192 



CONGRESS. (PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



Our scheme of taxation, "by means of which this 

 needless surplus is taken from the people and put into 

 the public Treasury, consists of a tariff or duty levied 

 upon importations from abroad, and internal revenue 

 taxes levied upon the consumption of tobacco and 

 spirituous and malt liquors. It must be conceded 

 that noue of the things subjected to internal revenue 

 taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries ; there ap- 

 pears to be no just complaint of this taxation by the 

 consumers of these articles, and there seems to be 

 nothing so well able to bear the burden without 

 hardship to any portion of the people. 



But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequita- 

 ble, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought 

 to be at once revised and amended. These laws, as 

 their primary and plain effect, raise the price to con- 

 sumers of all articles imported and subject to duty, 

 by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the 

 amount of the duty measures the tax paid by those 

 who purchase for use these imported articles. Many 

 of these things, however, are raised or manufactured 

 in our own country, and the duties now levied upon 

 foreign goods and products are called protection to 

 these home manufactures, because they render it pos- 

 sible for those of our people who are manufacturers 

 to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price 

 equal to that demanded for the imported goods that 

 have paid customs duty. So it happens that while 

 comparatively a few use the imported articles, mill- 

 ions of our people, who never used and never 

 saw any of the foreign products, purchase and use 

 things of the same kind made in this country, and pay 

 therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price 

 which the duty adds to the imported articles. Those 

 who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon into 

 the pub'lic Treasury, but the great majority of our 

 citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, 

 pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to 

 the home manufacturer. This reference to the oper- 

 ation of our tariff laws is not made by way of instruc- 

 tion, but in order that we may be constantly remind- 

 ed of the manner in which they impose a burden upon 

 those who consume domestic products as well as 

 those who consume imported articles, and thus create 

 a tax upon all our people. 



It is not proposed to entirely relieve the country 

 of this taxation. It must be extensively continued as 

 the source of the Government's income ; and in a re- 

 adjustment of our tariff the interests of American 

 labor engaged in manufacture should be carefully 

 considered, as well as the preservation of our manu- 

 facturers. It may be called protection, or by any 

 other name, but relief from the hardships and dan- 

 gers of our present-tariff laws, should be devised with 

 especial precaution against imperiling the existence 

 of our manufacturing interests. But this existence 

 should not mean a condition which, without regard 

 to the public welfare or a national exigency, must al- 

 ways insure the realization of immense 'profits in- 

 stead of moderately profitable returns. As the volume 

 and diversity of our national activities increase, new 

 recruits are added to those who desire a continuation 

 of the advantages which they conceive the present 

 system of tariff taxation directly affords them. So 

 stubbornly have all efforts to reform the present con- 

 dition been resisted by those of our fellow-citizens 

 thus engaged, that they can hardly complain of the 

 suspicion, entertained to a certain extent, that there 

 exists an organized combination all along the line to 

 maintain their advantage. 



We are in the midst of centennial celebrations, and 

 with becoming pride we rejoice in American skill and 

 ingenuity, in American energy and enterprise, and 

 in " the wonderful natural advantages and resources 

 developed by a century's national growth. Yet when 

 an attempt is made to justify a scheme which permits 

 a tax to be laid upon every consumer in the land for 

 the benefit of our manufacturers, quite beyond a rea- 

 sonable demand for governmental regard, it suits the 

 pxirposes of advocacy to call our manufactures infant 



industries, still needing the highest and greatest de- 

 gree of favor and fostering care that can be wrung 

 from Federal legislation. 



It is also said that the increase in the price of do- 

 mestic manufactures resulting from the present tariff 

 is necessary in order that higher wages may be paid 

 to our workingmen employed in manufactories, than 

 are paid for what is called the pauper labor of Europe. 

 All will acknowledge the force of an argument which 1 

 involves the welfare and liberal compensation of our 

 laboring-people. Our labor is honorable in the eyes 

 of every American citizen ; and as it lies at the foun- 

 dation of our development and progress, it is enti- 

 tled, without affectation or hypocrisy, to the utmost 

 regard. The standard of our laborers' life should 

 not be measured by that of any other country less 

 favored, and they are entitled to their full share of all 

 our advantages. 



By the last census it is made to appear that of the 

 17,392,099 of our population engaged in all kinds of 

 industries 7,670,493 are employed in agriculture, 

 4,074,238 in professional and personal service (2,934,- 

 876 of whom are domestic servants and laborers), 

 while 1,810,256 are employed in trade and transporta- 

 tion, and 3,837,112 arc classed as employed in manu- 

 facturing and mining. 



For present purposes, however, the last number 

 given should be considerably reduced. Without at- 

 tempting to enumerate all, it will be conceded that 

 there should be deducted from those which it includes 

 375,143 carpenters and joiners, 285,401 milliners, 

 dressmakers, and seamstresses, 172,726 blacksmiths, 

 133,756 tailors and tailoresses, 102,473 masons, 76,- 

 241 butchers, 41,309 bakers, 22,083 plasterers, and 

 4,891 engaged in manufacturing agricultural imple- 

 ments, amounting in the aggregate to 1,214,023, leav- 

 ing 2,623,089 persons employed in such manufactur- 

 ing industries as are claimed" to be benefited by a high 

 tariff. 



To these the appeal is made to save their employ- 

 ment and maintain their wages by resisting a change. 

 There should be no disposition to answer such sug- 

 gestions by the allegation that they are in a minority 

 among those who laborj and therefore should forego 

 an advantage, in the interest of low prices for the 

 majority ; their compensation, as it may be affected 

 by 'the operation of tariff laws, should at all times be 

 scrupulously kept in view ; and yet with slight reflec- 

 tion they will not overlook the fact that they are con- 

 sumers with the rest ; that they, too, have their own 

 wants and those of their families to supply from their 

 earnings, and that the price of the necessaries of life, 

 as well as the amount of the wages, will regulate the 

 measure of their welfare and comfort. 



But the reduction of taxation demanded should bo 

 so measured as not to necessitate or justify either the 

 loss of employment by the workingman nor the less- 

 ening of his wages ; and the profits still remaining to 

 the manufacturer, after a necessary readjustment, 

 should furnish no excuse for the sacrifice of the inter- 

 ests of his employe's either in their opportunity to work 

 or in the diminution of their compensation. Nor can 

 the worker in manufactures fail to understand that 

 while a high tariff is claimed to be necessary to allow 

 the payment of remunerative wages, it certainly re- 

 sults in a very large increase in the price of nearly 

 all sorts of manufactures, which, in almost countless 

 forms, he needs for the use of himself and his family. 

 He receives at the desk of his employer his wages, and 

 perhaps before he reaches his home is obliged, in a 

 purchase for family use of an article which embraces 

 his own labor, to return in the payment of the increase 

 in price which the tariff permits, the hard-earned 

 compensation of many days of toil. 



The farmer and the agriculturist who manufacture 

 nothing, but who pay the increased price which the 

 tariff imposes, upon every agricultural implement, 

 upon all he wears, and upon all he uses and owns, 

 except the increase of his flocks and herds and such 

 things as his husbandry produces from the soil, is 



