BOOK III. GREAT SPEECHES ON GREAT ISSUES. (continued 16)

They believe and I believe that for the past quarter of a century upon every vital issue before the American people, secession, slavery, coercion, the public credit, honest elections, universal freedom, and the protection of American labor, they have always been right and that their opponents have always been wrong; and, while they concede unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to their adversaries, temporary repulse has not convinced them that they were in error. There is neither defection nor dismay in their columns. They are ready, they are impatient to renew the battle. Animated by such impulses, it is not singular that they should feel that no Republican can hold an appointive office under a Democratic administration without either sacrificing his convictions or forfeiting his self-respect.

Accordingly, sir, when a little more than a year ago a Democratic administration was inaugurated, those who were in public station began with one consent to make excuse to retire to private life. They did not stand upon the order of their going; they trampled upon each other in a tumultuous and somewhat indecent haste to get out of office. There was no craven cry for mercy; no mercenary camp-follower fled for shelter to the bomb-proofs of the tenure-of-office act; no sutler crawled behind the fragile breastworks of civil-service reform for protection. They lost their baggage, but they retained their colors, their arms, their ammunition, and their camp equipage, and marched off the field with the honors of war. If at the expiration of one year a few yet remain in office, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, it is because the victors have been unable to agree among themselves or been unable to discover among their own numbers competent and qualified successors.

Mr. President, candor compels me to say that the Democracy of that State share the same temper and spirit. From 1854, when the Territory was organized, down to the 29th of January, 1861, when the State was admitted, if there was a Republican holding any appointive office it was an inadvertence; and if from 1861 down to 1885 there was a Democrat holding an official position requiring confirmation by the Senate, it was an oversight; it escaped the somewhat vigilant scrutiny of my colleague and myself and those who preceded us here.

Therefore, Mr. President, I am not of those who believe in non-partisanship in politics; and I should be recreant to the high trust confided in me were I to refrain from declaring my conviction that political parties, energetic, vigorous, and well defined, are indispensable to the success of free popular governments. Wherever the life of States is freest and most irrepressible, there party spirit is most active and aggressive. It is by the conflict and collision of political parties that the latent and richest powers of the State are made manifest; and those whom I represent have no sympathy with the dogma that it reflects glory upon a statesman to affect independence of his party, or that it is an indication of virtue in a citizen to belong to no political organization.

Political parties are social groups in the nation, allied by common purposes and kindred aspirations for the accomplishment of beneficial results. When parties perish this Government will expire, for we all understand that in this country the only government is the party in power. Here is no dynasty, no ruling family, nothing corresponding to the functions of government under other systems except the party that is for the time being intrusted by the votes of a majority of the people with the execution of their will. And, sir, when a majority of the people declare that there shall be a change of administration, it is necessarily implied that there shall be a change of those agencies through which alone political administration can be made effectual. It is useless to juggle and palter about this matter. A change of administration is a change of policies and methods, and the Chief Magistrate is entitled to the co-operation of agents and ministers who are in sympathy with his opinions and the doctrines which he is chosen to enforce and maintain.

Sir, unless the President of the United States is to be a mummy swathed in the cerements of the grave, he must have powers commensurate with his duties. He is charged to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and unless he has the power to select the agencies through which the laws are administered, through which the revenues are collected and disbursed, the post-offices conducted, the Indians supported 3265and controlled, the glory and honor of the nation maintained, that duty imposed upon him by the Constitution is an idle phrase; it means nothing; it is an empty formula. Charged with these great duties, liable to impeachment if they are not properly performed, how can it be claimed with justice that there shall be an interpolation of novel doctrines of reform, under which while the chief is still to be held responsible, he shall be deprived of all the agencies and ministrations under the Constitution by which they can alone be so administered, in sympathy with him and the policy that he represents.

Therefore, sir, I am confident that when it was ascertained in November, 1884, that a change of the political majority in this country had been registered, there was a general faith and conviction that a change of official holdings would follow. The Democratic party desired it; the Republican party expected it, and would have been content; and had it been done the people at large would have said with one accord, amen. But this generation has witnessed the genesis of a new political gospel; a novel organization has appeared upon earth; a new school of political philosophers who announce that non-partisanship is the panacea for all the evils that afflict the Republic. Having no avowed opinions upon the great topics of the hour, they feebly decry the corruptions of the American system, and peevishly and irritably declare that the Government is degenerate and degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate, reform, and purify the public service is to prevent the clerks from being removed out of their places in the Departments. This brotherhood has not been hitherto very largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If there has been an original civil-service reformer who has deserted from the ranks of the Democracy, history does not record his name. It has been left to the party to which I belong to afford conspicuous and shining illustrations of that class of political thinkers who are never quite sure that they are supporting a party unless they are reviling the candidates and denouncing its platform, who are not positive that they are standing erect unless they are leaning over backward, and whose idea of reforming the organization in which they profess to be classified is to combine with its adversaries and vote for candidates who openly spurn their professions and depreciate the stock in trade which they denominate their principles. Standing on the corners of the streets, enlarging the borders of their phylacteries, they loudly advertise their perfections, thanking God that they are not as other men, even these Republicans and Democrats; they traffic with both to ascertain which they can most profitably betray.

Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in nature or society. “Male and female created He them.” But there is a third sex, if that can sex be called which sex has none, resulting sometimes from a cruel caprice of nature, at others from accident or malevolent design, possessing the vices of both and the virtues of neither; effeminate without being masculine or feminine; unable either to beget or to bear; possessing neither fecundity nor virility; endowed with the contempt of men and the derision of women, and doomed to sterility, isolation, and extinction. But they have two recognized functions. They sing falsetto, and they are usually selected as the guardians of the seraglios of Oriental despots.

And thus to pass from the illustration to the fact, these political epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, chant in shrill falsetto their songs of praise of non-partisanship and civil-service reform, and apparently have been selected as the harmless custodians of the conscience of the national Executive.

Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, the sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the President of the United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. It is said that he is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child of fate—the man of destiny; and that he places devout and implicit reliance upon the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether he be a very great man or a very small man, he is a very extraordinary man. His career forbids any other conclusion.

The Democratic party was not wanting when its convention assembled at Chicago in many renowned and illustrious characters; men who had led the forlorn hope in its darkest and most desperate days; men for whose character and achievements, for whose fame and history, not only that organization but the country had the profoundest admiration and respect. There was Thurman, and Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald, and others perhaps not less worthy and hardly less illustrious, upon whom the mantle of that great distinction might have fallen; but the man at the mature age of thirty-five abandoned a liberal and honored profession to become the sheriff of Erie, without known opinions and destitute of experience or training in public affairs, outstripped them all in the race of ambition; and when but little more than a year ago he entered this Chamber as the President elect of the United States, he encountered the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders of his own party as well as to the representatives of all the nations of the earth who had assembled to witness 3266the gorgeous pageant of his inauguration.

Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic. There have been many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one bound from obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of destiny so brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty millions of people.

If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions of Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own party the nation would have been content; but he did not so determine, and herein and hereon is founded the justification that the majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in demanding that no action shall be had in connection with these suspensions from office until there has been satisfactory assurances that injustice has not been done. If it were understood that these suspensions and removals were made for political reasons the country would be content, the Republican majority in the Senate would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances, official and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr. Cleveland announced that he would not so administer this Government. At the very outset, in his letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine of partisan changes in the patronage, and through all of his political manifestoes down to the present time he has repeated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging monotony.

He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where the incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons, but that they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those who were grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has been left. Some Republicans have been suspended and others have been retained. What is the irresistible inference? What is the logic of the events, except that, in view of what the President has declared, every man who is suspended is suspended for cause, and not for political reasons? It is not possible to suspect the President of duplicity and treacherous deception.

For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the Senate and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is to judge of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I read from the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19, 1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He says:

The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of those intrusted with the management of their affairs to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party service.

