Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 108

I made my opening political speech in this campaign at Wilmington, on the 15th of September. Clinton county is peopled almost exclusively by a farming community, whose rich upland is drained by the waters of the Scioto and Miami Rivers. My speech, not only on this occasion, but during the canva.s.s in other parts of the state, was chiefly confined to a defense of the Republican party and its policy while in power, which I contrasted with what I regarded as the feebleness of Mr. Cleveland's administration. I touched upon state matters with brevity, but complimented our brilliant and able governor, Foraker. I referred to the attacks that had been made upon me about my speech in Springfield, Illinois, and said that no one had answered by arraignment, except by the exploded cry of "the b.l.o.o.d.y shirt," or claimed that a single thing stated by me as fact was not true. I referred to the "tenderfoot" who would not hurt anyone's feelings, who would banish the word "rebel" from our vocabulary, who would not denounce crimes against our fellow-citizens when they occurred, who thought that, like Cromwell's Roundheads, we must surrender our captured flags to the rebels who bore them, and our Grand Army boys, bent and gray, must march under the new flag, under the flag of Grover Cleveland, or not hold their camp fires in St. Louis. In conclusion, I said:

"But I will not proceed further. The immediate question is whether you will renew and ratify the brilliant administration of Governor Foraker, and support him with a Republican legislature. I feel that it is hardly necessary to appeal to the good people of Clinton county for an overwhelming vote in favor of a man so well known and highly respected among you, and whose a.s.sociates on the state ticket are among the most worthy and deserving Republicans of Ohio.

I call your attention to the special importance of the election of your candidates for senator and members of the house. It is of vital importance to secure a Republican legislature to secure and complete the good work of the last. Our success this fall by a good majority will be a cheering preparation for the grand campaign of the next year, when we shall have an opportunity again to test the question of whether the Republican party, which conducted several administrations in the most trying period of American history with signal success, shall be restored to power to renew the broad national policy by which it preserved the Union, abolished slavery and advanced the republic, in strength, wealth, credit and varied industries, to the foremost place among the nations of the world."

In the latter part of September, I made an address to the farmers of Wayne county, at Lyons, New York. The county borders on Lake Ontario. Its surface is undulating, its soil generally fertile, and beneath are iron ore, limestone, gypsum, salt and sulphur springs. Its chief products are dairy and farm produce and live stock. I said that my experience about a farm was not such as would justify me in advising about practical farming, that I was like many lawyers, preachers, editors and Members of Congress, who instinctively seek to get possession of a farm, not to show farmers how to cultivate land, but to spend a good portion of their income in a healthy recreation, that Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher were, when living, good specimens of this kind of farmer, that they all soon learned by sad experience that--

"He that by the plow would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive."

I claimed to be one of the farmers whose potatoes and chickens cost more than the market price. Still, those engaged in professional pursuits, and especially Members of Congress, have to study the statistics of agriculture because upon the increase and diversity of its varied productions depend the wealth and progress of the country for which we legislate. I will not undertake to repeat in any detail what I said. I drew the distinction between the work of a mechanic and the work of a farmer; the mechanic had but a single employment and sometimes confined himself to the manufacture of a single article, but the farmer must pursue the opposite course.

He must diversify his crops each year, and the nature of his labors varies with the seasons. His success and profit depend upon the diversity of his productions, and the full and constant occupation of his time. I described what I had seen in the far-off region near the new city of Tacoma on Puget Sound, where the chief employment of the farmer is in raising hops, and also the mode of producing wheat in the vast plains of Canada, which, now that the buffalo is gone, are plowed in the spring, sown in wheat and left unguarded and untended until ready for the great machines which cut and bind the crop and thresh it ready for the market. I described the production of the celery plant in the region of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where a large portion of the soil is devoted to this vegetable.

As each region varied in climate, soil and market, the occupations of farmers had to vary with the conditions that surrounded them.

