it will come back to us — with the doubly-renewed confidence of the people. We have but to hold fast, abating nothing of conviction and yielding nothing of our faith in the great doctrines which are destined to secure vic tories as signal as any which have gone before. The party of Lincoln — whose anniversary we celebrate to-night — still lives. The party which rallied the young men of the country around the Banner of Liberty and Union, still carries it, with the glories you have added. Upon it are emblazoned the victories of the past and the great princi ples which will win victories in the future — equal and impartial suf frage, protection and reciprocity, honest money, and National honor. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. Address before the Ohio Wesleyan University ai WARE, Ohio, June 20, 1893. Mr. President, Members of the Board of Trustef BERS OF THE FACULTY, LaDIES AND GENTLEMEN : Eu Birchard Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States. this city on October 4, 1823, was a great and good man — gre that was good ; good in all that was great. He was a fortuns fortunate in his ancestry ; fortunate in his noble mother ; f in all the influences of a Christian home ; fortunate in his ea: ing and higher education ; fortunate in the happiest of m: fortunate in his professional experience, in his service as a \ soldier, in the uncertain paths of politics ; fortunate in ever and private relation. He was fortunate, and he deserved to improved his opportunities ; he accepted every responsibility ered trust for which true account must be rendered. He received his earliest education in the Delaware public From here he went to the Academy at Norwalk, Ohio, and the preparatory school at Middletown, Conn., to prepare foi He entered Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, in the fall He was a close student, one of the best debaters in the litera ties of that college, and at his graduation was probably on most popular men of his class — that of 1842. He graduate head of his class and delivered a valedictory which even ni membered as one of the best of such productions. Aftei Kenyon, young Hayes studied law with Sparrow and Ma1 Columbus, and completed his professional studies at Harv School in January, 1845. He entered the practice of hi sion in May, 1845, at Lower Sandusky, or what is now th Fremont, where he formed a partnership with General 1 Buckland, an old friend, subsequently a gallant Union ofi member of Congress, and always a valuable and honored ( ' = Vv- HB HaU Jr, IJswTiSrk Co^ RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 641 his county and State. Desiring a wider field of professional activ ity, Hayes located in Cincinnati in the winter of 1849-50. His life in that city he was always glad to recall as pleasant and profitable. One of its pleasures, that he alluded to most frequently, was his con nection with the Literary Club, established thirty years before, and famous in after years for the large number of officers it furnished to the Union army. Here he was brought in contact with such states men, jurists, and writers as Tom Corwin, Salmon P. Chase, Tom Ewing, the younger, Stanley Matthews, Judge George Hoadly, Murat Halstead, Moncure D. Conway, and Manning F. Force. On December 30, 1852, he married Miss Lucy Ware Webb, of Chillicothe, Ohio, whose beautiful character was an ever-present inspiration to him in all the subsequent years of his life. No one can tell the full influence this sweet woman had upon his future career, but we do know that she was the sunshine of his life, that in every trying mo ment she was his strong support. In 1858 his public life commenced. He was appointed City So licitor by the City Council of Cincinnati. The following spring he was elected at the polls by a majority of over 2,500 votes ; but in 1861 he was defeated, as was the entire Eepublican ticket. Hayes, in pol itics, had always been an ardent antislavery Whig and Eepublican. He loved liberty and hated oppression in every form. He supported Clay in 1844, Taylor in 1848, and Scott in 1852. He was among the thousands of youthful enthusiasts that rallied to the standard of Henry Clay, who was one of his chief ideals. It is said by a class mate of Hayes that he heard him declare : " I would start in life without a penny, if by that Henry Clay could be elected President." Many an old man, too, wonld have been wUling to make as great a sacrifice to have seen the great commoner elected Chief Executive of the Nation. In 1856, Hayes took a somewhat active part in the cam paign for John C. Fremont, the " Great Pathfinder," whom it was his pleasure and privUege in later years to appoint Governor of Ari zona. His biographers state that when in coUege he displayed an aversion to politics, and one of his classmates recalls a speech at that period in which Hayes declared that he wanted no political prefer ment untu after he was forty. " Give me the popularity that runs after," said he, " and not that which has to be sought for." This principle, although he was always an ambitious man, characterized his entire political career. What came to Hayes was not from his own seeking, but was the popular tribute to one who deserved it. He was notably active in the campaign of 1860. He was opposed to further 642 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. concessions to the South and boldly said so, though such sentiments were not then in accord with public feeling. He then observed : Disunion and civil war are at hand, and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. A distinguished Englishman told that Bonaparte was about to invade the country once said : " The danger of in vasion is by no means equal to that of peace. A man may escape a pistol, how ever near his head, but not a dose of poison." At a great Union meeting in Cincinnati, held immediately after the flag at Port Sumter had been fired upon, he was made chairman of the committee on resolutions and voiced in fervent phrase the feelings of that patriotic city. On May 18, 1861, Hayes recorded in his daily journal the following patriotic purpose : Judge Matthews and I have agreed to go into the service for the war ; if pos sible, into the same regiment. I spoke my feelings to him, which he said were his also — that this was a just and necessary war, and that it demanded the whole power of the country ; that I would prefer to go into it, if I knew I were to be killed in the course of it, rather than to live through and after it, without taking part in it, or having been part of it. On June 7, 1861, he was coraraissioned by Governor Dennison as Major (with Stanley Matthews as Lieutenant Colonel) of the Twenty- third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the original three-years' regiment from Ohio. There were many three-months' regiments which subse quently enlisted for three years, but the Twenty-third, without any previous enlistment or experience, entered the service for three years. The first headquarters of the regiraent were at Camp Chase. I had never seen Hayes until he reported to the regiment and I recall our first meeting the better because of a little incident which happened when, with all the pride of new recruits, we came to receive our muskets. The State could furnish only the most inferior guns. These we posi tively and proudly refused to accept. We would accept nothing but the best. The officers spent most of the day in trying to persuade us to receive the guns for a few weeks, if only for the purpose of drill. None of us knew how to use any kind of a musket at that time, but we thought we knew our rights and we were aU conscious of our importance. They assured us that more modern guns would soon be supplied. Major Hayes did the talking to our company, and I shall never forget the impression of his speech. He said that many of the most decisive battles of history had been won with the rudest weapons. At Lexington and Bunker Hill and many other engage ments of the Eevolution our forefathers had triumphed over the well- equipped English armies with the very poorest firearras — and that RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 643 even pikes and scythes had done good work in that glorious conflict. Should we be less patriotic than our brave ancestors? Should we hesitate at the very start of another struggle for liberty and union, for the best and freest Government on the face of the earth, because we were not pleased with the pattern of our muskets, or with the caliber of our rifles? I can not, at this late day, recaU his exact words, but I shall never forget his warmth of patriotic feeling and the sound sense with which he appealed to us. That was our first and last mutiny. We accepted the old-fashioned guns, took what was oflered us cheerfully, and Hayes held us captive from that hour. From that very moment he had our respect and admiration, which never weakened but ever increased during the four eventful years that followed. I can not do more than touch upon his military services. He participated in aU the early engagements in West Virginia, under General Eosecrans. The first engagement was at Carnifex Ferry, on September 10, 1861, where Hayes commanded a detachment of four companies of his regiment. This was our first real fight, and the effect of the victory was of far more consequence to us than the battle itself. It gave us confidence in ourselves and faith in our com mander. We learned that we could fight and whip the rebels on their own ground. On October 24, 1861, Major Hayes was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, taking the place of Stanley Mat thews, who had been appointed Colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and James M. Comly, distinguished in later years as editor of the Ohio State Journal, became our Major. I will not stop to detail the ex periences of our regiment in their winter quarters at FayetteviUe, which we quitted in April ; of the advance upon Princeton and the evacuation of that little viUage by the rebels ; of our subsequent re tirement to East Eiver ; thence to Camp Piatt, on the Great Kanawha, making a march of one hundred miles in three days ; of our railroad ride from Parkersburg to Washington, where we joined the forces of General McClellan ; of our entrance into the city of Frederick, Mary land, from which we drove the enemy, and thence on to the memor able battle of South Mountain, in which Hayes was a conspicuous and commanding figure. It was a lovely September day — an ideal Sunday morning. McClellan's army, with Burnside's Corps in front, was passing up the mountain by the National road. General Cox's Ohio Division led Burnside's Corps, and the Twenty-third Ohio was in the lead of that division. Hayes was ordered to take one of the mountain 644 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. paths and move to the