There is another utterance in this document to which I might properly allude further on, but which appears to me to be so significant that I will read it now. It has a singular fitness in connection with this subject that we have been discussing. Speaking of honest administration, he says,

I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the Government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes.

And now:

They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal.

Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the patronage of the Government, by the concealment from the people of the documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct of officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and betrayal. “I thank thee for that word.” A “Daniel” has “come to judgment.” No more pertinent and pungent commentary upon the facts of the present situation could be formulated than that which Grover Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that mystery and concealment in the management of the affairs of the people covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody has been betrayed.

Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some of the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be trouble about their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their uneasiness in words and addressed him a letter calling his attention to the professions upon which he had been elected and demanding further guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain paragraphs, not being willing to tax the patience of the Senate or waste my own strength in reading what is not strictly material.

I regard myself pledged to this—

That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to turn out competent 3267and qualified officials and put in Democrats—

because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty requires that this and all other statutes should be in good faith and without evasion enforced, and because, in many utterances made prior to my election as President, approved by the party to which I belong and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have in effect promised the people that this should be done.

Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats. Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:

I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our citizens fear that the recent party change in the national Executive may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place.

He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:

There is a class of Government positions which are not within the letter of the civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with the policy of an administration that the removal therefrom of present incumbents, in my opinion, should not be made during the terms for which they were appointed solely on partisan grounds, and for the purpose of putting in their places those who are in political accord with the appointing power—

And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid from the box of Pandora—

but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to retention because they have used their places for party purposes in disregard of their duty to the people, and because, instead of being decent public servants, they have proved themselves offensive partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party management.

The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of consolation to the Democratic party.

If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper to remind them—

That is, party friends—

that though the coming administration is to be Democratic—

Strictly Democratic—

a due regard for the people’s interest does not permit faithful party work to be always rewarded by appointment to office, and to say to them that while Democrats may expect a proper consideration, selections for office not embraced within the civil-service rules will be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness, instituted by those charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for appointment.

“Here endeth the first lesson!” This was in the year 1884. I now come to the declaration of 1885. Just as the Democratic State convention which nominated the present governor of New York for the position that he now holds, was about to assemble at Saratoga on the 24th, I think, of September, the President gave out for publication the letter of resignation of Dorman B. Eaton, a civil-service commissioner, which was dated July 28, 1885, and accompanied it with a letter of his own accepting that resignation which was dated September 11, 1885. It was alleged in Democratic newspapers that the President held back these letters in order to give publicity to his reply at that time for effect upon the convention, and it was remarked that it had caused a panic among the Democracy. His letter is dated, as I said, September 11, 1885, and I will read a few paragraphs showing his opinion of the Democratic party and the course that they had pursued in attempting to force him off the civil-service reform platform. After some rather glittering platitudes in regard to the work accomplished by Mr. Eaton, he proceeds:

A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recognition of every aid, a sensible utilization of every instrumentality that promises assistance and a constant effort to demonstrate the advantages of the new order of things, are the means by which this reform movement will in the future be further advanced, the opposition.

Now, this is an epithet to which I desire to call particular attention—

The opposition of incorrigible spoilsmen rendered ineffectual and the cause placed upon a sure foundation.

But not content with applying his scourge to the “incorrigible spoilsmen” of the Democratic party, the President took occasion to express his opinion in rather picturesque language of another class of politicians that had somewhat afflicted him, and to whom he was under bonds:

It is a source of congratulation that there are so many friends of civil-service reform marshaled on the practical side of the question; and that the number is not greater of 3268those who profess friendliness for the cause, and yet, mischievously and with supercilious self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of those actually in the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions which bound and qualify every struggle for a radical improvement in the affairs of government, demand complete and immediate perfection.

“Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping criticism,” can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when applied to the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.

He continues—

I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable form attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the door for the rich and the poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand when all our people will see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity upon merit and fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest of those who impudently—

To whom does he refer?—

who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the Government.

You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a party restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in the places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system precluding the redistribution of such places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages which a perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an emergency, that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not been scrupulously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment and should confirm our belief that there is a sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic impulse upon which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the strength and perpetuity of our Government.

The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He declared:

The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to business affairs. As a means to this end civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employés who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influences of those who promise and the vicious who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.

How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of distributing the patronage of the country among his own partisans and at the same time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service reform doctrines practically resulted finds its first illustration in the celebrated circular of the Postmaster-General that was issued on the 29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by reading that document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a more thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable utterance never was made by any public official of any political persuasion in any country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every libeller, every anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to sluice the feculent sewage of communities through the Post-Office Department, with the assurance that, without any intimation or information to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolution on the 4th of this month calling on the Postmaster-General for information as to the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters, not requiring confirmation by the Senate, between the 4th day of March, 1885, and that date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing but an inspection of the official register and a computation of numbers. No names were required and no dates. There was a simple question of arithmetic to ascertain the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters not included in the list sent to the Senate by the President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days elapsed. There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the Department to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a supplemental resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-General to advise us whether that first resolution had been received, and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be expected.

On the second day following an answer came down. It does not include the number of places that were filled where there had been resignations. It does not include the list of those appointed where there had been vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply those who had been removed without cause and without hearing in the space of the first twelve months of this administration pledged to non-partisanship and civil-service reform. The number foots up 8,635. Eighty-six 3269hundred and thirty-five removals of fourth-class postmasters under an administration pledged by repeated utterances not to remove except for cause, making an average, counting three hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of twenty-eight every day; and, counting seven hours as a day’s work, four removals every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen minutes of time from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March, 1886. And that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as a public trust!

Mr. Cockrell. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are there?

Mr. Ingalls. I do not know.

Mr. Cockrell. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?

Mr. Ingalls. It makes no difference how many; they did the best they could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from Missouri is impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more rapidly.

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas will pause a moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the Chair to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.

Mr. Ingalls. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his impatience and restrain his impetuosity. The Postmaster-General will get through if you only give him time.

Mr. Cockrell. He will get through in four years at this rate.

Mr. Ingalls. One every fifteen minutes!

Mr. Cockrell. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year have been removed.

Mr. Ingalls. Only one every fifteen minutes! How often do you expect them to be removed? He has done the best he could. And this does not include the number of those who resigned; this does not include any except those who have been removed. To the Senator from Missouri rising in his seat, impatient at the dilatory procrastination of the Post-Office Department in not casting out more Republican postmasters, I say this does not include all. Undoubtedly many more than eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have fallen beneath the axe of the Department or have been filled by partisans of the party in power as a reward for efficient and faithful party service in consequence of the retirement of thousands of patriotic Republicans: and when the Senator from Missouri attempts to convey the impression here that out of fifty-one thousand fourth-class postmasters only eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have been changed during this past year he is entirely outside the record. It is to be observed that this is but a single Department. How many have gone out of the State department, how many have gone out of the Interior department, how many out of the Army and Navy departments, and out of that illuminated Department of Justice, and out of the Treasury, of course is entirely unknown, and probably will always remain unknown till the secrets of earth are revealed at the last day. They are carefully concealed; there are no lists furnished to the press for publication. Therefore I trust that the friends of the administration will be consoled, that the complaints which have been so frequent hitherto of the want of activity on the part of the administration in finding places for their friends will be tempered by the consideration that they have done the best they could in the time at their disposal.

Mr. President, the list of official utterances is not yet complete. On the first day of this session President Cleveland again repeated his declaration that the civil service was to be divorced from partisanship, and he took occasion to inflict some more castigation upon those who were endeavoring to force him off the civil-service platform which he had declared he intended to occupy. This was his language:

Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.

Rather florid, rather oriental phrase, but in its exactness mathematical; a demonstration in geometry could not be more explicit and satisfactory than that description by President Cleveland of the occupation and the lamentations of the Democratic party. It will bear repetition.

Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.

A besieging, importunate, contagious, tumultuous, discontented organization.

