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President Cleveland's annual message to Congress in December, 1887, from
which this extract is taken, was devoted entirely to the question of
surplus revenue, its causes and remedy. This unique presentation of the
need of tariff reform as an issue of such paramount importance that, in a
message devoted to the "state of the Union," no other subject
was worthy of a place beside it, made tariff reform the issue in the
presidential contest of the ensuing year. This was Cleveland's most famous
message. -- For Cleveland, see J. L. Whittle, Grover Cleveland. --
Bibliography: Brookings and Ringwalt, Briefs for Debate, Nos.
xxxvii-xliv; Bowker and Iles, Reader's Guide in Economic, Social, and
Political Science, 54-64. -- For other discussions of the tariff
question, see Contemporaries, 11I; Nos. 78, 130; below, No. 166.
OUR
scheme of taxation, by means of which this needless surplus is taken from
the people and put into the public treasury, consists of a tariff or duty
levied upon importations from abroad, and internal revenue taxes levied
upon the consumption of tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors. It must
be conceded that none of the things subjected to internal revenue taxation
are, strictly speaking, necessaries ; there appears to be no just
complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and there
seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden without hardship to
any portion of the people.
But
our present tariff laws; the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of
unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended. These laws,
as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to consumers of all
articles imported and subject to duty by precisely the sum paid for such
duties. Thus the amount of the duty measures the tax paid by those who
purchase for use these imported articles. Many of these things, however,
are raised or manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied
upon foreign goods and products are called protection to these home
manufactures, because they render it possible for those of our people who
are manufacturers to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price
equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid customs duty.
So it happens that while comparatively a few use the imported articles,
millions of our people, who never use and never saw any of the foreign
products, purchase and use things of the same kind made in this country,
and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty
adds to the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged
thereon into the public treasury, but the great majority of our citizens,
who buy domestic articles of the same
[519] class,
pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home
manufacturer . . . .
It
is not proposed to entirely relieve the country of this taxation. It must
be extensively continued as the source of the Government's income ; and in
a readjustment of our tariff the interests of American labor engaged in
manufacture should be carefully considered, as well as the preservation of
our manufacturers. It may be called protection, or try any other name, but
relief from the hardships and dangers of our present tariff laws should be
devised with especial precaution against imperiling the existence of our
manufacturing interests. But this existence should not mean a condition
which, without regard to the public welfare or a national exigency, must
always insure the realization of immense profits instead of moderately
profitable returns. As the volume and diversity of oar national activities
increase, new recruits are added to those who desire a continuation of the
advantages which they conceive the present system of tariff taxation
directly affords them. So Stubbornly have all efforts to reform the
present condition been resisted by those of our fellow-citizens thus
engaged, that they can hardly complain of the suspicion entertained to a
certain extent, that there exists . an organized combination all along the
line to maintain their advantage.
We
are in the midst of centennial celebrations, and with becoming pride we
rejoice in American skill and ingenuity, in American energy and
enterprise, and in the wonderful natural advantages anti resources
developed by a century's national growth. Yet when an attempt is male to
justify a scheme which permits a tax to be laid upon every consumer in the
land for the benefit of our manufacturers, quite beyond a reasonable
demand for governmental regard, it suits the purposes of advocacy to call
our manufactures infant industries still needing the highest and greatest
degree of favor anti fostering care that can be wrung from Federal
legislation . . . .
But
the reduction of taxation demanded should be so measured as not to
necessitate or justify either the loss of employment by the workingman nor
the lessening of his wages ; and the profits still remaining to the
manufacturer, after a necessary readjustment, should furnish no excuse for
the sacrifice of the interests of his employes either in their opportunity
to work or in the diminution of their compensation . . . .
Under
our present laws more than four thousand articles are subject to duty.
Many of these do not in any way compete with our own manufactures, and
many are hardly worth attention as subjects of revenue. A
[520] considerable
reduction can be made in the aggregate, by adding them to the free list.
The taxation of luxuries presents no features of hardship ; but the
necessaries of life used and consumed by all the people, the duty upon
which adds to the cost of living in every home, should be greatly
cheapened.
The
radical reduction of the duties imposed upon raw material used in
manufactures, or its free importation, is of course an important factor in
any effort to reduce the price of these necessaries;
it would not only relieve them from the increased cost caused by
the tariff on such material but the manufactured products being thus
cheapened, that part of the tariff now laid upon such product, as a
compensation to our manufacturers for the present price of raw material,
could be accordingly modified. Such
reduction, or free importation, would serve beside to
largely
reduce the revenue. It is not apparent how such a change can have any
injurious effect upon our manufacturers. On the contrary, it would appear
to give them a better chance in foreign markets with the manufacturers of
other countries, who cheapen their wares by free material. Thus our people
might have the opportunity of extending their sales beyond the limits of
home consumption saving them from the depression, interruption in
business, and loss caused by a glutted domestic market, and affording
their employs more certain and steady labor, with its resulting quiet and
contentment.
Our
progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by dwelling upon
the theories of protection and free trade. This savors too much of
bandying epithets. It is a condition which confronts us not a theory.
Relief from this condition may involve a slight reduction of the
advantages which we award our home productions, but the entire withdrawal
of such advantages should not be contemplated. The question of free trade
is absolutely irrelevant; and the persistent claim made in certain
quarters, that all the efforts to relieve the people from unjust and
unnecessary taxation are schemes of so-called free-traders, is mischievous
and far removed from any consideration for the public good.
The
simple and plain duty which we owe the people is to reduce taxation to the
necessary expenses of an economical operation of the Government, and to
restore to the business of the country the money which we hold in the
Treasury through the perversion of governmental
powers.
…
Senate
Journal,
50 Cong., 1 sess. (Washington, 1887), 11-16 passim.
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