right of the rebels. At nine o'clock the rebel picket was driven back, and on our pushing forward the rebels advanced upon us in strong force. Our regiment was quickly formed in the woods and charged over rocks and broken ground, through deep underbrush, under the heavy fire of the enemy at short range, and, after one of the hottest fights of the war, we drove them out of the woods and into an open field near the hilltop. Another charge was ordered by Hayes. No sooner had he given the word of command, than a mini6 ball from the enemy shattered his left arm above the elbow, crushing the bone to fragments. He called to a soldier to tie his handkerchief about the wound, but turning faint he fell, his men passing over and beyond him into the fight, whence he had ordered them. When he regained consciousness, Hayes found himself under a heavy fire, with the bullets pelting the ground all about him. He feared that his men were retreating, but he was soon reassured when, on calling out, he was carried in safety to friendly cover. Wounded and bleeding as he was, he was not wholly unconscious of what was going on about him, and ordered his raen to hold their position, which they did under Major Comly, who, through the rest of the day, commanded the regiment with rare judgment and courage. The regiment made three successful charges in that fight, and lost nearly two hundred men — half of the effective force — in action. " The colors of the regiment were riddled," says Whitelaw Eeid, iu Ohio in the War. " The blue field was almost completely carried away by shells and bullets." Hayes was brought to Ohio for medi cal treatment, but returned to the field, even before his wound was healed. He was then coraraissioned Colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio, Colonel Scamraon having been promoted to Brigadier General. In July, 1863, Colonel Hayes commanded two regiments and a sec tion of artillery which were sent to check John Morgan in his raid through the southern counties of Ohio. This movement was emi nently successful, and aided in preventing the raiders from recrossing the river, and in compeUing Morgan to surrender. Then the regi ment, in the division comraanded by General Crook, started on an expedition to cut the principal lines of communication between Eichmond and the Southwest. It was a rough and trying march over mountains and through deep ravines and dense woods, with snows and rains that would have checked the advance of any but the most determined. Daily wo were brought in contact with the enemy. We penetrated a country where guerillas were abundant RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 645 and where it was not an unusual thing for our men to be shot from the underbrush — murdered in cold blood. At Cloyd Mountain the regiment encountered the eneray, and there was a fierce and desperate engagement. Hayes distinguished himself by marked bravery at the head of his brigade in storming the works on the crest of the mountain. The advance across the meadow, in full sight of the enemy and in range of their guns, through the creek, and up over the works on the ridge was magnifi cently executed, and the hand-to-hand combat in the fort was as desperate as any witnessed during the war. Still another charge was made and the rebels again driven back. On we hurried to Dublin Depot on the Virginia and Tennessee Eailroad, burning the bridges there, tearing up the track, and rendering the railroad useless for the transportation of soldiers or supplies. Then the New Eiver Bridge was destroyed, and then, with frequent encounters, we went on to Staunton, Virginia. We entered Lexington, the seat of the Confed erate Military Institute, after a sharp engagement, Hayes's brigade in the lead, and sustaining all the casualties which occurred. Then, on to Lynchburg, where, overcome by superior numbers, constantly augraented by fast arriving re- enforcements from Eichmond, the whole division was compelled to retreat. Hayes showed wonderful pluck and determination in this severe expedition. All our com missary supplies were consumed, and, almost without food, we marched and fought our way back, closely pursued by the enemy. "After we reaohed our supply train," to quote his own words, " we stopped and ate, marched and ate, camped about dark, and ate all night. We had marched almost continuously for about two months, fighting often, with little food and sleep, crossing three ranges of the AUeghenies four times, the ranges of the Blue Ridge twice, and marching several times all day and all night without sleeping." On July 18th, Hayes was sent with his brigade to make an attack upon the rebels under Eariy ten miles beyond Harper's Ferry. Early's forces proved to be 2o",000 in number. Hayes's brigade was surrounded, but with great coolness and daring he cut his way through and joined the main body of the troops under Crook. In this engagement Hayes was again wounded. His horse was shot under him, and he was struck in the shoulder by a spent baU. Notwith standing his brigade was in the hottest of the fight it was yet in a condition to cover the retreat ; so splendid was its discipline that it constituted the rear guard for the next two days. The night battle of Berryville wiU not soon be forgotten. It was a brilliant scene; the heavens were fairly illuminated bythe flashes 646 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. of our own and the enemy's guns. Here the rebels were repulsed with great loss. At the battle of Winchester, on September 19th, Hayes again displayed extraordinary bravery. Whitelaw Eeid, in his account of this battle, gives the highest praise to Hayes, and those who saw and followed him know that it is not overdrawn. He says : Hayes's brigade had the extreme right of Crook's command in making a fiank attack. In leading an assault upon a battery on an eminence, Colonel Hayes found a morass in his way over fifty yards wide. Being at the head of his brigade, as usual, he plunged in first, and his horse becoming mired at once, he dismount ed and waded across alone under the enemy's fire. Waving his cap, he signaled his soldiers to eome over, and when about forty had joined him, he rushed upon the battery and took it after a hand-to-hand fight with the gunners, the enemy having deemed the battery so secure that no infantry supports had been placed near it. Colonel DuvaU, the division commander, was wounded and carried from the field in this fight, leaving Colonel Hayes in command. Thence after this engagement on to Fisher's HiU, one of the most brilliant of the many brilliant achievements of General George Crook, in which Hayes bore a noted part. It was a flank movement through the mountains and woods to the enemy's right. Never did troops advance with greater difficulty, on what appeared to be an impassable route, over the mountain side, where it seemed the foot of man had never trod. Hayes led the charge down the gorge and up the hill. He led repeated charges — I can see him now encouraging his men to make another and still another charge — until we had captured the whole of the enemy's works and every piece of their artillery. Noth ing was more brilliant or more decisive during the entire war, con sidering the numbers in the affair, and Hayes's behavior was simply grand. Then came the terrible surprise at Cedar Creek, where Hayes dis played such magnificent gallantry. Here, too, his horse was shot from under him. His horse fell, struck by a score of balls, and the rider was fiung over its head, terribly bruised ; the ankle of his left foot caught in the stirrups and was dislocated. Hayes immediately mounted another horse, though suffering intensely, and, going back several miles, gathered a small force and aided in forming the line which Sheridan so inspired after his famous ride " from Winchester town, all the way to Cedar Creek." Hayes received great praise for his services in this battle. Both Crook and Sheridan assured him he would be a Brigadier General, and he was made one dating from that hour. Hayes was four times wounded, and had three horses shot from under him. General Grant, in his priceless Memoirs, pays him the following tribute : RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 647 On more than one occasion in these engagements General R. B. Hayes, who succeeded me as President of the United States, bore a very honorable part. His conduot on the fleld was marked by conspicuous gallantry, as well as the display of higher qualities than mere personal daring. This might well have been ex pected of one who could write at the tirae he is said to have done so : " Any officer flt for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped." Having entered the army as a Major of Volun teers at the beginning of the war. General Hayes attained, by meritorious service, the rank of Brevet Major General before its close. In December, 1865, he took his seat in Congress, to which he had been elected from the Second Ohio (Cincinnati) District at the pre ceding Presidential election. He took no very active part in Con gressional legislation or debate. He was a quiet, faithful, hard working member. He was renominated and re-elected to Congress in 1866. During his service in the House he courageously advocated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and all the war measures of that period. In 1867 he was nominated for Governor and elected, defeating Allen G. Thurman. In 1869 he was renominated and re-elected, defeating George H. Pendleton. He re tired to private life, but was again nominated in 1875, against his own expressed wish, and defeated William Allen. His campaign in 1875 was the most noted in which he was engaged. He led the fight for honest money. His speeches during that campaign were the ablest of his life, and if it was your good fortune to hear him in that great contest, I am sure you will join me in the opinion that no better or wiser or more statesmanlike speeches were ever made. Ohio was the National battle-ground. His victory for honest money and keeping inviolate the Nation's faith made him a commanding figure in Na tional politics, to whom thousands hopefully turned as a future can didate for President of the United States. Some one jocularly said, " He had hardly been elected Governor in 1875 before he began to be President in Ohio." To all prophetic suggestions concerning hira self he was in the habit of saying, " If the sky faUs we shaU all catch larks." To a friend he wrote : " It is not for you or me to en- roU ourselves in the great army of office-seekers. Let the currents alone." The Ohio Eepublican State Convention, divining the currents, in structed our delegates to the National Convention at Cincinnati to vote for him, and General Noyes, in a speech of rare excellence, presented his name. Blaine, Morton, and Conkling were the commanding figures, while Hartranft