xt7nzs2k7096 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7nzs2k7096/data/mets.xml Smith, William Benjamin, 1850-1934. 1890  books b92-260-31825537 English Statesman Book and Job Office Print, : Columbia, Mo. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Tariff United States. Protectionism. Tariff reform  : address / by Prof. W.B. Smith. text Tariff reform  : address / by Prof. W.B. Smith. 1890 2002 true xt7nzs2k7096 section xt7nzs2k7096 














TO



            GROVER CLEVELAND,


    LEADER   STATESMAN   PATRIOT  


          WHO WAS, AND LS NOT, AND LS TO COMR-


                BY EXPIF.-I, S 1'E1M11iSI()N


                       '1 THLS

      -music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up. a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong.-
Full the tale of fearful meaning. and the words are strong.-
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,-
Sow the seed. and reap the harvest with enduring toil.
DoirNt4 i).knxrARIFF .i': .i of wheat and corn and oil.
Till they perish-

                   IS DMDICATHD BY



THE AUTHOR.

 

TARI1F111F REFA ORM.




       ADDRESS

              ElY



PROF.



w



B SMITH,



          OF COLUMBIA, MO.


DELIVERED IN COURT HOUSE, COLUMB[A,
        ON FEBRUARY 8, 1890.

        PUBLISHED AT REQUEST OF THE


        COLUMBIA DEMOCRATIC CLUB.



            COLUMBIJA, MO.,
       STATESMAN ROOK AND JOB OFFICE PIINT,
               I 89.O.

 














       INTRODUCTORY NOTE.



   The following address was delivered at invitatioin of
the Democratic club of Columbia, MNo., February 8, 1890,
n .der whose auspices it is ow publ)Iislled. The wis-h of
the club has been mnet in retaining exactly the original
form and contents of the address, as the latter al)l)eared in
tVle Missouri Stafe.smliani of February 12, where the extem-
)ore peroration was merely summnarized: but in the
.Nu7pppieucnt a number of points llltouche(l inj the address
hive been subjected to brief btit liot wholly inadequate
treatment, wherel)y it is hoped that the reader liiay be
helped in somne imeasure toward a correct judgment llpo
the supreme p)olitico-eeolbomic qitestion of the day.
                                        WV. B. SMITH.
    COLUM113IA, Mo.. April. 1890.

 











                      ADDRESS.



(rjcitflocuun, I9 4ietw C'itizlr'tx
   It has already been declared in this presence. under what
circmstances I appear before you. On last Thursday afternoon a
note was brought to my class-room from my honored friend, Prof.
Tiedeeman, announcing his serious illness and requesting me to
fill, as well as might be, his engagement to address you. Burdened
to the very limit of my mental and physical strength with teaching
the austerest sb jects. I was at first minded to decline the request,
even though it proceeded from my fellow-teacher and fellow-stuldent.
And certainly, if I had any reputation as a speaker either to make
or to lose, it would be the part of wisdomn for me to keep silent,
though it be in forty languages, for neither from art nor from nature
have I the priceless gift of ready deliverance, on any subject. Min&
is what the Frenchiman call istair-step liit",-alwavs a few minutes
late. In fact, I might easily write a handsome volume of the good
things I might have said on various occasions, hut did not say.
Especially, however, such a great anid momentous them  as the
Tarifi; it looks almost like a profanation to treat in a hasty, or
superficial, or inadlequate manner, and that such must be moN manner
of treatmmment is evident indeed from the circumstances that attend
my appearance. and y.ou will all concede it before I have done.
Nevertheless, all these wveighty considerations are outweighed
by a single one in the opo:-,ite scale, and that is this: Tlme cause
of Tariff Reform is too dear and sacred, its importance is too
sublime and overshadowing, and the odds against which it contends
are too vast and tremendous for any advantage even the smallest
to be thrown away, for any opportunity even the slightest to be
neglected. Here now is a chance to do some good, however little,
at a sacrifice however great of personal convenience and l)reference,
and I should be false to my duty as an American citizen, false
to eternal truth and justice, false to myself, false to my God, ini
allowing any other considerations than those of the common weal
to dictate my decision.
                        A FARMER HIMSELF.
    According to my information, this meeting is held largely in the
interest of the farmers of this county. Assuredly my services are

