that the next day you will be poorer-for the tendency of cheap money is to cheapen. It is undoubtedly true that the legal tender quality and the quality of being receivable for customs and internal taxes would give some value to anything, however worthless in itself, but not a certain or fixed value. The quality of being legal tender, aided by the promise on its face to pay, could not keep the greenback at par. Nothing but convertibility into coin can do that for any paper money."-[Speech delivered at Richmond, Ind., Aug. 9, 1878.]

THE TARIFF.

The next national Democratic platform will not declare for a tariff for revenue only. Indiana is not the only State where such a declaration would be prejudicial to Democratic success. In the South, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee are already awakening to the benefits of diversified industries. No longer content to raise cotton for Massachusetts, they are spinning it in sight of the fields where it grew, and are successfully competing with the East in the markets of the West. The vast beds of coal and iron in their mountains have been opened. Alabama already has her Birmingham, and boasts of her ability to make iron cheaper than Pennsylvania. The industrial question threatens to dominate the race question, and that bodes no good to the Democratic party in the South. The Western States are no longer purely agricultural States, exchanging their wheat for New England goods. When the Cobden Club makes its old appeal to the West in behalf of British goods, it does not speak as formerly to a section having but one great industry. The furnace, the rolling-mill, the machine-shop, the woollen and cotton-mill have come West to grow up with the country. In 1850 Ohio had only $29,000,000 invested in manufacturing; in 1880 she had $189,000,000. Then Indiana had less than $8,000,000; in 1880 she had over $65,000,000. Then Illinois had $6,000,000; in 1880 she had over $140,000,000.

Iowa then had $1,200,000; in 1880 she had $33,978,000. The total value of the products of manufacture of these four States in 1850 was only $101,000,000; for 1880 it was $982,207,000. The power of Cobden Club tracts over the mind of a farmer diminishes in proportion to his nearness to a manufacturing centre. For in that proportion he realizes the benefit of a home market. One that not only takes the staple products of his farm, but its more perishable products that cannot reach a distant market. Let us not forget that the tariff question, as we have it in American politics, is not in its ultimate statement a question as to what duty shall be levied on this or that article of import. The broader question must be settled first whether we may and should in fixing these duties so adjust them as to protect American industries. Whether we should do that of a deliberate purpose, or should leave these industries to the accidents or "incidents" of a tariff only designed for revenue. Mr. Voorhees is reported in the newspapers to have said that the tariff plank in the Indiana State platform of last year declared" For a revenue tariff, with incidental protection, designed to foster our industries." There is a vast deal of undesigned incidental nonsense in such a declaration. A leading Democratic paper aptly described this sort of thing "As a tariff for revenue only, with a protection attachment to catch votes." The tariff plank in the Ohio platform, to which I have already alluded, and which has been accepted in a good many other States as the correct "form," is only another example of a platform trick intended to conceal and not to declare the purposes of the party. As I have said, it did not reach Iowa in time, and you blundered into an honest expression of Democratic doctrine-"A tariff for revenue only." The Democrats of Iowa have courage. I think this virtue is the fruit of adversity. They have never found it necessary to stop and consider whether this or that declaration of principle might lose the State. It was lost before the platform was reported. You want a tariff for revenue only. You would have Congress gradually but persistently reduce duties till every vestige of protection to our home indus

tries is eliminated. You would give our persecuted industries no rest. The only concession you will make to them is that they shall be led down an easy incline to death. You will advise a slow poison. Your platform does not hold out any delusive hope of "incidental protection." It boldly says, we will have no regard whatever to the necessities of any American industry or to the wages of the American laborer. Our sole object will be revenue; and if we can get more revenue out of a given article by making a rate that will close every American mill producing it, and give our entire market to the British manufacturer, that shall be the rate. This doctrine takes no account of workmen and workwomen. If our mills are kept running these must accept the lower wages of European operatives.