The great cereals, such as wheat, corn, oats and barley, can be produced in most parts of the United States. Our farmers ought constantly to diversity their crops and add to the number of their productions. Attention had been recently turned to the possibility of producing beet sugar in the northern states, the great obstacle being the cost of the factory and machinery which, to secure profitable results, could not be erected for less than $200,000, but I predicted that this industry would be established and sugar sufficient for our wants would be produced in our own country. I referred to the great advance made in the methods of farming, during the past forty years, with the aid of new inventions of agricultural implements and new modes of transportation, and the wonderful progress that had been made in other fields of invention and discovery, and in conclusion said:

"And so in mental culture, in the knowledge of chemistry, in granges and fairs, in books, magazines and pamphlets devoted to agriculture, the farmer of to-day has the means of information which lifts his occupation to the dignity of a science. The good order of society now rests upon the intelligence and conservatism of the farmers of the United States, for to them all cla.s.ses must look for safety against the dogmas and doctrines that threaten the social fabric, and sacred rights of persons and property, and I believe the trust will not be in vain."

I spoke nearly every day during the month of October, in different parts of the State of Ohio. I do not recall a town of importance that I did not visit, nor a congressional district in which I did not speak. Governor Foraker was even more active than I was. His speeches were received with great applause, and his manners and conduct made him popular. The only danger he encountered was in the active movement of the Prohibition party. This party ran a separate ticket, the votes of which, it was feared, would mainly come from the Republican party. In a speech I made at Oberlin, on the 4th of November, I made an appeal to our Prohibition friends to support the Republican ticket. I said:

"There are but two great parties in this country, one or the other of which is to be put in power. You have a perfect right to vote for the smaller Prohibition party, and thus throw away your vote, but you know very well that either a Republican or a Democratic legislature will be elected, and that there will not be a single Prohibition candidate elected. Will it not be better to choose between these two parties and give your a.s.sistance to the one that has done the most for the success of your principles? We think the Republican party is still ent.i.tled, as in the past, to your hearty support. Among other of its enactments there is the 'Dow law,' looked upon you with suspicion, yet it has done more for temperance than your 'prohibition laws' at present could have done.

That law enables you to exclude the sale of liquor in more than 400 Ohio towns. It was pa.s.sed by a Republican legislature. By it more than 3,000 saloons have been driven out of existence.

"Then you have the repeated declaration of the Republican party, a party that never deceived the people with false promises, that they will do anything else that is necessary, or all that is possible by law, to check the evils that flow from intoxicating drinks.

"Is there not a choice between that party and the Democratic party, which has always been the slave of the liquor party, and whose opposition to the enforcement of the Dow law cost the state $2,000,000? The Democratic party, if put in power, will repeal that law and will do nothing for prohibition that you will accept.

They say they want license, but they know it can never be brought about without a change in the const.i.tution. They want the liquor traffic to go unrestrained. It does seem to me that with all the intelligence of this community it is the duty of all its candid men, who are watching the tendencies of these two parties in this country, not to throw their votes away.

"It is much better to do our work by degrees, working slowly in the right direction, than to attempt to do it prematurely by wholesale, and fail. More men have been broken up by attempting too much than by 'going slow.'

"Your powerful moral influence, if kept within the Republican party, will do more good, a thousandfold, than you can do losing your vote by casting it for a ticket that cannot be elected. Next year will present one of the most interesting spectacles in our history.

The Republican party will gather its hosts of progressive and patriotic citizens into one grand party at its national convention, and I trust that when that good time comes our Prohibition friends and neighbors who stand aloof from us will come back and join the old fold and rally around the old flag of our country, the stars and stripes, and help us to march on to a grand and glorious victory."

I closed my part of the canva.s.s on the 5th of November, at Music Hall, Cleveland, one of the finest meetings that I ever attended.

General E. S. Meyer and D. K. Watson shared in the speaking.

The result of the election, on the following Tuesday, gave Governor Foraker a plurality of 23,329 over Thomas E. Powell, and the legislature was Republican in both branches.

During the canva.s.s I felt specially anxious for the election of Governor Foraker and a Republican legislature. Some doubts had been expressed by members of the Toledo convention whether the resolution favoring my nomination for President would not endanger the election of Governor Foraker, and his defeat would have been attributed to that resolution. I did not believe it could have that effect, yet the fear of it led to my unusual activity in the canva.s.s. I was very much gratified with the result. Before and after the election the general discussion was continued in the newspapers for and against my nomination, upon the presumption that the contest would lie between Mr. Blaine and myself.

