to the operation of our tariff laws is not made by way of instruction, but in order that we may be constantly reminded of the manner in which they impose a burden upon those who consume domestic products as well as those who consume imported articles, and thus create a tax upon all our people.

It is not proposed to relieve the country entirely 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 by 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 our 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.

It is also said that the increase in the price of domestic manufactures resulting from the present tariff is necessary in order that higher wages may be paid to our workingmen employed in manufactories than are paid for what is called the pauper labor of Europe. All will acknowledge the force of an argument which involves the welfare and liberal compensation of our laboring people. The standard of our laborers' life should not be measured by that of any other country less favored, and they are entitled to their full share of all our advantages.

The question imperatively presented for solution should be approached in a spirit higher than partisanship and considered in the light of that regard for patriotic duty which should characterize the action of those intrusted with the weal of a confiding people. But the obligation to declared party policy and principle is not wanting to urge prompt and effective action. Both of the great political parties now represented in the Government have, by repeated and authoritative declara

tions, condemned the condition of our laws which permits the collection from the people of unnecessary revenue, and have, in the most solemn manner, promised its correction; and neither as citizens nor partisans are our countrymen in a mood to condone the deliberate violation of these pledges.

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 producers, but the entire withdrawal of such advantages should not be contemplated.

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. These things can and should be done with safety to all our industries, without danger to the opportunity for remunerative labor which our workingmen need, and with benefit to them and all our people, by cheapening their means of subsistence and increasing the measure of their comforts.

I am so much impressed with the paramount importance of the subject to which this communication has thus far been devoted that I shall forego the addition of any other topic.

In accordance with the recommendation of the President in his message on January 16, 1888, Roger Q. Mills [Tex.] introduced in the House a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase bonds which were not yet due, in order to reduce the surplus. It was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, of which Mr. Mills was chairman. He reported the bill from the committee on February 14. It came forward for discussion in the Committee of the Whole on February 29, 1888.

GOVERNMENT PURCHASE OF BONDS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 20, 1888

William McKinley [O.] declared that the bill was un

necessary.

Does any man within the sound of my voice doubt that the President had a perfect right, from the 4th day of March, 1887, aye, from the date of his inauguration down to this very hour, to have applied every dollar of the fifty-five or sixty millions in the treasury to the purchase of outstanding bonds? He had that power fixed by a law passed in a constitutional way, which passed by the unanimous vote of both Houses, which stood unassailed and unassailable, and, declining to avail himself of it, he lectures Congress because it did not provide for paying out the surplus.

I charge here to-day that the President of the United States. and his Administration are solely responsible for whatever congested condition we had in the treasury and whatever alarm prevails about the finances of the country. [Applause.]

He may lecture that side of the House as much as he will. Doubtless they deserve it. [Laughter.] But he cannot avoid or evade the responsibility that rests on him. What does a man do who has got a surplus balance in the banks and has outstanding debts bearing interest? He calls in the evidences of those debts and pays them off with his surplus deposit. That is what a business man would have done. That is what a business administration would have done, and we would have had fifty millions less of interest-bearing bonds in circulation today if the President had followed the way blazed for him by the Republican party.

Well, now, I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if there was any ulterior motive in piling up this surplus. I wonder if it was not for the purpose of creating a condition of things in the country which would get up a scare and stampede the country against the protective system.

Well, if the President thought that he was going to get up a storm of indignation and recruit the free-trade army, break down the American system of protection, and put the freetraders on top, he has probably discovered his blunder by this time; and the best evidence of that is that he now wants the law which he has discredited; and so he comes here through his Secretary and asks us to pass this bill which is a duplicate of existing law.

Why pass it? He has got the authority now, and whatever vote we may give we give with the distinct understanding and the positive declaration that an authority just as full and just as ample exists to-day which the President and Secretary have refused to use, and no higher power will be imparted by this law when put on the statute books. But I am willing to do

anything in an honorable way in aiding the Administration to get out of its dilemma and put in circulation the sixty millions of money which it has been hoarding and pay off that amount of Government debts. [Applause.]

THOMAS B. REED [Me.].-Mr. Chairman, I believe that the present financial condition of the country is a part of the conspiracy against protection. I believe that this surplus in the treasury has been accumulated with reference to its effect upon the people of the United States, so that they might without investigating, without quite understanding, clamor for something to be done, they cared not what, which would lead to the impracticable legislation to which chairman after chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means has endeavored in vain to lead the House.

Why, sir, when we came here what spectacle met us? The President with a message, a message which neglected every interest of this vast empire, which placed to one side every question except that of a tariff bill. That was pressing upon us— that and the surplus-and we must act, act instantly, and what have we done? Three months have rolled by and the Committee on Ways and Means have never spent one day upon the tariff. [Applause.]

A special message declaring that there was only one thing on earth which demanded the attention of the Congress of the United States, and that subject utterly unmentioned for three long months in the committee to which that unique message was consigned; and they call that business! [Laughter on the Republican side.]

Mr. Chairman, this method of piling up money in the treasury to affect the general business of the country, for the purpose of attacking the system of protection, deserves and will receive the reprobation of thinking men. [Applause on the Republican side.]

WILLIAM C. P. BRECKINRIDGE [Ky.].-Mr. Chairman, the condition which confronted the President and the Secretary of the Treasury on the 1st of October last was a condition for which the present Administration was in no way responsible.

The Forty-ninth Congress must take its due share of responsibility. That Congress alone had the power of providing some mode by which the revenue could be reduced, so that the bonds payable at the option of the Government might absorb the accumulating surplus. That Congress knew that before December last the Administration would have to meet that condition when the 3 per cents. would all be called, the ex

penditures provided for, and a surplus accumulating daily; and, thus knowing, it adjourned without action.

Surely no one will for a moment propose to keep up revenues larger than the public necessities require, unless the mode in which those revenues are raised indirectly fills his pockets

There is something in power that creates a craving for more. If monopoly is an infant now and needs "protection," what will he be when he becomes of age?

Cartoon by Thomas Nast

with somebody else's money. Therefore the ready excuse of the Forty-ninth Congress for failing to pass any measure which would reduce the public revenues was that so to do would touch the private revenues of the constituents at whose will the gentlemen who refused to reduce the revenue held their commissions in this Hall. [Applause on the Democratic side.]