The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.
S I L V E R AND THE TARIFF. REMARKS BY HON. JACOB H. GALLINGER, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, IN THE SENATE OF T H E UNITED STATES, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1893. WASHINGTON, EEMAEKS OF HON. JACOB H. G A L L I N G E R . Mr. GALLINGER. I ask that the resolution of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] and the amendment proposed by myself may be reported. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire asks that the regular order be informally laid aside* for the purpose of taking up a resolution, which will be read. The Secretary read the resolution submitted by Mr. LODGE August 8,1893, as follows: Whereas Congress has been called In extraordinary session on account of the unfortunate condition of business; and Whereas some measure of relief can be obtained by the immediate and unconditional repeal of the purchasing clauses of the silver act of 1890: Therefore, jResolved, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to report at once t o the Senate a bill to repeal the purchasing clauses of the silver act of 1890, and that a vote be taken in the Senate on said bill on Tuesday, August 22, at 2 o'clock p. m., unless it is sooner reached. Mr. GALLINGER. Now, let my proposed amendment be read. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be read. The SECRETARY. It is proposed to add to the resolution the following: And that said committee be also directed to report to the Senate that in its opinion it is inexpedient and unwise for Congress to .attempt to radically change the existing tariff laws of the United States prior to March 4, 1897. Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, in cominon with the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and New England Republicans generally, I favor the repeal of section 1 of the so-called Sherman silver law, and am ready to vote for it at the earliest possible moment. But I do not agree with the Senator that this muchabused law is largely responsible for existing financial evils. I admit that the repeal of the purchasing clause of this statute will undoubtedly do something toward restoring confidence abroad in our financial system, and that as a result we will be bsnefited by an increased demand for our securities in foreign countries, for which we shall receive gold in exchange. I do not pretend to special knowledge of the financial question; but lifter reading innumerable so-called " solutions "of the problem, and listening to the able speeches already delivered on both sides of this Chamber, I am irresistibly led to the conclusion that one might as well attempt to cure bunions with sweetened water as to expect that the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman silver law will entirely remove the existing financial stringency. Recalling the strong words uttered against introducing political arguments into this discussion, I nevertheless propose to speak plainly what I believe, whether it be political or otherwise, and whether it pleases or displeases my associates on either side of this Chamber. 29 3 And in this connection it should not be forgotten that the political gauntlet WE S thrown down by the President himself, when he charged that the business and monetary disturbances of the country are due to unwise laws enacted by the Republican party. I believe, Mr. President, that the Sherman silver law has infinitely less to do with business depression to-day than the anticipated onslaught of the party in power on the McKinley tariff law. A prominent newspaper in my State has well said: Of all t h e senseless theories e v e r p r o j e c t e d b y a d e s p e r a t e p a r t y t o a c c o u n t f o r h a r d t i m e s t h e o n e n o w a d v a n c e d by t h e D e m o c r a c y , t h a t b a n k s a r e s u s p e n d i n g , f a c t o r i e s closing, m e r c h a n t s f a i l i n g , a n d business g e n e r a l l y is b e i n g p a r a l y z e d s i m p l y b e c a u s e the G o v e r n m e n t is a d d i n g t o the c i r c u l a t i n g m e d i u m of the c o u n t r y f o u r o r five m i l l i o n j u s t s u c h c o i n s a s h a v e b e e n * i n u s e f o r fifteen years, and a r e n o w e a g e r l y taken b y e v e r y b o d y at their f a c e value, i£ the silliest. H a r d t i m e s a r e u p o n us. H a r d e r t i m e s t h a n the A m e r i c a n p e o p l e have s e e n o r dreaded s i n c e 1857, and t h e y g r o w h a r d e r e v e r y d a y . T h e y a r e hard and are g r o w i n g h a r d e r b e c a u s e a p a r t y w h i c h h a s declared " w a r t o t h e death u p o n t h e p r o t e c t e d i n d u s t r i e s of t h e c o u n t r y " is i n u n d i s p u t e d c o n t r o l of the l e g i s l a t i v e and e x e c u t i v e b r a n c h e s of t h e G o v e r n m e n t . T h e y w i l l g r o w n o b e t t e r until it is c e r t a i n t h a t t h i s p ^ r t y c a n b e t u r n e d f r o m its p u r p o s e o r f o r c e d t o stay its h a n d ; until i t i s settled t h a t t h e p r o t e c t i v e tariff is n o t t o be s m a s h e d . It is a singular circumstance that in the history of the country the cry of distress is always uttered by a Democratic President. No Republican President ever found it necessary to tell the people of this country that its monetary and business interests were in a deplorable condition. True, we had something of a panic in 1873, due to oversjjeculation and the investment of fabulous sums of money in railroad construction, but that was of small account to the industrial interests of the country as compared to the present alarming state of things. In 1857 a like disaster to the present one overtook the country, and the similarity of language then