There is more to the same effect in this document that I should like to read, but time does not serve, nor is it material, because there are other independent utterances to which I must pass; and I do this for the purpose of showing the consistent and persistent adhesion of the President of the United States to the declarations 3270with which he started out when he commenced to administer the Government.

On the 30th day of January, 1886, the ordinary avenues of communication with the public being inaccessible, President Cleveland availed himself of the interviewer, and in the Boston Herald was printed a long letter detailing in quotations a conversation with President Cleveland, the many points of which will be found below. This was after this controversy, if you call it so, between the President and Senate, had begun to develop and there were some indications of approaching misunderstanding or disagreement:

He next spoke of his position toward the Senate in the matter of confirmations to office. He said it gave him some anxiety, for the Senate had been a good while in disclosing what it meant to do. “They seem”—

He says plaintively—

“to distrust me,” said he, “if I am to accept what I hear from others. But I hear nothing from them. They have not called upon me for information or for documents.”

That complaint no longer exists.

“I have tried”—

He says—

“to deal honorably and favorably by them. My purpose was announced at the beginning of my administration. I meant then to adhere to it. I have never changed it. I do not mean to change it in the future. It seems to me unjust and ungenerous in them”—

That is, in the Senate—

“unjust and ungenerous in them to suspect that I do. If I had not meant to adhere to my policy it would have been foolish in me to begin it. I should have escaped much in refusing to begin it. It is not at all pleasant for me to disappoint, and I fear sometimes to offend, my party friends. Nothing but a sense of duty has brought me to this step. Why run all this risk and incur this hard feeling only in the end to retreat? It seems to me it would have been as impolitic as it is wrong. No; I have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of my party. We both promised to divorce the offices of the country from being used for party service. I have held to my promise, and I mean to hold to it.”

Then there was an answer to a question propounded by the interviewer, in which he defines his relation toward offensive partisanship in the Democratic party:

“I did not propose to hold party service in the past in the Democratic ranks as against a man. On the contrary, it gave him a strong, equitable claim to office. He had been excluded for twenty-four years because he was a Democrat. He should be remembered for the same reason when a Democratic administration came into power, provided he was a competent man for the position to be filled. What I understand by civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the office-holders shall be divorced from politics while they fill their positions under this government. That rule I have meant to stand by.” I asked him if he was aware of any deviation from it among his appointees. “If there has been any,” said he, “it has not been called to my attention.” I suggested that some such charge had been made in New York. He said he did not believe that there was any foundation for it, and that it was well known there that his wishes were that the office-holders should attend to the duties of their positions, and interfere neither with candidates nor election contests.

And here comes in the significant statement bearing upon the duty of Republicans in connection with these suspensions and removals from office:

“My removals from office, such as are made,” said he, “are made for cause. It would be absurd for me to undertake to give the country my reasons in all cases, because it would be impracticable. When I have removed a Republican for political reasons or for any other reasons, I would apply the same rule to my own party. I think the Republican Senators should be just enough to believe this of me. They ought to appreciate that I am trying to do my duty. Why they should continue to distrust me I do not see. They do not come to me either personally or by committee to get an understanding of my attitude, or to obtain explanations on points of action to which they object. They stand off and question the sincerity of my purposes.”

The eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five fourth-class postmasters and the six hundred and forty-three suspensions before the Senate and the thousands of changes in other departments “are made for cause,” not for political reasons merely; but to give those who have been so removed the opportunity to explain or defend themselves would be “absurd” and “impracticable.”

But this is not all. Later in the winter the Civil Service Commission was reorganized, and in a newspaper printed in this city appeared a statement alleged to be “personal” and included in quotation marks, and which it is commonly reported was in the handwriting of the President.

I cannot rid myself—

He said, after speaking about the personnel of the Civil Service Commission—

I cannot rid myself of the idea that this civil-service reform is something intended to do practical good and not a mere sentiment invented for the purpose of affording opportunity to ventilate high-sounding notions and fine phrases.

3271He alludes to the action of the Civil-Service Commission about a weigher in the city of Brooklyn, and says:

When the Civil Service Commission consulted with me as to the status of Mr. Sterling and the true construction of the rule bearing upon that subject, I agreed with them in their second opinion that the position of weigher was subject to an examination, and that it should be filled by one who by means of a proper examination under the law proved himself competent and eligible. But it seemed to me that the good of the service required that the person to be appointed should be possessed of certain traits and qualifications which no theoretical examination would develop. One having in charge two or three hundred men of the class with which a weigher has to deal should possess personal courage, energy, decision and firmness of character. It is entirely certain that the possession of such qualifications could not in the least be determined by the result of an examination organized for the purpose of testing an applicant’s knowledge and education.

And he closes:

No cause can gain by injustice or by a twisting of its purposes to suit particular tastes. And when a result is fairly reached through the proper operation of methods adopted to further a reform, it should be accepted—especially by the friends of the movement. They should not permit those of whom they require submission to say, with any semblance of truth, that they themselves submit only when the result accords with their views.

This closes the public declarations of the President of the United States upon the views which he entertains as to the method and plans and system upon which the public service is to be conducted under his administration. There are some interesting details as to the practical effects and results of the effort of the administration to purify the public service, which I would be glad if I had time to refer to, but I believe I will forbear. I can only say that it seems from an inspection of the record as if the cry “put the rascals out” had been changed in effect to “put the rascals in.” Of course Mr. President, no party is exempt from accidents, no organization has a monopoly either of good men or of bad men, and in calling attention to the results of civil-service reform as applied to this administration, I should be insincere if I were to assume that such results had followed from any predetermined purpose to put bad men into office.

We heard a great deal during the campaign about the corruptions, profligacy, misdeeds, and maladministration of Republican officials. I can only say that in view of what has occurred under this administration, if I were inclined to be uncharitable I could with entire propriety say that while the Republican party was in power it endeavored whenever it detected crime anywhere to punish it; but one of the practical results of Democratic administration has been the reverse, and that is to place in office a very large number of admitted and convicted felons. I have before me a selection from which I will, I believe, in support of this view of the case, give a law extract, stating in advance that these compilations are made from Democratic newspapers which, of course, is a mitigation of the slander, though it does not necessarily destroy its credibility.

Mr. ——, of Baltimore, who was made an Indian inspector in 1885, had been involved in notorious election frauds and was condemned by the civil-service reform Independents of Maryland as a companion of Higgins, as a ballot-box stuffer, and a professional gambler.

The postmaster at Sioux City, Iowa, was convicted and sentenced in Dakota for violation of the pension laws. The man who was removed to make a place for this eminent civil-service reformer had eight months yet to serve, and there was no complaint against him even to the extent that he was an offensive partisan.

Mr. Holmes, a postmaster in Mississippi, had been involved in notorious election-fraud scandals.

Mr. Shannon, appointed postmaster at Meriden, Miss., was the editor of the Mercury newspaper, which after President Grant’s death contained a rabid editorial attacking the General’s character; and he had been indicted in the United States court for “unlawfully and criminally conspiring with many others for the evasion of the civil rights law.”

In Rhode Island a Democratic postmaster was appointed who had been in the preceding three months arrested nine times for violation of the liquor law.

In Pennsylvania a man was appointed in the Philadelphia Mint who openly confessed to writing a forged letter from Neal Dow to be used in influencing the German vote in the State of Ohio the preceding year.

There have been some strange things done in Maine. I almost hesitate to quote this, but if I am wrong the Senators from that State will undoubtedly correct me. It is alleged that the postmaster in the town of Lincolnville was at the time of his appointment actually in the Portland jail, where he was serving a term for a misdemeanor.

An agent by the name of Judd, who was appointed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was, upon inquiry as to the fact whether he had been a horse-thief and served in the penitentiary, suspended from 3272office. The writer states that the only ground for supposing that he was not a horse thief arose from the fact that they do not put men in the penitentiary for stealing horses out West: that if he was alive it was a reasonable, natural conclusion that he had not stolen any horses. Nobody denied the penitentiary.

