CONGRESS. (REVENUE REFORM.) 



201 



duty imposed by the bill on the so-called raw 

 materials and the articles made from them is 

 so small as to destroy these industries, except 

 upon the condition of leveling the wages of 

 home labor to that of Europe. 



u In a large number of articles throughout 

 the schedules not already named, the reduc- 

 tions proposed by the bill are so large that the 

 effect must be to destroy or restrict home pro- 

 duction and increase enormously foreign im- 

 portations, thus largely increasing customs rev- 

 enue instead of reducing it. 



" It is claimed by the committee that the 

 bill will reduce the customs revenue about 

 $54,000,000. On the contrary, I assert that it 

 is fair to estimate that its effect would be to 

 largely increase the revenue instead of reducing 

 it ; while the amount of material wealth it 

 would destroy is incalculable. 



"Those supporting the bill hold themselves 

 out as the champions of the farmer while they 

 take from him the protective duties on his 

 wool, hemp, flaxseed, meats, milk, fruits, vege- 

 tables, and seeds. And what do they give him 

 in return? 



" They profess to give the manufacturer bet- 

 ter rates than they- now have. If this be so, 

 how is the farmer to be benefited, or where 

 does he get his compensation for the loss of 

 his protective duties? 



" Much has been said about removing taxes 

 upon ' necessaries,' and imposing them upon 

 ' luxuries.' What does this bill propose in that 

 direction ? It gives free olive-oil to the epicure, 

 and taxes castor-oil 97 per cent. ; it gives free 

 tin-plate to the Standard Oil Company, and to 

 the great meat-canning monopolies, and im- 

 poses a duty of 100 per cent, on rice ; it gives 

 the sugar trust free bone-black, and proposes 

 prohibitory duties on grocery grades of sugar; 

 it gives free license to the tobacco-manufact- 

 urer while retaining prohibitive duties on 

 manufactured tobacco ; it imposes a duty of 40 

 per cent, on the ' poor man's blanket ' and only 

 30 per cent, on the Axminster carpet of the 

 rich. It admits free of duty fine animals im- 

 ported by the gentlemen of the turf, and makes 

 free the paintings and the statuary of the rail- 

 way millionaire and the coal baron." 



Mr. Reed, of Maine, in closing the debate on 

 the Republican side, May 19, said : " The reve- 

 nue-reform argument is either a false pretense 

 or covers the whole ground. Protection is 

 either in its essence a benefit or a curse. You 

 can not dilute a curse and make it a blessing. 

 Ratsbane and water are no more food than 

 ratsbane pure. Incidental protection is a 

 sham. Tariff for revenue only goes down 

 before the same arguments which are used 

 against protection. 



"If protection be a tax for manufacturers' 

 benefit then it is the same tax if it be the re- 

 sult of even a revenue tariff. Incidental pro- 

 tection is of all the most inexcusable. It is an 

 accident which ought to be avoided like a rail- 

 way disaster. If when you take one dollar 



from the citizen for the Treasury and four for 

 the manufacturer, is it any the less robbery 

 that you call it a revenue tariJF? 



" If you gentlemen on the other side believe 

 what you say, you ought to be as furious 

 against the rapine and plunder of the Mills Bill 

 as you profess to be against those of the pres- 

 ent law." 



In answer to the argument that protection 

 increases the price of articles consumed by the 

 amount of duty, Mr. Reed said : " Why do men 

 with such beliefs so plain, and so distinct, hesi- 

 tate to do their duty ? It is because every 

 wind that blows, every sight that strikes their 

 eyes, every sound that resounds in their ears, 

 shows the folly of their theories, the absurdity 

 of their logic. What use is it to tell the people, 

 of this empire that they have been robbed and 

 plundered one thousand millions of dollars 

 every year, during the very time when over 

 3,500 miles of distance cities have been spring- 

 ing up like magic, richer in a decade than the 

 Old World cities have grown in centuries; when 

 120,000 miles of railroad have been built, which 

 compress the broad expanse of a continent 

 into a week of time ; when the commerce of its 

 inland lakes has grown to rival the commerce 

 between the two worlds ; when from every land 

 under the sun the emigrants have been flock- 

 ing to its happy shores, drawn there by the 

 peace and prosperity which shine on all its 

 borders and sweep from circumference to cen- 

 ter. There are no eyes so dull that can not 

 see the ever- rising glories of this republic ex- 

 cept those which are bandaged by the preju- 

 dices of long ago." 



In vindication of the theory of protection, 

 he argued : " Man derives his greatest power 

 from his association with other men, his union 

 with his fellows. Whoever considers the 

 human being as a creature alone, by himself, 

 isolated and separated, and tries to compre- 

 hend mankind by mathematically adding these 

 atoms together, has utterly failed to compre- 

 hend the human race and its tremendous mis- 

 sion. 



" Sixty millions even of such creatures with- 

 out association are only so many beasts that 

 perish. But sixty millions of men welded to- 

 gether by national brotherhood, each support- 

 ing, sustaining, and buttressing the other, are 

 the sure conquerors of all those mighty powers 

 of nature which alone constitute the wealth of 

 this world. The great blunder of the Herr 

 Professor of political economy is that he treats 

 human beings as if every man were so many 

 foot-pounds, such and such a fraction of a 

 horse-power. All the soul of man he leaves 

 out. 



" Think for a moment of the foundation 

 principles involved in this question, which I 

 now ask, Where does wealth come from ? It 

 comes from the power of man to let loose and 

 yet guide those elemental forces the energy of 

 which is infinite. It comes from the power of 

 man to force the earth to give her increase, to 