and Bristow were also before the Convention as can didates. Hayes started with 61 votes, Blaine with 285. On the sev- 648 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. enth ballot Hayes received 384 votes to 351 for Blaine and 21 for Conkling, and was declared the nominee. The Governor, quietly sitting in his office at Columbus, the calmest member of a little group of friends, had not believed such a result possible untU after the sixth ballot was taken. He accepted it, as he accepted all pre vious trusts, as a caU to duty. The Governor's wife was visiting one of the State institutions — the Institution for the Education of the ' Blind, I believe — on an errand of mercy, when a messenger was sent " to bring her home instantly." She drove to her modest home, fearful of some dreadful accident or sudden sickness, " only to find," as she wrote to a friend, " that nothing was the matter, except her husband had been nominated for President." The carapaign was not exciting, nor the enthusiasm of either party great. It was the Centennial year, and the people were more interested in the great Exposition than in politics. This afforded Mr. Tilden, with his splendid abilities as an organizer, an opportunity to marshal every force and influence against the majority party, and the result was a disputed Presidential election. The friends of Mr. Tilden in Congress suggested, and the supporters of President Hayes consented to, a submission of the dispute to the arbitrament of an Electoral Commission,* provided by a special law on the vexed sub ject. This Commission, after a fuU hearing, decided that Hayes was duly elected, and he was inaugurated President on March 5, 1877, with as good and just a title to the office as that of George Wash ington. He had a majority of the electoral votes upon the face of the returns. His title to the Presidency was conflrmed by a Commission as distinguished as any that ever sat in judgment, created by the Forty-fourth Congress, one branch of which was Democratic. The finding of the Comraission was then approved by Congress, and his right to rule deterrained by the only power having jurisdiction. This crisis in our history was a great strain upon popular govern- * This Coramission was created by the act approved by President Grant on January 29, 1877, and was as foUows : Five members of the Senate— George P. Edmunds, of Verraont ; Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana ; Frederick T. Frelinghuy sen, of New Jersey ; Allen G. Thurraan, of Ohio ; and Thoraas P. Bayard, of Dela ware. Five members of the House of Representatives — James A. Garfield, of Ohio ; George P. Hoar, of Massachusetts ; Eppa Hunton, of Virginia ; Henry B. Payne, of Ohio ; and Josiah G. Abbott, ot Massachusetts ; and five Justices of the United States Supreme Court — Nathan Clifford, of Maine ; Stephen J. Field, of California ; Samuel P. MiUer, of Iowa ; William Strong, of Pennsylvania ; and Joseph P. Bradley, of New Jersey. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 649 ment, and its peaceful settlement a great tribute to the intelligence and virtue of the people. The administration of President Hayes answered the highest test to which it could be subjected. It was satisfactory and successful ; it was clean, conscientious, wise, and patriotic. During it preparation for the resumption of specie payments was made with such care and wisdom that when the appointed day came there was no shock or dis turbance to business ; it came almost unobserved, bringing security and courage to the business world. This was wholly accomplished in less than two years after Hayes was inaugurated,, and as the result of the work of his administration, and his administration alone. The public debt was also funded at lower rates of interest and the country entered upon an era of unexampled prosperity. His determination and firmness in resisting unwarrantable interference by Congress with the executive power of the Government displayed his accus tomed bravery. With both branches of Congress a part of the time against him, he nevertheless compelled it, by the weight of public opinion, to accept his position on many of the most important bills. He maintained in full vigor the constitutional prerogatives of the President. As to his position on the Southern question and his attempted reforms in the civil service, there will always be hon est differences of opinion. In his veto of the anti-Chinese bill he displayed great moral courage. His special message of March 8, 1880, on the interoceanic canal also merits warm commendation and the policy thus outlined has since been adopted by Congress and sustained by three successive administrations. His benevolence and piety dictated his Indian policy, and under no other adrainistra tion in American history was so much good done for these unfortu nate people. His administration began under the most unfavorable auspices, for, aside from the threatening and troublesome political complications, business stagnation and severe distress had prevailed throughout the country, resulting from the great panic of 1873. His conduct of public affairs made Eepublican success possible in 1880, fully restored and strengthened the confidence of the peo ple in that party in the Northern States, and won for him the genu ine respect and good will of the wisest and best men of all parties. His lofty purpose was never questioned — his purity of personal and official life were everywhere accepted. His death discloses this even more clearly than did his retirement from public office. His bitterest enemy can find no flaw in his character, no defective link in the chain of his life. He expressed a noble sentiment, one that fitly 650 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. characterized his own conduct, when he declared : " He serves his party best who serves his country best." At the expiration of his terra, Mr. Hayes sought the peaceful quiet and retirement of his old home at Fremont. He was then and subsequently the recipient of many honorable distinctions. Kenyon, Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins Universities conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. He was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and at his death held that office. He was also elected Commander of the Ohio Comraandery of that patriotic order, the first President of the Society of the Army of West Virginia, and President of the Twenty-third Eegiment Ohio Volunteers' Association. His time was almost entirely devoted to benevolent enterprises. He was President of the Board of Trus tees of the John Slater Educational Fund ; President of the National Prison Eeform Association ; an active member of the National Con ference of Correction and Charities ; a trustee of the Ohio State University at Columbus ; a trustee of Kenyon College at Gambier ; a trustee of the Western Eeserve University at Cleveland, of the Wesleyan University here at Delaware, of Mount Union College at Alliance, and of various other charitable and educational institutions. You can attest his usefulness in college work, you know and ap preciate his fidelity and his worth ; but who can tell the noble work done by this pure and enlightened man among the friendless inmates of asylums, almshouses, and prisons? God alone knows how many he lifted up to a higher and better life. He had a heart large enough to feel for all sufferers, and a disposition that prompted him to constant and generous effort in behalf of the depraved and unfor tunate. No ex-President ever passed the period of his retirement from the Executive chair to the grave with more dignity, self-respect, or public usefulness. None met him but to adraire the head and heart of the raan, and to marvel how he could have been so rauch misjudged and so often belittled, berated, and maligned. His old array comrades knew the stuff of which he was made ; knew that his every aspiration was manly ; knew that every fiber of his nature was true and steady. His old friends and neighbors at Fremont under stood him and appreciated his genuine worth, the simplicity and no bility of his character, better perhaps than any others. Your Board of Trustees and Faculty knew his strength, and had occasion to observe his unselfish devotion to the cause of greater enlightenment and higher education. General Hayes never spoke ill of any one, nor RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 651 slightingly, of friend or foe. He was a serious, earnest man, never a trifier. There was something in his life that reminds me of those lines of his favorite poem, Tom Taylor's tribute to Lincoln in Lon don Punch : He went about his work, — such work as few Ever had laid on head and heart and hand,— As one who knows, where there's a task to do, Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command ; Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow. That God makes instruments to work his will. If but that will we can arrive to know. Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill. It is too soon, perhaps, to form a just estimate of his character. He moved so quietly in our midst, so unostentatiously, and so entirely without assertion of rank or excellence. He was so at home with all classes and conditions of men that we failed to observe how superior he was in many of the qualities that go to make a great character. He was dUigent in whatever he undertook, fervent in purpose, with an abiding faith in the people, and a trustful confidence in God. We could not appreciate while he was with us how pure, how gentle, how true, how wise, how noble, how unselfish he was. His simplicity of manner, his purity and truth, his absolute freedom from pretense, veiled his excellences to the common mind. All felt that he was one of us, our brother, our friend, our comrade, our delightful and genial associate, whose presence was an inspiration, and whose companion ship was beneficent and uplifting. Yet in the short time we have had in which to sum up the elements of his character, we are sur prised at their strength, their virility, their exalted quality. Some of us may have partly appreciated them, or thought we did ; death alone reveals them in their perfection and grandeur. Corapare him with his contemporaries. They lived during a period favorable for the development of the highest quaUties of manhood, of soldiership, of statesmanship, of philanthropy. • Call the long and honorable roll ; others were perhaps his superiors in intellect, some were more bril liant, but, measured by the success achieved, measured by the work he wrought, none have surpassed him. He kept pace with the best in the race for usefulness and eminence. He was always advancing, never receding from any position that he won : His steps were slow, yet forward still He pressed where others paused or failed ; The calm star clorab with constant will, — The restless meteor flashed and paled ! 