is but a repetition of the results of protection in its influenccs in the transfer of nearly all our industries from Europe, and there is not a single article among the thousands that go to supply the needs of the American people which cannot now be purchased vastly cheaper than they could when we depended upon Europe for our supply. Even sugar, which is yet a revenue product, can be purchased for a third of what it could in the fifties. These facts should convince the people of this country that protection is the guardian of our prosperity and free trade is the poisoned dagger that foreign trusts continually aim at the vitals of our industries, for which reason you find the free trade agents, who spoke to you from this platform, ignoring all recommendations of regulation through American law and crying out: "The heart of the trust problem is in our tariff system of plunder. The quickest and most certain way of reaching the evils of trusts is not by direct legislation against them or by constitutional amendment, but by the abolition of the tariff duties." Pray what effect will the abolition of the tariff duties have on the sewing machine, the Standard Oil and other trusts with which the tariff has no relation? Past experience clearly points out that those people who now ask us to abolish our tariffs are not interested in crushing trusts, but they are anxious to destroy our industries and our prosperity in the interest of foreign manufacturers.

But, say our free trade friends, if we can sell cheaper than the foreigner why continue the tariffs? For the very same reason that we do not destroy our government in times of peace, or remove the side walls of our houses in summer time. We know war and winter are liable to come, so we retain our government and the side walls of our houses. Experience has taught us that the war of industry is liable to come, hence we continue protection.

The seeping of a few gallons of water through a muskrat hole in the Mississippi levee is more dangerous to the welfare of the people living in the lowland than the millions of tons of water that flow by. Open a muskrat hole in the tariff, as those agents of foreign factors and would-be haters of trusts ask us to do, and their employers, the foreign manufacturers, would swoop down on that opening, and Johnstown flood like, they would undermine the foundations of our industries and sweep us into another panic. A 10 per cent reduction of our tariffs brought on the panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, and a promise of a reduction brought on the panic of 1893.

A few illustrations, out of the hundreds, will show what we

have lost through free trade and what we have gained through protection.

In 1850 we numbered twenty-three millions of people. We had just got control of the Pacific coast. Our flag kissed two oceans and welcomed all lovers of liberty to our shores. California gave us $1,100,000,000 in gold just for picking it up. The Crimean war and European conditions gave us a plethoric market for our bounteous crops. Peace and health prevailed. Providence poured blessings beyond number upon us during that decade, but the madness of political insanity controlled our lawmakers, hence we reaped thistles instead of fruit.

The Walker tariff became a law in 1846 and struck such a blow at our industries that it paralyzed all our energy. The 1856 tariff was the last straw that turned the gifts of Providence and all our wonderful wealth making conditions into dead sea fruit. What were all these opportunities given to us for? History has recorded the hell of war we passed through soon after that period. Was it to aid us in preserving this Republic? Was it to strengthen our souls for the atonement for the crime of slavery? Whatever it was, man's unwisdom put them aside. At the close of that providen-. tial decade this nation was poor indeed. Free trade had destroyed our industries and sent all the California gold to Europe to pay for foreign goods. If we were wise, protected and developed our industries during that decade, that $1,100,000,000 gold would have remained with us and made a financial basis of $36.66 per capita, which with our increased industries would long ere this have made us the commercial clearing-house of the world. Our gold went to Europe and she now occupies that position. Hence, I assert, the crime of the centuries was perpetrated against this Republic in that decade by the sectional madness of our legislators who threw a bombshell of unwise legislation in the midst of our industries, dissipating the rich conditions that poured on our country at that time, conditions that may not again happen in ages.

At the close of President Buchanan's administration we numbered over 30,000,000 people, yet so poor were we that the government then paid 36 per cent for the use of money, and after twelve years of peace and agricultural plenty, there was a deficit in the revenues of $90,580,873. That was during free trade, when the highest expenditures of the government were only $45,000,000 a year. From 1861 to 1865 was a period of destructive war, which removed for the time being ten millions of taxpayers. During that war our expenditures were $2,000,000 per day. But then it was also an era of protection and industrial activity, during which

four and a half years, the twenty millions, who remained faithful to the Union, paid into the United States Treasury $4,753,811,777.74. I wish to specially direct your attention to those two events, illustrating the helplessness of a people living under the slavery of conditions arising from free trade, and the wealthcreating power and freedom of that same people living under the conditions which arise from protection. I wish to emphasize the fact that every dollar of that sum was paid by the people of this country. Some persons are under the impression that Europe loaned us some of that money. Not one dollar until the Union proved its stability.

Mr. Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury, commenting on this subject, in his message, 1864, said:

"This nation has been able thus far to conduct a domestic war of unparalleled magnitude and cost without appealing for aid to any foreign people. It has chosen to demonstrate its power to put down an insurrection by its own strength, and furnish no pretense for doubt of its entire ability to do so, either to domestic or foreign foes. The people of the United States have felt a just pride in this position before the world. After nearly

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four years of a most expensive war, the means to continue it seem apparently undiminished, while the determination to prosecute it with vigor to the end is unabated."

