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CHAPTER XLVII.

TAKING OFF BURDENS.

REDUCTION OF

THE PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE PROPOSED

BURDENSOME WAR TAXES ARE SUPPORTED.

Extracts from the Debates in Congress on the Schedules of the Tax Reduction Bill-How the Experts in various Lines Looked at its Effects.

I.

DECLINE OF AMERICAN SHIPPING IN THIRTY YEARS.

THE AMERICAN FLAG HAS BEEN DRIVEN MORE AND MORE FROM THE SEAS

UNDER THE EXACTIONS OF HIGH TAXES.

Representative Timothy E. Taroney, of Mickigan, May, 1880.

Another element which enters into the consideration of this problem is the shipbuilding and navigation between the United States and foreign countries. By an examination of statistics it appears that the progress of American shipbuilding was continuous and rapid from the organization of the Government down to 1861. The time was when, under a revenue tariff, the United States was almost mistress of the seas. Her flag could be found floating in the ports of every commercial nation on the globe. The American clipper ship was the prodigy of the world; built of American material by American workmen, and manned by American officers and American seamen. Our merchant marine was the pride of the country. But "O! how has the mighty fallen."

Go with me to-night to the city of New York and stand on Brooklyn bridge and look down the river to the bay; go through the harbor and amongst the thousands of spars, and the flags that float from the mastheads, you wil not find one in five hundred that floats the stars and stripes, and these few are coasters. Not one line of ships engaged regularly in the transportation of commerce to foreign countries. Why all this? Our materials are in existence, the brain and the sinew of the American builder and the sailor are not lost. The indomitable spirit that will brave the tempest and the storm is with us still. But why this falling off in shipping? The time was when in American bottoms we sent to foreign nations 77 per cent. of our exports under the American flag The order is reversed, and now it is less than 12 per cent.

THE DECLINE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY.

Table showing the total foreign tonnage and total American tonnage cleared from seaports of the United States for foreign countries, from 1858 to 1887, inclusive:

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You ask the cause. Some attribute it to our navigation laws with some of their restrictions. True, this may, to a certain extent, enter into the result, but the chief cause, and the principal one which I desire to present to this House to-day, is the fact that we have not that free and unrestricted commerce with the world that we had in the days of a tariff for revenue only, when our ships could go out laden with the product of our own country, and go to the port of any nation of the world and bring back in exchange their product. Therefore I say to this House that the policy of this country should be to so revise the tariff laws that we will bring ourselves to the base line of necessary taxation for governmental purposes honestly administered; discourage the idea of local protection for the benefit of a few favored individuals, and legislate for the common good of our population. When we do this, and upon fair and reciprocal relations with the world, we will find that American ingenuity, American pluck, and American skill will once more launch upon the high seas a merchant marine which will make our flag respected in every nation of the world where to-day it is sneered and scoffed at because of our com. mercial weakness.

II.

DECLINE IN COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF HOMES.

THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE OWNING HOMES IN THIS COUNTRY CONTINUALLY DECREASING UNDER HIGH TAXES.

Representative Charles H. Mansur, of Missouri, May 8, 1888.

Now let us look to its effects upon married life and to its housing; for be it known to you, a protective tariff is the universal great panacea, the one great solvent, that unfolds all the secrets in Nature's hidden arcana. It creates fortunes; it popu lates the wilderness, builds cities, tunnels mountains, and, I will add, builds monopolies, makes giant trusts, with anaconda folds, to embrace a whole country

and sixty millions of people; also creates giant fortunes in a shorter era of time than ever before known in any country in any age or any era, and ought, of course, to make happy families also.

Aladdin's lamp pales its glory before the shining luster of a protective tariff, and the slave of that lamp stands ready to abdicate his mystic power because he cannot serve the spirit of a protective tariff instead of his lamp.

HOMES FOR ALL THE PEOPLE.

In 1850 there were 3,598,240 families in this country who had 3,362,337 dwellings to live in; at that time only 235,903 families were apparently without separate homes for themselves. In 1860 there were 5,210,934 families, and they lived in 4,969,692 houses or dwellings. Thus 241,242 families were without separate homes in all the land. The families had increased 1,612,694 in number, and all of them had new homes but 5,339. The millennium is at hand, and the protective tariff has done this surely. One million six hundred and twelve thousand six hundred and ninety-four new families in the past decade, and all but 5,339 posseseed of new homes. All hail and glory to a protective tariff! But hold on! This period from 1850 to 1860 was the period of lowest tariffs this country ever knew or had.