used by a Democratic President to that of the present Chief Executive is strikingly instructive, even to the extent of suggesting plagiarism. Look at the deadly parallel: BUCHANAN, DECEMBER, 1857. CLEVELAND, AUGUST, 1893. T h e earth h a s yielded h e r f r u i t s a b u n d a n t l y ; o u r g r e a t staples c o m m a n d h i g h p r i c e s , and u p till w i t h i n a brief p e r i o d o u r m i n e r a l , m a n u f a c turing, a n d m e c h a n i c a l o c c u p a t i o n s h a v e l a r g e l y p a r t a k e n of t h e g e n e r a l p r o s p e r i t y , w e h a v e p o s s e s s e d all the elements of material wealth in rich abundance, yet, notwithstandi n g these a d v a n t a g e s , o u r c o u n t r y i n i t s m o n e t a r y i n t e r e s t s is a t p r e s e n t ' in a deplorable condition. I n the m i d s t of u n s u r p a s s e d p l e n t y , w e find o u r m a n u f a c t u r e s s u s p e n d e d , o u r p u b l i c w o r k s r e t a r d e d , o u r priv a t e e n t e r p r i s e s a b a n d o n e d , and thousands of useful laborers thrown o u t of e m p l o y m e n t and r e d u c e d t o w a n t . TJnder t h e s e c i r c u m s t a n c e s a l o a n m a y be r e q u i r e d b e f o r e t h e c l o s e of y o u r p r e s e n t session, b u t this, a l - , t h o u g h d e e p l y t o be r e g r e t t e d , w o u l d p r o v e t o be o n l y a s l i g h t m i s f o r t u n e when compared with the suffering and distress prevailing a m o n g , o u r people. "Wit"a p l e n t e o u s c r o p s , w i t h a b u n dant promise of remunerative prod u c t i o n and m a n u f a c t u r e , w i t h u n u s u a l i n v i t a t i o n t o safe i n v e s t m e n t , and with satisfactory assurance t o b u s i n e s s e n t e r p r i s e , s u d d e n l y financial distrust and fear have sprung u p o n e v e r y side. Numerous moneyed institutions have suspended because abundant assets were n o t immediately availab l e t o m e e t the d e m a n d s of f r i g h t e n e d depositors. Surviving corporations and i n d i v i d u a l s a r e c o n t e n t t o k e e p in hand the m o n e y they are usually anxious to loan, and those engaged i n legitimate business are surprised t o find t h a t s e c u r i t i e s t h e y o f f e r f o r loans, though heretofore satisfact o r y , are n o l o n g e r a c c e p t e d . V a l u e s s u p p o s e d t o b e fixed a r e f a s t b e c o m i n g c o n j e c t u r a l , and l o s s a n d failure have involved every branch of business. Mr. President, it is well understood that when the last Democratic* national platform was constructed the party did not expect to come in possession of all departments of the Government. They hoped for the election of their candidate for President, and expected to carry the popular branch of Congress; but they had £9 5 no expectation that the Senate would be Democratic. Under that condition of things they made a declaration which they did not themselves believe, expecting to be able to hide behind a wicked Republican Senate, and lay upon that body the blame for failure to legislate on the tariff. Why, Mr. President, if the Democratic party really believe what their platform declared— if a Democratic President and Democratic Senators really believe it—what a spectacle it is for them to allow an unconstitutional law to remain on the statute books for over five months of Democratic ascendancy without an effort to repeal it! The fact is they do not believe that high tariff laws are unconstitutional; for they know that the Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly affirmed the constitutionality of such legislation. My amendment gives the Democratic party an opportunity to escape from their own folly. It puts off tariff legislation until 1897, when the Republican party will again be in power, the only party that has shown, a capacity to deal with great economic questions in this country. Mr. President, we had prosperity for nearly three years under the Sherman silver law, during which time we had a Republican President and a Republican Senate. Elut the Democratic party wanted a "change." They induced the laboring men of the country to vote with them, and the change came. It came on the distinct issue that the existing tariff law is a fraud and unconstitutional. Then came unrest on the part of business men and manufacturers. They were confronted by this astounding Democratic platform upon which the country had been carried. Business operations were curtailed; capital, always timid, began to hide; manufacturers became alarmed, and the small investors clamored for their money. The result is known to all men. This is a currency panic, not due to a scarcity of money in the country, but due to hoarding, principally as a result of apprehension that the business of the country will be harmed by a repeal of the tariff laws now on the statute books. Mr. President, the manufacturers of New England are to-day in actual distress, as the junior Senator from Massachusetts has truthfully depicted. In the last Congress, the Senator from Missouri [Mr. V E S T ] grew eloquent over a report that reached his ears that the Middlesex mills in Massachusetts had paid a 36 per cent dividend. Of course no such dividend had ever been paid, but it did service in the campaign which fqllowed. To-day, instead of the mills of Massachusetts or of New Hampshire paying 36 per cent or 6 per cent dividends, their doors are closed, their spindles are idle, and there must be some reason for this outside of the silver legislation of the Republican party. . Let me call the attention of the Senate to three object lessons that came to my attention only a few (lays before I left my home. In the city of Nashua, N. H., is one of the largest boot and shoe manufacturing establishments in