THE WAR TARIFFS CONTINUED
Whatever hope moderate protectionists in Congress may have had that the
new President would be influenced by their arguments in favor of tariff
reform, was soon scattered. General Grant was of uncertain political
antecedents. It is doubtful if he ever had any particular interest in
the tariff question, and it is certain that he did not at that moment
consider it a question for his administration to meddle with. In his
first message he advised postponement of revision and against the
renewal of the reciprocity treaty between the British Provinces and the
United States. The one financial duty which he saw at his inauguration
was the resumption of specie payment, and on that his voice was firm.
But even more important than the attitude of the new President on the
tariff was the attitude of the new leader of the House. Who that would
be was still uncertain. Thaddeus Stevens, who for fully eight years had
driven the House like a flock of sheep, had died in August, 1868. There
is no doubt that a sigh of relief went up from all the younger element
in Congress. “The death of Thaddeus Stevens is the emancipation of the
Republicans. He kept the party under his heel,” said James G. Blaine one
day soon after, as he walked in the rotunda of the Capitol with a
friend. “Whom have you got for leaders?” asked the friend. “There are
three young men coming forward,” Blaine replied. “Allison will be heard
from, so will James A. Garfield,” and then he paused. “Who is the
third?” “I don’t see the third,” Blaine replied, gazing up into the
dome. The third appeared a little later when Mr. Blaine was elected
Speaker of the Forty-first Congress.
Blaine’s attitude on the tariff was well known. He believed in high
protection, but he was a politician before he was an advocate, and could
be depended upon to give full hearing to anybody in his party who could
muster votes. That he did not consider the tariff reformers strong
enough to receive much consideration on the Ways and Means Committee was
shown by his appointment of the chairman—Robert C. Schenck of Ohio.
General Schenck’s tariff position had been well characterized by himself
when the bill of 1866 was up. “Sitting here a friend of protective
tariff for eight years,” he said, “_I have voted aye or nay as those who
got up the tariff bills have told me._” “But,” he went on to say, “we
begin to find something like fair play is proper in these things: We
claim that what we do and can produce shall have the same protection
which is given to the industry of the country, applied to the business
of manufacturers.” And henceforth Mr. Schenck worked for duties for the
farmer, for anybody in fact that asked one. It is clear that the House
thus organized could be depended upon to support the doctrine of high
protection.
The vitality of the opposition within the party made itself evident,
however, almost at once. Republican district conventions, particularly
in the West, showed themselves restive, and at Mansfield, Ohio, in June,
1869, General Roeliff Brinkerhoff actually succeeded in getting into a
Republican platform the following resolution:
“_Resolved_, That we are opposed to all class legislation,
government subsidies and grinding monopolies of every kind, and,
therefore, we heartily favor a revision of the present oppressive
tariff, so as to adjust it purely to a revenue standard.”
The way the press took up General Brinkerhoff’s resolution showed how
popular his theory was. Murat Halstead published in full the speech the
General had made in presenting the resolution—and it was copied and
commented on all over the country. The Free Trade League of New York
City, a very energetic organization, sent for the General, and with him
planned a lecture campaign. This plan was carried out; General
Brinkerhoff and Professor Arthur L. Perry, of Williams College, the
author of a book generally used at the time, “Elements of Political
Economy,” spending much of the fall and winter in discussing the need of
tariff reform. At the same time a group of strong Republican newspapers,
including the Portland _Advertiser_, the St. Louis _Democrat_, the
Pittsburg _Commercial_, the Cincinnati _Gazette_, and the Chicago
_Tribune_, one of the very ablest papers in the country, turned their
batteries on the tariff. The last-named led in the campaign and led
well. The _Tribune_ was edited, at that time, by Horace White, and under
his direction had attracted general attention and respect for its sound
and authoritative economic discussion. Mr. White was a zealous student
of economics, and he poured into the _Tribune_ all the results of his
careful work.
The chief opponents of Perry and Brinkerhoff and White in the
discussion, were Horace Greeley and Henry C. Carey. Greeley was an
extremist. “If I had my way—if I were king of this country,” he told
Garfield once, “I would put a duty of $100 a ton on pig-iron and a
proportionate duty on everything else that can be produced in America.
The result would be that our people would be obliged to supply their own
wants, manufactures would spring up, competition would finally reduce
prices, and we should live wholly within ourselves.” And to prove the
wisdom of this belief he began the publication in the New York _Tribune_
of a series of Essays on Political Economy.
At the same time Henry Carey threw himself into the debate, writing a
long series of letters to public men. Carey was at this time over 75
years old—and a more fierce and dogmatic championship of a cause could
not be conceived than his of high protection and of paper money.
Originally a free-trader Carey had early concluded that society was too
undeveloped to practise it, and that a long period of protection must
precede. His views on social and economic subjects he had elaborated in
many volumes, the first of which had been published in 1835. The chief
of his works are his “Principles of Political Economy” and his
“Principles of Social Science.” Both of these have been translated into
a half dozen European languages, and they certainly must be reckoned
with largely in tracing the influences which have made for protection in
our time. Carey in spite of all his hard labor saw the people recede
from his views in 1846, and the return to protection in 1860 had given
him unbounded joy. He wrote Morrill frequent letters of counsel and
instruction when he was at work on the bill of 1861, urging him always
to more arbitrary action than his just and reasonable mind relished.
“Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good
tariff,” Carey once said to him. So convinced was he of his position, so
sure that he had solved finally the economic problem that any discussion
or criticism spurred him to the most intolerant opposition. After
Richard Cobden’s death in 1865, Carey said in a public gathering in
Philadelphia that he regarded it as one of those instances of special
providence for which the United States had especial reason to be
thankful; for, said Carey, it was the intention of Mr. Cobden if he had
lived to have again visited the United States; if he had done so he
might have lectured, and so have done great harm to the cause of
protection.
David Wells was a particular abomination to Carey. His reports pointing
out the unjust discrimination caused by certain tariffs, and the fact
that wages were not increasing in the ratio of expenses Carey charged to
be untrue—juggling of figures paid for with “British gold.” One of his
pamphlets answering Wells he headed with this quotation from the New
Testament: _Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went unto the
chief priests and said unto them “what will ye give me, and I will
deliver him unto you?” And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of
silver and from that time he sought opportunity to betray him ... and
forthwith he came to Jesus and said “Hail Master,” and kissed him._
As a matter of fact Wells was doing serious injury to the schedules then
in force by pointing out what they were and were not doing. For instance
there was the wool bill of 1867. It had been in operation for nearly two
years, and according to Mr. Wells wool was in a more depressed state
than before its passage. His summary of conditions was startling:
1st. Wool to the agriculturalist at a lower price in gold than has
almost ever before been experienced.
2d. A decrease in the number of sheep in the United States, estimated by
the Commissioner of Agriculture at four millions for the single year of
1868, while other authorities place the total decrease as high as 25 per
cent since the passage of the wool tariff.
3d. A condition of the woollen manufacture characterized by a greater
depression than that of any other branch of industry in the country,
with the exception of ship-building; small profit accruing to a few,
heavy losses to the many, with numerous and constantly recurring
failures.
4th. An increase in the importations of foreign fabrics of wool; the
imports of the fiscal year 1868 being returned at $32,458,884, and for
1869 at $34,620,943.
5th. Encouragement of smuggling and its apparent reduction to a system.
“In short,” concluded Mr. Wells after a full discussion of these points,
“what is now needed to restore prosperity to the woollen industry, is a
removal of all duties on the importation of foreign wools and dyestuffs,
and a general reduction of the duties on manufactured woollen fabrics of
every description to 25 per cent ad valorem. On this basis the most
experienced woollen manufacturers in the country assure the commissioner
that they can at once extend, diversify, and secure prosperity in their
business. On this basis the cost of domestic fabrics will be so far
reduced as to give great relief to the consumer, and lead to an
immediate and largely increased consumption. And on this basis only can
the wool-growers expect any immediate increased demand for his staple
product of merino fleece; while in respect to the combing and the finer
wools it is sufficient to say that the supply of these wools has not for
the last few years increased in proportion to their consumption, and
that the extension of their use in the American industry, which would
inevitably follow a remission of the duties upon their import, would so
far increase their demand as to give to the domestic producer all the
encouragement that would prove necessary.”
Among the many cases which Mr. Wells analyzed in his reports none
excited more interest than that of salt. Salt was so widely diffused in
the United States, and its production in various sections had been so
cheap and simple, that the price before the war was very low. The
efforts of the states where it was found, particularly of New York
State, had always been to keep it abundant and cheap. But so many
persons had gone into the business in that state that there had been at
times over-production and serious price-cutting, and as early as 1860
the New York salt men formed a company to put a stop to this sort of
thing. By a clever manipulation of the State Assembly, which was the
guardian of the salt-wells, they secured a law which permitted them to
prevent the starting of any new salt-works. They then went to work to
get control by buying or leasing all existing works. Succeeding in this
they promptly shut down many of them and began to limit the output. The
next year after the combination was formed came on the war, and the
tariff on salt was raised to 12 cents a bushel (it had been 1½ cents in
1857). A year later it was raised to 18 cents, a duty equivalent to from
100 to 150 per cent of its value. This high rate practically put an end
to foreign competition, and the exigencies of war taking the salt of
Virginia and Louisiana out of the market, the Northern works had things
pretty much their own way. Salt, which had sold at 20 cents a bushel in
1860, was selling five years later at 66 cents, and in 1869 at 48.
The Syracuse company made extraordinary profits under these
circumstances. In 1861, the year after their first combination, 7 per
cent. In 1862 they paid _six_ dividends, one of them 12½ per cent. They
soon issued a stock dividend of 100 per cent, and paid the same large
cash dividends on this. In the first six years after the combination was
formed it paid out $2,000,000 in dividends on a paid up capital of
$160,000, and had a surplus of $600,000 on hand.
In the meantime the Michigan salt-works were growing rapidly. Their
output which in 1860 had been but 4000 barrels became over a half
million in 1864! But the same thing happened there as in Syracuse—too
many companies. Sixty-six were operating there by 1866, and combination
was applied, and the Michigan companies were soon consolidated into two.
But the end of the war loosened the Southern works and competition was
in danger of being restored. The New York and Michigan companies
hastened to prevent such a disaster. They entered into negotiations with
the Ohio River Company to limit the output, and the latter to make
itself firmer leased the Kanawha, Virginia, Salt Springs for $75,000 a
year and shut them down. Simultaneously with this campaign for making
salt scarce at home, the industry began one to make it still dearer, an
agitation for more duty—18 and 24 cents a hundred pounds were not
enough, they wanted 30 and 42 cents, and this in spite of the fact that
the internal revenue tax had been removed from salt. If the copper and
wool men could get special bills through, why not they? There seemed no
good reason to the House of Representatives—and they actually passed the
measure—though the Senate did not concur, for lack of time, and the bill
never became a law.