 


4  Toriff Rfor,  oIfdess of   -. . slmith.



rendered not the less readily on that account. If there be one
element of our population which, more than another. enlists my
hearty sympathy in its struggles and aspirations, one element
whose ears I would till with the clangor of a trumpet calling them
to awake, arise, or be forever slaves to the vilest of all tyrannies,
the tyranny of ill-gotten wealth extorted from the many by the few
tinder the compulsion of iniquitous legislation, if there be one body
of my countrymen whom I would startle as with thunder from the
treacherous sleep of fancied freedom but real serfdom, it is the
farmers. And why not  1, too, sprung from the soil. I, too, am
one of them; all their joys and griefs, their trials and triumphs,
their hopes and their disappointments, are known to me not by
report, not by observation, but by actual experience. '1he earlier
years of my life were passed on a farm in this state, at the hemp-
brake, in the tobacco-patch, amid the waving corn-fields, in the
wake of the cradle and the reaper. It was by wagoning wheat ten
miles to St. Joseph, with a yoke of oxen, by following a double-
shovel plow behind dun-colored, sway-backed, but strong and tire-
less Pompey across a thirty-acre field, by driving the corn to market
in the guize of fatted Berkshires, that I made the money which
supported me three years at a seat of learning. Pitch-fork and
hemp-hook, plough, hoe and shovel, scvthe and cradle, spade, ax
and grindstone-the manifold implements of husbandry-all these
have I known from my youth up. It is on the farm that my mother
and sisters, and my remoter kinsmen, still wage the struggle for
existence against the hellish devices of eastern gluttony, it was
on the farm that my father, the' most unoffending of men, in whose
innocent presence the tongues of malice and hatred were palsied
and could not wag, it was on the farm and in the name of freedom
that he was assassinated by a hireling ruffian. Is it unnatural or
incredible, then, that the farm still enchains my thoughts and
affections with a sad and weird fascination, that the farmer of all
men has a double portion of my deep and lively antd genuine interest
and sympathy
                    A DE1PLORIABILE CONDITION.

    You have no need to tell me, my friends, that the condition of
your ancient and honorable industry is in the last degree unsatisfac-
torv. I know it already. The evidence of it is direct and palpable
beyond all need or desire. While the city of St. Joseph has trebled,
four-folded, five-folded its wealth and population, my mother's farm.
the scene of my youthful activities, has sunk to half its rental value.
and it would be almost impossible to sell it. You can yet live it is
true, but who can not, if he will only work hard enough Why. I
know bv actual experiment that even a professor at the Missouri



4

 




Tar-ifl' Refom    Adldtles ot 11W. B. Smith.



