CHAPTER VII.

PROTECTION TO AMERICAN LABOR.

For twenty years the great issue between the Republican and Democratic parties was the tariff. The Republican party has always been the party of protection and has from its organization insisted on the policy which began with the government, that the bulk of the revenues for the maintenance of the Federal government should come from tariff duties levied upon imports which came into competition with the products of this country. The Democratic party has, especially since the civil war, been a party of free trade, favoring a revenue tariff without regard to the effect it should have on our own industries. The battle between these two contentions has been fierce at times, and both sides have had their victories. But the fight seems to be ended. The protective policy has been so firmly established that for the first time in its history the Democratic party has ignored the tariff in its platform.

Mr. Bryan is not standing on the old Democratic platform of tariff for revenue only. His party has at last, apparently, abandoned that issue. The Democratic party has confessed that its promise of prosperity under free trade has, like the promissory note of the insolvent debtor, grown poorer every time it was renewed until it is absolutely valueless. The promises of the Republican party are never outlawed. They are redeemed. The promise of prosperity with protection has been redeemed and is beyond dispute.

William McKinley's name was closer identified with the principle of protection than with any other political issue when he was elected President. He had for twenty years fought for and defended this great principle. He had been the great philosopher of protection. He was the champion of protection when he was nominated and elected President. His administration has brought the final triumph of this principle in American politics, so that it is recognized as not a party, but an American principle. In his speech at the Lincoln Banquet at the Marquette Club in Chicago, February 12, 1896, Major McKinley said:

"We are faithfully wedded to the great principle of protection by every tie of party fealty and affection, and it is dearer to us now than

ever before. Not only is it dearer to us as Republicans, but it has more devoted supporters among the great masses of American people, irrespective of party, than at any previous period in our National history. It is everywhere recognized and endorsed as the great, masterful, triumphant American principle-the key to our prosperity in business, the safest prop to the Treasury of the United States, and the bulwark of our national independence and financial honor. The question of the continuance or abandonment of our protective system has been the one great, overshadowing, vital question in American politics ever since Mr. Cleveland opened the contest in December, 1887, to which the lamented James G. Blaine made swift reply from across the sea, and it will continue the issue until a truly American policy, for the good of America, is firmly established and perpetuated. The fight will go onand must go on until the American system is everywhere recognized, until all nations' come to understand and respect it as distinctly, and all Americans come to honor or love it as dearly, as they do the American flag. God grant the day may soon come when all partisan contention over it is forever at an end."

That day seems to have arrived. The fight has gone on and it has become recognized that the principle is respected and honored as is the American flag. McKinley's administration has made it so.

The fight for protection became more direct after the first Cleveland administration and the attempt of that administration to change the policy of the government to free trade.

In the Republican convention of 1888, Major McKinley was Chairman of the Committee on Platform and wrote the tariff plank. He made it a declaration for protection, not merely a protective tariff. He left no chance for evasion. The plank read:

PROTECTION TO AMERICAN INDUSTRIES.

"We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection; we protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all interests, except those of the country, and we heartily endorse

the consistent and patriotic action of the Republican representatives in Congress in opposing its passage."

The McKinley tariff law was the outcome of the Republican victory that year. It brought prosperity, and President Harrison in his last message to Congress said, "There has never been a time in our history when work was so abundant or when wages were so high." It was enacted just before the election in 1890 and the increased price in a few products frightened the American people so that the party was defeated at the polls that year. In 1892 the Democrats won a national victory, elected Mr. Cleveland President for the second time, and two years later succeeded in enacting the Wilson-Gorman tariff law. Mr. Cleveland was not satisfied because the law did not go far enough toward his theory of free trade, and he denounced it as an act of “perfidy and dishonor," but he allowed it to become a law without his signature. That law came nearer bankrupting the whole American people than any legislative act in the history of the government.

The Republican platform of 1896 renewed allegiance to the "policy ' of protection as the bulwark of American industrial independence and the foundation of American development and prosperity." The Democratic party that year denounced as "disturbing to business the Republican threat to restore the McKinley law." The result of the restoration of protection is the only safe criterion to judge its usefulness. The Dingley law which was enacted at the extraordinary session of Congress five months after McKinley's inauguration, has redeemed the Republican promise and so condemned the Democratic position on this question that it has apparently converted the Democratic party of its mistake, and caused it to ignore the tariff as an issue in its platform this year.