This interesting combination had not only succeeded through the tariff
in making salt scarce and dear, but they had, as all such combinations
do, given the lie to their claim that they could not produce it at a
cost which would enable them to sell it cheaper, by exporting in 1868
some 500,000 bushels, which they had sold in competition with foreign
salt, and by offering the New England fishermen who were allowed to
import salt without duty, prices as low as those abroad; that is, they
had one price for the land and another for the sea, one for Canada and
another for the United States.
Mr. Wells’s evidence on the salt monopoly was complete—it had made a
necessity of life dear through a tariff much higher than the internal
tax and the higher wage of American labor called for. The greater part
of the extra price the consumers were paying was going not into the
pockets of the laborers, but into those of the operators.
After salt the portion of the reports which attracted the most attention
dealt with the tariff on iron. Pig-iron was still enjoying the
protection of $9.00 a ton, given it in the spring of 1865, and this,
though practically all internal revenue taxes on it had been removed.
Its price had risen from $22.70 a ton in 1860 to an average in 1869 of
$40.61. The cost of producing this iron in the United States, including
interest, repairs, and incidentals, was from $24.00 to $26.00 a ton, and
it could be bought in England at $27.12. Mr. Wells’s conclusion, after
examining all the elements in the problem, was that the cost of pig-iron
to the American consumers was from $8.00 to $10.00 per ton more than was
necessary to pay the American laborer his higher wage, and give the
American manufacturer a fair profit; that is, the iron men were
receiving a bonus of from $8.00 to $10.00 a ton from the country. Of
course, this high price of pig-iron affected the cost of production in
all sorts of industries. The most telling illustration of its effect was
that of ship-building. The year the Civil War broke out the tonnage of
the merchant marine of the United States was 5,539,813. Twice as many
American vessels entered British ports as British entered American
ports. The _American Clipper_ was famous all seas over. We were building
vessels for the foreigners, and everybody was quoting with pride a
remark of John Bright in the House of Commons that the finest vessels
sailing between England and Australia were built in the United States.
Iron vessels were at this time beginning to replace wooden. England had
taken the lead in their building, but we were beginning the industry,
and our success in all related industries made it certain that we should
succeed here. The war, of course, interrupted trade sadly. But the
alarming thing was, that the war over, there was no recovery of the
loss. On the contrary, it increased. In 1869 the tonnage had fallen to
4,246,507. Instead of American vessels filling British ports, British
filled ours. A trade between the United States and Brazil carried on in
1860 in 345 American and 178 foreign vessels was almost exactly
reversed. Shipyards all along the coast were shutting down. Why was it?
The ship-builders did not hesitate to say: “The day of the iron ship has
come, but it cannot be built in America. The ship that costs $88,000 in
Scotland, costs $138,000 here.” It is not the superior cost of labor the
ship-builders contended. The advantage the Scotch and English
ship-builders have in cheap labor is compensated for with us by superior
efficiency and by labor-saving devices. It is the cost of materials that
cripples us. Just as the increased cost of copper, through a high duty,
had put an end to copper bottoming and repairing of wooden ships in
American ports, so the high tariff on iron and lumber was putting an end
to ship-building.
Mr. Wells included many other similar illustrations in his report, but
it was wool, salt, iron, and ship-building which demonstrated his points
most clearly: that tariffs, which were so high that they were
practically prohibitive, as in these cases, could not restore a
depressed industry, they raised prices unnaturally high to the consumer,
gave unnatural profits to the few manufacturers as in the case of
pig-iron, led inevitably to monopolies as in the case of salt, and
destroyed related industries as in the case of ship-building.
The report created a great noise and played a big part in the debate on
the tariff bill, which General Schenck introduced into the House in
February, 1870. That any bill attempted at this juncture should follow
the pledges the leaders had given in ’62 and ’64 to reduce the tariffs
as the internal taxes were reduced, would seem evident. But there was no
proof that General Schenck and his committee had given more than a
passing glance at these pledges. That the tariffs, whose unjust and
dangerous excess had been demonstrated, should be corrected, seemed
evident—but they were either ignored or only partially readjusted. Thus
pig-iron, which undoubtedly would have been amply protected by a duty of
$3.00 a ton, was allowed $7.00. The revenue was reduced, as it was
imperative it should be, by lowering the duties on sugar, tea, and
coffee—a “free breakfast table” being the committee’s slogan. An
animated wrangle followed the introduction of the bill. The leaders on
the extreme wings were William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania for the high
protectionists, and S. S. Cox of New York for the free traders; while
Messrs. Allison of Iowa and Garfield of Ohio led the moderates.
Mr. Kelley was at this time at the height of his power, and a more
passionate and convinced supporter of the doctrine of protection has
never sat in the Congress of the United States. He had not always been a
protectionist. “In 1847,” he wrote once, “I had seen with gratification
the protective tariff of 1842 succeeded by the revenue or free-trade
tariff of 1846. To promote this change I had labored not only with zeal
and industry, but with undoubting faith that experience would prove its
benefits. For ten years all went well, and then came the panic of 1857.”