University, by doing double work may make a living. lIut he can
not get fat, he can rmake little or no provision against a moneyless
old age. Neither can yol. my friends. fatten upon the rich alluvial
soil which pours forth beneat l your tillage the most abundant liar-
vests this planet has ever beheld. For you the very hone-y-comb of
nature is tuirned to gall and worm-wood, the blessings of soil and
elimnate,-God's own benediction outspoken in the earl y and latter
rain is turned into a blighting, withering, curse, the voice of love
and mercy calling out fromn heaven is drowned in its own echo from
the depths of hell. These are not the words of rhetoric or exagger-
ation: they are words of truth and soberness, they are spoken amidd
the snows of the Sth of February, not amid the heats of the 4th of
July. The naked fact is that the condition of our agricultural popu-
lation is relatively deplorable, and is yearly growing worse. I say
relatively for -oul are not yet paupers or indigent. an(] you will
have onlv y-ourselves to blame if you ever become so : vou are still
and mnay you ever be the richest. the happiest. the most enlightened
rura'l population that ever trod this planet. Absolutely you are still
open to hearty congratulations and I gladly extend them. But rela-
tivelv the case is far different. When compared Nvith what you.
ought to he, under the working of just and wvise legislation, nay,
with what vou-certainlv -would be untrammeled by any legislation,
your situation must arouse righteous indignation. What comnfort,
compliment or consolation is it to you, chil(l of freedomn and the
l9th century. whose herds darken a hundred hills, whose corn drift-
ing in vaves of silver rolls on to harvest over a thousand acres. to
tell you that you are mliue  ".better otf than the European bond-
tmian lecrepit with the ignorance an(l palsied vith the tyranny of
twelve centuries, the puny possessor of a sterile garden and a
famishing she-goat Is it not mockery and insuilt even to suggest
such a comparisonr Men of Missouri. yours is by the free gift of
God andl nature to your own all-conquering right aruim a soil that
steamns to heaven with fatness as from a Noachian. deluize, .ours is
by legacy and inheritance the gathered Nvisdomn of' ages. the toil-
relieving. product-enhancing invelitions of all of all ages and clillmes
and peoPles. And vet, I behold Vol, lords of the earthl anld its
increase. like Samnlson shorn of his invinciible locks. muiserable and
imrpotenit. bound hand and foot with the despicable cord, an tili times
of Philistine treachery andc outrage. Your farmis are inortgaged,
your accounts are unsettletd. xour deposits are overdrawvin, your
products are not in demand. You ship vast droves of cattle to
(Chicago. and sick it heart von ( .-t up the reckoning, to filld, not
how intich you have gain1ed,. but lIow iuneh you have lost. Natuire
has spread out before you an aimple feast of t2ood things. but before
you can lift the vianids to your rnouth. ho an obscene and raven!ous



-
,)

 




Tariff Reform   Address of W. B. Smith.



lock of harpies from the east have pounced down upon it and borne
it away beyond the mountains to the sea-shore where they build
their foul nests and gorge themselves with your plunder. What,
then, I ask, is the desolating curse which now for half a generation
has been settling down upon the fortunes of a populace whom earth
and sea and sky, whom art and nature, whom grace of God and
intellect of man had conspired and leagued and bound themselves by
inviolable oath to make the very minions of prosperity and happi-
ness What crushing burden, with the weight of twenty Atlantics,
bows down your noble energies and prostrates the erect and God-
like form of American manhood in the dust The answer is given
in one word: It is that high-handed iniquity, that infamous hypoc-
risy, that universal legalized robbery, vhich calls itself Protective
Tariff.

                     -NOTHING BUT THIiiEVEE'Y.

   A thief is seldom a respecter of persons. All gold and silver and
precious stones are in his eyes striet!y orthodox, and. lie impartially
stretches out his hand to all. But that saintly. that canonized. robber
whose name is Protective tariff has a very tender partiality for you,
my friends, the farmers. He robs me daily; the other day he levied
on me a contribution of 5 in the purchase of a dress, and of about
7 in the purchase of an overcoat. There is not a inan, woman or
ehild in the county whom he does not fleece continually and insati-
ately. But you ag!iculturists are his especial pets. All others he
holds with one hand and plunders with the other; the farmer alone
he has knocked down and stunned and robs with both hands at his
leisure. You ask how is this' The explanation is exceedingly
simple. A protective tariff is a tax, the sole object of which is to
raise the price of imported articles so as to enable the protected
manufacturer to sell his products at a higher price than w-ould be
possible in open free competition. The New Jersey manufacturer
wishes to sell his silk at 51..-0 per yard, the Frenchman is content to
get 1. Accordingly, to enable the New Jersey mnan to get his
exorbitant.price, the tariff forbids any man to buy the Irenchnian's
goods -except on pain of paving 50 cents per yard extra as what is
called dutly. Some few will still buy the Frenehinans goods  I
myself will never buy an article made by a protected manufact urer
as long as I can avoid it. I wvill never Patronize a thief though he
be my brother, so long as I can buy from an honest stranger, but the
majority  vill buy of the New Jersey man and pay him the extra
half dollar. I do not mince words, gentlenr; I call a spade a
spadie. If a mlan does not like to be called a thir f, the p. eventive is
eacap and ready,-let him stop thieving.



6

 


Tariff Refornt Address of W. B. Smith.



                      WHAT THE TARIFF IS.

