Union Labor Candidate for President. The Union Labor Party met at Cincinnati, Ohio, February 22. 1887, and nominated A. J. Streeter, of Illinois, for President, and Charles E. Cunningham, of Arkansas, for Vice-President.
A. J. Streeter was born Jan. 18, 1823, in Rensselaer county, New York. He moved with his father to Lee county, Illinois, in 1836.
He helped build the log school house where he received his first lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. This school he attended two winter terms. At the age of twenty-three he felt the need of an education. Having no means but a pair of hands and an iron constitution and twenty dollars in his pocket, he made his way across the open prairie to Galesburg, Illinois, and entered Knox College. Here he paid for one term's tuition, and worked every spare hour and Saturdays to pay his way. He lived in a garret and cooked his own meals. In this way he lived two years
Being industrious he soon won success. He now lives in New Windsor, Illinois, where he does a large business in farming and stock raising.
His political life began soon after his location at New Windsor, where he served several terms on the Board of Supervisors. In 1872
he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature. In 1878 he was a candidate for Congress on the Greenback Labor ticket and received a large number of votes. The same party made him their candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1880. He was elected to the State Senate in 1884, and succeeded in having a bill passed to prevent the sale of tobacco to minors.
ROBERT H. COWDREY.
United Labor Candidate for President. The United Labor party met at Cincinnati, 1888, and nominated Robert H. Cowdrey, of Illinois, for President, and W. H. T. Wakefield, of Kansas, for Vice-President.
Robert H. Cowdrey was born in 1852 at Lafayette, Indiana. He was educated in the village schools, where he soon mastered all that was to be learned there. In 1871 he went to Chicago to seek a wider field. He entered the Chicago Pharmaceutical College from which he graduated in due course of time with honors. He was editor of the Pharmacist and Chemist for seven years.
For a comparatively young man he has superior attainments, marked capabilities, notable as a orator, and stands high in position and estimation among Labor Unions.
TARIFF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
[Henry J. Philpott, Esq.]
In this article I propose to compile the shortest possible complete history of the American
tariff sytem. The first tariff was passed the 4th of July, 1789; the last one the 3d of March, 1883.
Including these two, there have been fifty-five Tariff acts passed in ninety-nine years. Most of
them did not make radical changes in the tariff. The tariffs usually considered the most
important by historiaus, were passed as follows, and they have all been named, also as fol-
lows:
The general effects of these various tariffs, and of the modifications made in them between
times, may be traced in the following table, which shows the average rate of tax paid on all
imports for each year since 1791. There was always a free list-always absolute free trade in
many things-but here are the average rates for the year on the things actually taxed:
The reader will be surprised to observe that the highest average rate was in 1813 and the
lowest in 1815, although there intervened no important change in the law, and that the rate for
1813 was ten times as high as for 1815. Washington never lived to see the tariff as high as 20
per cent-half the rate left by the Mills' bill-though the year before he died, 1798, shaved it
36.69 '84
47.56 '85
48.35
pretty close. It was not until 1813, when the Government was 24 years old, and was in the
midst of war, that the average rate reached the point proposed in the Mills bill. It has passed
that point in only thirty-three of the ninety-nine years of our National life, and twenty-one of
these have been under the present tariff. The average rate collected in 1887 has been exceeded
but thirteen times in our history, and eight of these were before the war. The highest series of
rates collected for any term of seven years was from 1824 to 1830, inclusive. It actually aver-
aged for the seven years more than 52 per cent. Numerous other interesting comparisons will
occur to the student.
So much for the general average rate collected on all dutiable goods. Now let us tabulate
as best we can briefly the history of rates enacted on certain selected articles of common use.
This is a herculean task, for the reason that there are two kinds of tariff taxes-specific and
ad valorem. A specific tax or duty is so much on the pound, yard, gallon, barrel, or bushel, etc.