43 652 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OP WILLIAM McKINLEY. Wherein lies the secret of this remarkable career ? We must seek for it first in his early education. He was born to half- orphanage, his father having died before his birth. To the fact that he was so bereft, he himself attributed a certain chUdish and youthful inde pendence. True, he was adopted by his Uncle Birchard, but he was the solace of his mother, the man of the family. He had a good mother, a woman of strong character, who early instilled into his childish heart lessons of wisdom and virtue so strong that they in fluenced his whole Ufe and kept him clean. WhUe not so briUiant as some of his associates at college, he kept his course steadUy, studied faithfully, always had his lessons well prepared, and at the end gradu ated at the head of his class. He had also done this at the prepara tory school. We flnd him entering upon active life with good health, good education, good habits, and good morals — man's best armor. These, with a good intellect, a brave heart, and a fair opportunity, were a combination which was irresistible, and fairly interpret his suc cess. The opportunity, too, came to Hayes, and he entered its open door ready for duty and responsibility. At the bar, and as a soldier, he simply did his duty, but he did it well. As a member of Congress he was not prominent, but his record discloses no unwise vote or speech. As Governor of our State his administration was marked by but few unusual events, and yet some things were done that had long remained undone, and this brings me to a trait in his character which is most marked, and to which may, in good part, be attributed the success of his career. He was the very Genius of Common Sense. He was level-headed. He was with the people, never above the people. He brought every question to the test of plain every-day thought and experience. His mind was luminous with practical foresight. He saw men and things in their true relation, with almost prophetic instinct. Seeing so clearly what was best, he had the moral courage to decide for the right and trust " the safe appeal of Truth to Time." He was not indiffer ent to little things, not too much engrossed to attend to what ought to be done, even if it was no great undertaking. His whole life was crowded with little acts and deeds of love and kindness, of care and attention, of constant alleviation of pain and suffering and of want and misery. Ever the friend of education, he gave efficient service for years to that noble cause. He found, as Governor, that the provisions of the important law passed by Congress in 1862, and famUiarly known as the "Land Grant Act," upon which the Ohio State University and other simUar RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 653 institutions were founded, were not being compUed with. The act had been accepted by the Legislature of Ohio, the land scrip had been sold, and the proceeds deposited in the State Treasury. Three Governors had preceded him since that time. Three State adminis trations, in the sore troubles of war and reconstruction, had failed to establish the college it had guaranteed the National Government should be established for manual and scientiflc training. Governor Hayes set himself to the accomplishment of this work, secured the necessary legislation, and appointed the Board of Trustees that located and established the University on broad and enduring foun dations. It is no disparagement to the able men who composed this board, one of whom was your lamented townsman. Judge Thomas C. Jones, to say that when the full history of this achievement is written it will be found that behind and directing the forces which wrought this result was the plain, common, earnest, and practical Governor who appointed them. His success may partly be attributed to his manner of life, which was always plain, simple, and free from excess. He used neither in toxicants nor tobacco. He had at all times all his faculties at his command, and at the ripe age of threescore and ten " his eye was not dimmed, nor his natural strength abated." He never used glasses. The last time I saw him alive I could not but comment on his elasticity and vigor, and congratulate him, as I did, that his prospects for prolonged and lengthened years were apparently so excellent. He was of an unusually bright and sunny nature ; with his zeal and activity he made his merit known, and forced the respect and admira tion of his fellows. Step by step he rose to the highest eminence man can attain. That he might not be tempted to use the powers of the great office to promote his personal ambition, he renounced all thought of a second term of the Presidency, which many of his Ulustrious pre decessors had held or sought to hold, and became again a plain, sim ple, unpretending citizen, unsoured by ambition and unspoiled by power. He had borne himself bravely and well in a most trying period, and enrolled his name among the heroes of time. The in fluence of his example, the excellence of his work, the nobleness of his character, may well be treasured by all who appreciate the highest ideal of citizenship and the best type of American statesmen. General Hayes never deserted his colors, never compromised his convictions. Duty with him was masterful, and wherever it led he foUowed. In one of the engagements of the war he got in advance of the main line of the army with a part of his regiment and the 654 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES OF WILLIAM McKINLEY. regimental colors, and was moving to the front, apparently uncon scious that he was doing more than his simple duty, when an officer superior in rank to him called out from the main body of the troops, " Bring those colors back to the line I " Hayes answered with the swiftness of a minie ball, " Bring the line up to the colors ! " And without other orders, inspired by the confldent tone of the subordinate officer, the line pushed forward to the colors, with a cheer, charged the enemy, and drove him from his stronghold. He participated in the Grand Eeview which took place at the close of the war at the Capital of the Nation, and marched with the survivors of the grandest army of free men that ever assembled, after they had just won a complete triumph in as grand a cause as ever engaged mankind. Last year the survivors of that glorious army again assembled in the Capital City, and Hayes was again with them. He had fllled, since his last march, twenty-seven years before, the most illustrious position in human affairs — had been President of sixty millions of free people, the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. But on that hot summer day Hayes was again with his old comrades, not in chariot or tandem, not mounted on prancing steed. He was in the ranks, marching on foot through the dusty streets at the head of his old regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio, which he loved, and which loved him with undying devotion. This was the post of comradeship and honor he coveted most of all the honors so freely extended to him, and well illustrates the simple and sincere nature of the man, and the simplicity and equality of true American manhood. No retrospect of the career of Hayes would be complete that omits reference to his beautiful Christian character. He had a gen uine reverence for reUgion and a trustful reliance upon Divine Provi dence. He believed in the Church, its mission, and its ministrations. He was a regular attendant upon its services, delighted in its work. shared in its labors, and generously contributed to its support. Statesman, soldier, scholar — he was all these, and greater in all these because he was a true Christian gentleman who " feared God and walked uprightly." Abused and vilified, misunderstood and misin terpreted, he preserved his sunny face and kept his steady head, work ing faithfully on until death for his country and his countrymen, be cause he loved them both. He lived long enough to see a reversion of popular sentiment in his own favor, and died with the confidence and affection of all his countrymen. Posterity can be trusted to give him his rightful place in history, and a proud one it wUl be. INDEX. Abbott, Josiah G., 648. Abolition tax on State Banks. Discussion of, 610-615. Acts of Congress. Duties of Supervisors of Elections, 34, 35, 37 ; Maroh 3, 1881, pur chaae of bonds, 203, 263. Adams, John, 247, 432. Adams, John J., 162. Adams, John Quincy, 214, 248. Address at Canal Dover, Ohio, 215. Youngstown, Ohio, 220, 606. Canton, Ohio, 242, 515. Boston, 250. Atlanta, 337. New York, 358, 507. Philadelphia, 483. Cincinnati, 558. Columbus, 564, 633. Cleveland, 571. Ann Arbor, Mich., 574. Lakeside, Ohio, 583. Beatrice, Neby^589. Administration. The Cleveland, 225-241. Ad valorem duties. Encourage frauds and undervaluations, 278 ; difficult to flx, 299 ; free traders troubled about, 419, 420. Agricultural College law, 465. Agricultural products. Amerioan aud for eign compared, 244 ; imports in 1887, 311 ; imports in 1859 and 1889, 407. Agriculture. Promoted by protection, 6: " golden era " of, 81 : inorease in United States, 95 ; manufactures interdependent, 152; foundation of all industries, 242; scientific knowledge essential to, 243 ; condition of, 406. Agriculturist. Benefited by protection, 306 ; value of home market to, 307. Aiken, D. Wyatt. On greed of manufactur ers, 102; cotton ties, 110. Alabama. Population and vote, 169. Allen, John M., 457. Allen, 'William, 568. Allison, William B., 596. Aluminum. Duty on, 476. Amalgamated Iron and Steel Association, 155. Ambler, Jaoob A., 108. Amendments to the Federal Constitution, 167. Ammen, Daniel, 360. American Iron and Steel Association. Ee port on wages, 17. American manhood. " Higher type " of, 261. American market. For the American pro ducer, 257. Amerioan Press. Extracts from Wayne County Democrat, 25; Stark County Democrat, 28; Cincinnati Enquirer, 32; The Federalist, 48; Okolona States, 53; Chicago Times, 68 ; Atlanta Constitution, 103; Macon Telegraph and Messenger, 103; New York Tribune, 119; Boston Commercial Bulletin, 281 ; New York Herald, 328 ; Chicago Tribune, 425 ; New York Evening Post, 512 ; North American Eeview, 588, 619 ; Forura, 597 ; Boston Herald, 597, 625. Amerioan workingman. The, 558-561. AndersonviUe. Dying soldier at, 519. Anti-Lottery bill, 465. Anti- Option bill, 465. Anti-Trust bill, 465. Anvils. Duty on, 475. Appleton, Nathan. Price list of, 99. Appomattox. Its settlements embodied in Constitution, 182, 229. Apportionment. Of Eepresentatives to Con gress, 167. Appropriations. Coercive riders on, con demned, 45. Arnold, Matthew, 561. Arrington, Louis, 316. Arthur, Chester A, 193, 261. Asia. Wheat product of, 406. Atkins, J. D. C. On Army appropriation bill, 45. Atkinson, Edward. On Amerioan work men, 495 ; on wages of labor, 597, 598. Austin, Benjamin. Letter of Jefferson to, 490. Australia. Tin product of, 283. Austro-Hungary, 304. Balance of Trade. Under protection and free trade, 422. Ballot. Crimes against the, 55-61. Ballot, The. Frauds in the South, 167; con test for, 173, 380. Bankruptoy bill, 464. Banks. Deposits in favorito. 