The election in New York was adverse to the Republican party, and this and his feeble health no doubt largely influenced Mr. Blaine in declining to be a candidate for the nomination. Upon the surface it appeared that I would probably be the nominee, but I took no step whatever to promote the nomination and resumed my duties in the Senate with a firm resolve not to seek the nomination, but to rest upon the resolution adopted at Toledo. When letters came to me, as many did, favoring my nomination, I referred them to Green B. Raum, at that time a resident in Washington, to make such answer as he thought expedient.

CHAPTER LIV.

CLEVELAND'S EXTRAORDINARY MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

First Session of the 50th Congress--The President's "Cry of Alarm"

--Troubled by the Excess of Revenues over Expenditures--My Answer to His Doctrines--His Refusal to Apply the Surplus to the Reduction of the Public Debt--The Object in Doing So--My Views Concerning Protection and the Tariff--In Favor of a Tariff Commission--"Mills Bill" the Outcome of the President's Message--Failure of the Bill During the Second Session--My Debates with Senator Beck on the Coinage Act of 1873, etc.--Omission of the Old Silver Dollar--Death of Chief Justice Waite--Immigration of Chinese Laborers--Controversy with Senator Vest--Speech on the Fisheries Question--Difficulties of Annexation with Canada.

The 50th Congress convened on the 5th of December, 1887, and was promptly organized, the Senate being Republican, and the House Democratic. During this long session of about eleven months, nearly every question of political or financial importance in American politics was under discussion, and I was compelled, by my position on the committees on foreign relations and finance, to take an active part in the debates.

On the 6th the President sent to Congress his annual message, in which he departed from the established usage of his predecessors, who had presented in order the subjects commented upon, commencing with a summary of our relations with foreign nations, and extending to the business of all the varied departments of the government.

Instead of this he abruptly opened with a cry of alarm, as follows:

"To the Congress of the United States.

"You are confronted, at the threshold of your legislative duties, with a condition of the national finances which imperatively demands immediate and careful consideration."

This threatening announcement of a great national danger startled the general public, who had settled down into the conviction that all was going on very well with a Democratic administration. The President said that the amount of money annually exacted largely exceeded the expenses of the government. This did not seem so great a calamity. It was rather an evidence of good times, especially as he could apply the surplus to the reduction of the national debt. Then we were told that:

"On the 30th day of June, 1885, the excess of revenues over public expenditures, after complying with the annual requirement of the sinking fund act, was $17,859,735.84; during the year ended June 30, 1886, such excess amounted to $49,405,545.20; and during the year ended June 30, 1887, it reached the sum of $55,567,849.54."

In other words, we had an excess of revenue over expenditures for three years of about $122,000,000. The sinking fund during that three years, as he informed us, amounted in the aggregate to $138,058,320; that is, we had stipulated by law to pay of the public debt that sum during three years, and had been able to pay all we agreed to pay, and had $122,000,000 more. He did not state that during and subsequent to the panic of 1873 the United States did not pay the sinking fund, and this deficiency was made good during the prosperous years that followed 1879. Upon the facts stated by him he based his extraordinary message. The only recommendation made by him was a reduction of taxation. No reference to the vast interests intrusted to departments other than the treasury was made by him except in a brief paragraph. He promised that as the law makes no provision for any report from the department of state, a brief history of the transactions of that important department might furnish the occasion for future consideration.

I have a sincere respect for President Cleveland, but I thought the message was so grave a departure from the customary annual message of the President to Congress that it ought to be answered seriatim. I did so in a carefully prepared speech. The answer made can be condensed in a few propositions: An increase of revenue (the law remaining unchanged) is an evidence of unusual trade and prosperity. The surplus revenue, whatever it might be, could and ought to be applied to the reduction of the public debt. The law under which the debt was created provided for this, by requiring a certain percentage of the debt to be paid annually, and appropriating the surplus revenue for that purpose. Under this policy it was estimated that the debt would be paid off prior to 1907.

But experience soon demonstrated that, whatever might be the law in force, the revenues of the government would vary from year to year, depending, not upon rates of taxation, but upon the financial condition of the country. After the panic of 1873, the revenues were so reduced that the sinking fund was practically suspended by the fact that there was no surplus money in the treasury to meet its requirements. At periods of prosperity the revenues were in excess of the current expenses and the sinking fund, and in such conditions the entire surplus revenue, was applied to the reduction of the public debt and thus made good the deficiency in the sinking fund in times of financial stringency. This was a wise public policy, fully understood and acted upon by every Secretary of the Treasury since the close of the war and prior to Mr. Manning.