An ad valorem duty is so much on the dollar's worth. How can we compare these? How can
we compare a tax of 10 cents a yard, under one tariff, with a tax of 20 per cent on the cost price,
under another tariff? If we knew the foreign cost of the cloth taxed io cents a yard, we could
do it, but it is only within recent years that the Government has told us that-or even instructed
its custom-house officers to find it out. To confuse matters still more, the present tariff ofteu
levies both kinds of duties on the same article. Thus on one of the six classes into which
women's and children's dress goods are divided, the tax is six cents a square yard (specific) and
35 per cent (ad valorem). But this is not the oddest nor most confusing feature about it, for if
the goods weigh over four ounces to the square yard the tax is levied in a still different way,
and instead of six or eight cents a yard it is 50 cents a pound, plus the 35 per cent.
If past
tariffs were as intricate as the present one our task would indeed be hopeless. But in all tariffs
there are clauses stating what the taxes shall be on all articles of the several great classes "not
otherwise provided for" (n. o. p.). Into these n. o. p. clauses are dumped the articles of each
great class which the tax-layers couldn't think of or were afraid they couldn't with sufficient
accuracy describe in their proper places. The taxes they laid on these were of necessity sim-
ple and usually ad valorem, and furnished a key to the mind of the legislator. If he laid a tax
of 20 per cent on cottons "n. o. p.," you may well guess that he thought he was putting about
an average of 20 per cent on the cottons he did provide for. In the following table I occasionally
make this use of the n. o. p. classes, but always with the letters attached: See table, page 423.
The history of the wool tariff needs to be elaborated a little. Down to 1824 wool was free
and cotton was taxed. Then wool was divided into two classes, according to value, and if val-
ued at less than 10 cents a pound the tax was 15 per cent, otherwise 20, and afterwards 30. In
1828 the tax on high-grade wool was enormously increased. For eight years it remained at
four cents a pound and 40 per cent, and then the compromise tariff began to reduce it a little.
The maximum figures I have given from 1828 to 1842 are the highest that could possibly be
collected under the complex law, and doubtless far higher than the average actually collected,
though that was probably 50 per cent. In 1832 low-grade wool was again made free, and has
never since been heavily taxed. Wool is now (since 1867) divided into three classes, "cloth-
ing," "combing" and "carpet," and they paid last year 55 per cent, 43 per cent and 25 per cent
respectively.
The first tariff was the lightest. It was gradually raised until the war of 1812 broke out,
and then it was doubled at a stroke. The genuine high protective system was adopted in 1816,
under the influence of Calhoun, who bitterly regretted it. Webster was a free trader when the
tariff was raised in 1824, but faced about and helped to raise it again in 1828. This was called
the Tariff of Abominations, because the free traders tried to kill it by loading it down with
abominations, but to their great surprise it passed with all its sins upon it. It almost led to
war, and did lead to the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which proposed a gradual horizontal re-
duction. In 1842 the Whigs raised the tariff; in 1846 the Democrats reduced it; in 1857 the new
R publican party had got control over the Lower House and with Democratic help reduced the
tariff again to the lowest point reached since 1816. Four years later they adopted the Morrill,
or War Tariff, and gradually raised it until 1867; its extremest features being adopted after the
war was over. In 1872 they passed a horizontal reduction of 10 per cent, which they repealed
two years later. In 1882 they appointed a tariff commission, and it recommended a reduction
which would have left the average rate about 30 per cent on dutiable goods. On the 3d of March
1883, they passed a law which reduced some duties and raised others, among them, as will be
seen by the table, those on glass and earthenware, but leaving the general average about the
same. All subsequent reduction bills have failed to pass the Lower House until Saturday,
July 21, 1888, when the Mills bill, freeing wool, lumber, and some other things, and calculated
to reduce the average rate on dutiable
40 per cent, was passed by a vote of 162 to 149.
The figures marked with a* are the average rates collected on the next year's imports. All
others are the rates embodied in the law.
|