CONGRESS. (THE TARIFF MEASURE.) 



197 



"We know what we have done and are doing un- 

 der the economic system we advocate. We know 

 that almost every month the balance of trade in 

 our favor is in excess of $20,000,000. We know 

 the manufactures of the United States in 1880 

 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 manu- 

 facturers of England turned out only 3,170,000. 

 We know that the United States in 1887 pro- 

 duced 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 ship- 

 ping built in our own ports from our own ma- 

 terial. 



"Our railroad mileage and tonnage further 

 illustrate the growth and extent of our domestic 

 trade and commerce. In 1865 the number of 

 miles of railroad in operation in this country 

 was 35,085; in 1887 it equaled 150,000 miles. 

 We now have one half of the railroads of the 

 world. Estimating the cost of road and equip- 

 ment at $35,000 per mile, the amount expended 

 in twenty-two years equaled $4,037,495,000, a 

 yearly expenditure of over $183,000,000. Ac- 

 cording 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; ifor 1885, 

 437,040.099 tons; for 1886, 482,245,254 tons; 

 for 1887, 552,074,752 tons. 



" According to the statement of Mr. Poor, the 

 tonnage of the Pennsylvania Railroad for 1865 

 was 2,555,706 tons; in 1887, 30,147,635 tons, the 

 increase equaling 27,591,929 tons; the rate of 

 increase in the twenty-two years being nearly 

 1,100 per cent. The tonnage of the New York 

 Central Railroad increased from 1,767,059 in 

 1865 to 14,626,951 in 1887, the rate of increase 

 being over 700 per cent. The tonnage of the 

 Erie Railroad in 1865 was 2,234,350, and in 1887 

 13,549,260, fhe rate of increase being over 500 

 per cent. The tonnage of the three roads in 

 1865 equaled 6,557,115; in 1887, 58,323,848 tons, 

 the increase equaling 51,766,732, the rate of in- 

 crease being very nearly 800 per cent. 



" Mr. 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 9 tons. In 1865 

 the gross tonnage moved equaled only 2 tons 

 per head. The same authority estimates that 

 the value of the total net tonnage of the rail- 

 roads of the United States is equal to the sum 

 of $13,327,830,000, and at this estimate the value 

 of the tonnage moved in 1887 equaled $222 per 

 head of the population of the country. 



"The increase in value of the railroad ton- 

 nage 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 they have been possible under any other 

 than the protective system ? 



"We have now enjoyed twenty-nine years 

 continuously of protective tariff laws the long- 

 est 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 in a condition of independence 



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 paral- 

 lel in the recorded history of the world. 



" In all that goes to make a nation great and 

 strong and independent we have made extraor- 

 dinary strides. In arts, in science, in literature, 

 in manufactures, in invention, in scientific prin- 

 ciple? applied to manufacture and agriculture, 

 in wealth and credit and national honor, we are 

 at the very front, abreast with the best and be- 

 hind 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 Government it- 

 self made this nation a by-word 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. 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 tariff laws of 1861, the old 

 Morrill tariff which has brought to that veteran 

 statesman the highest honor and will give to 

 him his proudest monument this condition 

 changed. Confidence was restored, courage was 

 inspired, the Government started upon a pro- 

 gressive era under a system thoroughly Ameri- 

 can. 



"With a great war on our hands, with an 

 army to enlist and prepare for service, with un- 

 e told millions of money to supply, the protective 

 7 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 corner- 

 stone of our prosperity and glory. 



"With a debt of over $2,050,000,000 when 

 the war terminated, holding on to the pro- 

 tective laws against Democratic opposition, we 

 have reduced that debt at an average rate of 

 more than $62,000,000 each year, $174,000 every 

 twenty-four hours of the last twenty-five years, 

 and what looked to be a burden almost impossi- 

 ble to bear has been removed under the Repub- 

 lican fiscal system until now it is $1,020,000,000, 

 and with the payment of this vast sum of money 

 the nation has not been impoverished. The in- 

 dividual citizen has not been burdened or bank- 

 rupted. 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 de- 

 posits in savings banks as the working classes of 

 the United States. 



" Listen to its own story. The deposits of all 

 the savings banks of New England in 1886 

 equaled $554,532,434. The deposits in the sav- 

 ings banks of New York in 1886 were $482,686,- 

 730. The deposits in the savings banks of Mas- 