the country. It employs almost r,000 men, and for the months of June and July the books of that establishment show that over $450,000 worth of manufactured goads were sent away and less than $40,000 in cash was returned to that establishment. Does any sane man believe that this condition of things is due to the silver legislation of any party in this country? J39 6 Another object lesson is to be found in the great Amoskeag corporation, in the city of Manchester, N. H., employing thousands of men, the largest cotton-manufacturing establishment, I believe, in the entire country. To day, for the first time in its history, the doors of that great manufacturing establishment are closed and every spindle in it is silent. Mr. PEFFER. Will the Senator permit me to ask him a question for information? Mr. GALLINGER. With pleasure. Mr. PEFFER. I ask as to when the particular establishment to which the Senator has ju3t referred was organized and began business? Along in the fifties, was it not? Mr. GALLINGER. About that time, as I remember. Mr. PEFFER. How did that establishment manage to get along under the tariff of 1857 f Mr. GALLINGER. I have only this to say, that they did manage to get along under the tariff of 1857, but they were not so prospsrous at that time as they have been of late years, and besides, they did not pay one-half the wages under the low tariff of 1857 that they have paid under the Morrill and the McKinley tariff laws. They managed to get along during the troublous times of 1873without closing their doors, but to-day, for the first time in their history, their doors are closed and their spindles are silent. How long that .condition of things will continue I do not know, but I do know that absolute alarm pervades the manufacturing circles of New England to-day, and that they are very fearful that disasters, such as language would be inadequate to portray, are going to overtake the manufacturing industries'of that portion of our country. Now, Mr. President, do as anybody suppose that the wholesale dry goods hohses are refusing to buy Amoskeag ginghams because they are af L aid that when the bills come due they will be allowed to pay them in dollars worth only 60 cents? Is it strange that people do not buy Amoskeag ginghams for future use when the great Democratic party is pledged to practically abolish the duty on them, and open the home market to the stocks that have been accumulating in England since the passaged the McKinley bill? Is it any wonder that manufacturers hesitate about piling up goods which they may be obliged to sell in free competition with those produced abroad by labor costing only two-thirds what they pay for it here? What is there strange about that, and how will the repeal of the Sherman law help out that condition of things? Is there anything mysterious in the fact that with an avowed bitter and all-powerful enemy of every protected industry in the White House, and with both Houses of Congress pledged to carry out his destructive purposes, capital goes into hiding, industry ceases, and bankruptcy runs riot through the country? I discover nothing mysterious in this matter. It is the logical outcome of the triumph of a party pledged to the destruction of high protection in this country. The third object lesson that came to my attention was the fact that the Antrim cutlery establishment in my State, a large manufacturing-industry employing several hundred hands, that has built up one of the most beautiful villages in New England and has given steady employment and high wages to an intelligent community, has recently closed its doors for three or four days each week for the first time in its his'tory. Almost at the very moment 29 7 when that establishment was closing its doors the consul of the United States, Benjamin Folsom, a cousin of the President of the United States, was making a speech to the operatives in cutlery in the city of. Sheffield, in England. What did that officer of the United States, a cousin of the President of the Unitsd States, say to the men who are making cutlery in competition with the cutlery manufacturers in this country? Among other things he said to them: There are m a n y things I should like to say. There are t w o or three practical things I c a n say t o y o u which are of m o r e Importance than any resume of o u r history. England's greatest customer has been the United States; and. In spite of tariffs that have been raised against foreign countries, there is, and must continue t o be, a great and gigantic trade flowing f r o m England t o America. And as Mr. Folsom uttered those sentiments to that great meeting, being about to take his leave as consul to Sheffield, his English hearers admiringly cried out, " Hear! Hear!" Y o u have passed Mr. Folsom said— the w o r s t period; y o u have crossed the highest barrier that can be raised between the United States and England In the way of trade obstruction. [Applause.] I wiU tell y o u w h y this is. F o r the first time since the y e a r 1860 the Democratic party, which has been the party of free trade, is f o r the first time in power, n o t only In the executive, but In both its legislative branches. [Applause.] During the former term of Mr. Cleveland he w a s blocked by the Senate standing between h i m and the House of Representatives, which w a s Democratic, and therefore n o bill could be passed which w a s not in the shape of a compromise. W h e n the struggle c a m e o n f o r t h e Presidential election last year the Democratic party, f o r the first time i n i ts history, took fair and square ground, and made a straight out-and-out issue between protection and tariff f o r revenue only. [Hear, hear.] If y o u will pardon me. I will read to y o u the t w o slight planks i n the Democratic p l a t f