A gentleman named Richard Board, of Kentucky, was appointed in July, on the recommendation of Comptroller Durham, clerk in the railway mail service and assigned to duty in New Mexico. This is under the Postmaster-General, who found leisure between removing postmasters every fifteen minutes to appoint this man in another branch of the service where he incautiously mentioned to his friends something about his previous history, and it appeared that he had been three times arrested in Cincinnati for obtaining money under false pretenses, that he had been twice arrested for stealing in Kentucky, and once in Texas—a variegated and diversified career. “No pent up Utica” contracted his powers. He had stolen in three states. His father was a very wealthy man in high standing who had spent a great deal of money to protect his son, and through him he secured the endorsement of Comptroller Durham, and after he had been in service for a few weeks he committed a number of robberies, stole $163 from the money order service, and at the date of this communication was lying in jail at Santa Fé awaiting trial.

The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] yesterday took occasion to advert with somewhat of animated hilarity to the suggestion of the Senator from Iowa about the evolutionary condition of the Democratic party, and dwelt with considerable unction upon a term that the Senator from Iowa had applied to the Democracy in his very able and interesting speech: “a protoplasmic” cell, and the Senator then proceeded to give us the definition of the term as it appears in the dictionaries, and suggested that if those facts had been known at the time when the canvass was pending Mr. Cleveland would undoubtedly have been counted out in New York.

The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in his application of the doctrine of evolution with much propriety. Geology teaches us that in the process of being upward from the protoplasmic cell, through one form of existence to another there are intermediary and connecting stages, in which the creature bears some resemblance to the state from which it has emerged and some to the state to which it is proceeding. History is stratified politics; every stratum is fossiliferous; and I am inclined to think that the political geologist of the future in his antiquarian researches between the triassic series of 1880 and the cretaceous series of 1888 as he inspects the jurassic Democratic strata of 1884 will find some curious illustrations of the doctrine of political evolution.

In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomalous animal, long since extinct, named by the geologists the pterodactyl, or the winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws and plumes upon its tail. A political system which illustrates in its practical operations the appointment by the same administration of Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be regarded as in the transition epoch and characterized as the pterodactyl of politics. It is, like that animal, equally adapted to waddling and dabbling in the slime and mud of partisan politics and soaring aloft with discordant cries into the glittering and opalescent empyrean of civil-service reform.

The President closes his recent message to the Senate in this language:

The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the Senate and I am unwilling to submit my actions and official conduct to them for judgment.

There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my professions influences me in declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure of political friends, and yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of being false to them.

Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmation of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolution now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.

He is not responsible to the Senate, nor is the Senate responsible to him; both are alike responsible to the people. But in the cases at bar we are compelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether those pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been broken, violated, and disregarded. Had the patronage of the Government, within proper limits, been turned over for its exercise to the party intrusted with power by a majority of the people there could have been no complaint, but upon the assurances that I have read, the declaration was made that in every case where an incumbent was competent and qualified he should remain in office till the expiration of his term.

3273When, therefore, some were suspended and others were left, what is the irresistible inference, after the declarations of the President, except that these persons were suspended for cause either affecting their personal integrity or their official administration? Upon the ground, then, of personal justice, if no other, we are entitled to know whether wrong has been done by the accusations that have been filed in the Departments, so that we may protect those who are unable to defend themselves from injustice and defamation.

But there is another reason, and to me a still more convincing reason, why we should be advised in the case of these suspensions what are the papers, the official documents, and the reports on the files of the departments affecting the administration of these offices, and that is this: under the tenure-of-office act, every official suspended is reinstated by the provisions of section 1768 of the Revised Statutes, if the Senate adjourns without confirming the designated person, and continues to exercise and discharge the duties of that office, until he is again suspended by the President. Therefore, in acting upon these cases we have a double duty to perform; in the first place, to decide whether the person suspended was properly suspended, and in the next place, whether he is a competent person to be restored to office under and by virtue of the operation of the statute under which he was suspended. If he is not a competent person then he ought not to be restored, and we cannot determine whether he is competent and qualified and fit to discharge the duties of that office until we have the official declarations and statements upon which the action of the President was based.

Since this debate began, there are indications that the President has become convinced that his position is untenable, and that he has concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of the Senate and relieve suspended officials from the otherwise inevitable imputations upon their conduct and character. I find the following correspondence in one of the metropolitan journals, which if authentic relieves the relation between the President and the Senate of the principal restraint:

Committee on Finance, United States Senate, March 17, 1886.

Dear Sir: Will you please advise the Committee on Finance whether or not there are any papers or charges on file reflecting against the official or moral character of ——, late collector of internal revenue for the first district of ——, suspended?

If there are any such papers or charges will you please communicate their nature and character to the committee?

Very truly, yours,

JUSTIN S. MORRILL.

Hon. Daniel Manning,

Secretary of the Treasury.

March 19, 1886.

Sir: Your communication on behalf of the Finance Committee of the Senate, dated March 17, 1886, asking whether or not there are any papers or charges on file reflecting against the official or moral character of ——, late collector of internal revenue for the first district of ——, suspended, is received.

In reply thereto I have the honor to state that, so far as this inquiry relates to a suspension from office, I feel bound by the rules laid down in the President’s recent message to the Senate upon the general subject of such suspensions.

But in order that I may surely act within the requirements of the statute relating to the furnishing by this Department of information to the Senate, I beg leave to remind the committee that the office referred to has no fixed term attached to it, and to further state that the President is satisfied that a change in the incumbency of said office will result in an improvement of the public service, and that the policy of the present administration will be better carried out by such change.

Except as the same may be involved in these considerations, no papers containing charges reflecting upon the official or moral character of the suspended officer mentioned in your communication are in the custody of this Department.

Respectfully, yours,

D. MANNING, Secretary.

Hon. Justin S. Morrill,

Chairm’n of the Senate Com. on Finance.

But whether this be true or not, this is not the forum in which this controversy is to be ultimately decided. The Executive is not on trial before the Senate; the Senate is not on trial before the Executive; but both, as to the sincerity of their professions and the consistency of their actions, are on trial before that greater, wiser, and more powerful tribunal—the enlightened conscience of the people, from whose verdict there is neither exculpation nor appeal.

3274

THE GREAT TARIFF CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

The views which point to the tendency of the Democratic party in the direction of Free Trade, at least to their antagonism to the theory of Protection for protection’s sake, are well given in the special message of President Cleveland, given elsewhere in this work. A wing of the Democratic party, headed by Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, dissented from this view, and opposed both the Morrison and the Mills bills. For the purpose of illustrating the views of this class of Democrats, as well as because of the distinction of the speaker, we append

The Tariff Speech of Samuel J. Randall.

Delivered in the House of Representatives, May 18, 1888.

He opened by referring to the President’s recent message, in which the Executive advised Congress that the surplus in the Treasury by the 30th of June, at the end of the current fiscal year, would be expected to reach the sum of $140,000,000, including prior accumulations; or more closely stated, the sum of $113,000,000, apart from prior accumulations, over and above all authorized expenditures, including the sinking fund for the current year.

He then quoted from the President’s message defining his position on the tariff and internal revenue questions, and said that, from the utterances of the President, he understands the Executive to be adverse to any reduction of the internal taxes, as that mode of taxation afforded, in the opinion of the President, “no just complaint, and that nothing is so well able to bear the burden without hardship to any portion of the people.”

The President further said that the tariff law was a vicious and illegal source of inequitable tax, and ought to be revised and modified, and the President had urged upon Congress the immediate consideration of this matter to the exclusion of all others. The President had asserted in substance that the reduction necessary should be made by additions to the free list, and by the lowering of the rates of duty.

In the presence of such language, emanating from the Executive, authorized by the direction of the Constitution to communicate and from time to time give to Congress information on the state of the Union, and recommend such measures as he should judge necessary, it was imperatively required of the representatives of the people to give fair, intelligent, and prompt attention to the suggestions made. He had done so.