The results of protection are clearly shown in the record of the last ten years. The record of business failures under the McKinley law, Wilson law and Dingley law show this very forcibly. The number of failures in the calendar year 1892, the last year under Presiden' Harrison, was 10,344, and in 1893, the first year under a Democratic President, 15,242, an increase of practically 50 per cent; and in 1896, the last year of Democratic rule, 15,088. The amount of liabilities in 1892, the last year under President Harrison, was $114,000,000, and the amount in 1893, the first Democratic year, was $346,000,000, or more than three times as much as in the last Republican year; and

that of 1896, the last Democratic and low-tariff year, was $226,000,000, while in 1897, the first year under President McKinley, the liabilities dropped to $154,000,000, and in 1899, the liabilities had fallen to but $90,000,000, or about one-fourth those of 1893; and the total number of failures was about 9,337, against more than 15,000 in the last year of Democracy.

The clearing house returns of the United States present another index of activity of business. The clearing house returns of the entire country amounted to $60,000,000,000 in 1892, the last Republican year, and had dropped to $45,000,000,000 in 1894, the year in which lowtariff was enacted, and were less than $52,000,000,000 in 1896; while in 1898, the first full year under the Dingley tariff, they were $65,000,000,000, and in 1899 were within a fraction of $89,000,000,000, or practically double those of the year in which the Wilson low-tariff law was enacted.

Take, again, the record of the railways of the United States, that accurate register of commercial activity. The freight carried shows in 1894, the year in which the low-tariff law was enacted, a drop of 83,000,000 tons, or more than 10 per cent of the entire business as compared with the year in which a Democratic President was inaugurated, and 1898, under McKinley and the Dingley law, shows an increase of 124,000,000 tons as compared with 1897, the year in which the Wilson low-tariff act was repealed, and an increase of 230,000,000 tons over the year in which the Wilson law was enacted. Meantime the net earnings dropped from an average of $2,000 per mile during several preceding years to $1,800 per mile during the entire low-tariff period, and in 1898 again passed the $2,000 per mile line, being for that year $2,111 as the average earnings per mile of the railroads of the United States.

The effect of this depression upon the employees under the low tariff is shown by the fact that the number of men employed by railways fell in 1894, the year of the enactment of the Wilson law, nearly 100,000 below the number employed in 1893, while the earnings also showed a marked decrease. In 1898, the first full year under the Dingley tariff, the number of employees was, in round terms, 100,000 greater than in 1894, and the amount paid in wages $50,000,000 greater than in 1895, while the year 1899 showed an increase of 149,000 employees

over 1894 and $75,000,000 increase in the wages paid, as compared with 1894 or 1895.

On the question of mortgages, of which we heard so much in 1896, the single State of Nebraska presents figures to show that the value of mortgages filed in 1897, the first year under President McKinley, and the year in which the protective-tariff law was enacted, amounted to but $15,630,721, against $34,601,318 in 1893, the first year under a Democratic President and low-tariff Congress, and $31,699,054 the year in which the low-tariff law was enacted, while the value of the mortgages released in 1898, the first full year under the protective tariff, was $27,498,070 against $18,213,382 in 1896, the first year of Mr. Bryan's nomination.

The deposits in the savings banks are a good register of business. The deposits from national banks fell from $1,771,000,000 in 1892, President Harrison's last year, to $1,574,000,000 in 1893, a reduction of $200,000,000, and in the last year of the Democratic term they were but $1,666,000,000, increasing to $1,760,000,000 in 1897, $2,073,000,000 in 1898, and $2,605,000,000 in 1899—an increase of more than a billion dollars in 1899 as compared with 1893.

State banks also show an equally remarkable record, their total deposits in 1899 being almost double those of 1894. Loan and trust companies show in 1899 deposits amounting to $835,000,000, against $471,000,000 in 1894. Savings banks show a reduction of $31,000,000 in their deposits in 1894 as compared with June 30, 1893, while those of June 30, 1899, are $310,000,000 greater than for June 30, 1894. Taking the record of all classes of banks-national, State, loan and trust companies, savings banks, and private banks-the total deposits on June 30, 1899, were $6,853,381,000, against $4,667,930,328 in 1894, the year of the enactment of the Wilson law, an increase of more than $2,000,000,000 or almost 50 per cent, and practically all of this increase occurred after the election of President McKinley and a protectivetariff Congress.

The per capita money in circulation in 1892, the last year under President Harrison, was $24.44. By 1896 it had dropped to $21.10 and in spite of the prediction that it could not increase without the free and unlimited coinage of silver and the retention of a low tariff, it has, under McKinley, the protective-tariff, and the gold standard, increased to $26.58 per capita on May 1, 1900, an increase of 20 per cent