TARIFF REVISION 451 



to us as a people, economically and morally. If there is an honest rate 

 in the present tariff I am unable to name it after two or three years of 

 study, and if shown one I should be obliged to think it accidental. It 

 could not have come upon careful consideration and exliaustive de- 

 termination, for there has been no governmental process by which a 

 rate could be made scientific and right. Our tariffs have been made by 

 men almost wholly inexperienced in that work. Mr. McKinley, for in- 

 stance, was the only man of previous experience among the majority 

 members of the committee which framed the McKinley bill. The 

 stories as to who wrote the schedules are scandalous, and, I judge, are 

 true. 



I know, for instance, that Mr. McKinley said to the head of an im- 

 portant industry : " Of course I do not know what rates you should 

 have. You make them out "and be fair about it." The gentleman 

 addressed consulted others in his industry, and recommended some of 

 his principal products for the free list because they were made more 

 cheaply here than abroad, and were sold abroad higher than the do- 

 mestic price. Mr. McKinley so recommended to his committee, but 

 greedy men intervened and a miscalled protection was given in the bill 

 of 65 per cent. It still bears about that rate and is still exported in 

 large quantities at better than domestic prices. 



So of the Wilson bill. Only three members of the majority upon 

 that Ways and Means Committee, possessed previous experience and 

 that as minority members upon the McKinley committees, where they 

 had too great consideration for the majority even to be present when 

 the real work was done. These three men with others wholly inexperi- 

 enced made the Wilson bill. It was this so-called free trade Wilson bill 

 that, by a wretched hocus-pocus, put Standard Oil upon the free list and 

 gave at the same time a protective duty of 100 per cent, at an annual 

 cost to the American people of about $40,000,000 per year. That lying 

 " protection " was continued in the Dingley bill. When H. H. Rogers, 

 manager of the Standard Oil Company, was asked how he got this pro- 

 tection from the " free trade " Wilsonites, he put his head back and 

 laughed. There could be no better cormnent from his standpoint. 



And from that day to tliis the Honorable S. E. Payne and John 

 Dalzell have been on the committee " standing pat " — poker-playing as 

 it were — with the people's money, playing the " game " with intent to 

 lose, and losing in twelve years to the Oil Trust alone $360,000,000 of 

 the people's money and to other trusts ten times more. 



The free-trade Wilson bill also gave a high protection to sugar, and 

 the sugar people offered money in large amounts for votes. The pro- 

 tection given them caused sugar stocks to advance ten points in forty- 

 eight hours. Said President Cleveland of the Wilson bill — " Bought, 

 bought, bought." 



