The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 15, April 28, 1894 Page: 4
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4
THE TEXAS MINER.
TARIFF- TALKS.
no. ii.
A protective tariff is the application of a tariff on importations
in such wise as to prevent actual competition between foreign
manufacturers and American manufacturers, as well as a means
of raising revenue for the support of the national Government.
A revenue tariff, strictly speaking, is a charge made by the
Government on imports simply for the purpose of raising reve-
nue for the maintenance of the Federal Government without in
any wise preventing competition by foreign manufacturers
For example, a protective tariff imposes duties on all articles
imported which would compete in our markets with like goods of
our own production, and admits free of charge such commodities
as we cannot grow or manufacture; while a revenue tariff im-
poses slight duties on all articles, whether they are exclusively
foreign grown or manufactured or are imported to compete with
our own products.
The one in a measure prevents importation, while the other
encourages importation to enlarge the revenue.
The first protective tariff ever enacted by any government was
placed upon our own statute books, from which fact this policy
derived the name of "The American System of Protection."
This original act was passed by one of our earliest Congresses,
in which many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
and many of the framers of the Constitution of the United States
sat as members; hence, we say that Democratic protestations on
the unconstitutionality of protection are wholly baseless and not
worthy of serious consideration, particularly when we remember
that the Supreme Court of the United States sustained the con-
stitutionality of the McKinley bill (so called) no longer ago than
1891, in an action brought by some of our free-trade Democratic
friends for the sole purpose of testing its validity.
At the time when this pioneer protective statute first became
operative this country was just really beginning its life as an inde-
pendent nation. Theretofore it had been dependent solely upon
England for all of its manufactured goods. To cut loose from
these fetters it was necessary to build up in this country our own
factories, and to do this it was essential that our citizens should,
for the time being at least, be removed from competition with
the long established institutions of our mother country, in order
that home capital might be thus encouraged to invest in home
industries.
The primary reason for this step by our forefathers was to
make this nation not only self-supporting, financially, but to pre-
vent the recurrence, in case of another war, of the conditions
which surrounded our people during the Revolution, namely, the
disastrous results of the blockading of our ports and the conse-
quent inability of the people to procure any manufactured articles
except at enormous prices.
Upon such conditions, therefore, "protection" was born, and
the result far exceeded the fairest hopes of its fathers. Factories
sprang up like magic in every quarter, and this nation then saw
the nativity of the manufacturing era, which time has since dem-
onstrated to have been the foundation stone of the grand success
this country has since become.
The impetus which the change from a purely agricultural to a
manufacturing country gave us as a nation impelled us swiftly
along the river of prosperity. Immigration set in, and soon our
population swelled to vast numbers. With the increase of man-
ufactories came the increase of workmen and workwomen to op-
erate the same. With the multiplication of the numbers of la-
borers came the enlargement of the market for agricultural
products, which consequently made that branch of trade more
profitable.
Thus it will be seen that not alone did protection at that time
¡help the manufacturers,.but every industry, every form of labor,
even professional work, the medicine, the law, the church, was
made prosperous. The advent of every family meant the erec-
tion of a new house, the purchase of more clothes and eatables,
which in turn made work for the lumberman, a market for so
much additional farm produce.
To protection, therefore, must at least credit be given for the
beginning of prosperity in this country.
Had protection not been accorded the manufacturers, factories
could not have been built in those times; had factories not been
built, the immigrants would have been forced to the farm for
work; and with the farm produce of the country thus multiplied
the price thereof must necessarily have been greatly reduced, if
even then a market could have been found. Indeed, we may
say that had we continued importing our goods the only trades
that would have been stimulated would have been the custom
house trade and the retailing of imported commodities.
Was protection pernicious under those circumstances?
The Democrats croaked loudly in '92 about the tax the labor-
ing man had to pay on his tin dinner pail. That same laboring
man will have the opportunity of saying whether he prefers pay-
ing a tax on his dinner pail, and having plenty to put in it, to
getting a dinner pail cheap and having nothing to put in it. The
hardest fight a Democrat ever had will be when he meets the
"Empty Dinner Pail Brigade" next fall. And that brigade was
equipped and accoutred by the Democratic party.
THE RAILWAYS.
benefits that have accrued to citizens of texas from
their building.
Under the above heading we shall, in a series of articles, en-
deavor to show that the state of Texas has received more bene-
fit in actual money value from the building of railways than any
state in the Union, and the reason is because of the vast area of
land in this magnificent state, that, prior to the advent of rail-
ways, was of such low value, and the rapid increase of the rail-
way systems, after they began building them. It is right within
the memory of the youngest of the citizen voters of Texas—the
condition of this state prior to the building of the present rail-
roads, when land that is now valuable was almost worthless.
Mr. Hall was telling a pretty good story on Mr. Matthew Cart-
wright, who in early days owned large tracts of land. One day,
in traveling through the then uninhabited portions of Texas with
a friend, he said: "I own so many thousands of acres here, so
many there, and so forth." His friend said to him: "Why, Mr.
Cartwright, what an immense amount of land you own!" "Yes,"
was the answer; T do own a large amount, but I am not SO poor
as So-and-So (mentioning a well known name), for he owns more
land than I do."
This is a very pat story to show the value of lands prior to the
building of railways. Then the man was poor who owned vast
tracts of land, for there was no sale for the same; no income was
derived from them, and taxes accumulated. People were so far
from market that it took days, and sometimes weeks, of time to
get toa market to buy the necessaries of life; besides, the lack of
transportation facilities, even at points like San Antonio, Hous-
ton, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas, made the cost of articles that
were needed three to four times the price that they now can be
procured at, at almost any interior village on a line of railway.
Right in our own counties of Erath, Palo Pinto and Eastland
we see the great benefits of a line of railway. The Texas & Pa-
cific Coal company, that is now disbursing $50,000 to $60,000
every month right in our neighborhood, the coal being entirely
worthless without railroads to transport the coal, even if there
had been a market within a few hundred miles. Now our citi-
zens know what their lands are worth without our telling them
they know the advantages they have derived from the advent of
railways. Then, why should we want to grumble at, and quarrel
with, the factor that has been of so much benefit to us? We
would like to see this great state gridironed with railroads, and
instead of doing everything to discourage railroad building we
would like to see everything done that could be done to encour-
age the building of more railroads.
We would like our readers to think over carefully the sugges-
tions in this article. Don't let blatant office seeking men, who
cry out, "I am 'agin' all railroads; they are soulless corporations
that are robbing us," fool you any more. Think for yourselves,
you have brains and judgment, and act accordingly.
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McAdams, Walter B. The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 15, April 28, 1894, newspaper, April 28, 1894; Thurber, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth200462/m1/4/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.