   The protective tariff is an open and outrageous violation of the
laws of property. The money you have earned by the sweat of your
brow is yours, and no non, nor set of men, no law nor government,
has any right to say how you shall spend it. When the eastern
manufacturer says to congress, forbid Mir. Jones to buy his silk- at 1
from the Frenchman, or make him pay 50 cents for doing it, so that
I may make him pay me fl.50 for it. and when congress grants his
request and Mr. J. is forced to pay 81.50 for what is worth only 1,
then is he abridged most seriously in his rights of property, he is
robbed of 50 cents and the eastern manufacturer is no less a thief
because he has begged or most likely bought permission to steal, he
is no less a robber because his robbery has been solemnly legalized.
Of such robbery under the forms of law you are daily victims. The
gigantic highwayman has a thousand eyes and a million fingers.
Scarcelv ever do you open your pocket-book, to buy for self or child
or wife, but he is there at your side and helps himself bountifully.
Whether it be axe or hoe or mower or reaper, coat or hat, overcoat
or undershirt, gloves or stockings, thread or buttons, salt or sugar,
bed-stead or blanket, kitchen-ware or parlor-furniture, drugs or
books, pens or paper, cradle or coffin. the omnipresent thief beholds
you and plunders you wvith a smile and a pat on the shoulder. You
open your purse to pay for something worth half a dollar in the open
market of the world. "Thanks, awfully," says M3r. P. T., which
being interpreted means Protective Tariff, and nabs up his quarter.
You reach in to get a dollar, and he gobbles up the loose change to
the amount of 40 cents. The laws which regulate this thievery are
fearfully and wonderfully made, yea, they are past all finding out.
Even their makers do not understand them , and often Mr. P. 'T'. him-
self hesitates, being a very scrupulously moral man in his way, as to
whether he ought to steal sixbits or only a quarter. In such cases,
however, he always keeps on the safe side; he always takes the
sixbits, for safe keeping, and then asks whether he did right or not.
If the decision of the courts is against him, he refunds the half
dollar. but always to one of his pets and supporters, never to the man
from whom he stole it. Would you like an illustration' Well. here
is a model one, a genuine beauty. Some years ago the question was
raised as to whether certain imported hat trimmings ought to be
taxed 50 per cent. or only 2(1 per cent. True it is that the just prin-
ciples of interpretation of unjust laws require the lower tax to be
imposed where there is any doubt, true it was in fact that the court
had already decided the case against the higher tax. Nevertheless,
the customs-collector was ordered to collect the 50 per cent. tax
until the case could be carried through the courts up to the supreme



7

 



8  TAiff Reform Address of W. B. AS)jith.



court. The high rate was imposed and was collected. The import-
ers paid it, they added it to the price at which they sold the articles
to the retail merchants, and these latter added it to the price which
the consumer, which you, my friends, your wives and your smart
daughters, paid for the articles. You then who hear me, you it was
who finally paid this tax of .50 per cent. thus levied. The importers
and the retail merchants recouped themselves completely, they
were not out of pocket one nickel. But the importers knew the tax
was illegal, they brought suit, which dragged its slow length along
from term to term, and now within the last month a decision has
been handed down from the supreme bench declaring that .50 per
cent. rate illegal and commanding that the unlawful excess of 30 per
cent. be refunded. But to whom To you, gentlemen. who paid
both the legal and the illegal tax out of your hogs and wheat and
cattle  Nay, verily! The illegal 30 per cent. has been paid back,
Mr. Tariff has disgorged three-fifths of his plunder. but it has been
paid not to you, but to the importers. They charged you the extra
price, you paid it, and now this, "the best government the sun
shines upon," pays it back not to you but to them. And do you
thin k it a small matter Well, the total amount paid back to the
men who have no more right to it than the man in the moon, is rather
more than less than 7,000,000. Your own share, the share of Mis-
souri in this tax thus levied not only unjustly but also illegally, and
then paid back to the wrong man, the amount legally due you, not
one cent of which you will ever get, but which is gone forever
within the fathomless pocket of our eastern masters, that amount is
over 200,000. You grumble and fret because you are called on to
give not 70.000 every two years to support a university, yet here in
this insignificant matter of hat trimmings you allow yourselves to
be robbed not only unjustly but illegally to the amount of 200,000,
enough to support for six years your university, and what one of
you has ever murmured Thus it is, gentlemen, that they catch
you both going and coming. The very uncertainty ot the tariff laws
is made to work you at every turn greater and greater injury. T1he
tariff tax varies endlessly from article to article, it winds in and out
like the slimy serpent that it is. but on the average It is not quite 30
per cent. For every 100 worth of manufactured articles which we
buy, we have to pay not quite 5;;0 extra price to feed the eastern
harpies. But some one may think that this tax is mainly on articles
of luxury, on silkss and satins, diamonds and rubies, the countless
adornments of table and person, the infinite caprices of fashion.
You could not make a greater blunder. It is exactly these goods,
demanded only bv the rich, that are taxed the le-ast. And the reason
for the discrimination is an excellent one. The tariff is a money-
making scheme of the rich against the poor and the merely well-to-do.



