196 



CONGRESS. (REVENUE REFORM.) 



people in the world. We produce by our labor 

 more than any people in the world. We have 

 everything to command success in any contest 

 over any rival. We are the first cotton-pro- 

 ducing country. We have wool, flax, hemp ; 

 our country is full of coal and ores and lum- 

 ber, and yet with all these advantages over all 

 others we have pursued a suicidal policy of 

 protection, which has closed the markets of 

 the world against us ; and not content to stop 

 here, we have plundered the great body of our 

 agricultural people out of a large part of their 

 wealth. We must make a departure. Instead 

 of laying the burdens of taxation upon the 

 necessaries of life, instead of destroying our 

 foreign commerce, we should encourage it as 

 we would encourage our home commerce. We 

 should remove every unnecessary burden. We 

 should lay taxes to obtain revenue, but not re- 

 strict importation. We should place every 

 material of manufacture on the free list, start 

 up our fires, put our wheels in motion, and 

 put all our people to work at good wages." 



After arguing that it is increased production 

 that makes cheap goods and high wages, Mr. 

 Mills said, in regard to the effect of the exist- 

 ing tariff on labor: "I have taken from the 

 first annual report of the Commissioner of La- 

 bor and the report of the census on wages 

 some figures given by manufacturers them- 

 selves of the total cost of the product and the 

 labor cost of the articles they are making. I 

 have put the tariff duty by the side of them to 

 show whether in the little reductions we are 

 asking in this bill we have gone beyond that 

 pledge we as a party have made that we would 

 not reduce taxation so low as to injure our 

 laborers, or as not to cover the difference in 

 cost of labor between American and foreign 

 products. This will show, and I ask your at- 

 tention to it, that the tariff is not intended to 

 and does not benefit labor. It will show that 

 the benefit of the tariff never passes beyond 

 the pocket of the manufacturer, and to the 

 pockets of- his workmen. 



"I find in this report one pair of five-pound 

 blankets. The whole cost, as stated by the 

 manufacturer, is $2.51. The labor cost he 

 paid for making them is 35 cents. The pres- 

 ent tariff is $1.90. Now, here is $1.55 in this 

 tariff over and above the entire labor cost of 

 these blankets. Why did not that manufact- 

 urer go and give that money to the laborer? 

 He is able to do it. Here is a tariff that gives 

 him $1.90 on that pair of blankets for the 

 benefit of his laborer, but notwithstanding that 

 the tariff was imposed for the benefit of Amer- 

 ican labor and to preserve high wages, every 

 dollar of that tariff went into the manufact- 

 urer's pocket. The poor fellow who made 

 the blankets got 35 cents and the manufacturer 

 kept the $1.90. 



" Here is one yard of flannel, weighing foiir 

 ounces ; it cost 18 cents, of which the laborer 

 got 3 cents ; the tariff on it is 8 cents. How 

 is it that the whole 8 cents did not get into the 



pockets of the laborer ? Is it not strange that 

 those who made the tariff and fastened upon 

 the people these war rates in a time of pro- 

 found peace, and who are now constantly as- 

 sailing the Democratic party because it is un- 

 true to the workingman, did not make some 

 provision by which the generous bounty they 

 gave should reach the pocket of him for whom 

 they said it was intended? They charge that 

 we are trying to strike down the labor of the 

 country. Why do they not see that the money 

 they are taking out of the hard earnings of the 

 people is delivered in good faith to the work- 

 man? One yard of cassimere, weighing 16 

 ounces, cost $1.38; the labor cost is 29 cents; 

 the tariff duty is 80 cents. One pound of sew- 

 ing-silk costs $5.66 ; the cost for labor is 85 

 cents; the tariff is $1.69. One gallon of lin- 

 seed-oil costs 46 cents; the labor cost is 2 

 cents ; the tariff cost is 25 cents. One ton of 

 bar-iron costs $31 ; the labor cost is $10 ; the 

 tariff fixes several rates for bar-iron. I give 

 the lowest rate, $17.92. One ton of foundry 

 pig-iron costs $11 ; the labor costs $1.64; the 

 tariff is $6.72." 



After continuing the discussion of this point 

 in detail, Mr. Mills said : " Now, Mr. Chair- 

 man, I have gone through with a number of 

 articles taken from these official reports made 

 by the manufacturers themselves, and I have 

 shown that the tariff was not framed for the 

 benefit of the laborer, or that if it was so in- 

 tended by those who framed it, the benefit 

 never reaches the laborer, not a dollar of it. 

 The working-people are hired in the market at 

 the lowest rates at which their services can be 

 had, and all the ' boodle ' that has been 

 granted by these tariff bills goes into the 

 pockets of the manufacturers. It builds up 

 palaces ; it concentrates wealth ; it makes 

 great and powerful magnates; but it distrib- 

 utes none of its beneficence in the homes of 

 our laboring poor." 



As to the spirit of the protective system 

 which is sometimes called the American policy, 

 Mr. Mills said : " I repel it, sir ; it is not 

 American. It is the reverse of American. 

 That policy is American which clings most 

 closely to the fundamental idea that underlies 

 our institutions and upon which the whole 

 superstructure of our Government is erected, 

 and that idea is freedom freedom secured by 

 the guarantees of government; freedom to 

 think, to speak, to write ; freedom to go where 

 we please, select our own occupations; free- 

 dom to labor whn we please and where 

 we please; freedom to receive and enjoy all 

 the results of our labor; freedom to sell our 

 products, and freedom to buy the products 

 of others, and freedom to markets for the 

 products of our labor, without which the 

 freedom of labor is restricted and denied ; 

 freedom from restraints in working and mar- 

 keting the products of our toil, except such as 

 may be necessary in the interest of the Gov- 

 ernment; freedom from all unnecessary bur- 