Another rule of action, founded upon the clearest public policy, had been observed prior to the inc.u.mbency of Mr. Cleveland, and that was not to hold in the treasury any form of money in excess of a reasonable balance, in addition to the fund held to secure the redemption of United States notes. All sums in excess of these were promptly applied to the payment of the public debt, and, if none of it was redeemable, securities of the United States were purchased in the open market. It was the desire of Congress and every Republican Secretary of the Treasury, in order to comply with the sinking fund law, to apply the surplus to the gradual reduction of the debt. While I was secretary I heartily co-operated with the committees of Congress in reducing appropriations, and in this way was enabled to maintain the reserve, and to reduce the interest- bearing public debt.

The policy of Mr. Cleveland and Secretary Manning was to h.o.a.rd in the treasury as much of the currency of the country as possible, amounting sometimes to more than $200,000,000, and this created a stringency which affected injuriously the business of the country.

It was the policy of all the early Presidents to apply any surplus revenue either to the reduction of the public debt or to public objects.

Mr. Jefferson, in his message of 1806, says: "To what object shall the surplus be appropriated? Shall we suppress the impost, and thus give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufacturers?"

He believed that the patriotism of the people would "prefer its continuance and application for the purpose of the public education, roads, rivers and ca.n.a.ls." This was in exact opposition to the policy proposed by Mr. Cleveland, who refused to apply the surplus revenue to the reduction of the debt, and in his extraordinary message demanded a reduction of duties on foreign goods. A larger surplus revenue had frequently, from time to time, been wisely dealt with by Republican administrations. It had either been applied by the executive authorities to the payment of the public debt, or its acc.u.mulation had been prevented by Congress, from time to time, by the reduction or repeal of taxes. In the administration of each of Mr. Cleveland's predecessors since the close of the war, this simple remedy had been applied without neglecting other matters, or raising a cry of alarm. It was apparent that the object of the President was to force the reduction of duties on imported goods, which came into compet.i.tion with domestic products, and that the acc.u.mulation of money in the treasury was resorted to as a means to compel such a reduction.

On the 19th of July, 1886, I had called the attention of the Senate to the difficulty and danger of h.o.a.rding in the treasury surplus revenue, and the readiness of the Senate to provide for the reduction of taxes and the application of the surplus. The revenues could have been reduced without endangering domestic industries. At the date of his extraordinary message both Houses of Congress were quite ready to reduce taxes. Full authority had been given to the Secretary of the Treasury to apply surplus revenue to the purchase of United States bonds. But the President, set in his opinion, was not satisfied with such measures, but demanded the reduction of duties which protected American industries.

The greater part of my speech in reply to the President's message was a discussion of the different forms of taxation imposed by the United States and especially the duties imposed on imported goods.

I never was an extreme protectionist. I believed in the imposition of such a duty on foreign goods which could be produced in the United States as would fairly measure the difference in the cost of labor and manufacture in this and foreign countries. This was a question not to be decided by interested capitalists, but by the careful estimate of business men. The intense selfishness exhibited by many of those who demanded protection, and the error of those who opposed all protection, were alike to be disregarded.

I believe that no judicious tariff can be framed by Congress alone, without the help of a commission of business men not personally interested in the subject-matter, and they should be aided by experienced officers in the revenue service. I have partic.i.p.ated in a greater or less degree in the framing of every tariff law for forty years. I have spoken many times on the subject in the Senate and on the rostrum. My reply to the President's message is the best exposition I have made as to the principles and details of a protective tariff. If I had my way I would convene such a tariff commission as I have discussed, give it ample time to hear and gain all information that could aid it, and require it to report the rates of duty proposed in separate schedules so that the rate of each schedule or paragraph might be raised or lowered from time to time to meet the wants of the treasury. If Congress would allow such a bill to become a law we could dismiss the tariff free from party politics and lay the foundation for a durable system of national taxation, upon which domestic industries may be founded without the hazard which they now encounter every year or two by "tinkering with the tariff."