8

 


Ta rift' Refori Addr IedsN o) f 11'. B. afn ithi.



It would not be possible to carry out this villiany on any great scale
against the wealthv,-why, my dear friends, it is almost as impessible
to tax a rich man as it is to hang him orto send him to the penitentiary.
Strong with the strength both of brass and of gold, be breaks through
the meshes of your laws like a lion through a cobweb. Mlen who
are known to have personal property by the millions pay taxes only
on a few thousands. Our tariff laws are made by the rich who thor-
oughly understand that to tax the luxuries very heavily wvould in
the first place be suicidal and in the second place impracticable.
Suicidal because they themselves would then have to pay the tariff
taxes, and impracticable because they would not do it. Such luxu-
ries may be easily smuggled. The very men who clanior for heavy
duties on 'the necessaries of life laugh over their wine culrs at the
way they tipped the custom-house oflicers, and smuggled into port
their thousands, escaping the light duty. Besides, it is after all the
article of common consumption, the article used by the million,
which by its enormous quantity is most profitable to the maker and
above all to the tax collector. Accordingly, look over the tariff
schedule as it now is, arid you will find that the lower grades of
articles are almost uniformly taxed the highest, often two or three
times as high as the rarer and superior grades; while the clamor
now raised at Washington is almost wholly for increase of duties on
necessaries. Wdith outrageous hypocrisy they offer to consent to a
considerable reduction on high grades and luxuries, if you will
only grant them a moderate increase on the low grades and neces-
saries' While thus the total average of tariff tax is not quite 50
per cent., the average tax for you and me, on the indispensable
articles of every day consumption. is close to or above I 0 per cent.
                      sMITrES THIE FARNIERS.
   Thus far, gentlemen, I have spoken of the tariff so far as it is
no respecter of persons, as it robs men of all trades, but especially
the poor and middle classes, nearly alike. You, however, the
farmers, it smites with a two-edged sword. Not only does it
increase by 50 per cent. the price of what you have to buy, but it
decreases the price of what you have to sell. It is this last most
unkindest cut of all, which will vet rouse you from your slumber
and open your eves to the prodigious wrongs of which you have
been made the year-long victims. very striking and peculiar
were the arguments by which the protective tariff was introduced
to the favor and hospitalities of our working population.  It
was not denied that he had a trick   of pilfering, but it was
solemnly and earnestly insisted that he meant no harm by it, that
he was perfectly good-natured and innocent-minded, that it was
in fact just a little way he had, which looked queer at first, perhaps,



9

 