To Mr. Kelley it was a knockout blow. He seems not to have considered
the natural causes of the disturbance, but to have concluded the trouble
lay entirely in the tariff, and for two years he went through the agony
of a man losing his faith. Then in 1859 he sought Henry C. Carey for
help. His conversion to protection was complete. As he himself said he
came to regard the doctrine as an “exquisite harmony.” Everything which
we could produce or manufacture should be so protected that the
foreigner could not enter the market. By diversifying and expanding our
industries we would draw greater and greater numbers to our country,
thus giving larger and larger markets to our farmers. The manufacturers
were to supply all the tools of the farmers and miners. Encouraged by
prosperity production would multiply, and competition would reduce
prices at home lower than abroad. It was a perfect circle.
There is no doubt that the basis of Kelley’s devotion to protection was
his belief that it was for the interest of the American working classes.
The improvement of their condition was the passion of his life.
Apprenticed as a boy to a Boston printer he had refused to be sent to
college lest it might wean him from his class. He wanted to taste with
them all the experiences of poverty—to know what it cost for a day
laborer to live and rise in America. He had studied law at night, had
sought the society of Channing and Emerson, had become a man of
influence, but his motive had remained unchanged. The misery he saw in
1857 he charged entirely to the free-trade system. He could not rest
until he had found a substitute. He believed he had found it in the
“exquisite harmony” of protection.
Having adopted a formula he believed competent to solve all problems,
Kelley could support no criticism of its operations. Mr. Wells’s
demonstration that high tariffs had not restored wool to its old vigor,
had been the determining factor in building up the salt monopoly, that
the iron men were getting the lion’s share of the duty on iron, that we
could not build ships if we kept the price of materials so much higher
than in other countries, was to him little better than blasphemy. Wells
became his pet abomination—a detestation soon after extended to
Professor Sumner of Yale, a man and an institution existing, he used to
say angrily, for “the stupefaction of the youth of this country!”
In the debate on the Schenck Bill Mr. Kelley’s defence of the high
tariffs was impassioned and angry. Monopoly, what did he care for
monopoly, he cried, when Mr. Allison called his attention to the fact
that a certain iron manufacturer whose scale of wages Kelley was
praising, had, with the only three other of his kind in the country,
agreed upon a list of prices made by adding to the price abroad the duty
and a profit on the cost at home. “I do not care what they agreed to do
if they are thereby enabling workingmen to keep their children at
school, well-fed and comfortably clad, to maintain their seats in church
and to lay something up for old age and a rainy day.”
Kelley’s refusal to consider any argument for lowering duties,
particularly on iron, led to a charge that he was in the pay of the iron
manufacturers. No proof of this accusation was ever offered. The New
York _Nation_, which repeated it in 1872, made the _amende honorable_
soon after, saying that Mr. Kelley and his friends had convinced them
that he had no interest which would justify this charge. Kelley’s case
was different from that of Thaddeus Stevens, who did own an iron
foundry. The cause of the charge was due no doubt to Kelley’s
unwillingness to admit that there could be evils in applying his
favorite doctrine. For corruption _outside_ of the tariff he had a just
indignation—as for the whiskey frauds. He looked with horror on Simon
Cameron; and in 1872, when office-seeking was causing great scandal, he
refused to accept renomination to Congress, except on condition that
hereafter he should not be regarded as a “patronage broker.” His defeat
was generally prophesied, but he kept his word and won.
At the other end of the scale from Kelley was Samuel Sullivan Cox, by
far the most eloquent, witty, and well-informed debater the Democrats
had. Cox was an uncompromising free-trader, and one of the most
interesting figures in Congress. He was still a young man, forty-four at
this time, but an experienced one. A graduate of Brown, he had first
taken part in public life as the editor of the _Statesman_ of Columbus,
Ohio. Here at the very start he earned his sobriquet of “Sunset Cox” by
an editorial, which went all over the country; “A Great Old Sunset,” it
was called. It opened, “What a stormful sunset was that of last night!
How glorious the storm, and how splendid the setting of the sun.”
His popularity sent him to Congress in 1857, where, although a Democrat,
he immediately put himself in opposition to the Buchanan administration
by voting against the Lecompton Constitution. In 1866 he removed to New
York City, which promptly sent him back to Congress as one of its
representatives. The spirit and wit Cox could infuse into a tariff
debate can only be understood by reading the _Congressional Record_. His
irreverent interpretations of extreme protectionism kept poor Mr. Kelley
in a constant tumult. Kelley’s sense of humor, which seems not to have
been strong at any time, was utterly swamped by the serious view he took
of his favorite doctrine, and Cox gibed him unmercifully. “Pig-Iron
Kelley” he called him, and his resolutions “pig-iron resolutions.”
Perhaps his most successful sally at his opponents in this Congress was
his resolution against free sunshine—a resolution adapted from
Bastiat—made when there was a fight on against lowering the duty on
coal:
“_Resolved_, That all windows, skylights, inside and outside
shutters, curtains and blinds shall be permanently closed, as also
all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures through which the
light and heat of the sun have been allowed to enter houses to the
prejudice and injury of meritorious miners and dealers in gas-coal
to protect domestic industry.”
“For the sun is a ‘foreigner,’” explained Mr. Cox. “He comes from
abroad, and we must shut out the light of the sun in order to gratify
these Pennsylvania gentlemen who have a monopoly of this article of
coal.”