The real controversy raised by the President's message was not whether taxes should be reduced, but what taxes should be reduced or abolished. I stated the position of the two parties in a debate with Mr. McKenna, as follows;

"There is a broad line of division between the two parties as they exist now and as they will exist in the future. The President says, 'retain all internal taxes and reduce the duties on imported merchandise that comes in compet.i.tion with home industries.' We say we will not strike down any prospering industry in this country; that where manufactures have sprung up in our midst by aid of a duty, this protection, as you call it, we will not reduce; we will not derange contracts, industries, or plans, or lower the prices of labor, or compel laborers or manufacturers to meet any sudden change or emergency. We say that we are willing to join with you in reducing the taxes. We will select those taxes that bear most heavily upon the people, especially internal taxes, and repeal those. We will maintain the policy of protection by tariff duties just as long as it is necessary to give our people the benefit of a home market, and diversified productions a fair chance in the trade and commerce of our country, but we will not invite into our country foreign importations to compete with and break down our home industries."

The bill ent.i.tled "A bill to reduce taxation and simplify the laws in relation to the collection of the revenue," known as the Mills bill, was the outcome of the President's message. It was reported to the House of Representatives by Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, and thus obtained its name. Mr. Mills, on the 17th of April, called it up for consideration, and it was debated and amended, and pa.s.sed the House on the 21st of July, more than seven months after the President's cry of alarm, by the close vote of 162 yeas to 149 nays. Samuel J. Randall, then absent and sick, desired his colleague to pair him against the bill, as, if present, he would record his vote in opposition to the bill. It came to the Senate and was referred to the committee on finance. On the 8th of October Mr.

Allison, from that committee, reported back the Mills bill with a subst.i.tute for the entire bill. This subst.i.tute was a careful and elaborate protective tariff bill, containing some provisions I did not approve, but, in its general provisions, was, in my opinion, a far better bill than the Mills bill. The debate on these rival bills continued until the close of the session on the 19th of October, when the Senate, by a resolution, authorized and directed the committee on finance to continue during the recess of Congress the investigation of such revenue measures, including the Senate and House bills, as had been referred to the Senate.

The history of the bills during the second session of this Congress is easily told. They were debated in the Senate nearly every day until the 22nd of January, 1889, when the amendment of the Senate was adopted as a subst.i.tute for the entire Mills bill, by the close vote of 32 yeas to 30 nays. It was debated in the House of Representatives and referred to its committee of ways and means.

It was reported by the committee to the House of Representatives, with a resolution declaring that the action of the Senate in subst.i.tuting an entire bill for the House bill was in violation of the const.i.tution. No action was taken on this resolution, and then all tariff legislation was defeated for that Congress.

On the 6th of March, 1888, Senator Beck made a rambling speech commencing with a fierce denunciation of a bill then pending to grant pensions to certain disabled soldiers of the Union army. He then veered off on the tariff and the great trusts created by it.

I ventured, in a mild-mannered way, to suggest to him a doubt whether trusts were caused by the tariff, whether they did not exist as to domestic as well as to foreign productions. I named to him the whisky trust, the cotton-seed trust and other trusts of that kind, and wanted to know how these grew out of the tariff.

Thereupon he changed his ground and took up the silver question and commenced a.s.sailing me for the coinage act of 1873, saying I was responsible for it. He said it was secretly pa.s.sed, surrept.i.tiously done, that I did it, that I knew it.

I promptly replied to that charge by showing from the records that the act referred to, and especially the part of it relating to the silver dollar, was recommended by Mr. Boutwell, the Secretary of the Treasury, and all the officers connected with coinage and the mints, that it was debated at great length for three successive sessions in both Houses, that it was printed thirteen times, and that the clause omitting the old silver dollar was especially considered and the policy of it fully debated, and a subst.i.tute for the old dollar was provided for by each House. I can say with confidence that every Member of the Senate but Beck felt that he had been worsted in the debate, and that the charge aimed at me, but which equally applied to Morrill and Bayard, and especially to all the Senators from the silver states who earnestly and actively supported the bill, was thoroughly refuted.

Senator Beck, chafed by his defeat, on the 13th of March made in the Senate a three hours' speech in support of his position.

Instead of going to the public records and showing by them whether or not the law was put through the Senate in a secret way, he quoted what several Senators and Members said they did not know, what Grant did not know, a mode of argument that if of effect would invalidate the great body of the legislation of Congress.