10        TariW Reform Address of        =. P. Smith.

'but yet could not possibly hurt any body, for, it was said, he steals
From all alike and he keeps none of it himself. True, he filches
from A, but he gives it to B; he filches from B, but he gives it to
C, and so on through the whole alphabet; when he gets to Z, he
will steal from him to put into A's pocket. The effect of this, it
was said, can only be to stimulate business, to revive trade, by
keeping the money in circulation! Nay more, it was loudly pro-
claimed that such was his unrivaled skill in thieving that he could
actually make all men rich by universal robbery. By some match-
le3s legerdemain, some inimitable slight of hand, he would literally
steal into each man's pocket continually more than he stole out.
Thus the original compact of protection was an agreement for
mutual help by mutual robbery. The farmer was to pay an extra
price for all his manufactured articles, in the first place, and then
he was to sell all his own products tor an extra price also. And
since each farmer and manufacturer in this way would steal from
the other a little more than the other stole from him, it was held to
be plain on its very face that both would grow rich rapidly, each
off of the other; and having thus seen and tasted the delights of
such innocent roguery, thev would both be willing and eager to
take in the dav-laborer and the salaried man as partners in their
little game. Why not The more the merrier, and from this three-
handed cut-throat euchre they would all arise wise, wealthy, con-
tented and religious. This, and neither more nor less than this, is
the doctrine of the home-market, which has been preached so
lustily for nearly 30 years, which has almost hopelessly entangled
our people in its net of sophistry, and which has brought our farm-
ing interests to their present deplorable condition. Ah, gentlemen,
the old Greek was right who said 2300 years ago: "Too ready are
the minds of mortal men to prefer a guileful gain to righteousness,
howbeit thev travel ever to a stern reckoning." The home-market
argument is the grossest and most palpable logical fallacy: it is
worse than that, it is glaring fraud and swindle. But a fallacy, a
sophism, which a child could detect if presented boldly in a single
sentence, may deceive a whole nation, a whole continent, if diluted
and dealt out in homeopathic doses through a whole volume. So,
too, a transaction which by itself can by no possibility benefit
anybody, it is maintained may enrich a nation, if repeated a billion
times from ocean to ocean in all departments of business. The
home-market argument affirms this and nothing more nor less than
this, that a man may get rich by paying another to buy from him.
You are asked to pay the manufacturer an extra price, an enormous
extra price, for his product-to what end, for what purpose  To
enable him to pay you an extra price for your products! That
is what I call paving a man to get him to buy from you. If it is

 



Tariff Reform Addre.ss of W. B. Smhith.



anything more, if any device of human ingenuity can ever make
it anything more, then have 1 studied logic and taught logic in vain.
In a single transaction between man and man, the utter absurdity
,of the thing stares us in the face; and yet when multiplied a million
fold and doubled and twisted into a thousand tangles it is called
economic wisdom and the American ideaul In the light of such
nonsense that man was a true son of genius who bought his articles
for a dollar and sold them for 90 cents apiece. "lBut how can you
keep up at that rate"  asked a puzzled acquaintance.
    "Whv, my dear sir" he riplied, "it is the, simplest thing in the
world; you see I sell so maany of them."

                      A ONE-SIDED CONTRACT.
    But if the homue-iuarlet argument is nothing but theoretic
tomfoolery, practicallY it has proved far wvorse. At the very l)est
it is silly and childish to pay out S1 extra. in order to get back 1
extra in return. But what if you don't get it back  W What if the
other fellow, after selling to y ou and getting your dollar, forgets to
buy- front you in return or fails to keep his agreement to pay you
back the extra dollar  You know these Eastern men are verv
busv. and it is not strange that such trilling Matters should often
escape their memories   Don't you know that their brains are
already overburdened, that they are in daily need of tonics and
nervines, and that sooner or later nearly all die of nervous pros-
tration  Besides all this, they are very religious, God-fearing men)
and it is very likely that they may think you don't need the extra
dollar, or fear you might spend it foolishly and are persuaded that
they can employ it far more usefully for humanity by building a
church, or giving a picnic to a Sunday school, or buying red waist-
coats for the poor heathen. Still again, what if you produce more
than your Eastern friend can conveniently use, however aecom-
modating he may be, what if the market should become glutted,
and there should be a cut in prices  In that case, it seems to
me, you mighet have to whistle for your money. Now thIs is pre-
cisely what has happen.ed. The western farmer has faithfully kept
his part of the contract. Ile has paid the extra price. the average
excess of 50 per cent. over the world-market value, paid it by
nickels, by dimles, by- dollars, occasionally by fives and twenties,
p tid it exactly paid it in advance, paid it withoLut complaint or
default or discount. Perhaps no great credit is due hinm for this
fidelity, as under existing laws he could hardly avoid it,-he has
made a virtue of necessity. But the Eastern friend has not kept his
part of the contract -whether in a tit of absent-mindedness, or in
his anxious care for the well-being of his factory hands, or in his
consuming zeal for th, conversion and civilization of central