The real fight on the Schenck Bill was not, as already said, between
Republicans and Democrats; it was as it had been in 1866 and 1867, in
the party, between Mr. Kelley and his friends and the moderate
protectionists, led by Allison and Garfield. Almost without exception
the speakers on this middle ground opened by disclaiming that it was a
question of protection or of free trade. It was a question of revenue,
of moderate temporary protection, and of keeping promises made in the
war. And nearly all of them having thus defined their positions attacked
the bill, because it did not summarily cut down the tariffs on salt,
iron, leather, coal, lumber, and other articles, where it could be
conclusively shown that they were working chiefly for the benefit of the
few.
Mr. Allison, who was particularly hard on the excessive duty on iron,
wanted a reduction of at least 20 per cent on all leading articles. He
knew he differed from the majority of the Ways and Means Committee on
this, he said, but—
“It is not a question of political partnership. It is a question of
affecting every interest in this country and every class, and
because of the great interests involved should receive careful
consideration at our hands irrespective of partisanship.... I warn
those who insist so pertinaciously upon a retention of these high
duties upon necessary articles of consumption that they only hasten
the time when a more radical change will be made in our tariff laws.
What manufacturers need most of all is stability in legislation,
avoiding sudden and sweeping changes. The changes which I have
proposed would reduce the revenue only a few million dollars, while
to the consumers of manufactures produced they would reduce the cost
of those products many million dollars. In my judgment such a policy
would revive many industries now languishing, and not interfere with
the great industries already established, and which under any change
we are likely to make will still be largely protected. Our policy
should be so to cheapen manufactured products that we can revive our
export trade, now swept away, because we cannot compete with other
nations in the markets of the world. If we could restore what we
have lost, and in addition greatly enlarge our exportations of
manufactures, we should then have an enlarged home market for our
agricultural products, which would then be exported in a
concentrated form in exchange for other commodities which we do not
now and cannot produce.”
The debate on the bill occupied the House much of the time from the
middle of March until the 6th of June, when it was passed. The Senate
took it up at once, and the debate there followed very much the same
lines as in the House:—protestation that it was not an academic
question—pleas from Mr. Morrill and his friends to remember the war time
pledges—warnings against the “smell of monopoly”—plans for removing the
causes of the decline of ship-building. In short, the Republicans
themselves rehearsed fully and forcibly the injustice in certain tariffs
then in force, and asked the party to correct them. All of the
correction they got was $2.00 a ton off pig-iron. Salt, leather, lumber,
wool, copper, and other articles were not touched. The relief demanded
for the consumer came in the breakfast table. Thus the bill, which the
President signed on July 14, reduced the duties on tea about 40 per
cent; on coffee, 40 per cent; on sugar of the lower grades, 33⅓ per
cent; on clarified sugars, 21-3/7 and 12½ per cent; on spices from 33⅓
to 75 per cent. On brandy the reduction was $3.00 to $2.00 per gallon,
or 33⅓ per cent; on spirits from grain, 20 per cent. The free list was
largely increased, certain important materials for manufacturing, ivory,
India rubber, and rags for paper making, being included in a far greater
number of unimportant items.
Mr. Kelley and his sympathizers had saved the doctrine of high
protection, and they accompanied their victory by a manœuvre which they
evidently hoped would preserve them in the future from the necessity of
considering such troublesome arrays of facts about the effects of
particular tariffs as those forced upon them in the last four years by
Mr. Wells’s reports. They persuaded the President to refuse to continue
the office of special commissioner of revenue, which Mr. Wells had
filled since his appointment by President Lincoln in March, 1865. The
majority of Congress deeply deplored this move, and joined in signing a
letter to him expressing their appreciation of his services. The wise
men of the party realized only too well how they would be crippled
without Mr. Wells. It was a loss which time has only intensified. It is
not too much to say, that if he had continued to study and expound
officially the revenue system for the next twenty years with the same
dispassionate thoroughness and clearness that characterized the five
years’ work he did do, the problem of the equitable distribution of
wealth in this country would be much nearer an intelligent solution than
it is to-day.
The passage of the Schenck Bill and the removal of Mr. Wells only
intensified the sentiment of the tariff reformers. A most interesting
movement had sprung up in that year (1870) in Missouri. It was a new
organization, called the Liberal party, headed by Colonel William M.
Grosvenor, the editor of the St. Louis _Democrat_, Carl Schurz, United
States Senator from Missouri, and Gustavus Finkelnburg, a Representative
from that State. The Liberal Republicans asked for several things which
they felt they were not getting under Grant: general amnesty, revenue
reforms, resumption of specie payment, and civil service reform. They
had put up a ticket in Missouri, and elected it. Sympathy with their
aims was widely diffused, and all over the country Republican
conventions began to put tariff planks into their platforms similar to
theirs, or to the one General Brinkerhoff had slipped into the Ohio
platform in 1869, while party organs, like the Portland (Me.)
_Advertiser_, the Chicago _Tribune_, the St. Louis _Democrat_, redoubled
their efforts. In the fall the Free Trade League again sent out General
Brinkerhoff and Professor Perry on a lecture tour. General Brinkerhoff
made a stir with a lecture, which he called “The Tyrants of Syracuse.”
It was a scientific dissection of the Salt Trust, which surpassed in
completeness and convincingness anything which had been achieved in any
one of the many analyses which had been given in Congress. The
cumulative effect of the agitation began to stir the rulers of Congress,
particularly Mr. Blaine, who was a candidate for re-election as Speaker.
