to use their labor at good wages, and that these opportunities widen and wages rise as diversified domestic industries multiply and the production of whatever we want which can be made or produced here without natural disadvantage goes on at home rather than abroad. An economic policy which tends to dedestroy home industries in which no more labor is required for production here than abroad, or to reduce wages under the plea that the products of such industries can be purchased at a lower price abroad simply because our labor is paid higher wages, is destructive to prosperity, for the reason that nothing is cheap which deprives our own people of opportunities for employment of their labor and reduces the wages paid to labor.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the majority of the committee who have framed this proposed tariff bill believe that any economic measure whose effect is to transfer to Europe or other countries the making of articles which can be produced here without natural disadvantage can never produce anything but ruin to any country. [Loud applause.] We believe that when the protective principle is applied of imposing duties equivalent to the difference of the cost of production and distribution arising from our higher wages of labor, as proposed in the pending bill, and thus increased opportunities are offered to American labor, giving the masses a purchasing power which they have lost under the conditions of the past four years-a purchasing power which enables them to buy more of the farmer, more of the merchant, more of the manufacturer, and more of every producer in the land-then confidence will begin to return, prices will begin to rise to a paying point, and prosperity begin to set in upon the land. [Loud applause on the Republican side.]

Joseph W. Bailey [Tex.] opposed the bill.

Assuming for the sake of argument that the industries of this country have suffered from foreign competition, let us inquire how the framers of this bill have undertaken to correct what they consider a great evil. They have written it in the very title of their bill that one of its purposes is to prevent foreign manufacturers from selling their goods in American markets.

Mr. Speaker, I lay it down as an elementary principle of political economy that no government can encourage the industries of its people by discouraging the exchange of their products. Exchange is the great inducement to production, and whatever interferes with the freedom of exchange must ulti

mately curtail production. In the nature of things no man would produce more than enough to satisfy his individual needs, unless he believed that he could find somebody to buy his surplus; and, if no purchaser for the surplus could be found or expected, each man would cease to labor when he had supplied his own wants. The right and the opportunity of buying and selling are the salutary and indispensable motives to produce, and it is the consummation of folly to teach the people of this country that their industries can be encouraged by abridging their right to exchange the products of their labor with the people of other countries.

Instead of employing our labor and materials in the production of commodities which can only be produced for the home market at a loss, it would be wiser to extend our commerce by exchanging what we can produce at a profit for articles which can be more cheaply produced in other countries, because profitable commerce is infinitely better than unprofitable manufacturing. [Applause.]

Remove your vexatious restrictions, and under the old motto of "Free trade and sailors' rights" we will fleck the waters of every sea with the white-winged messengers of our commerce and carry our flag into every region of the earth. [Applause.]

Here Mr. Bailey discussed the general principles of the Democratic party in relation to free raw materials.

It certainly was not regarded as late as 1885 as a departure from Democratic principles to resist the doctrine of free raw materials, because those who resisted it were Democrats then and have remained Democrats, while many of their former colleagues have abandoned our party. Of the four men who voted against free raw materials, Mr. Mills occupies a seat in the Senate as a Democrat, and Mr. McMillin is a distinguished member of this House.

MR. MCMILLIN.-When do you say this occurred?

MR. BAILEY.-In the Forty-ninth Congress.

MR. MCMILLIN.-And where do you say it occurred?

MR. BAILEY.-In a meeting of the Committee on Ways and Means.

MR. MCMILLIN.-And that I voted against free wool?

MR. BAILEY.-That is what Mr. Morrison told me. And he told me more than that; he told me you and Mr. Mills both voted against the metal schedule.

MR. MCMILLIN.-If the gentleman will permit me, I would

rather deal in modern than in ancient history, and as he has seen fit to attack my record here

MR. BAILEY.-Oh, no; I am going to praise it.

MR. MCMILLIN.-What excuse have you to give to this House for voting against striking out the wool and woolen schedule of this infernal bill and incorporating the wool and woolen schedule of the Wilson bill?

MR. BAILEY.-I offered an amendment to reduce the duty on both wool and woolen goods 33 1-3 per cent.

MR. MCMILLIN.-Your amendment failed, and then you proposed to take the high rates which this bill carries rather than the low rates of the Wilson bill?

MR. BAILEY.-Yes, sir. And we may just as well understand each other right now. Never as long as I am in Congress will I vote to give the woolen manufacturer a 50 per cent. duty on his woolen goods and charge him nothing upon his wool. [Prolonged applause.]

And, since the gentleman has asked me a question, I ask him how can he justify voting for free wool in face of the Chicago platform, which he helped to adopt and defend?