269. 656 INDEX. Barbour, William. Letter of, 315. Bayard, James A. On riders to appropria tions, 45. Bayard, Thomas F., 266, 378, 648. Bayno, Thomas M., 77, 405. Beck, James B. On Army appropriation bill, 44 ; on Democratic appropriations in 1886, 239. Belgium, 304. Bell, Isaac Southerin. Eeport ou iron in terests, 16. Bigelow, Prof. On foreign trade, 12. Binding Twine. Duty on, 479. Bingham, John A., 568. Bisby, Horatio, Jr. Contest against, 57. Bismarck, Prince, 123 ; eulogy on protection, 304. Blackburn, Joseph C. S. Quorum, how con stituted, 390, 391. Blaine, James G. Mentioned for President, 61; vote wickedly suppressed, 168j ma jority of electoral vote for, 169 ; Pans let ter in 1888, 256 ; reciprocity arrangements, 408 ; treaty with Brazil, 511 ; no dictation permitted, 515. Blair Educational bill. House refused to consider, 235 ; appropriations proposed under, 237. Blankets. Cost of, prices of, duty on, 321- 325. Boards of Election, 379. Boiler and Plate Iron, 473. Borax. On free list by MiUs bill, 282. Boteler, Alexander E., 108. Bounty. On sugar, 452. Bowen, Henry C. Noble sentiment of, 533. Boynton, W. W., 567. Bradley, Joseph P., 648. Bragg, Edward S., 212. Breckinridge, Clifton E., 502, 503. Breckinridge, W. C. P., 196, 298, 334, 387, 452, 504. Brice, Calvin S. On disturbance to busi ness, 637. Bright, John, 528. Bristow, Benjamin H., 647. British Honduras. Trade with, 350. Bronze. Importation of, 285. Brough, John, 378, 566. Brush, Charles, Jr., 567. Bryoe, James. Quotation from, 586. Buchanan, James. Messages of 1857 and 1858 on state of Union, 84. Bureau of Industry. Establishment of, 177. Bumet, Jacob, 567. Burr, Aaron, 565. Business. Peril to, how relieved, 286. Butterworth, Benjamin, 69. Bynum, WiUiam D., 296, 445. Cabinet. Eevision of tariff, proposed by, 685. Cairnes, John E. America's position on the tariff, 80. Calhoun, John C, 482, 528. Campbell, Jaraos, 816. Campbell, James E., 682, 542, 547, 548. Canada. Adopts protective system, 92. Cannon, Joseph G., 890. Carlisle, .John 6., 86; on "golden era," 81 ; on cotton ties, 110 ; compliment from Eng lish friends, 149 ; eleotion as Speaker pre dicted, 229 ; on oonstituti,onal quorum, 381, 883, 385, 387 ; on speoial Senate Committee, 596. Carpets. Product of, 418. Casey, Joseph. On distress of manufac turers, 82. Cass, Lewis. On ridere to appropriations, 47 ; minister to France, 513. Cast Steel. Cheapened by protection, 98. Caswell, Lucien B., 500. Cement. Duty on, 417. Central America. Trade with, 350. Cereal Products. Contrast under protection and free trade, 90 ; comparative produc tion of, 345. Certificates of Election. Prima facie right to ofBce, 62. Chaoe, Jonathan. On cotton ties, 110. Chalmers, James E. On elections, 49. Chamber of Commerce of Linoolnshire. Eesolution of, 330. Chandler, Zachariah, 273. Charlton, Hon. Mr. On Canadian trade, 408. Chase, Sahnon P., 369, 432, 567. Chemicals. Tariff on, 471. Chicago. Eetail prices in, 596. Chicago Convention. Vote on free-trade platform, 592. Choate, Eufus, 258. Cincinnati. Election of 1878, 40. Circulation. Per capita, 544. Civil-Service Eeform, 395, 396. Civil-Service Eeform. Ohio Eepublicans favor, 240. Civil War. Its settlements irreversible, 171, 365 ; losses of, 362, 518 ; purposes of, 864. Clardy, M. L., 321. Clay, Henry. On ohange of tariff policy, 14; grounds for advocating protection, 189 ; at Ashland, 247 ; opposed to ad va lorem duties, 299 ; happy transformation, 508. Clayton, John M. On riders to appropria tions, 45. Cleveland, Mr. A Eeply to, 487-497. Cleveland, Groyer. Southern majorities in 1884, 169 ; attitude on civil-service reform, 173 ; financial policy, 208 ; letter to Secre tary Manning, 210; dependent pension bill vetoed by, 212 ; efforta for free trade, 229 ; speech' at Paterson, 231 ; illogical attacks on protection, 258 ; repudiates publio law, 268 ; favors foreign manufac turers, 825 ; on cheapness, 448 ; direct tax bill vetoed by, 498; opposed to coining silver, 541; as "calamity howler," 596; speech in Ehode Island, 599. Cleveland, Ohio. Campaign speech at, 868 ; illegal voting in, 379. Cliffoi'd, Nathan, 648. Clothing. Eeady-made, under Mills bill, 282; coat of, 319. Cobb, James E., 504, 605. Cobb, Thomas E., 266. Cobden, Eiohard, 528. INDEX. 657 Codman, John. On prices of labor, 13. Coffee. Importation of, in 1877, 343. Coffey, John, 816. Coinage. — Silver. Suspended in 1305 by Jefferson, 454. C.oleman, Dr. Letter of Jackson to, 13. Coleman, H. Dudley, 503. Coleman, Peter. 41. Columbus, Christopher. Letter of, 631. Oomly, James M., 643. Commerce. Marvelous growth of United States, 94 ; contrast with foreign, 804. Commission, The Tariff, 70-105. Commission, Tariff. Demanded by business men, 72 ; opposed by Democracy, 73. Coramittee Meetings, 445—446. Common Carriers. Setdementof differences of, 196. Competition, Domestic. Begulates prices, 372. Compound Lard BiU, 465. Compton, Bames, 390. ConKr«ice Committee's Report, 471^31. Conner, Omar D. Eeport of, 72. Congress, The Fifty first, 4.59-46S. Congres of the United States. Seoond law esabliahed protection. 14 ; appropriations by Forty-fourth and Forty-lifth, 31 ; rep resentation in Forty-ninth, 167; resolu tion declaring purposes of rebellion, 64; roles of Fifty-first, 462 ; Fiity-seoond, plan of tariff revision, 577. Congressional Gerrymandering. 25-32. Congressional Gerrymandering. Evils of, 23 ; condemned by aU f^ men, 400 ; re peal demanded, 523. Conspiracy. The Maine, 56. Constitution of the United States. Extracts £Fom, Article 14, sections 2, 16T, 171. Consumer, American- Always pays duty under revenue tariff, 343; never under protective duties, 372; life easier under new tariff, 599. Conkling, John, 316. Conkling, Eoscoe, 273. Converse, George L., 549. Convict Labor. Manufactures of, prohibited, 400. Conway, Moncure D., 641. Cook, Philip, 111. Cooper and Hewitt. On iron trade in 1349. 1332. Coming, Erastus, 108. Cotton Ties. Duty on, 101, 109 : free imder Mill-; bill, hoop iron taxed, 296. Cowles, John P., 573. Cox, Jacob D., 573. Cox, Samnel S. For " British Cobden free trade," 593. Crain, WiUiam H., 3S6, 337. Crapo, WiHiam AV., ill. Crisp, Charles F., 381, 332. 390, 394. Crocker, George 6. " Quorum present, vote valid," 392. '' Crockery. Cost of, 113. Crook, George. 644. Culbertson, David B. On direot tax, 499. Cnminings, Amos J. Letters to N. Y. Sun on Dakota tin mines, 415. Currency. Best in the world, 613. Curtis, George William. Picture of a Puri tan, 432. Cushing's Digest Extracts from, 383, 384. Customs Adroinistrative Bill, 464. Customers. Americans the best, 603. Cutler, William P., 631. Dairy Products in 1330, 245. Dakota. Tin mines of, 2S3, 415. Dahlgren, John A., 360. Dallas, George M., 373. DalzeU, John, 351. Dana, Charles A., 560. Davies, J. C. Arbitration before, 7. Davis, Hemy Winter, 273. Dawes, Henry L., 261. Dayton, Ohio. Campaign speeoh at, 225. Deolaration of Independence. Expediency doubted, 363. Dedication of the Ohio Building, 630-632. Defeat of 1892. 633-639. Delano, Columbus, 568. Democratic National Conventions of 1356 aud 1360, 49 ; of 1392, 590. Democratic Convention. Ohio, of 1370, 236. Democratic resolutions. Favoring restora tion wool duty of 1367, 54li ; on tariff of 1592, 590. Dennison, William, 378, 566. Dependent Pension BlU. Veto of. 212-214. Dependent Pension BilL Questions in volved, 212 ; bill warranted by duty and situation, 213. Depew, Chauncey M. On American liberty, 535. Deputy Marshals. Duties of, 37 ; appointed in cities only, 39. DUlon, WiUiam J., 316. Direct Tax. Refunding BiU, 493-5'.U. Direct Tax. Tabular statement of, 500. Discriminations. In Wood BUi. 21. Dodge, J. E. Letters fit)m, 816, 4i36. Domain, The Public i See Pcblic La>-I)S.) Douglas, Stephen A. On riders to appro priations, 47, 432. Drawbacks. On imports for foreign trade, 349, 401. Dubuque, Iowa. Eetail prices in, 596. Duties. On pottery, 10 ; easy to reduce, 107 ; personal elfects in foreign travel, 899. Dunn, Poindexter. On wheat producers of Northwest and India, 309. Dun's Revievr of Trade. On business of coimtry, 639. Dupont, Samuel F., 360. Earthenware. Duties on. 10, 325. Eaton, WiUiam H. 74. 142. Economy. False showing ot, 239. Edison, 'Thomas A., 5^7. Edmunds, George F., 273. Eells, Daniel P., 571. Eight-Hour Law, The, 40Ji-4:0. Election Supervisors. Duties of, 35 ; their appointment constitutional, 36; arrests I without process, 33 ; law, how passed, 43. 658 INDEX. Electoral College. Southem Republicans ' denied expression in, 168. EUsraore, Mr. Testimony of, 8. England. Her polioy in trade, 92 ; system of duties, 340; only free-trade oountry, 680. English Press. Extracts from : Iron and Coal Trades Eeview, 147; Machinery- Market, 148 ; London Spectator, 149 ; Pall Mall Gazette, 149 ; Pottery Gazette, 117, 325, 829; London I'ost, 304; London Ironmonger, 399, 413; London Iron and Steel Trades Journal, 413,414 ; Nineteenth Century, 494 ; Londou TimeB, 655 ; Shef field Daily Tolegrara, 556; vanity Fair, 656 ; Enghsh Standard, 556 ; Leeds Week ly, 656 ; Western Morning News, 556 ; Manohester Exarainer, 556; Fair Play, 604 ; London Punch, 651. Eq_ual Suffrage, 165-180. Ene Eailroad. Tonnage of, 426. Evans, Eoger, 318. Ewing, Thomas, Jr. On Federal election laws, 59. Ewing, Thomas, Sr. On protection, 145, 567. Exports. Exceed importe under protection, 421. Exposition. International Electrical, at Paris, 559. Fairchilds, Charles S. On balance in Treas ury, 211 : purchase of bonds, 265 ; effect of increased duties, 402. Fall Eiver, Mass. Eetail prices in, 596. Farmer, The American, 242-249. Farmers, Amerioan. Charaoter and position of, 247 ; sraall farms preferable, 247. Farmers. Favor inorease of duties on wool, 158 ; denied a hearing, 278 ; discriminated against, 296 ; beneficiaries of protection, 852 ; comparative cost of labor, 406 ; duties for protection of, 528 ; needs of, 531 ; no class so beneflted by protection, 602 ; oon dition in England, 603. Farming. Most honorable of occupations, 246. Farragut, David G., 360. Federal Supervisors. (See Election Su per visors.) Field, Stephen J^ 648. Filibustenng in Congress, 387. Fillmore, Millard. Messages in 1851 and 1 852 on state of Union, 88. Flax. Manufactures of, 477. Florida. Frauds at elections in, 57. Folger, Charies J. Eeport of 1883, 205, 265. Follett. John F., 163. Foote, Andrew H., 360. Foraker, Joseph B., 180, 226, 240, 878, 532. " Force Bill," 462. Force, Manning F., 641. Foreign Producers. No right to equality, 294. Foreign Trade. Free materials for the, 450, 461. Foreign Trade. In 1878, imports and exports, 12: under revenue and protection tariffs, 374; imports and exports, 1870 to 1888, 423, 424 ; of year ending June 30, 1891, 650 ; exports trebled, imports doubled, 601 ; iu 1892, 621. Fort, Greenberry L. Eesolution of, 28. Foster, Charles. Action as Governor, 68: letter to, 69, 582. France. Commerce of, 304 ; wheat product of, 406 ; publio debt per capita, 428. Franchise. Crimes against, m Ohio. 531. Franklin, Benjamin. Manufactures raise price of land, 352. Fraudulent Marking. Penalties for, 399. Free List. Changes iu tariff of 1890, 417. Free Eaw Materials, 250-262. Free Soil and Pree Men. Inspiring senti raent of the Eepublican party, 225. Free Trade. Eflects of, 2 ; practicable with convict labor, 20 ; would reduce our labor to foreign standard, 74, 257; England's protection and profit, 91 ; voice of interest and selfishness, 93 ; unknown where labor is dignified, 105 ; not a National necessity, 159 ; inspired by foreign rivals, 259 ; gives our money to foreigners, 295 ; masses poorer under, 304 ; touches to injure. 