Unless he could make a compromise with the tariff reformers he saw there
was danger of their uniting with the Democrats and thereby defeating
him. He went to Chicago and sought Horace White “for the sole purpose of
talking over the situation.” A little later he asked the four whom he
evidently considered the most influential in the movement to meet him
secretly in New York. The four were William B. Allison, Horace White,
Charles Nordhoff, and General Brinkerhoff. There was a long discussion,
ending in a proposition from Mr. Blaine that if the reformers would
permit him to be re-elected Speaker he would permit them to name the
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and give them a majority on it
of their way of thinking. The proposition was accepted, and Mr. Blaine
was asked to appoint Mr. Garfield.
There was no reason to suppose that Mr. Blaine would not keep his
promise, nevertheless the suspicion that he was “slippery” in politics
was not uncommon, and the Free Trade League concluded to send General
Brinkerhoff to Washington to see that the arrangement was carried out.
The new Congress—the Forty-second—opened on March 4, 1871. General
Brinkerhoff had made a careful study of the tariff record of the members
of the new House and felt sure of a majority, but it was resolved to
test the tariff sentiment by a surprise resolution. Bills were prepared
putting coal and salt on the free list, and Eugene Hale of Maine was
asked to introduce them, under the Monday morning rule. Mr. Hale
consented, and Mr. Blaine promised to recognize him. The bills were
introduced suddenly as arranged, brought immediately to vote, and, after
some skirmishing, passed, to the despair of Mr. Kelley, who, as Mr. Cox
said, wailed now like Jeremiah, though in the last session he had talked
like Isaiah. “I was in the majority then,” said Mr. Kelley, ruefully.
Sure of the House, there now remained only to make sure of Mr. Blaine.
As the days went on and the appointments promised were not made, General
Brinkerhoff felt more and more uneasy, but said nothing. Finally one day
as he was on the floor of the House, Mr. Blaine sent a page to him
asking him for an interview:
“He then called someone to the chair,” says General Brinkerhoff in
his Recollections, “and as he went out of the south door I went out
of the north door, and went around and met him. He took me down to
the basement and into a room he called his den. He then locked the
door and went to a cupboard and brought out some refreshments, and
we sat down at a little table.
“After awhile he told me he wanted to talk with me about the Ways
and Means Committee, and to ask my opinion in regard to a cast of a
committee that was in his mind. He took a pencil and a slip of paper
from a drawer and wrote down nine names and then turned it around
for me to read. I saw that he kept his finger on the paper, and that
he did not intend to let me take it away, and so I took a little
time to study its make-up, and get it clearly in my memory. I saw at
a glance that he was not carrying out his agreement, because Dawes
was at the head as chairman, and not Garfield. I saw also as I
looked over the list that a majority of the committee were not
revenue reform men, although it was a combination calculated to
deceive any one not fully posted on individual records.
“That a breach of faith was meditated was evident enough, but just
what to do about it was not so evident, and so I asked questions to
gain time as well as information. I asked him why Dawes instead of
Garfield was at the head. ‘That is what I want to talk about
especially, for I find it will make trouble to give Garfield the
chairmanship, and it seems to me that Dawes is sufficiently in
harmony with you people to be satisfactory, and the very fact that
he is not an extreme man will be an advantage to you in the House.’
He said Garfield had not had sufficient service on the committee to
entitle him to promotion over old members like Kelley and Dawes.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘Kelley would take a fit if I put Garfield ahead of
him.’ ‘Possibly, that may be so,’ I said, ‘but you knew that just as
well when we were in New York as you do now, and I am very sure our
people would not be willing to substitute Dawes for Garfield in any
event, for at heart he is not with us any more than Kelley.’
“The fact was there were only four men on his list who were not
protectionists, and after discussing the matter awhile, he said,
‘This is not a finality by any means, it is simply tentative and I
will make the committee so that it will be satisfactory.’ He
repeated the word ‘tentative’ two or three times, but I made up my
mind at once that a Ways and Means Committee satisfactory to the
revenue reform people would never be made by Mr. Blaine, and so we
parted after an hour’s talk with the understanding that he would see
me again soon.”
That evening General Brinkerhoff met Garfield by appointment. “You are
not to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,” he told him. “The
protectionists will be in a majority on it.”
“You are wrong,” Garfield said; “Mr. Blaine has already written me
assuring me of my appointment.”
“Let me see the letter,” said the General. Garfield’s face fell. He had
not the letter. Mr. Blaine had asked that it be returned because life
was uncertain. “You will not be appointed,” General Brinkerhoff
reiterated. Garfield walked the floor for a few minutes, and then
stopping, said: “General Brinkerhoff, if Mr. Blaine does not appoint me
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he is the basest of men.” He
was not appointed, but a few days later Mr. Dawes was.
No move could have been made which would have crystallized so
effectually the tariff sentiment of the reformers and sent them so
surely toward the Democrats as this. All over the country signs of
dissatisfaction multiplied. They were only strengthened by other causes
of complaint with the party—the failure to secure civil service reform
and the awful need of it; the treatment of the South, which had led to a
strong movement, headed by Greeley, in favor of general amnesty; the
delay in resuming specie payment. These specific causes were intensified
by the feeling about Grant. He had utterly disappointed the hopes of
those who had looked to him to put an end to the open corruption and
raiding which prevailed in Washington at the time of his election, and
he had become almost the tool of some of the very worst elements in the
party. Dissatisfaction had become abuse, and every evil in the country
was laid at his door, an exaggeration Mr. Cox ridiculed in the next
campaign by declaring, “I lay the horse distemper to Grant. Run me as an
anti-epizoötic candidate at large.”