11

 



112       Teft-   kefor    A4Wrss t)/ W. B. Smith.

Africa. lie has forgotten all about the extra price he intended to
pay his western customer, he finds the cities ghitted with the pro-
ducts of farm and dairv. and1 he goes round "bearing" the markets,
and buving wherever and whenever he can at the lowest rate by
anv means obtainable. Far be it from me to hint that he is acting
wrong in the matter. I know he is a good man and cannot possibly
mean anv harm bv it. Ile is the farmers' friend true and trusty.
But a wise mnan once exclaimed "Save me from miy friends, and I
can take care of nmv enemies." WNhere now are you to seek salva-
tion ' What. I repeat it, what wvill you do to be saved Will you
double .your products, raise more corn and wheat, increase the size
of your hogs. enlarge the nulmbIl)er of your cattle  Why, your barns
are already bursting with plenty, your cattle and sheep and hogs
alreadv- crowd the stock-yards. T he trouble with you is not under-
prodliction nut over-production: you produce enough and nmore than
enough and more than enough; for that very reason you can get
nothing for it. As a defect in supply of 10 per cent. will raise the
price 30 percent. so an excess of 10 per cent. will reduce the price by
30. You can never relieve a glut of products by more production,
as weli try to empty a pint cup by pouring in more water. The
manufacturers are wiser. They relieve the congestion in products
and prices by forming a trust, calculating carefully the probable
demand, setting to work enough uills to meet that demand at
paying prices, shutting down the others and discharging the work-
men. But the farmer can hardly proceed similarly. Hle must cast
his bread every vear upon the waters. The fate of his crop is not
in his own hands but is at the merec of the elements. the wind, the
rain. the frost, tne sun. the lightning and thunder  When he sows
100 acres in wheat he knows not whether he shall reap 3.0NO bushels,
or turn it under and plant it in corn. True it is, then, that to
increase his production can bring hirm no relief but rather aggravate
his distress; but it is equallv true that to attempt to restrict his
production would be rashly to court disaster. What then  Is there
no hope in anyl quarter
                          TH:E NAY ouT.
   To nuv eves there is but one visible. If you cannot sell your
produce at hoinue you innst try to sell it a broad. The earth is large.
After all we are but a small fraction of its population, even of that
wvhichl is civilized. In capacity and faculty for agricultural pro-
duction we easily lead the world at present, and it is impossible to
see what other people can ever hope to outstrip us. 'The Mississippi
valley is manifestly by nature andI destiny the granary of the globe,
and if we forfeit this destiny it will be our own failt solely. Europe,
South America, and even Asia, the planet itself lies before us as
our wvilling, natural and reasonable customer. Why, then, do we

 



iqnft.  R(l;-orm  Afldds( s of/ Il. I,. Smtithl.



1:3



not enter in and take eternal possession of the food-mnarkets of the
world  The answe.- glares at you, gentlemen, from the records of
congress. it glares at you from every table of prices current, it
shrieks at von from the daily press, through the census statistics,
through the reports of foreign commerce. We have voluntaril-
thrown awav the market of the world for the so-called home-nmarket,
for something we already had, and which no earthly power could
take away from us. We have been like unto the greedv dog cross-
ing a bridge, with a bone in his mouth. Grasping at the shadow,
he lost the substance. Our European and South Armerican neighbors
are willing and eager to trade with us. But we will not let them.
We have built up all around us a Chinese wall of protective tariff.
We fine heavily, to the average extent of nearly 5) per cent of the
amount of the.transaction, every impudent foreigner who offers to
trade with us, who ofters us superior goods at one-half the ostensi-
ble cost of our own production. What infinite nonsense' In the
name of common sense, gentlemen, how can we expect the Gentiles
to trade with us unless we trade with them  Does it not take two
to make a bargain How can the rich man expect the poor man
to pay except in labor Not even the richest nation on the globe
can pay for its purchases in coin, it must pay for them in the daily
and yearly products of