I do not stop to furnish statistics of the comparative wages of labor here and in Europe. They are abundant and well authenticated. I want no other evidence that wages and all the other conditions of labor are better here than in Europe than this: the laboring men and women of Europe are coming this way, and they come to stay. Millions of earnings have gone back to the old countries to pay the passage money of friends hither, but the steerage of the returning vessel is empty. The Irishman, German, and Scotchman know a land that has light and life in it for a laborer as well as the bird knows the land of summer. I do not say that labor has its full reward here. I do not deny that the avarice of the millowner too often clips the edge of comfort from the wages of his operative. I regret that the legislator has so little power to soften the rigors of avarice or to save the laborer from disastrous competition in the labor market. But in spite of all this, I do affirm that there is more comfort and more hope for a laboring man or woman in this country than in any other.

Will it help the laborer to bring our tariff duties to a "revenue only" basis? On which side is his interest? Every honest and intelligent advocate of free trade must admit that if we abandon our system of protective duties the wages of labor must be reduced. The trade unions

frequently concede a reduction of wages when the product of their labor declines in price. Now these tariff reformers tell us that the price of all competing American products is enhanced by the full amount of the duty laid on the foreign article. A reduction of duty then involves a corresponding reduction of the price of the product of our mills. The laborer in the mill must accept less wages. But it is said that the reduction in wages, which some of these gentlemen state at twenty-five per cent., is to be made up to the workmen by the cheaper rate at which he will obtain the necessaries of life. The loss of one-fourth of his wages is a very hard fact. The laborer knows what extra pinching that means. The compensating advantage held out to him in the way of a reduced cost of the necessaries of life is a schoolman's theory. The great bulk of his living, three-fifths, in fact-his meat, and bread, and house-rent-have no relation to tariff duties. The laborer is asked to render at least one-fourth of his wages that he may possibly save two dollars on his coat. A tariff "for revenue only" means less work and lower wages. Let every workingman take that fact home with him. This is not only a question for the worker in mills, but on the farm and on the street. One of the most significant things said in the Senate during the debate on the tariff bill was this by Senator Morgan, of Alabama: "There is Birmingham, which is growing up in great prosperity; but whether it is going to add a dollar to the wealth of Alabama is a problem. If Birmingham is to raise the price of farm labor all over the State twenty-five cents a day, or something like that, the farmers will have to give up cotton planting, and will have to stop, or else it will have to be planted entirely on the hills by the few white people who are scattered among them; or, if Birmingham or any other industry in Alabama is to draw the labor from the plantations, I do not see how we are to conduct our great agricultural enterprises. I shall begin to believe. after a while that it is more of a curse than a blessing tc have these great bestowments of coal and iron in the bosom of our State."

It will be noticed that this distinguished Senator doubts whether Birmingham, the great centre of the iron industry in his State, will be a benefit to Alabama. The higher price paid for skilled labor there will have a tendency to raise common labor-the black man in the cotton-field may demand higher wages for his day's toil -and so the Senator fears that agriculture may suffer from the proximity of these busy centres of the arts. It is a short-sighted view. The manufacturing industries build up our cities, and the cities cannot wall in the influences which enhance the value of property. They are not free cities, but must pay tribute to the outlying fields and to the farmer who tills them.

Every prosperous city in Iowa sends out from it an influence that enhances the value of the farm and the products of the farm. It brings to a circle of these farms a market which may be reached by the wagon and delivers the farmer from the tribute of the common carrier. We need not have any fear that wages will anywhere be too high. We have a common interest that a margin for comfort may be added to the necessaries of life. I am sure that none of us are so anxious for cheap goods that we would be willing to admit "the spoils of the poor" into our houses. It seems strange that we should find a party among us opposing the protective principle when even the provinces of Great Britain are adopting it and finding increased prosperity.

France and Germany still embody this idea in their legislation. There may be fair ground for debate as to the rate which particular articles of import should bear, or as to whether this or that article should not be on the free list. Republicans differ upon such questions, but that our legislation should discriminate in favor of our own country, her industries and laboring people, ought not to be questioned. I shall not stop to tire you with statistics as to the effect of tariff duties upon the cost of our domestic products. The pretext that these are enhanced in price to the consumer by the amount of the tariff duty laid upon similar products has been too often exposed. If you will take any market report from one