Between the real issues and the dissatisfaction with Grant there seemed
reason enough for revolt, particularly to the Liberal Republicans of
Missouri, who had succeeded in their bolt; and accordingly in January,
1872, they called a meeting of leading reformers in St. Louis. Here it
was decided to put forth a declaration of principle and call a national
convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May, 1872, of all those who felt that
the issues were sufficiently important to justify independent action.
Among contributing causes to this movement was the revolt in the
Republican party, growing out of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in
1868, and the attempt to read out of the party the seven Republican
Senators who had voted Not Guilty. The continuing proscription of the
“seven traitors” offended all persons who upheld the right of private
judgment and they naturally rebelled against such party tyranny.
The hope of the leaders in the Liberal movement was to organize an
entirely new party and to put forth a platform and candidates which
would secure the support of the Democrats. The time between the St.
Louis and the Cincinnati meetings was used in an energetic canvass of
the country. The result was that a convention of some seven hundred
people met in Cincinnati in May, but it was not seven hundred people
united on issues. While the Missouri Liberals and their friends led in
its organization, and expected to secure a platform and candidates to
their liking, the convention by a series of fine manœuvres was captured,
for the last man in the United States whom the tariff reform element
would have chosen—and that was Horace Greeley! Almost before they knew
what had happened to them, the men active in securing the convention
found themselves with the most devoted high protectionist in the country
on their hands, and a meaningless tariff plank in their platform! A more
ironical ending to a great movement could not be imagined. To be sure,
on one great issue to which the convention was committed, Horace Greeley
had been a leader, and that was amnesty for the South. He had turned the
New York _Tribune’s_ full strength against the policy of revenge and
humiliation, which the Republican party so blindly inaugurated, and he
had suffered their severest punishment in consequence. But in no other
particular was he in harmony with them, and a more unfit man to cope
with the ruling corruption could not be imagined. As the _Nation_ well
said, he was a man not more remarkable for generosity and
kind-heartedness than for the facility with which he could be duped, and
not more remarkable for his hatred of knavery than for the difficulty he
had in telling whether a man was a knave or not.
The tariff reformers left Cincinnati in despair and uncertainty—what
should they do? A meeting was called at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New
York and the situation discussed. It was a “bad job,” all agreed, but on
one point they could meet, that of amnesty. It was worth making a fight
for. The Democrats would probably endorse Greeley if they stood by the
Cincinnati convention. The meeting wavered and halted until finally late
at night Carl Schurz in a speech, which those who heard it declare to
have been one of the most eloquent he ever made, turned them to Greeley.
The majority decided to waive tariff reform for the time being and join
the movement to beat Grant.
The strength and the respectability of the faction which had seceded
from the Republican party on tariff reform and kindred issues, alarmed
the leaders who had been backing the iron and wool and copper and salt
people in their demands. They appreciated that they must do something
toward reform or the party would suffer still more seriously. All
through the early months of 1872 a struggle went on to get a bill which
should cut down the surplus without antagonizing any politically strong
special interest. It could not be done. Senator Sherman finally said
frankly to the lobbyists who were besieging the committee that it was to
their interest to have a reduction made. “In my deliberate judgment,” he
said, “it is better for the protected industries of the country that
this slight reduction of duties (it was the question of a general 10 per
cent reduction) should be made rather than to invite a contest which
will endanger the whole system.”
After much struggle Mr. Dawes reported a bill in April, which he hoped
Congress could unite on. Mr. Finkelnburg of Missouri spoke for the bill.
It was not what he wanted, he said, but it should be supported, because
it was a step in the right direction:
“Its chief merit,” said Mr. Finkelnburg, “lies in this, that after
six years of peace it is the first bill reported to the House by a
regular standing committee which proposes to make a substantial and
general, though moderate reduction, in the war duties imposed upon
the leading necessaries of life, the staple articles of consumption
used by the people of the United States. It is the first step in the
scaling downward, the inauguration of a policy of reduction, and as
such I bespeak for it the support of all friends of revenue reform.
“It is true the reductions proposed in the bill are very moderate;
so much so that the bill may, with apparent justice, be criticised
for not going far enough. It is not what I would like to see, and
far from my ideas of true revenue reform; but I gave it my support
firstly, because I want to accomplish something practical, and I
felt that if we asked the House to do more it would result in
nothing being done; and secondly, because I recognize a fact which
should govern all legislation of this kind, namely, that changes in
a tariff schedule, which more or less affect business relations and
values throughout a country, ought to be made slowly and gradually,
step by step, leaving to the next year what remains undone in this,
until we arrive at that normal point where the duties may once more
assume a permanent character as they did before the war.”
It was indeed a reasonable bill to the reasonable man, but those
interests which considered only themselves fought fiercely to save what
the urgencies of war had given them. Many a member, it is plain from the
debate, would have willingly supported a more radical lowering of
duties, but he had important constituents goading him to look after
them, and he dared not speak his mind freely. In many cases about the
only argument these gentlemen offered was that they would willingly
enough give up the duty on their coal or salt or lumber if Pennsylvania
would on her iron, Michigan on her copper, Connecticut on her clocks.