When this nation entered into that war we had no army, no ships, no money, no credit, comparatively speaking no factories. During the war we equipped 2,778,304 soldiers, built 700 ships of war, expended $6,000,000,000 in suppressing the rebellion. When we got through we were richer than when we commenced. Protective tariff was the ally that aided the brain and brawn of this nation to produce such marvelous results. ·

Thus it will be seen that protection is a law which creates an economic condition that employs land and labor in active production, establishing in our country centers of industrial activity which bring forth wealth, good money, prosperity, national power, individual happiness, education and higher civilization. Such results do not create injurious trusts, but free traders coolly come before us and ask us to abolish all these because a few men among our people would imitate the selfish class of Europe by establishing trusts in our midst. To take this advice would be as sensible as stopping the circulating of the blood for the purpose of curing a boil on one's neck.

Tinkering with the economic conditions of a great industrial nation is a serious matter. The ups and downs of our industrial

history emphasize most forcibly what Sir Hely Hutchinson wrote on that subject one hundred years ago:

"Compare this period with the former and you will prove this melancholy truth, that a country will sooner recover from the miseries and devastations occasioned by war, invasions, rebellion, massacre, than from laws restraining the commerce, fettering the industry. and above all breaking the spirit of the people."

In 1892 we were in a very healthy industrial and monetary condition. A five line free trade plank in the platform of one of our political parties brought on the panic of 1893 that cost the nation more than it cost to put down the rebellion.

From 1862 to 1892, with the exception of six years, was a period of protection, during which period we brought into existence more original wealth than the entire wealth of England, and enough of wealth to purchase all the lands, houses, ships and personal property of Germany. The bringing into existence that vast sum in one generation and controlled by our people, who are human like the rest of mankind, developed the spirit of an Alexander, who sighed for more worlds to conquer. To be rich bevond precedent is a craze, species of insanity. Insanity is not held responsible by God or man, but it is subject to law. Give the people time and if trusts prove to be against the interest of the majority, the law will harness them to the people's interest, not by killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, but by regulating and correcting the evil. In the last generation we had as formidable and healthy a trust in this country as ever filched the sweat of the poor man to enrich the rich. It was a trust that made a door mat of our Constitution, it controlled the political Independence of a majority of the people of this country, it used the stars and stripes as a defender of the slave barracoon. But when the conscience of the American people was awakened the slave trust went to the grave of the dead. It cost money and life. Yes, and that is the best evidence that the American people will not permit any combination to interfere with the mission of the Republic.

To the men who would create trusts I would say you are establishing the most gigantic schools of socialism the world has ever known. If a few men can run all the industries why cannot the government run them more equitably in the interest of the people? That is the lesson the trusts will teach the people, the all powerful people, who through the ballot box are peacefully revolutionizing governments every year. The people of the south tried the experiment of free trade, and as a result for a generation they have been bleeding at every pore. Previous to the Revolu

tion they understood the principle of diversified industries, and then that part of our country controlled the centers of industrial activity. After the Revolution cotton became king, and they deemed it necessary to marry free trade to slavery, while New England and the Middle States, recognizing the coming events, laid the foundation for diversified industry in their midst, with the result that in fifty years thereafter the center of industrial activity was transferred to the north, and the people of the south had to come north to find a market for their raw produce and to borrow money, even though, as Benton says, the south in the meantime had exported raw products to the amount of $800,000,000, a sum equal to the product of the Mexican mines since the days of Cortez.

Six years ago we entered into one of those free trade eras and expatriated our industries, our people were idle, banks and business houses toppled over like rows of bricks, commercial credit was wiped out as if the safeguards of civilization had been abolished. No talk of trust then except the trust of poverty, and protection could say, "Point not thy gory fingers at me." You all remember what a terrible time we had trying to keep $100,000,000 gold reserve in the Treasury. Officials and business men sat up nights and generally became nervous over that fund, but it would not stay. All the power and influence of this government and people with $70,000,000,000 of wealth could not keep that small sum in the Treasury. $250,000,000 gold was borrowed and imported, but it would return to the source of confidence, centers of industrial activity, where we had expatriated our industries. The people changed the government. An American tariff was passed. Presto! the smokestacks signaled the workmen to their benches, and gold, as if some living thing, heard the click of the anvil and came over here in such quantities that we have to cry, "Hold, enough!" and a late report shows that we have in this country $1,000,000,000 in gold, a greater quantity than any other nation. With such an object lesson before us would it not be wise to look before we take the advice of free trade doctrinaires, because a few unpatriotic and selfish men have crept into the temple and seek to grasp the people's interests through the agencies of trusts? No! let us rather follow the example of Christ-whip them out who would make our temple dens of thieves. Do not unwisely pull the temples down, but let our fountains of wealth continue to flow, as they now are flowing, since we have tapped prosperity through the magic of protection, and in all our political thought let us consider the source and object. God, country, home. Then, I am satisfied, we will not kill