333 ; changes homes to hovels, 429 ; demoral izes citizenship, 429 ; raakes millions des titute, 494 ; number who favor, 496 ; sti- fies home manufactures, 509 ; tears down, 580; kindles fires in foreign furnaces, 595. Free Wool. (See Wool Qoestiok.) Garfield, James A. Memorial Address on, 124-130. Garfleld, James A. Eeport of, 72; views of Wood Tariff' bill, 123; vacations of, 247 ; on Amerioan artisans, 559 ; on Elec toral Commission, 648. Garland, Austin M., 108. Gear, John H., 405, 412. George, Henry. Land-tax scheme of, 590. George, M. C", 451. Georgia. Suppression of Eepublican suf frage in, 67. Germany. Publio debt per capita, 428. Gerrymandering. (See Conoressional Gebrymahderikg.) Gerolt, Baron. Constant in friendship, 618. Giddings, Joshua R., 869. Gladstone, William E. On remedial legisla tion for Ireland, 635 : on Amerioan Con stitution, 587; on Amerioan Eepublic, 588; on English agriculturists, 603. Glass. Prices of, 821 ; increase of duties on, 404. Gould, Jay. Letter to A. S. Hewitt, 75. Government Annual expenditures, 252 ; blankets for the army, 823, 325 ; pays same duties as its citizens, 899 ; only debt it can not pay, 519 ; chief money creditors of, 644 ; relation to religion, 586. Government Bonds. The pui-ohase of, 263- 270. Government Bonds. Sale in I86(), 88. Grand Army of the Eepublic. First com mander of, 276 ; its circle narrowing, 367. Grant, Ulysses S. Memorial Address on, 481-444. INDEX. 659 Grant, Ulysses S. Mentioned for President, 61 ; eulogized by Logan, 275 ; letter ou duty of patriots, 434 ; on honest elections, 457 ; farewell address, 521 ; on military servioes of Hayes, 647. Great Britain. Commerce of, 304; publio debt per capita, 428. Greeley, Horace. Democratic Presidential candidate, 184 ; protection benefits farm ers, 510 ; prophetic words of, 513. Groesbeck, William S., 667. Hagan, Philip, 313. Halstead, Murat, 641. Hamilton, Alexander, 369, 432. Hamlin, Hannibal, 273. Hamraond, Charles, 567. Hammond, Nathaniel J., 63. Hancook, Winfield S., 359. Harold. Anecdote of, 617. Harris, Ishara G., 690. Hanison, Benjamin. Eooiprocity treaty with Brazil, 511 ; notifled of renomina tion, 681. Harrison, William Henry, 567. Harrison, Eiohard A. 6n Ohio bar, 567. Harter, Michael D. Opposed to free silver, 541. Hartranft, John F., 647. HaskeU, Dudley C, 123. Hawley, Josepli E., 261. Hayes, John L. On prices of woolens, 100 ; meraber of Tariff Coramission, 108. Hayes, Eutherford B. Memorial Address on, 640-654. Hayes, Eutherford B. Message of 1878, 50 ; Administration indorsed, 60 ; daily jour nal, 643, 645. Hayes, Titus, 222. HemphUl, John J., 456. Henderson, David B., 414. Hendricks, Thomas A. Alarm about " the surplus," 207. Herbert, HUary A., 815, 500. Hewitt, Abrara S. On iron and steel pro duction, 17 ; supervisors of eleotion, 41 ; lettor to Jay Gould, 74 ; benefits of pro tection, 93 ; uncertainty of business, 97 ; supports Mon-ison bill, 133, 142,166; on wages, 157; colloquy with Eandall, 231, 450, 451. Heyl, Lewis. Extract from Digest, 113. Hill, David B. Speech iu Brooklyn, 618 ; his position repudiated by his party, 620. Hiscock, Frank, 266, 596. Hitt, Eobert E., 408. Hoadley, George, 178, 682, 667. Hoar, George F., 261, 564, 648. HoUand, 30'4. Holmes, Uriah, 222. Homes, Amerioan. Our strength and seou rity, 560. Home Market Made by domestic manu facturers, 151 ; best and safest, 309. Hooker, Thomas H., 859. Hopkins, Albert J., 298. Horses. Imported from Canada, 407. Hunton, Eppa, 648. Hurd, Frank H. On eleotion supervisors, 38; powers of Executive, 48; in contest against Judge Taylor, 65 ; joint resolution on tariff', 132 ; duties on wool, 161. Husband, Herman, 228. Hu.xley, Thomas H. On Ul-paid labor, 491. Idaho. Adraission of, 466. Illicit Distilling. Provisions of Mills bill, 298. Iraraigration. Eepublicana oppose indis criminate, 237. Importations. Stimulated by lower duties, 285; diminish horae productions, 310- displace American labor, 374 ; diminished by increased duties, 402; volume under tariff of 1890, 622. India. Wheat product of, 406. Industrial development. New era in the South, 348. Industrial independence. Harraony of in terests essential to, 249. Inland Marine. Business of, in 1889, 425. Internal Eevenue System. Its abolition considered, 235 ; taxation reduced, 398 ; in tariff of 1890, 480. Inventiveness. A National trait, 558. Irish Potatoes. Great food product, 244; imporbi from Canada, 407. Iron. Product of, in 1887, 425. Ironton, Ohio. Campaign speech at, 165. Issues make Parties, 674-580. Issues of 1892, 609-629. Italy. Wheat product of, 406; publio debt per capita, 428. Jackson, Andrew. Letter to Dr. Coleman, 13; message of 1829 on pensions, 214; manufactures essential to independence, 249 ; on diversity of labor, 352 ; on consti tutionality of protection, mesaage of 1830, 592. Jefferson, Thoraas, 193, 235, 247, 248 ; letter to Jean Baptiste Say, 490 : letter to Ben jarain Austin, 490 ; on incorae tax, 590. Jooharas, Andris. Letter of, 326. Jones, George, 660. Jones, John P., 271. Jones, Thoraas, 314. Jones, Thomas C, 663. July Fourth at Woodstock, 538-538. July Fourth at Lakeside, 583-588. Kasson, John A., 111. Keep, John. Prophecy on abolition of slavery, 572. Kelley, William D. Memorial Address on, 447-449. Kelley, ¦William D. Eeport of, 72 ; condi tion of country under free trade, 86. Kennan, George, 567. Kenner, Duncan F., 108. Ken, Daniel, 415. King, J. Floyd, 111. Kiug, Eufus, 345. Kingsley, Charles. Hypocritical cant of free traders, 489. Kirkpatrick & Co., 416. Kohlsaat, H. H., 437. 660 INDEX. Labor, American. First to suffer from low tariffs, 17; supplanted by importations, 310; raost interested in protection, 851; demand for increased, by tariff of 1890 ; maintains its own, 697. Labor Arbitration, 196, 199. Labor Arbitration. No compulsion con templated, 196 ; amicable adjustment pro moted, 197 ; scope of proposed law, 197 ; expense bome by National Treasury, 198 ; best way of settling differences between labor aud capital, 199. Laborers. Petition for inorease of duties, 3. Lafayette, Marquis de. On Ohio pioneers, 565. Lands. Prices in Pennsylvania and Vir ginia, 191; in Kentucky and Ohio, 192; forfeitures of unearned publio, 466. Lawrenoe, Mass. Prosperity under pro tection, 79. Lee, Eichard Henry, 845. Loe, Eobert E., 192". Lee, W. H. F., 297. Lincoln, Abraham. His confidence m the people, 241 ; tribute to soldiers, 866 ; opin ion of Grant's generalship, 438 ; promise of, 466 ; aversion to cheap men, 491 ; ou saving the Union, 586 ; speeohes in Ohio, 569 ; reliance upon Divine power, 585 ; inaugurals of 1861 and 1866, 685, 586 ; not concerned about Gettysburg, 607. Liquor Traffic. Taxation of, 226. Live Stook. Exports of, 246. Logan, John A. Meraorial Address on, 271-276. Long, John D., 206. Louisiana. Election in, 65 ; white and col ored population, 169. Low, Abiel A., 108. Lowell, Mass. Prosperity under protection, 79. Lumber. Imports from Canada, 407. Macbeth, George A. Exaraination of, 404. Madison, James, 214, 236, 247, 346, 369, 432. Maddock, John. On English pottery in terests, 116. MacGahan, J. A., 567. Mahan, Asa, 573. Mahoue, WUliam, 181, 188, 193. Maine. Atterapt at usurpation in, 56. Manchester, Eng. Contrasted with Ameri oan cities, 79. Manning, Cardinal. On hours of labor, 470 : on free trade, 494 ; on cultivation of land in England, 604. Manning, Daniel. Letter of resignation, 209 ; objeotions to ad valorem duties, 301. Manufactures. Amerioan exhibit at Cen tennial, 15 ; discriraination against, by Wood Bill, 21 ; " golden era " of, 82; pro hibited by England in colonies, 93 ; de struction fatal to Araerican labor, 98. Markets of the World. " A free-trade shad ow-dance," 281, 350. Marshall, Chief Justioe, 246, 482. Martin, William, 816. Martin and Tingle. Eeport on ad valorem duties, 800. Massachusetts. Beneflts from proteotionj Mason, James M. On riders to appropria tions, 47. Matthews, Stanley, 667. McClellan, Geor^ B., 359. McComas, Louis E., 469. McCray, George W. On certificates of elec tion, 63. McCuUough Hugh, 108, 451. McLane, Eobert M. Quorum, how secured, od9, 392. McLean, John, 567. McMahon, John A On deputy marshals, ,,*i^' ™ "^^^ to appropriations, 44. MoNulty, Caleb, 572. McPherson, James B., 522. Meade, George G„ 359. Meat Inspection, 465. MendenhaU, Thomas C, 567. Merchant Marine. How to encourage, 424 Metal Sehedule. Act of 1890, 409, 410, 472. Mexico. Trade with, in 1887, 850. MUler, Samuel F., 648. MiUs, Eoger Q. On results of protection, 332 ; on iniportations, 332, 453. Mills Tariff BUl, 290-835. Mills Tariff BiU. Fashioned outside of Comraittee, 277 ; points of agreement, 290 ; increased revenues, 293, 295; duties on raw materials increased, finished products diminished, 296; not an American meas ure, 303 ; effeots of passage, 312. Mining. Increase iu United States, 95. Minnesota. Election in, 56. Mississippi. Suppression of suffrage in, 56 ; white and colored population, 169. Money. Worst form passes current, 526. Monroe, James, 214, 286, 248. Monroe, Jaraes, Prof., 673. Montana. Adraission of, 466. Moore, J. S., 446. Morey, Henry L., 470. Morgan, John, 573. Morrill, Justin S., 273. MorrUl Tariff BUl. Basis of Morrison bUl, 184 ; foundation of our greatest prosperity, 427 ; b^inning of new era, 555, 556. Morris, Gouverneur. Views on constitu tional quorum, 888. Morris, Theodore W., 153. Morris, Thoraas, 568. Morrison, William E., 143, 148, 152, 157, 184, 206, 209, 450. Morrison Tariff BiU, 181-159. Morrison Tariff BiU. Ambiguous and un certain, 134 ; mode of laying duties con fusing, 135 ; too uncertain for pubUo law,' 136: ooraplexities illustrated, 137; iron, steel, woolen, and cotton schedules, 138 ; horizontal reduction invention of indo lence, 140 ; ita fitting corollary, 140 ; would inorease importations, 142 ; on wages, 156 ; date introduoed, 234. Morrow, Jereraiah, 568. Moi-so, Leopold, 319. Moi-se, Samuel F. B., 218, 222. Mortgages. Often Evidences of Prosperity, 546. INDEX. 