There was a pretty general frank admission that the high tariffs were a
bad business, but “if you get it for your constituents you must give it
to me for mine.” It was a phase which gave great joy to Mr. Cox, and he
mocked at it in a speech long remembered:
“Let us be to each other instruments of reciprocal rapine,” said Mr.
Cox. “Michigan steals on copper; Maine on lumber; Pennsylvania on
iron; North Carolina on peanuts; Massachusetts on cotton goods;
Connecticut on hair pins; New Jersey on spool thread; Louisiana on
sugar, and so on. Why not let the gentleman from Maryland steal coal
from them? True, but a comparative few get the benefit, and it comes
out of the body of the people; true, it tends to high prices, but
does not stealing encourage industry? Let us as moralists, if not as
politicians, rewrite the eighth commandment: Thou shalt steal;
because stealing is right when common.
“As I am a Representative of New York, and Onondaga, with the aid of
the foreign solar artisan, evaporates salt, ought I not also to
steal to help Onondaga? Stealing by tariffs, Mr. Chairman, is, as De
Quincey proved of murder, a fine art. If everybody stole from
everybody, is there any reproach to anybody? If everybody is a
burglar, is there any need for anybody to lock up houses?
“How happy we shall be when we can all look each other in the face
here, as now I look into the face of the gentleman from
Massachusetts, clasp hands, and say: God bless you, my brother; you
have stolen from me, and I from you; let us love one another. Then
the little unprotected pigs, who are crowded by the big pigs quietly
eating out of the trough, will squeal no more to be let in, for on
this idea all shall be fed by swallowing each other’s food; and when
all are fed, no one loses and we shall be happy.”
There was another significant feature to the debate, and that was the
way it got on the nerves of Congress. Before the session was over there
was an almost open admission that they did not know nor care much
whether certain tariffs which were causing trouble, were just or not.
For instance, Senator Logan of Illinois was greatly disturbed because
the tariff on printed books was only 25 per cent, and that on the paper
which made them was 31½ per cent. He argued long and earnestly over the
matter, but finally was snapped off summarily by Senator Sherman. “It is
like trying to row a flatboat up the Mississippi River to argue against
the Committee on Finance in the Senate,” wailed poor Mr. Logan. We mean
no disrespect to the gentleman, Mr. Morrill hastened to assure him, but
is it any wonder we are weary of the subject and want to drop it after
hearing delegations and representatives of all the parties in the
business, and after having argued it out twice in committee? “No,” said
Mr. Bayard of Delaware, “it is not; it only shows the folly of
attempting to adjust duties in this way.” And as a matter of fact, the
debate in the spring of 1872 showed, as most tariff debates have, what
probably every candid member of Congress has always admitted after a few
years of experience, that it is impossible for a Congress subject to the
continual political and commercial pressure of private interest to make
a just tariff bill.
The Dawes Bill was signed formally on June 6th by President Grant. As it
stood its most important features were a 10 per cent reduction on
articles manufactured from cotton, wool, iron, paper, glass, and
leather, and an increase of the free list by such articles as hides,
jute, and paper stock, and a reduction on coal, salt, lumber, and
several other articles. All materials to be used in the construction of
vessels built in the United States for the foreign trade were admitted
free. At the same time a bill was passed removing entirely the duty on
tea and coffee.
It had been a hard battle to get the bill through, but it was certainly
a step toward more equable taxation. If the country had remained
prosperous it is probable that in the next Congress the revenue
reformers would have continued the work of equalization and
distribution, but the country did not remain prosperous. The year 1873
saw a panic of wide extent, a panic caused by gigantic speculations in
railways, in land securities, in booming schemes of every kind. Men
spent everything they owned in roseate ventures and then borrowed all
their hopeful neighbors would lend, and this madness followed only seven
years after a war, which had cost the country perhaps 4000 millions of
dollars! It was not a quick, sharp panic with easy recovery. Its shocks
recurred again and again, and the desolation it spread dragged itself
over several years. No time indeed for reform. But not so bad a time for
those who had objected to the lowering of the duties in the bill of
1872. The falling off of revenue due to decreased importation was reason
enough to them to make an effort to replace its provisions. They hurried
on to this more rapidly than they would have done perhaps if in 1874 the
general dissatisfaction with the Grant Administration intensified by the
hard times had not caused the election of a majority of Democrats to the
House. The protectionists, having only a short term of power left them,
hastened to take advantage of it. We must have more revenue, they urged.
The surplus of 1873 and 1874 is but $2,000,000. We shall have nothing
for the sinking funds—we must put more taxes on tobacco and spirits,
more duties on molasses and sugar, and we must restore the 10 per cent
reduction on manufactured goods. It was urged by the tariff reformers
that if revenue was wanted the repeal of the 10 per cent reduction would
help but little—that the restoration of the duty on tea and coffee was
the simplest and fairest—but the protectionists were determined to get
back their 10 per cent, and they did it, though only after a hard fight
and a close vote. And thus it happened that when the Republicans
resigned to the Democrats in 1875, the majority in the House of
Representatives, which they had held for fifteen years, they left behind
them tariff schedules devised for war needs and enacted by them under a
definite pledge of reduction when the war should be over and internal
taxes removed.