From September 14, 1851, to March 3, 1857, it had enacted four tariff laws, the duties running lower and lower until the last only ranged from 4 to 30 per cent., averaging 18 per cent., instead of from 10 to 300 per cent. and averaging 48 per cent., as does our present tariff. What comfort in the land is expressed in the figures 1,612,694 new families in ten years, and all living in new houses except 5,339! Surely it must be a low or revenue tariff that did it. No discontent abroad in the land then! Tramps unknown; the word is not yet coined.

THE MORE TAXES THE FEWER HOMES.

Now let us look at the decade from 1860 to 1870, a decade under the highest tariff this country has ever known; one claimed by its friends to be a distinctly protective tariff. In 1870 there were 7,579,363 families living in 7,042,833 dwellings. During the decade from 1860 to 1870 the number of families without dwellings had increased to 536,510, an increase, not of 3 per cent., or 5,339 only, but an increase of 295,268 families without houses or dwellings, an increase of over 100 per cent.-yea, of 123 per cent.

But, observe, this is under a new era of a high protective tariff, imposed between 1860 and 1870. Yet what misery is involved in the figures 295,268 families unable to find a separate home or dwelling, either to buy, build, or rent to live in, as against 5,339 families in the decade from 1850 to 1860. But the opposition will say this is a consequence of the war period. Be patient and let us see what we will

see.

We will now look to the decade from 1870 to 1880 for its story. In 1880, 9,945,916 families had 8,955,812 dwellings to live in or occupy. In this decade the families increased 2,366,553 in number, but the dwellings only increased 1,912,079, leaving a total of 990,108 families in the land without separate homes or dwellings.

Thus in this decade the 536,510 unhoused families of 1870 had become 990,108, an increase of 433,598 in ten years, an increase of almost 100 per cent. in the decade, as against 123 per cent. from 1860 to 1870, as against 3 per cent. from 1850 to 1860, of homeless and houseless families for Democratic times and a low tariff; as against 123 per cent. and nearly 100 per cent. for Republican rule and a protective tariff running through two decades.

WHERE THE INCREASE WENT.

I now ask, who apparently got the "boodle" of the ten years from 1870 to 1880.

We see the manufacturers by their own reports, for they furnish the statistics that make the census reports, got an increase of capital of $674,063,837 at this dis

content and misery of 453,598 homeless and unsheltered families in the same period. But I am not quite done with families and their dwellings. Between 1850 and 1860 the increase of families was 44 8 per cent. in numbers, and the increase of their dwellings was 32.4 per cent. This was in low-tariff times. Comparing now between 1870 and 1880, in high tariff times, the increase in number of families was 31.2 per cent., while the increase in their dwellings was only 27 per cent. This shows an advantage for the first decade of 13.6 per cent. in families, and 5.4 per cent. in dwellings.

In this last decade, in 1873, with the greatest panic, came a new order of beings theretofore unknown in this country. Tramps. Five hundred thousand strong; tramps, tramping over the country. Skilled laborer, mechanic, agriculturist, all felt the baneful effect of the panic. A new era is ushered in; and since then strikes, lockouts, tramps, discontent, degradation and misery have appeared in such numbers and so universally over and throughout the country, and even still abide with us, as the recent commotion on Western railroads and in the Reading coal regions attest, as to all alike indicate that if capital is satisfied labor is discontented and day by day becomes more so. And all this in spite of a protective tariff. Can I not say it is the legitimate fruit of an unequal and unjust system of tribute that robs the poor to make the rich richer?

III.

WORKERS IN NON-PROTECTIVE INDUSTRIES.

THE NUMBER OF PERSONS WHO ARE NOT ONLY NOT BENEFITED BUT SUBJECTED TO

INJURY BY BURDENSOME TAXES.

Bepresentative Samuel S. Cox, of New York, May 17.

It has often been repeated here that the last census shows that of the 17,392,099 of our population engaged in industries, 7,670,493 were employed in agriculture; and, in round numbers, about 4,000,000 in professional and personal services, nearly 2,000,000 in trade and transportation, and nearly 4,000,000 in manufacturing and mining. At least 1,214,023 were engaged in pursuits which were not benefited but rather injured by a high tariff. They were injured, I say, because the protective tariff, which is alleged to make high wages for others, did not benefit these. The pattern makers, the brick-layers, the molders, the house carpenters, and many workers in other branches of business which are absolutely unprotected, command higher wages than those working on protected articles.

