CHAPTER XIX

THE CLEVELAND DEMOCRACY

A PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT

tariff message of 1887

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There is no more conspicuous example of President 110. The Cleveland's courageous fidelity to the avowed principles of the Democratic party or of his patriotic indifference to his own political preferment than his third annual message, of December 6, 1887, devoted entirely to the discussion of the reduction of the tariff.

Washington, December 6, 1887

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:

You are confronted at the threshold of your legislative duties with a condition of the national finances which imperatively demands immediate and careful consideration.

The amount of money annually exacted, through the operation of present laws, from the industries and necessities of the people largely exceeds the sum necessary to meet the expenses of the Government.

When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice. This wrong, inflicted upon those who bear the burden of national taxation, like other wrongs, multiplies a brood of evil consequences. The public Treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the people's tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes

a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people's use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our country's development, preventing investment in productive. enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder. . . .

On the 30th day of June, 1885, the excess of revenues over public expenditures, after complying with the annual requirements of the sinking-fund act, was $17,859,735.84; during the year ending June 30, 1886, such excess amounted to $49,405,545.20, and during the year ending June 30, 1887, it reached the sum of $55,567,849.54. . . the excess for the present year amounting on the first day of December to $55,258,701.19, and estimated to reach the sum of $113,000,000 on the 30th of June next, . . . will swell the surplus in the Treasury to $140,000,000....

I have deemed it my duty to thus bring to the knowledge of my countrymen, as well as to the attention of their representatives charged with the responsibility of legislative relief, the gravity of our financial situation. . . . If disaster results from the continued inaction of Congress, the responsibility must rest where it belongs. . . .

...

Our scheme of taxation, by means of which this needless surplus is taken from the people and put into the public Treasury, consists of a tariff or duty levied upon importations from abroad and internal revenue taxes levied upon the consumption of tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors. It must be conceded that none of the things subjected to internal revenue taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries. There appears to be no just complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden without hardship to any portion of the people.

But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended. These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to consumers of all articles imported and subject to duty, by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of duty measures the tax paid by those who purchase for use those imported articles. Many of these things,

however, are raised or manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are called protection to these home manufacturers, because they render it possible for those of our people who are manufacturers to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid customs duty. So it happens that while comparatively a few use the imported articles, millions of our people . . . purchase and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the imported articles. . . .

It is not proposed to entirely relieve the country of this taxation. It must be extensively continued as the source of the Government's income; and in a readjustment of our tariff the interests of American labor engaged in manufacture should be carefully considered, as well as the preservation of our manufactures. . . . But this existence should not mean a condition which, without regard to the public welfare, must always insure the realization of immense profits instead of moderately profitable returns. As the volume and diversity of our national activities increase, new recruits are added to those who desire a continuation of the advantages which they conceive the present system of tariff taxation directly affords them. So stubbornly have all efforts to reform the present condition been resisted by those of our fellow-citizens thus engaged that they can hardly complain of the suspicion, entertained to a certain extent, that there exists an organized combination all along the line to maintain their advantage.

In speaking of the increased cost to the consumer of our home manufactures resulting from a duty laid upon imported articles of the same description, the fact is not overlooked that competition among our domestic producers sometimes has the effect of keeping the price of their products below the highest limit allowed by such duty. But it is notorious that this competition is too often strangled by combinations quite prevalent at this time, and frequently called trusts, which have for their object the regulation of the supply and price of commodities made and sold by members of the combination. The people

can hardly hope for any consideration in the operation of these selfish schemes.

If, however, in the absence of such combination, a healthy and free competition reduces the price of any particular dutiable article of home production below the limit which it might otherwise reach under our tariff laws, and if with such reduced price its manufacture continues to thrive, it is entirely evident that one thing has been discovered which should be carefully scrutinized in an effort to reduce taxation.

The necessity of combination to maintain the price of any commodity to the tariff point furnishes proof that some one is willing to accept lower prices for such commodity and that such prices are remunerative. The lower prices produced by competition prove the same thing. Thus where either of these conditions exists a case would seem to be presented for an easy reduction of taxation. . . .

The difficulty attending a wise and fair revision of our tariff laws is not underestimated. It will require on the part of the Congress great labor and care, and especially a broad and national contemplation of the subject and a patriotic disregard of such local and selfish claims as are unreasonable and reckless of the welfare of the entire country. . . . The taxation of luxuries presents no features of hardship; but the necessaries of life used and consumed by all the people, the duty upon which adds to the cost of living in every home, should be greatly cheapened. . . .

Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory. The question of free trade is absolutely irrelevant, and the persistent claim made in certain quarters that all the efforts to relieve the people from unjust and unnecessary taxation are schemes of so-called free traders, is mischievous and far removed from any consideration for the public good.

The simple and plain duty which we owe the people is to reduce taxation to the necessary expenses of an economical operation of the Government and to restore to the business of

the country the money which we hold in the Treasury through the possession of governmental powers. These things can and should be done with safety to all our industries, without danger to the opportunity for remunerative labor which our workingmen need, and with benefit to them and all our people by cheapening their means of subsistence and increasing the measure of their comforts. . . .

I am so much impressed with the paramount importance of the subject to which this communication has thus far been devoted that I shall forego the addition of any other topic, and only urge upon your immediate consideration the "state of the Union" as shown in the present condition of our Treasury and our general fiscal situation, upon which every element of our safety and prosperity depends.... Grover Cleveland

Blaine was in Paris when Cleveland's message appeared. He was immediately visited by the London correspondent of the New York Tribune and dictated the following interview, which was cabled to America and published in the Tribune of December 8, 1887. It is often called "Blaine's Paris Message.'

"I have been reading an abstract of the President's message, and have been especially interested in the comments of the London papers. Those papers all assume to declare the message is a free trade manifesto and evidently are anticipating an enlarged market for English fabrics in the United States as a consequence of the President's recommendations. Perhaps that fact stamped the character of the message more clearly than any words of mine can."

You don't mean actual free trade without duty?" queried the reporter.

"No," replied Mr. Blaine," nor do the London papers mean that. They simply mean that the President has recommended what in the United States is known as a revenue tariff, rejecting the protective features as an object, and not even permitting protection to result freely as an incident to revenue duties. . . .