MR. MCMILLIN.-I say to my friend from Texas that the Chicago platform did not take the back track on the doctrine of a tariff for revenue only, as he has represented here to-night.

MR. BAILEY.-Not on the doctrine of a tariff for revenue only, but on the doctrine of free raw materials.

I state of my own knowledge that this very question was presented to the committee on platform and resolutions of the Chicago convention, and it deliberately omitted the commendation of free raw materials contained in the platform of 1892 and inserted what I have read here. Not only is that true, but it has been stated in the Senate by gentlemen who were members of the committee, and it is well known to all who took any interest in the question, that it was the deliberate judgment of the Chicago convention that it was unwise and undemocratic to give one class of people in this country what they buy free of taxation while levying a tax upon all the poor people throughout the land. [Applause.]

Whatever strength its advocacy of free raw materials may have brought to the Democratic party in the past, it can bring none now, and will not bring any in the future. There are not in all this broad land to-day one hundred men who could be induced to vote the Democratic ticket for the sake of free raw materials as long as the Democratic party holds to the free coinage of silver; while, on the other hand, there are thousands of brave

and honest men throughout the Western States who, agreeing with us upon the great financial question, will embrace our tariff doctrine when we have thoroughly repudiated this Cleveland heresy [applause] and returned to the old and unchangeable creed of our party, which declares that Congress shall lay no tax except for revenue, but that revenue taxes shall be just alike to all classes and sections.

Mr. McMillin followed Mr. Bailey.

The Democratic doctrine on taxation is that taxes should be levied for the support of the Government alone; and that in the levy of such taxation the lowest rate that would yield the revenue necessary to run the Government should be adopted. And the doctrine that has been put into platform and hurled from stump and forum everywhere has been "a tariff for revenue only." By that sign we conquered in the past, and by that sign we shall conquer in the future, if we stand by our principles and do our duty. [Applause.]

Mr. Speaker, I regret exceedingly that my distinguished friend from Texas [Mr. Bailey] instead of pointing out the outrageous features of this bill should, in lieu thereof, see fit to parade my past record here. This bill would be a fruitful source for a two hours' speech to any man who ever lived, if the time were accorded, without fomenting strife among ourselves and attacking Democrats. But I should be recreant to my duty, I should be unjust to those who have been fighting by me in the past, if, being attacked, I did not tell the plain, unvarnished tale of what the Democratic party has done, and what has been my own action as a Democratic Representative.

First, any statement from any quarter that I have ever advocated a tariff on wool is inaccurate and wholly unjust to me. I have been consistent in this matter. I have all the time believed that cheap clothing for the people would be most surely attained by the method of taxation whereby wool is free. But if I had been in error I had others standing by to sustain me in that error, and he was one of them. I have favored and do favor a tariff for revenue only, because it is Democratic and right.

Sir, in this discussion it has been denied that "a tariff for revenue only" is Democratic doctrine. A tariff is either "for revenue only" or for something besides revenue. Democracy has always denied that any tax could be imposed except to obtain money to run the Government. It has opposed taxation

for any other purpose; hence has favored always a tariff for revenue only as against a tariff for protection.

Here Mr. McMillin quoted the tariff planks in the Democratic platforms from 1876 to 1896. He continued:

It will also be noted that the platform of 1892 declared it a "fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for purposes of revenue only."

Away with the charge that this is "heresy"!

But what are the facts with reference to the gentleman's [Mr. Bailey's] own record? Who are the heretics he denounces? If past records are to be raked up, let us have the whole record. Let us come to the question upon which the gentleman lays so much stress. Let us come to the commodity which is the keystone in the arch of Republican protection-wool. There can be no high protective system maintained now without taxed wool. There was a proposition as far back as the Fifty-second Congress, first session (volume 123, Congressional Record, page 3057), to put wool on the free list. It had no other question in connection with it. There was no tax on the finished product in connection with it.

What was the position taken by my friend from Texas who criticizes the balance of us who voted for free wool then and all people who favor free wool now? If I was a "heretic" then I had "heretics" standing all around me; and as the gentleman himself voted on that occasion for free wool he is in no condition to criticize me now. [Applause on the Republican side.]

Mr. Speaker, what I favor is the Democratic party going to the battle again with its old flag untarnished, with its old mottoes upon it. We have conquered in that way in the past. We can conquer in that way again. You who predict the destruction of the Democratic party should remember that the Democratic party has refused at all times to act as corpse at any of the funerals which you have planned for its interment. [Applause on the Democratic side.]

Mr. Payne followed.

The House has been amused and interested by the discussions going on in the Democratic party; and each one of the parties to the discussion finds justification for its position in a Democratic platform. [Laughter and applause on the Republican