There are nearly 400,000 carpenters and joiners, 300,000 milliners and dressmakers and seamstresses, nearly 200,000 blacksmiths, 133,000 tailors and tailoresses, 102,000 mason3, 76,000 butchers, 41,000 bakers, 22,000 plasterers, and others engaged in unprotected pursuits, who bear the burden without receiving the supposed benefit of the favored class.

Counting out the number of unprotected farmers-and over one-half of our entire population are dependent upon farm3-I have before me a list of trades and employments. It includes over one hundred classes, from the architect to the woodchopper, who derive no sort of reward, but whose business is crucified between the two thieves-ad valorem and specific duties, levied upon all they consume.

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Pilots...

Porters and laborers..

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Teachers and scientific persons.

Veterinary surgeons..

Private watchmen...................................

Whitewashers..

Boatmen and watermen..

Book-keepers in stores..

Canal men.............

Clerks in stores...

Commercial travelers........

Clerks in railroad offices..

Clerks in insurance offices..

Clerks in express companies.....

Draymen and teamsters...................................
Employes in warehouses...

Employes of railroad companies..
Peddlers..........................

Milk men and women..........
Newspaper carriers....

Telegraph employes....

600

Here is a list of the number of our population engaged in 1880 in non-protected

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Clerks and copyists..

Clerks in hotels..

Dentists...

Domestic servants.

Employes of hotels................................

Civil engineers......

Hostlers...

Hotel-keepers..

Journalists..

3,375

Sailors.......

9,104 Salesmen and saleswomen....... 2,331 Steamboatmen and women. 44,851 Stewards and stewardesses.. 19,058 Tollgate-keepers.

64,698

Traders...

25,467 Dealers in books and stationery.
10,918 Traders in boots and shoes.

12,314 Traders in wood and coal.

1,075,655 Traders in cotton and tobacco.
77,413 Undertakers.....

8.261 Weighers and gaugers.

31,697 Druggists....

32,453 Dealers in real estate......

12,308 Dealers in provisions

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1,859,223 Dealers in dry goods..

45.821

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121,942 Dealers in groceries..

101,849

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64,137 Dealers in iron and tin..

15,076

14,213 Dealers in hides.....

2,382

13,985 Dealers in lumber and marble.

12,668

30,477 Dealers in newspapers.

2,729

13,483 Dealers in paints and oils.

1,940

85,671 Dealers in paper...

1,862

13.074

2,449

Bakers......

Blacksmiths.

2,130 Bridge builders...

13,384 House builders....

41,309

172,726

227,710 Brick and tile makers

36,052

2,587

10,804

3,316

Butchers.....

76,241

20,368 Carpenters and joiners....

373,143

59,790 Carmakers..

4.708

4,328 Charcoal and lime burners........

5,851

353,444 Coopers.....

49,138

28,158 Engineers and firemen.........

79,628

12,331 Engravers..

4,577

2,830 Fishermen and oystermen..

41,352

1,856 Brick and stonemasons..

102,473

177,586 Millers..

53,440

5,023 Miners..

234,228

236,058

Oil well laborers

53.491 Painters...

7,340 128,556

9,242 Paper hangers.

5,013

3,374 Photographers..

9,900

11,925 Plasterers..

22,083

22,809 Printers and stereotypers..

72,726

1,196 Quarrymen....

15,169

4,176 Quartz slaters...

4.026

3,770 Stave makers..

4,051

32,192 Wood-choppers.

12,731

It is this class of people that I have the honor in large part to represent. They live in our cities, and though they may be largely engaged in manufacturing according to our census returns, they are not manufacturing those articles which have the special favor of our tariff.

Gentlemen may tell us that they do not tax the wages of these men, whether high or low, by their tariff.

I know that they do not tax their wages; but they tax all that their wages buy. They thus reduce the purchasing power of the little money that is left at the end of the week or month; for every article that enters into their expenditure, from the potatoes, taxed specifically 15 cents a bushel, to the salt, at over 80 per cent. ad valorem, and from the rent of their houses, which is enhanced by the tax on lumber and iron, etc., to the blankets that give them comfort in the winter nights.

LUXURIES AND NECESSARIES.

Allow me, Mr. Chairman, to place in parallel columns a statement of a number of these insectivera. One column will show some of the luxuries of life, which come in free under the present tariff, and the other the duties on the articles of necessity.

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