He had introduced and had referred to the Committee on Ways and Means a bill to reduce and equalize duties on imports and to reduce the internal revenue taxes, and some provisions of that bill showed that the remedies he would apply were at variance with those recommended by the President. The President sought to prevent the continuation of the surplus revenue by resorting to changes in the customs duties only.

The remedy he (Randall) proposed was through the repeal of internal revenue taxes as well as by a full revision of the tariff, as promised to the people by the Democratic Convention of 1884. The reduction provided for in his bill aggregated $77,000,000 on internal taxes.

Those taxes had always been the last to be levied, and the first to be repealed when no longer necessary.

Jefferson had given the death-blow to excise taxes, that most vicious of all taxes, and among the things he received the thanks of the Legislature of his native State for doing, was for having the internal taxes abolished. The first tax also to be repealed after the War of 1812 had been the excise tax, which was recommended by Madison, and was the first law enacted under the administration of Monroe. The Democratic Convention of 1884 declared that internal revenue was a war tax, and this declaration, taken in connection with the other declarations of the platform, clearly established the fact that the opinion of the Convention was that some of the internal revenue taxes should first go, and that they should all go whenever a sufficient sum was realized from custom-house taxes to meet the expenses of the Government economically administered.

The country was practically in such a condition now, and the true response to those declarations warranted the repeal of the internal revenue taxes to the extent proposed by his bill. He favored now, as he had always done, a total repeal of the internal revenue taxes.

In the bill which he introduced he proposed to sweep all these taxes from the statute books, except a tax of fifty cents on whiskey, and he would transfer the collection of that tax to the customs officials if that was found to be practicable.

With Albert Gallatin, he regarded excise taxes as offensive to the genius of the people, tolerated only as a measure of emergency, and as soon as the occasion for them had passed away they should cease to exist.

3275Gallatin and Jefferson had secured the repeal of the internal taxes, and relieved the people from their annoyances and the hordes of officials clothed with dangerous power. If this internal revenue system was abolished to-day we would have no surplus revenue to scare the country, while the administration of public affairs would be rendered purer and better. His bill proposed a revision of the tariff on the principle believed to be in harmony with the authorized declarations of the Democratic party in their last convention.

Those declarations clearly recognized the fact that a difference existed in the cost of production of commodities in this and other countries on account of a higher rate of wages in the United States, and declared for a duty ample to cover that difference. There was a cardinal principle which must cover every intelligent revision of the tariff. Labor in this country received a much larger share of what was annually produced than in any other country, and this advantage to labor could only be maintained by giving to the industries protection equal to that difference.

He quoted from Edward Atkinson that since the end of the Civil War, and yet more since the so-called panic of 1873, there had been greater progress in the common welfare among the people of the United States than ever before. The statements of Mr. Atkinson would seem to settle the question as to whether we should adhere to the benevolent policy of protecting home manufactures. It demonstrated unmistakably the truth that, to increase wages, products must be increased, for in the end wages were but the laborer’s share of products.

While a dollar might buy more in another country than here, a day’s labor here would obtain more of the comforts of life than anywhere else. Under free trade this advantage to labor disappeared. It was impossible it should be otherwise. If the tariff itself did not give higher wages to the laborer, it did preserve from foreign competition the industries from which the laborer received his wages. He wished to refer to a few fundamental propositions which had been maintained throughout this debate, and which appeared to exercise and control influence over the opinion of men.

First. That the duties were always added to the price to the consumer.

On articles not produced in this country, this doubtless was true as a general rule, and measurably true on articles in part produced in this country, but not in sufficient quantities to supply the home market. But on all commodities produced in sufficient quantities to supply the home market, a different principle controlled. In these things competition determined the price, and the foreign producer came into this market, where the prices were fixed, and the duties were what he paid for the privilege of coming into the market. Another erroneous proposition was that duties on articles produced in this country were a tax or bounty which the consumer paid to the manufacturer, by means of which the manufacturer derived large profits. If this were true, it was not easy to see what justification there was for the committee bill any more than for the present tariff law. But that it was erroneous seemed apparent on a closer examination of the laws of trade. Adam Smith long ago had laid down the proposition that larger profits in one industry than in another could not long prevail in the same country. The United States formed a world of its own. Would it be possible that one class of consumers would pay a perpetual tax to another?

Suppose last year we had manufactured $1,000,000,000 worth of products less than we actually did, and had gone abroad to supply our deficiency, expecting to pay for the goods with our agricultural products—we had sold Europe last year all of the wheat and corn the continent could take—who could tell what prices Europe would have paid if we had thrown upon her markets $1,000,000,000 worth of agricultural products in excess of the quantity we had sold. The farmer and manufacturer in this country must depend almost exclusively upon our home market.

Any other policy would mean ruin and bankruptcy to the country. The greater the producing power of the people the more independent and wealthy would the country be.

Mr. Randall next entered into an explanation of the principles upon which his bill had been constructed. He said that in fixing the duties the rates had been adjusted as nearly as possible to cover the difference in the margin of cost of production here and abroad. In working out the details of the bill it had been his purpose to lower duties wherever possible.

Between the extreme free trader on one hand and a prohibitory tariff on the other there were intermediate positions. One of them was to fix a revenue line on imports just high enough to realize a sufficient revenue for the needs of the Government. Another was to make the tariff sufficiently high to cover the difference of cost of production in this country and other countries. To lower the rate of duty when that line was passed must be to increase the revenue. To raise the rate of duty when the line of maximum revenue was reached would result in a decrease of duty.

Any computation that did not take these facts into account would be utterly worthless. It might safely be assumed that when 3276the importation of any line of merchandise steadily increased from year to year, and there was no good reason why those goods could not be produced in this country, and the result of the increased importations had been to suppress our manufactures, it was proof positive that the duty should be increased.

Otherwise it might be assumed that the duties were quite high enough. And when the duties were high enough to permit the existence of trusts to raise the prices of the commodity, the duty should be reduced as closely as possible to the line. He stated distinctly that if it could be made to appear in any case that the measure he proposed conferred more protection than was needed to cover the cost of production, he was ready to lower it. If in any instance the rate was too low to cover that cost, he was ready to raise it.

Monopolies existed without the tariff. The standard oil trust, the whiskey trust, and the cotton-seed oil trust, and others that he could mention—the greatest trusts in the whole country—were not protected by the tariff. He was for the protection of labor, not in one State merely, but in all States.

He was for the protection and maintenance of that system that allows to labor a larger proportionate share of its products than was realized in any other country or under any other system.

The late Secretary Manning had signalized his accession to the control of the Treasury Department by a more thorough examination of the economic questions of the day than had been made by any of his predecessors. His reports and public utterances were marvels of honest, conscientious, and effective labor.

He had strongly urged the necessity for the substitution of specific for ad valorem duties. The Custom House officers charged with the collection of the revenues had given valuable and emphatic testimony in favor of the change. The present Secretary of the Treasury had taken the same grounds. (At this point Mr. Randall quoted extensively from Secretary Fairchild’s utterances on the subject. He then proceeded with his description of the objects of his own bill.) Certain provisions of the metal schedules, he said, had been very sharply assailed, and he devoted some time to answering the speakers who had attacked his measure.

He took up the schedules relating to steel rails, and quoted figures at length to sustain his action in fixing the duties at the rates he proposed in his bill. The duty on cotton ties, he said, was one of the inconsistencies of the present tariff. It was only fair that they should pay a duty as hoop iron and as an article of manufacture. The present law was a positive discrimination against the home manufacturer and in favor of the foreign producer. The rate of wages in England in cotton tie manufactories was hardly one-half of the wages paid in such manufactories in Pittsburg.

He then proceeded to a criticism of the committee bill as follows:

A declared purpose of this bill is to secure “free raw materials to stimulate manufactories.”

