A Northwestern View

Hon. J. Sterling Morton, of Omaha, was recently in New York, and while there he was interviewed by a member of the Reform club upon the general situation in the northwestern states in reference to the tariff question and to the political agitation there among farmers. "There is.adisposition," said Mr. Morton, "among the farmers of the northwest to remedy the ills from which they are now suffering by resorting to class legislation. This class legislation is the logical result of the class legislation which has prevailed so long at Washington. The farmers have been in a more or less drowsy condition, intellectually, ever since the war, but they have gradually waked up, and have observed that congress has been artificially enhancing incomes for certain classes of citizens engaged in tariff protected industries. They have found out at last that protection to American manufacturera means the enhancement of incomes by gnaranteeing to these manufacturera a monopoly of the American markets against all corners. "Mr. Carnegie is the typical pecuniary individuality which protection has produced in this country. The average farmer does not think that any man can in thirty short years by his own industry add $30,000,000 to the common wealth. He sees, however, that M. Carnegie has aniassed such an amount in that time, and he concludes, logicaliy enough, that if Carnegie has not added that sum to the common wealth, he must have taken from it. He sees further that he has taken it from the common wealth under the cover of law by the provisions of the protective tariff, and that in fact the tariff was instituted for the very purpose, under the guise of taxation, to take away from all of us for the benefit of a few of us. "The farmer denounces this class legislation because it taies nis class to enrich another class. He sees that incomes are thns artificially made greater by legislation; bnt the farmer, not able to control national legislation, conclndes that state legislation can, by a point of reasoning, be used to reduce incomes. Henee, logically, we have the anti-railroad rate fixing laws in the northwestern states. The farmer says, 'If I can reduce the income of the railroads by lessening the cost of transportation I am indirectly enhancing my own.' It seems to me fair and safe to say that all legislation in the different states inimical to corporate capital is legitimately traceable to the protective tariff, which is to all class legislation in the states the first parent, as Adam is to mankind." "Do you find that the opinión still prevails in the northwest that protection benefits the laborer?" "That superstition is dead," said Mr. Morton. "Citizens of ordinary intelligence who have reflected upon the discontent of labor and the strikes which result from it see that this discontent and these strikes are also directly traceable to the protection system; for when capital demanded a protective tariff to encourage certain branches of industry t struck for higher profits. The capitalsts who demanded from congress the statutes exciuding foreign competí ti on were the first 'strikers' in the United States. And so the laborer, seeing that the capitalist can strike f or higher profits through the law making power of th government, naturally strikes for high wages. This is done sometimes by the old method of quitting work, and again, emulating capital, an appeal is made te congress to make eight hours a day. Congress has just as mnch economie xnver to make forty minutes an hour. Phere never was a legislative body, naioaal or state, wise enough to define a day's labor." "And what of the McKinley tariff awï" "That is a threadbare subject, but ;here is one amusing feature in that law. ?he McKinley tariff differs from the Horrill tarift' in that it permits nothing for the use of the United States government to come in free. Mr. McKialey said in a speech in Grand Rapids, Mich. , in October. 1890, that as a just rainded man it occurred to him that a government which enacted a law should be the first compelled to obey it. Theref ore he had enforced the payment of duties upon all dutiable goods brought in from abroad for the use of the United States. And a Republican audience cheered this massive manifestation of statesinanship withgreatandsustainedenthusiasm. The spectacle of our common Únele Samuel taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another raised Republican protective hilarity to the highest tensity. "The McKinley statecraft which provoked so much applause is only equaled by the finance of the man who, having leased a very highly decorated and expensive edifice f or the purpose of keeping a saloon therein, was told that the rent was too high, and triumphantly replied: 'You don't know me. You don't understand my capacdty. D- n it, I can drink enough inyself to pay the rent!' Probably McKinley would have the United States government import enough for its own use to pay all the revenues." "How is ',he farmer satisfied with the new duties on farm products? Do they help hún?" "The tariff being for the protection, allegedly, of American labor, the farmer wondere why cabbages are taxed three cents a head and sauerkraut put on the 'ree list. He is afraid that in competí tion with the ignorant 'pauper' kraut makers of Canada the skilied labor and high art required in the manufacture of thai delicacy may be lost to us. Again, the tax on sneep, mnles and horses, with bologna sansages on the free Hst, puzzles trim. Five cents a dozen on eggs to preTsat the pauper pallets of Great Britain's dependenciea from competing with the American hen pleases him about Easter; but when incubation is completed chickens from bantam eggs do not prove any bigger than a year ago. Protection has not encouraged the breed to grow any larger. And so the chicken indnstry remains very little inspired to higher efforts, and bantams cannot grow into Plymonth rocks under protection any more that bantam statesmen from Indiana develop into far seeing and sagacious patrii