o r m u p o n which the President of the United States w a s elected, and u p o n which the Congress which is n o w in power, and which is to be convened upon the 7th of next month, was elected, and y o u will see that so s o o n as the financial question Is disposed of, which is merely a preliminary, and m u s t be disposed of before the regular meeting of Congress, the ne&t great question is the tariff,^ in which y o u are interested, and which the President and both Houses of Congress are pledged to reduce. [Applause.] The Democratic platform upon which Mr. Cleveland w a s elected says: " W e denounce Republican protection as a fraud; a robber of the great m a j o r i t y of the American people f o r a few. W e declare It t o be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has n o constitutional p o w e r t o Impose and collect tariff duties except f o r the purposes of revenue only, and we demand that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of the Government when honestly and economically administered. W e denounce the McKinley tariff law, enacted b y the Fifty-first Congress, as the culminating atrocity of class l e g i s l a t i o n ; and w e indorse the efforts made by the Democrats of the present Congress t o m o d i f y its m o s t oppressive features in the direction of free r a w materials and the cheaper manufactured goods that enter irrto general c o n s u m p t i o n ; and we promise its repeal as one of the beneficent results that will f o l l o w the action of the people in introsting p o w e r to the Democratic party. Since the McKinley tariff went i n t o operation there have been ten reductions of the wages of laboring men t o one increase. W e deny that there has been any increase of prosperity to the c o u n t r y since the tariff went into operation, and we point to the dullness and distress, the w a g e reductions and strikes in the iron trade, as the best possible evidence that n o such prosperity has resulted f r o m the M c K i n l e y tariff. After reading that platform of the Democratic party, and emphasizing the fact that the Democratic party was the party of free trade, Mr. Folsom, an officeholder of the United States, and, be it remembered, a cousin of the President of the United States, further said to the cutlery manufacturers of Sheffield: I a m n o t s a y i n g one w o r d as t o whether protection o r free trade, o r a tariff f o r revenue only, is the best thing f o r the United States o r not. I a m simply giving y o u the facts, and y o u can j u d g e f o r yourselves. [Applause.] 29 8 In closing m y career in Sheffield as consul of the United States, it affords me satisfaction to think that before another twelve months has rolled by Sheffield will not be .subjected to the onerous and oppressive tariff duties that have restricted her trade. [Applause.] Think of it, Mr. President; think of it, Democratic Senators; what a spectacle it was for an officeholder of the United States, and a cousin of the President of the United States, saying to an English audience that he was not discussing the question as to whether the legislation of the Democratic party would aid the United States or not—that seemed to be of no consequence—but he was congratulating them that it would roll from Sheffield the onerous burdens that are upon them at the present time! Is it any wonder, Mr. President, when that utterance was being made in the great city of Sheffield, that the cutlery manufacturers of New England were alarmed? Is it any wonder that under those circumstances the only cutlery manufactory in my State concluded to close its doors for a portion of the time? The cutlery manufactured in New Hampshire is protected under the McKinley tariff law sufficiently to enable it to be manufactured in competition with the cutlery made in Sheffield, England. But a consul of the United States, and a cousin of the President, assures our English competitors that that tariff duty is to be removed, and that they will have increased prosperity at the expense of American manufacturers. Will it be any wonder, under such circumstances, if American cutlery establishments all over the country close their doors ? Is it any wonder that American manufacturers refuse to accumulate manufactured goods which they may have to sell in competition with the product of the underpaid labor of English manufacturing towns ? Mr. President, I do not desire to further detain the Senate; Let the bill reported by the Senate Finance Committee, permitting banks to increase their circula tion to the par value of the bonds deposited, be enacted into law. Then let this resolution, amended as I propose, be promptly passed. Confidence in our finances will.at once be strengthened, both at home and abroad; trade will brighten, and another era of prosperity, possibly equal to the marvelous prosperity of the administration of President Harrison, * will speedily • •come to *the people * of the* United*States. Mr. HOAR. I now suggest that we have a vote on the resolution of my colleague [Mr. L O D G E ] . Mr. PASCO. The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. B U T L E R ] is not in his seat. He yesterday gave notice of an amendment to that resolution, and I therefore suggest that the resolution go over now. Mr. HOAK. We might have a vote on the amendment of the Sen tor from New Hampshire [Mr. GALLINGEK] in that case. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the present consideration of the resolution? Mr. COCKRELL. I think we had better proceed to the consideration of executive business, and therefore I move accordinglv. The PRESIDING QFFICER. The question is on the motion of the Senator from Missouri. Tne motion was agreed to: and the Senate proceeded to the consideration of executive business. 29 O
@FedFRASER