In execution of this idea, the bill places on the free list a large number of articles which are really manufactured articles, such as salt, sawed and dressed lumber, glue, various oils and chemicals, china, clay, etc. These constitute the products of large and useful industries throughout the United States in which many millions of capital are invested, and employing many thousands of working people. At the same time the bill leaves or puts upon the dutiable list, lead, iron, zinc and nickel ores, and coal, which might be called raw materials. Further than this, the bill not only makes so-called “raw materials” free, but places on the free list the manufactured products of these materials. Thus the manufacture of such articles is made impossible in this country, except by reducing American labor to a worse condition than that of labor in Europe. It goes even further, and places or leaves dutiable certain so-called raw materials, such as iron ore, lead, coal, paper, paints, etc., while placing on the free list articles made from these materials, such as hoop iron and cotton ties, tin plates, machinery, books and pamphlets, etc.

In other words, the bill leaves or makes dutiable the raw material and puts on the free list the articles manufactured from it; thus not only placing an insurmountable barrier in the way of making such articles here, but actually protecting the foreign manufacturer and laborer against our own, and imposing for their benefit a burden upon the consumer in this country. Again, the bill places lower rates on some manufactured articles than on the raw materials used in making them. For instance, type metal, 15 per cent.; pig lead, 44 per cent.; carpets, 30 per cent.; yarns used in their manufacture, 40 per cent.

It leaves an internal revenue tax of more than 100 per cent. on alcohol used in the arts, amounting to as much as the entire amount of duty collected on raw wool. This article enters as a material into a vast number of important and needful articles which the committee have either made free or have so reduced the rates thereon that the duty would be less than the tax on the alcohol consumed in their manufacture.

In some cases, the difference between the 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 levelling 3277the wages of home labor to that of Europe. This was so in the case of pig lead and red lead, which is made from it, and of pig iron and steel blooms and steel rails.

Such legislation would leave the ore in the mines, or the pig lead in the smelting works, or the pig iron to rust at the furnaces, while foreigners would supply our markets with these manufactured products. In a large number of articles throughout the schedules the reductions proposed by the bill are so large that the effect must be to destroy or restrict home production and increase enormously foreign importations, thus largely increasing customs revenue instead of reducing it, as claimed by the advocates of the bill. Particular mention in this connection is made of earthen and chinaware, glass, leaf tobacco, manufactures of cotton, flax, hemp, and jute, carpets, brushes, leather, gloves, manufactures of India rubber, and pipes.

Mr. Randall asserted that instead of the bill reducing customs revenues $64,000,000, as was claimed, it would be 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, he said, hold themselves out as the champions of the farmer, while they take from him the protection duties on his wool, hemp, flax, meats, vegetables, etc. And what do they give him in return. They profess to give the manufacturer better rates than he now has. If this be so, how is the farmer to be benefited, or where does he get compensation for the loss of his protective duties?

Much has been said about removing taxes on necessaries and imposing them upon luxuries. What does this bill propose? It gives olive oil to the epicure and taxes castor oil 95 per cent.; it gives free tin plates to the Standard Oil Company and to the great meat-canning monopolies, and imposes 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 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 the fine animals imported by the gentlemen of the turf, makes free the paintings and statuary of the railway millionaire and coal baron.

Mr. Randall said he yielded to no man on his side of the House in his desire for continued Democratic control in the administration of the Federal Government. He did not believe the adoption of the committee’s bill would make such result certain, and added:

“I cannot be coerced into any particular action upon economic questions by the direction of party caucus. The period of the political caucus has departed never to return, and yet we should confer and have unity, if it is possible.

“In these matters I speak only for myself. My convictions on the tariff are strong, and founded, as I think, upon principle, and upon information and intelligent comprehension of the subject. When any one here enters upon the task of invoking caucus power or other modes of coercion, I can only say to him, if he acts with good purpose, that it will prove a fruitless undertaking; or if with ill motive, then I consign him to all the natural contempt which such self-constituted superciliousness deserves.”

In conclusion, Mr. Randall quoted from the earliest statesmen in support of his views upon the tariff, and said:

“If Jackson could say he was confirmed in his opinions by the opinions of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, how much more am I confirmed in my opinions by his great authority added to that of the founders and builders of the Democratic party? I warn the party that it is not safe to abandon principles so fundamental to our institutions and so necessary to the maintenance of our industrial system; principles which attest the wisdom of those who established them by the fruits they have borne, the full fruition of which, however, can only be realized in the extension of diversified industries to all parts of the country, not in the North and East alone, but in the South and West as well. A new era of industrial enterprise has already dawned upon the South; no section of the country possesses greater natural advantages than the South, with her genial climate, her limitless raw materials, her mines of coal and iron, with abundant labor ready to develop them. Considering what has been there achieved in a single decade, what may not a century bring forth from her under a system calculated to favor the highest industrial development? When I read the history of my country and consider the past and present, and reflect on what is before us, I cannot believe that the idea that went down in the convulsions of 1861 will ever again dominate the destinies of the Republic.”

Tariff Speech of Major Wm. McKinley, Jr.,

Member of Congress from Ohio.

In the great tariff campaign of 1888 the two most distinguished Republican speakers were Mr. Blaine and Major McKinley. The latter was invited by the Chautauqua Society of Georgia to explain the doctrine of Protection, and did so in the following comprehensive speech:

Fellow-citizens: I make my acknowledgments to the Piedmont Society for the courtesy and cordiality of its invitation, 3278which has given me the opportunity to meet, for the first time, an assemblage of the citizens of Georgia.

I have come, upon the suggestion of the committee, to address you upon a public question of great national import, which concerns not only the prosperity of one section, but of all sections of our common country, and which is of commanding interest to our sixty millions of people. It is no new subject which I propose to consider. It is as old as government by men. Taxation, with few exceptions, has been the chief and absorbing issue for more than a century of the republic.

A revenue tariff is such a one as will produce the largest revenue from the lowest duty. The lowest rate of duty will encourage importations, diminish home production, and inevitably increase the revenue. It will, of necessity, check competition at home, and send our merchants abroad to buy; it affords no protection, not even incidental, for the very instant that you discover that such duty favors the home producer, that instant you discover that importations and revenue are checked, and that our own producers are able to control the home market or a part of it. Then at once the advocate of a revenue tariff reduces the duty, brings it down to the true revenue standard, for it must not be overlooked, according to the free trade maxim, “where protection begins, revenue ends,” and the question of revenue is always controlling. A revenue tariff is inconsistent with protection; it is intended for a wholly different purpose. It loses its force and character as a genuine revenue tariff when it becomes to any extent protective. It has but one object. It can have but one effect—that of opening up our markets to the foreign producer—impoverishing the home producer and enriching his foreign rival.

England is more nearly a free trade country than any other, and her system of taxation furnishes an unmistakable example of the practice and principle of a revenue tariff. Her import duties are imposed almost exclusively upon articles which cannot be produced by her own people upon her own soil. Tobacco, snuff, cigars, chicory, cocoa, currants, figs, raisins, rum, brandy, wine, tea, and coffee—these are the articles from which her customs revenue is derived—articles, in the main, not produced in England, but which must be supplied from abroad; while, practically, all competing products of foreign make and production are admitted through her custom-house free of duty.

A brief statement of the dutiable imports of Great Britain will not be without interest.