661 Morton, Levi P., 513. Morton, Oliver P., 273, 648. Mugwumps. All free traders, 251. Mulhall, Michael 6. On growth of manu factures, 94, 347. Mundella, A. J. Letter to, 493. Nash, George K. Opinion of, 69. Naval Offioer Burt. Eeport ou ad valorem duties, 300. Navigation Act Supplement to, 93. Nebraska Chautauqua Association. Invita tion 0^ 589. Nelson, Knute, 297. New England. Markets of, 307; value to farmers, 308 ; contrast with Old England, 309: needs protection, 251. New England and the Fulure, 482-486. New Hampshire. Eleotion case, 65. New York Central Eailroad. Tonnage of, 426. Niedringhaus, F. 6. Letter of, 416. Niles, Ohio. Carapaign speeoh at, 539. No Comproraise with the Deraagogue, 523- 682. North Dakota. Admission of, 466. Not a Candidate, 366. Notification Address to Mr. Harrison, 581, 682. Noyes, Edward F., 513, 647. Nullification. Ordinance of, 691. Oates, WUliam C, 886, 499. Oberlin College, 671-573. Offensive Partisanship, 630-632. O'Hara, Theodore. Quotation from, 522. Ohio BuUding. Dedication of the, 630-632. Ohio. Congressional apportionment of, 24 ; vote and pluralities, 25 ; Eepublican plat form of 1878, 29 ; growth of Mahoning iron industries, 96; Eepublican platform of 1886, 106 ; farm statistics, 248 ; good Gov emors of, 378; appropriations for, 532: rank by population, 564; character of early settlera, 566 ; growth of, since 1876, 682. Ohio Campaign of 1891, 539-563. Ohio. The State of, 564^^570. Ohio Victory of 1891, The, 562, 563. Oliver, Henry W., Jr., 108. Ordinanoeof 1787, 565. Original Package Law, 465. Orrville, Ohio. Campaign speeoh at, 459. Owens, James W., 450. Panics. Always preceded by enormous im portations, 846. Parties. Have always existed, 368 ; neces sary to popular govemment, 574. Patent Offloe. Comraissioner of. Patents f ranted in 1887, 305 ; annual average past ecade, 668. Paterson, N. J., 231. Payne, Henry B., 378, 648. Pearl River. Concession as to harbor, 503. Peck, Charles F. Eeport as Labor Commis- sioner, 624. PeeUe, William A., Jr. Eeport as Labor Commissioner, 624. Pendleton, George N. Views on green backs, 27. Pennsylvania Eailroad. Tonnage of, 426. Pensions. The Payraent of, 200-202. Pension Arrears. Law of 1878, 177. Pension DisabUity Bill, 466. I^ensions and the Publio Debt, 515-522. Perry, Aaron F., 567. Petersburg, Virginia. Campaign speech at, 181. Peterson's Counterfeit and Bank-Note De tector. On condition of State bank raoney, 611 ; not needed under Republican rule, 614. Phelps, John S., 108. Philadelphia. Campaign speeoh at, 609 ; birth of Eepublican party, 576 ; energy and spirit of, 609. Phillips, James, Jr. On the world's mar kets, 281. Phister, Elijah C, 390. Phosphorus. Manufacture of, 626. Pig Iron. Southern production of, 348; duties under aot of 1890, 409. Pinckney, Charles J., 613. Plate Glass Trast. Circular of, 327 ; investi gation of, 328. Pope, John, 522. Population. White and colored in South, 169. Porter, David D., 359. Porter, Robort P. On Distress in Blaok District, 119. Pottery Assooiation, United States. Report of, 11. Pottery, American interests threatened, 5 ; English and Amerioan contrasted, 7 ; ar tistic, 11 ; arbitration in Staffordshire, 115 ; growth of industry from 1860, 403 ; de crease in price, 404 ; duties on, 471. Powell, Edwin. Views of, 9. Powell, George Baden. On colonial trade, 92. Power, James D. Beport on ad valorem duties, 300. Price, John, 573. Prices, American. Under protection and free trade, 99 ; not foreign cost duty add ed, 324 ; necessaries and comforts in 1892, 696 ; lower than ever before, 596. Producers. Manufacturers' interests iden tical with, 255. Prospect and Retrospect, 220-224. Protection. Develops mineral resources, 5; insures home competition, 6 ; established by First Congress, 14 ; true National poli cy, 19, 70; raaintams National credit, 22; voioe of labor, 93 ; reduces prices, 99 ; es sential to prosperity, 159 ; for aU or none, 251 ; opposed by Angloraaniaos, 261 ; de fined, 298 ; secures free trade between the States, 294; keeps our money at home, 295; general effects of, 301; encourages inventions, 301 ; not responsible for trusts, 327 ; noncompeting products free, 341 ; not paid by consumers, 343 ; insures pros perity, 427 ; widens sphere of endeavor, 428; widest encouragement, largest re wards, 430 ; nations and people favoring, 662 INDBX. 496; taxes luxuries, 509; silences false prophecy, 512; builds up, 580; doctrine ot patnotism, 594: not burden, but bless ing, 604; our rank under, 605; petitions lor, in 1789, 616 ; surer aud safer in raising revenue, 618. Protection and Eevenue, 368-380. Protection and the South, 337-354. Protection. The Triumph of, 589-605. Protective System. Dootrine of self-pres ervation, 345. Protective Tariff. (See Protection.) Public Credit. Condition in 1860, 87, 88 ; contrast in 1889, 375. Public Debt Eeduced under protection, 95, 375 ; araount at close of war, 180 ; de crease per year and day, 427 ; araount per capita, 428 ; rapid extinguishment of, 467 ; interest on, and pensions, contrasted, 520. Pugh, George E., 568. Quorum. The Question of a, 381-394. EaUroada. MUeage and tonnage of, 425. Eandall, Samuel J., 201, 209, 231. Eandolph, John. Anecdote of, 191. Ranney, Rufus P., 567. Raura, Green B., 192. Rawlins, John A., 431. Reciprocity. "Aldrich Amendraent," the, 479 ; treaties with Brazil, Cuba, Gennany, Italy, etc., 623. Rederaptlon Fund. Araount of, 208. Reece's Chart of Prioea, 99. Reed, Thomas B., 206, 211, 356. Reid, Whitelaw. Editor-of Tribune, 518; minister to France, 513; candidate for Vice-President, 629; raiUtary aervices of Hayes, 646. Religion. An Auxiliary to, 606-608. Reno, Jesse L., 622. Representation. States and districts robbed of, 228. Republic. Three events in history of, 533, 534 ; Gladstone's prophecy, 588. Republican Conventions of Ohio. In 1878, 29 ; in 1885, 105 ; in 1887, 238. Republican Party. Its glory fills the world, 241 j record unrivaled, 624 ; but three National defeats, 683; contrasted with Democratic party, 684. Resolutions of 1798, 193. Eevenues. Eeduotion of, contrast between parties, 286-289. Eevenue Tariff. (See Tariff for Eevenue ONLY.) Eevolutionary Fathers. Character of, 688- 586. Eevolutionary War. Purposes of, 363. Eioe, Araerious V. Eeport by, 53. Eice Association of Georgia. On wages, 78 ; growth of industry under protection, lOO. Eiders to Appropriations. Discussion of, 44^48 ; iniportant legislation by, 267 Eivor and Harbor bill, 234. Eoiioh, John, 16. Eosecrans, 'William S., 643. Eoas, John II., 315. Eowan, Stephen C, 860. Russell, John E., 298. EusseU, WUliam A. Statistics by, 78. Eussia, 804, 406 ; public debt, per capita, St Louis Stamping Co. Letter from, 417. Savings Banks. Deposits m, 428, 479. Sayler, Milton, 15. Soaramon, E. P., 644. Schenck, Eobert C., 273. Sciiofleld, John M., 489. Schools, Our Publie, 216-219. Schools, PubUo. Free to all, 215; include higher studies, 216; afford equal oppor tunities, 217 ; iraportance of exact knowl edge, 218 ; have a purpose, 219. Scott, WiUiara L., 296, 338. Soott Winfleld S., 641. Searles, John E., Jr. Letter from, 453. Secretary of the Treasury. Eeport of 1878, 12; ofl831,94; ofl883,265; ofl887,265: of 1847, 292; of 1890, 500. Sedgwick, John, 522. Senate Tariff BiU, 355-367. Senate, United States. The First, 585 ; re ply to Washington, 585. Sessions, George, 210. Seward, WUliam H. On riders to appro priations, 46; 432; message to Prussia, 518. Sowing Machines. Price of, 315. Shaw, J. C. Testimony of, 7. Sheep. Imports from Canada, 407. Shellabarger, Sarauel, 568. Sheridan, PhUip H., 359. Sherman, John. Indorsed for President, 60; for Senator, 165; re-elected Senator, 181 ; at Boston, 250 ; ou validity of law of 1881, 266. Sherman, Eoger, 345. Sherman, Wmiam T., 369, 879. Shipherd, John J., 673. Sickles, Daniel E. At Gettysburg, 607. Silver BiU, The, 454, 455. SUver. Free and unliraited coinage of, 589, 543. Sraith, Goldwin. On agricultural schedule oftariffof 1890, 407. Sraith, William J., 316, 404. Soldier. The Amerioan volunteer, 868-367. Sorghum, 244. South America. Trade with, 350. South Carolina. White and colored popu lation, 169. South Dakota. Admiasion of, 466. Southard, Milton I., 33, South, The. Inaugurated protective system, 846 ; offers bounties to manufactories, 629. Sowden, W. H., 296. Spain. PubUc debt, per capita, 428. Speciflc Duties. Always uniform, 299. Spencer, Herbert, 559. Springer, WiUiara M., 122, 384, 401. Stanton, Edwm M., 431, 432, 667 ; his single purpose, 669 ; at Lincoln's deathbed, 570. State Banks. Notes of, 610; number of worthless, 613. Statutes of United States. (See Acts of CoNOREsa.) INDEX. 663 Steel BUlets. Duty on, 296, 475. Steel Eails. Product in 1887, 425 ; duty on, 474. Steel Shipping. Tonnage of, 425. Stephens, Alexander H. Views on Potter Committee, 31. Stevens, Thaddeus, 273. Storer, Bellamy, 567. Strikes. Protection not responsible for, 376. Strong, WUliam, 648. Struble, Isaao H., 320. Structural Iron and Steel, 473. Sugar. Duty on, 452, 453. Sullivan, Sir Edward. On labor under pro tection and free trade, 77 ; blasting effects of free trade, 304. Sumac. Duty on, 187. Suraner, Charles. Eulogized by Logan, 274. Surplus in the Treasury, 203-211 ; corapel- ling President to buy bonds, 203 ; pur chases by parties contrasted, 204 ; Demo- oratio majority responsible for, 232. Swan, Joseph E., 567. Swank, James M. Statisties on iron and steel, 79. Swayne, Noah, 567. Systems, not schedules, on trial, 333. Tappan, Benjamin, 568. Tariff'. Eeduotions by, 108 ; definition of, 185; protective, not paid by consumer, 343 ; public scrutiny into, 397 ; those who oppose, 259, 260; revenue and protective periods contrasted, 346, 347 ; iteras of aot of 1890, 471 ; araended by Senate, 471 ; of Washington, Jefferson, Harailton, Madi son, 547, 648 ; constitutionality of, 613. Tariff of 1883, 106-123. Tarift'of 1890, 397^30. Tariff Commission. Membei's of, 108. Tariff Eevision. Demand for, 106 ; to cor rect, not destroy, 334 ; not in constitutional manner, 685. Tariff for Eevenue Only. By whom de manded, 96; condemned by our experi ence, 106; encourages frauds and under valuations, 278 ; proper subjects for taxa tion under, 293; revenue tariff defined, 338 ; always paid by consumer, 372 ; prices under, fixed by foreigners, 373 ; English deolaration, 496; sugar dutiable under, 553. Tariff Reform. Delusive theories of, 353, 577, 578. Taxation. Reduced Under protection, 95, 874 ; old as Govemment, 337 ; Americans least taxed people, 377. Taylor, Ezra B. Contest against, 62-69. Taylor, Thomaa. Tribute to Lincoln, 651. Taylor, Zachary, 641. Tea. Importation of, in 1877, 343. Telegraph. First raessage in 1844, 218. " Ten-dollar Suit" Incident of, 320, 321. Thomas, George H., 359. Thompson, Jacob, 178. Thompson, John B. Report