It will be observed that her duties are more largely imposed upon the peculiar American products than upon any others. The duty upon tobacco is, according to moisture, from 84 to 92 cents per pound for the raw or unmanufactured article; and, if manufactured, it pays a duty of from $1.04 to $1.16 per pound. The manufactured article is made dutiable at 20 cents a pound greater than the raw product, which, with all of England’s boasted free trade, is intended as a protection to those engaged in the manipulation of tobacco. It is almost prohibitive to Americans who would export manufactured tobacco. The ad valorem equivalent of the duty on tobacco is nearly 2000 per cent. Cigars pay a duty of $1.32 per pound, and from tobacco and snuff over $43,000,000 of duties are collected annually. The duty on tea is 12 cents a pound. How would the Americans enjoy paying such a duty upon this article of everyday use? The duty collected from this source is over $18,000,000 annually. Coffee pays a duty of 3 cents a pound; but, if ground, prepared, or in any way manufactured, it must pay a duty of 4 cents a pound—another example of where England protects those engaged in manufacture. Cocoa pays a duty of 2 cents a pound, but if it is in any form subjected to manufacture it pays 4 cents a pound, the duty on the manufactured article being double that on the raw material.

Besides the articles named, there are about ninety or a hundred others, chiefly of American production, patented and other medicines, which are dutiable at $3.36 per gallon. More than $96,000,000, or nearly one-fourth of the British revenues, are raided from customs duties.

You will note the character of taxation to which the revenue reformer invites the people of the United States. Both the breakfast table and the sick room are made to bear a large part of the burden under the British system of taxation. It is not without significance that the nearer we approach this system the more generous the bestowal of British commendation. Every step we take in that direction, every enlargement of the free list of competing foreign products, every reduction of duty upon such products is hailed as a vindication of Cobden and a beneficence to British interests. It is in vain for the British statesman to assure us that their system is best for us. We are not accustomed to look to our commercial rivals for disinterested favors. “It is folly,” said Washington in his farewell address, “for one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay, with a portion of its independence, for whatever it may accept under that character. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, and which a just pride ought to discard.” We are not insensible to the 3279good opinion of mankind and of the English-speaking race, but when it is to be had only at the expense of our industrial independence, at the sacrifice of the dignity and independence of labor and the destruction of national prosperity, we must regard it with supreme suspicion, and turn from it as the eulogy of selfish interest and the commendation of interested greed.

The other theory of taxation, and the one which I believe to be essential to American development and national prosperity, is based upon an exactly opposite principle. It permits all articles of foreign production, whether of the field, the factory, or the mine, except luxuries only, which we cannot produce in the United States, to enter our ports free and unburdened by custom-house exactions. The duty is to be imposed upon the foreign competing product; that is, the product which, if brought into this country, would contend with the products of our own soil, our own labor, and our own factories, in our own markets. Under this system, if the foreign producer would enter our market with a competing product, he must contribute something for the privilege which he is to enjoy, and this something, in the form of duties, goes into the Treasury, furnishing revenue to the Government; and these duties operate to protect the joint product of labor and capital against a like foreign product.

This mode of levying duties answers a double purpose. It produces revenue to the Government, and at the same time fosters and encourages the occupations of our own people, promotes industrial development, opens up new mines, builds new factories, and sustains those already established, which in turn furnish employment to labor at fair and remunerative wages. A revenue tariff accomplishes but a single purpose—that of raising revenue; it has no other mission; while a protective tariff accomplishes this and more—it brings revenue to the American treasury and discriminates in favor of the American citizen. A revenue tariff invites the product of foreign labor and foreign capital to occupy our markets free and unrestrained in competition with the product of our own labor and capital. A protective tariff invites the product of foreign labor and foreign capital which are necessary to the wants of our people (which we cannot produce in the United States) to occupy our markets and go untaxed to the people, but insists that every foreign product which is produced at home, or can be, successfully, in quantities capable of supplying the domestic consumption, shall, whenever necessary to maintain suitable rewards to our labor, bear a duty which shall not be so high as to prohibit importations, but at such a rate as will produce the necessary revenues and, at the same time, not destroy but encourage American production. It says to the world of producers: “If you want to share with the citizens of the United States their home market, you must pay for the privilege of doing it. Your product shall not enter into free and unrestrained competition with the product of our own people, but shall be discriminated against to such an extent as to fully protect and defend our own.”

It is alleged as a serious objection to protective duties that the tax, whatever it may be, increases the cost of the foreign as well as the domestic product to the extent of such tax or duty, and that it is wholly paid by the consumer. This objection would be worthy of serious consideration if it were true; but, as has been demonstrated over and over again, it is without foundation in fact. Wherever the foreign product has successful competition at home, the duty is rarely paid by the consumer. It is paid from the profits of the manufacturer, or divided between him and the merchant or the importer, and diminishes their profit to that extent. Duty or no duty, without home competition the consumer would fare worse than he fares now. There is not in the long line of staple products consumed by the people a single one which has not been cheapened by competition at home, made possible by protective duties. There is not an article that enters into the everyday uses of the family, which is produced in the United States, that has not been made cheaper and more accessible as the result of home production and development, which was to be secured only by the sturdy maintenance of the protective system. While this is true of protective tariffs, exactly the opposite is true of revenue tariffs. They are always paid by the consumer. When a duty is put on a foreign product the like of which is not produced at home, and which enters our markets free from home competition, the cost to the American consumer is exactly the foreign cost with the duty added, whatever that may be, much or little. Supposing, for example, there was a tax upon tea and coffee. There being no production of these articles in the United States, and therefore no competition here, the cost to the American public would be the cost abroad and the duty added. We imported last year 526,489,000 pounds of coffee. A duty of 10 cents a pound would have produced to the Government over $52,000,000, which would have been paid by the 12,000,000 families of this country, consumers of this article; 87,584,000 pounds of tea were imported last year; at 10 cents a pound, $8,000,000 and upward would have gone into the Treasury, every dollar of which would have been paid by our own people. Take sugar as another example. We produced last year in this country about 3280eight per cent. of what our people consumed. The duty collected from imported sugar amounted to $58,000,000. The domestic production was so inconsiderable as compared with the domestic consumption as to have had little, if any, appreciable effect upon the price to the consumer, and therefore this sum was almost wholly paid by our own citizens, and the cost of sugar to the American consumer, because of the inadequate home supply, is practically the foreign price, duty added, the domestic production being so small contrasted with the domestic demand that it in no wise controlled or influenced the price.

The revenue tariff periods of our history have been periods of greatest financial revulsions and industrial decadence, want, and poverty among the people, private enterprises checked and public works retarded. From 1833 to 1842, under the low tariff legislation then prevailing, business was at a standstill, and our merchants and traders were bankrupted; our industries were paralyzed, our labor remained idle, and our capital was unemployed. Foreign products crowded our markets, destroyed domestic competition, and, as invariably follows, the prices of commodities to consumers were appreciably raised. It is an instructive fact that every panic this country has ever experienced has been preceded by enormous importations. From 1846 to 1861 a similar situation was presented under the low tariff of that period.

Contrast this period with the period from 1860 to 1880, the former under a revenue tariff, the latter under a protective tariff. In 1860 we had 163,000,000 acres of improved land, while in 1880 we had 287,000,000, an increase of 75 per cent. In 1860 our farms were valued at $3,200,000,000; in 1880 the value had leaped to $10,197,000,000, an increase of over 300 per cent. In 1860 we raised 173,000,000 bushels of wheat; in 1880, 498,000,000. In 1860 we raised 838,000,000 bushels of corn; in 1880, 1,717,000,000 bushels. In 1860 we produced 5,000,000 bales of cotton; in 1880, 7,600,000 bales, an increase of 40 per cent. In 1860 we manufactured cotton goods to the value of $115,681,774; in 1880 the value reached $211,000,000, an increase of upward of 80 per cent. In 1860 we manufactured of woollen goods $61,000,000; in 1880, $267,000,000, an increase of 333 per cent. In 1860 we produced 60,000,000 pounds of wool; in 1880, 240,000,000 pounds, an increase of nearly 300 per cent. In 1860 we mined 15,000,000 tons of coal; in 1880, 79,000,000 tons, an increase of over 400 per cent. In 1860 we made 987,000 tons of pig iron; in 1880, 3,835,000 tons. In 1860 we manufactured 235,000 tons of railroad iron, and in 1880, 1,208,000 tons. In 1860 our aggregate of national wealth was $16,159,000,000; in 1880 it was $43,000,000,000.

From 1848 to 1860, during the low tariff period, there was but a single year in which we exported in excess of what we imported. The balance of trade during twelve of the thirteen years was against us. Our people were drained of their money to pay for foreign purchases. We sent abroad, over and above our sales, $396,216,161. This vast sum was drawn from the United States, from its business, from the channels of trade, which would have been better employed in productive enterprises, and thus supplied our wants for which we were compelled to go abroad. During the last thirteen years, under a protective tariff, there was but one year that the balance of trade was against us. For twelve years we sold to our foreign customers in excess of what we bought from them $1,612,659,755.

This contrast makes an interesting exhibit of the work under the two systems. You need not be told that the government and the people are most prosperous whose balance of trade is in their favor. The government is like the citizen; indeed, it is but an aggregation of citizens; and when the citizen buys more than he sells, he is soon conscious that his year’s business has not been a success.

Our wealth increases $875,000,000 every year, while the increase of France is $375,000,000, Great Britain $325,000,000, and Germany $200,000,000. The total carrying capacity of all the vessels entered and cleared from American ports during the year 1886–7 in the foreign trade was 28,000,000 tons. The amount of freight transported by the railroads of the United States was alone 482,000,000 tons during the same period.

The sum of our industries exceeds that of any other people, or tribe, or nationality. Mulhall, the English statistician, places the industries of the United States at $11,405,000,000 annually, which is $2,205,000,000 greater than those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, nearly twice those of France or Germany, nearly three times those of Russia, and almost equal to the aggregated industries of Austria, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Australia, Canada, and Sweden and Norway.

This advancement is the world’s wonder. The nations of the earth cannot furnish such a splendid exhibition of progress in any age or period. We defy a revenue tariff policy to present such an exhibition of material prosperity and industrial development. Art, science, and literature have held their own in this wonderful march. We are prosperous to-day beyond any other people. The masses are better cared for, better provided for, more self-respecting, and more independent than ever before in 3281our history, which cannot be said of the masses of other countries.

One of the striking differences between a revenue tariff and a protective tariff is that the former sends the money of its people abroad for foreign supplies and seeks out a foreign market. The latter keeps the money at home among our own people, circulating through the arteries of trade, and creates a market at home, which is always the best, because the most reliable.

Surely a new era of industrial development has come to the South. Nothing should be permitted to check or retard it. To her nature has been most prodigal with her gifts. Her hills and valleys have been made the storehouses of richest treasure. Coal and iron mines wait impatiently the touch of labor and capital, and tempt both with the promise of lavish profit.

Raw materials are found at every turn to invite the skilled artisan to transform them into the finished product for the highest uses of man. She possesses the fibres in rich abundance; her skilled labor should weave the fabric.

It is said that there is nothing grown in any of the States, except Florida, that Georgia cannot profitably produce. She has coal, iron deposits, marble and building stone, cotton and the cereals. Nothing but her own folly, nothing but blindness to her highest and best interests can keep her from the front rank of the industrial States of the Union.

Whether we discuss this question from principle, from statistics, or experience, we must reach the same conclusion; all lead to the same conviction.

One of the chief complaints against the protective system is its alleged hindrance to foreign trade and a foreign market for our own products. It is argued that if we could import raw material from other countries free, and manufacture such raw material into products for use, we could export them at great profit, and thus secure a standing in the markets of the world. This theory is wholly, as I believe, illusory. It is without substance. We have an example of free raw material in a certain line of manufactures—that of leather for boots, shoes, etc. In 1872 hides and skins were made free, so that our manufacturers could import them without custom-house burdens. They have had “free trade” in their raw material now for sixteen years. This industry has been an exceptionally successful one, and yet you cannot avoid being surprised when I say to you that in these sixteen years we have been able to export but two per cent. of the leather production of this country.

But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to-day have substantial free trade in foreign raw materials which they make into the finished product in the United States, provided they export it. Sections 3019, 3020, 3021, and 3022 of the United States Statutes provide for the remission of duties on all foreign materials used in manufacturing for the export trade. The law is positive that all articles manufactured for export from imported materials upon which duties have been paid, shall, when exported, be entitled to a drawback of 90 per cent. of the duties paid on such raw materials. Some use has been made of these laws. The remission of duties in 1884 paid upon imported material manufactured for foreign markets amounted to $2,256,638. On some articles the drawback is equal to the duty paid, but in no instance where articles are imported to be manufactured here and sent abroad is the duty to exceed 10 per cent.

And yet we are gravely told by the tariff reformers that we cannot reach foreign markets on account of the high tariff on the raw material, when, in fact, for foreign trade foreign raw materials are practically free. This principle was recognized as early as the administration of George Washington, and has been enlarged and made applicable to all imported materials, the drawbacks varying from 60 to 100 per cent. What becomes, then, of the cry for free raw materials in the presence of this fact? The truth is, we are not so much concerned about the foreign market as we are about the home market. The latter is the best, and we have not yet been able to control it, and, until we do, that should be our chief concern. But if any of our people are sighing for a foreign market, and value it more highly than our own, they can import foreign raw material practically free of duty, and after advancing it into the higher forms of manufacture, can go out and possess the world’s markets. Taxed raw materials do not stand in their way, and it is hypocrisy to claim otherwise.

“The markets of the world,” in our present condition, are a snare and a delusion. We will reach them whenever we can undersell competing nations, and not sooner. Tariffs do not keep us out, and free trade will not make it easier to enter them.

Upon what terms can we adopt a revenue tariff system in this country? In one way only; by accepting European conditions, and submitting to all the discomforts and disadvantages of our commercial rivals. The chief obstruction in the way of a revenue tariff are the wages paid American workingmen, and any return to that policy involves a reduction of the cost of labor. We cannot afford to have cheap labor in the United States. Cheap labor means cheap men and dear money. I would rather elevate and improve the condition of my fellow-citizens than increase the value of money and the power of “money-bags.” This is a republic 3282of free and equal citizenship. The government is in the hands of the masses, and not of the few. This is our boast, and it is a proud one. The condition of the masses, their well-being, their intelligence, their preparation for the civil duties which rest upon them, depend largely upon the scale of industrial wages. It is essential, therefore, that the best possible wages attainable shall be secured and maintained. This is vital and fundamental. We cannot, without grave danger and serious disturbance—we ought not under any circumstances—adopt a policy which would scale down the wages and diminish the comforts of the American workingmen. Their welfare and independence, their progress and elevation are closely related to the welfare and independence and progress of the republic. We have got no pampered class in this country, and we want none. We want the field kept open. No narrowing of the avenues, no lowering of our standard. We want no barriers raised against a higher and better civilization. The gateway of opportunity must be open to all, to the end that they may be first who deserve to be first, whether born in poverty or reared in luxury. We do not want the masses excluded from competing for the first rank among their countrymen and for the nation’s greatest honors, and we do not mean they shall be.

Free trade, or a revenue tariff, will, of necessity, shut them out. It has no respect for labor. It holds it as the mere machinery of capital. It would have cheap men that it might have cheap merchandise. With all of its boasted love for the struggling millions, it is infinitely more interested in cutting down the wages of labor than in saving twenty-five cents on a blanket; more intent in reducing the purchasing power of a man’s labor than the cost of his coat. Things are not always dearest when their price is nominally the highest. The price is not the only measure, but the wherewith to buy it is an essential factor. Few men before me but have found in the course of their lives more than once that that which was cheapest when measured by mere price was the dearest when they were without money and employment, or when their products could find no market, and, finding it, commanded no price at all commensurate with the labor required to produce them. Primarily, it is labor which is interested most in this question of protection. The man with money can seek other avenues of profit and investment, or can wait for his dividends, but the laborer cannot wait for his dinner, and the United States do not want citizens who make presidents, and senates, and the house of representatives, to be in a condition of dependence and destitution. That is not the sort of citizenship we want.