by, 67. Thurman, Allen G. Views on greenbacks, 28; on riders to appropriations, 44, 647, Tiffin, Edward, 560, 566. Tilden, Sarauel J. Debate with Greeley, 513 ; abilities as organizer, 648. Tin Plate. Eeport of U. S. Iron and Tin- plate Co., 89 ; free under MUls bUl, 283 ; and sheet iron taxed, 298 ; world's supply, 283 ; importation of, 285 ; duties, aot of 1890, 411 ; President may admit free, 554 ; product of, in 1892, 625. Tobacco. Tax on, 233, 298. Tod, David, 232, 566. Tonnage. Our doraestic and foreign, 424. Tools, Araerican. Best in the world, 559. Townsend, Amos, 16. " Trammels of Trade." Discussion of, 312. Treaty. The Hawaiian, 502-506. Tribune's Jubilee, The, 507-614. Trumbull, Jonathan, 345. Trusts. Of foreign origin, 327 ; encouraged by MiUs biU, 829. " Tuoker, J. Eandolph. Resolution of, 52; remarks by, 118, 141, 184: revenue duty defined, 339 ; constitutional quorum, 390 ; on direot tax, 499. Tupper, Sir Charles. Opposed to free trade, 331 Turner, Henry 6., 162. Turner, Oscar, 73. Undervaluations. Encouraged by ad va lorem duties, 278. Underwood, John W. H., 108. United States. Progress under protection unparalleled, 94; growth of population, 145 ; development from 1860 to 1880, 146 ; sum of industries, 347 ; water carriage, 424 ; manufactures of, in 1889, 425 ; pub lic debt per capita, 428; its two great debts, 519 ; debts. National, State, oounty, decrease of, 546. Updegraff, Jonathan, 86, 90. Van Buren, Martin, 247. Veto Power. Discussed by The Federalist, 48; coraraended by Deraocratic National Conventions, 49. Views of the Minority, 277-289. Virginia. What proteotion means to, 181- 195. Voluntary Arbitration. Recognized in law, 196. Vote. Of Northern and Southern States, 167. WadOj Benjamin F., 261, 869. Wadlm, Horace G. Eeport aa Labor Com missioner, 624. Wages. Inorea.«ed by proteotion, 16; in Scotland and United States, 18 ; reduction object of revenue reform, 121 ; threatened by Morrison bill, 157 ; at Cologne, 316 ; in Saxony, 317 ; of rice growers in the South, 317 ; in China, Japan, India, 318 ; in United States in 1892 higher than ever before, 597; of English agricultural la borers, 604 ; inorease of, 624. Waite, Morrison R., 567. Walker, Eobert J. Author of tariff of 1846, 230 ; definition of revenue tariff, 292. 664 INDEX. Wallace-McKinley contest, 160-164. Warner, A. J., 214. Washburn, ¦William D. Contest against, 56. Washburne, Elihu B., 613. Washington, George. At Mount Vemon, 246 ; on agriculture, 248 ; no disinterested fa vors among nations, 340 ; on publio oredit, 525 ; favored protection, 527 ; signed first protective tariff law, 535, 591 ; wore home made clothes at inauguration, 536 ; on Ohio Valley, 564; on Marietta, 565; in augural add.ress, 585. Washington. Admission of, 466. " Waving of Bloody Shirt." What it means, 182. Wealth. Increase of, 347. Webster, Daniel, 246 ; 369 ; views of tariff in 1820 and 1846, 420, 421 ; on disordered currency, 527 ; description of celebration at Philadelphia in 1788, 628. Weihe, WiUiam, 316. Wellborn, OUver, 133. Wells, David A. Letter from, 493. West Indies. Trade with, 350. Wheat. Ohio product of, 246 ; competition with world's product, 406. White, A. C, 155. Whittier, John 6. Quotations from, 195, 222, 483, 486, 651. Whitthorne, 'W. 0. On growth of American trade, 94. Williams, D.T., 155. Williams, Jere N., 45. WiUiams, Thomas, 154, 314. Williams, William. Noble sentiment of, 516. Wilmot Proviso, 575. ¦WUson, Benjamin, 64. Wilson, Henry, 261. Wilson, WUIiara L. On Democratic Na tional Platforra of 1892, 619, 620. Winchell, George D. Letter from, 417. Windom, WiUiam, 467, 500. Window Glass. Importation of, 286. Wire Fencing. Duty on, 296. Wire Nails. Duty on, 296, 579. Wise, George D., 185. Wise, John S., 182, 193. Wood. Fernando, 30, 184, 223. Wood' Tariff Bill, 1-22; general features of, 1 ; its injurious effects, 4 ; such legislation not wanted, 22. Wool. Clip of 1880, 245; importation in 1877, 279 ; product in 1887, 279 ; duty on, by Act of 1883, 285; duties increased by tariff of 1890, 409 ; lowprice of, 548 ; raanu factures of, 625 ; schedule of Aot of 1890, 476. Wool Question. Discussion of, 175; free wool, free woolens, 254 ; free wool by Mills biU, 279-282, 578. Workingmen. Testimony of, 313-316 ; reso lutions of English, favoring protection, 330 : American, truly independent, 658. World's Fair at Chicago, 559. Worsteds. Manufacture revived, 468. Worthington, Thomas, 568. Wright, G. Frederick, 573. Writing Paper. Iraportation of, 285. Wyoimng. Adraission of, 466. Years of Depression, 508. Years of Plenty, 608. Young, Edward. Estimate of, 1. Youngstown, Ohio; Growth of, 222. THE END. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLI CATIONS. The History of Bimetallism in the United States. By J. Laurence Laughlin, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Political Econ omy in Harvard University ; author of " The Study of Political Eoonomy," eto. ¦With Sixteen Charts and numerous Tables. Svo. Cloth, |3.25. " Prof. Laughlin's excellent work is timely and valuable. It re-enforoes the suggestions of politioal sagacity and business prudenoe by the wamings of scientiflc investigation and foresight." — Sew York Tvmes. " The book is not a treatise on the theory of bimetallism, but is a history of bimetalUsm, the theory being discussed only so far as the hard facts in the country's experience have direotly borne upou some part ofthe theory." — Chicago Evening Journal. Financial History of the United States, from 1774 to 1789, EMBBACINa THE PERIOD OP THB AMERICAN REVOLUTION. New edition, thoroughly revised. By Albert S. Bolles, Professor in the ¦Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania ; Editor of " The Banker's Magazine." Svo. Cloth, $3.50. Financial History of the United States, from 1789 to 1860. By Albert S. Bollbs. Svo. Cloth, $3.50. Financial History of the United States, from 1861 to 1885. By Albert S. Bolles. Svo. Cloth, $3.50. "The difficulties, dangers, and triumphs of the Government's fiscal operationa early in the war are well portrayed, and the wonderful course of the debt-paying outlined. The inception and progress of the national banks are described ; also the system of internal taxation, the tariff, the whiskey frauds, eto. The book is tho best financial history the oountry has thus far." — Chicago Trihune. " These volumes have been accepted as standard authorities on the subject-matter treat ed, both in this country and in Europe. ^We are thus put in possession of the entire facts in the fiscal policies of the latest bom among the nations of the earth. It is manifest that they must erabrace a mass of events whioh in their relations and sequence are of the highest interest and value to the student of human soeiety." — PhUadePphia Times. A Critical Examination of our Financial Policy during the Southern Rebellion. By Simon Newcomb. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. " The objects of the essay are to trace our preaent financial system to its effeota on the power of our Govemraent, the permanence of our institutions, the future well-being of society, and other great national interests ; to show how oertain principles of sooial science are illustrated in its workings ; and incidentally to inquire in what ways it may be im proved." — From the Preface. New York: D. APPLETON «& CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. Public Debts : AN ESSAY IN THE SCIENCE OP PINANCE. By Henry C. Adams, Ph. D., of the University of Michigan, and Cornell University. Svo. Cloth $2.50. CONTENTS.— Part I. Public Borrowing as a Financial Poliov. Modem Public Debts; Politioal Tendencies of Publio Debts; Sooial Tendencies of PubUc Debts ; Indus trial Effects of PubUo Borrowing ; Whon may Statos Bori„w Money ?— Part II. National Deficit Financiering. Financial Management of a War ; Classification of Publio Debts- Liquidation of War Accounts ; Peace Management of a PubUo Debt; Payment of Public Debts.— Part III. Local Deficit Finanoieeing. Compaiison of Local with National Debts; State Indebtedness between 1830 and 1850; Municipal Indebtedness; Policy of Restricting Governmental Duties. " Dr. Adams has rendered an important service, in this painstaking treatise both to flnancial science m general and to Amerioan financial bistory in particuUr Th'e sooial politioal, and industrial effects of public borrowing and of interest paying are methodical] v unfolded. The mysteries and sophisms that have grown up Uke weeds about public debts are cleared away m language addressed to scholars, but not too recondite to be understood by any reader of fair education." — Jew Tork Evening Post. "Thoroughly admirable in its care and detaU, and altogether the worthiest of recent publications on economics."- .Bostore Commerdal Svlletin. Money and the Mechanism of Exchange. By W. Stanley Jevons, Professor of Logic and Political Economy in Owens College, Manchester. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. " Prof. Jevons writes in a sprightly but colorlesa style, without trace of either prejudioe or mannerism, and shows no oommitment to any theory. The time is not very far distant, we hope, when legislators will cease attempting to legislate upon money before they know what money is ; and, as a possible help toward such a change, Prof. Jevons deserves the credit of having made a useful oontribution to a department of study too much neglected, but of lato years, we are gratified to say, becoming less so." — Sew Torh Financier. " The author offers us what a clear-sighted, cool-headed, scientific student has to say on the nature, properties, and natural laws of money, without regard to local interests or national bias. His work is popularly written, and every page is replete with solid instruc tion of a kind that is just now lamentably needed by multitudes of our people who are victimized by the grossest fallacies." — Popular Science Monthly. Elements of Economics. By Henry Dunning Macleod, M. A., Barrister-at-Law, selected by the Royal Commissioners for the Digest of the Law to prepare the Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Bank Notes, etc. Lecturer on Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. In two volumes. I3mo, Cloth, $1.75 each. " The author attempts to establish an exact science of economics on a mathematical basis — to establish ' a new inductive science ' ; and he presents what he calls ' a new body of phenomena brought under tho dominion of mathomatios.' " — Sew York World. " A work whioh is destined to bo of inestimable valuo to publicists and students. Mr. Maoleod treats of the relation between value and quantity of labor imd coat of produc tion, holding that tho relation between supply and demand is the sole regulator of value, and that value is the inducement to the production of profits."— 5<. Lovis Sepxihlican. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 3 9002 ^