The Tariff Issue, 1892.

REPUBLICAN.	DEMOCRATIC.

We reaffirm the American doctrine of Protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress. We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home. We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operation of the tariff act of 1890. We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our tariff laws, as is manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead and lead ores, the chief product of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.	We denounce Republican Protection as a fraud—as a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of a few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the government has no constitutional power to impose and collect a dollar for tax except for purposes of revenue only, and demand that the collection of such taxes be imposed by the government when only honestly and economically administered. [The above paragraph was adopted by a vote of 504 to 342 as a substitute for the following, reported from the majority of the committee: “We reiterate the oft repeated doctrines of the Democratic party that the necessity of the government is the only justification for taxations, and whenever a tax is unnecessary it is unjustifiable; that when Custom House taxation is levied upon articles of any kind produced in this country, the difference between the cost of labor here and labor abroad, when such a difference exists, fully measures any possible benefits to labor, and the enormous additional impositions of the existing tariff fall with crushing force upon our farmers and workingmen, and, for the mere advantage of the few whom it enriches, exact from labor a grossly unjust share of the expenses of the government, and we demand such a revision of the tariff laws as will remove their iniquitous inequalities, lighten their oppressions and put them on a constitutional and equitable basis. But in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this government, taxes collected at the Custom House have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution of this plain dictate of justice.”]

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

We reaffirm the American doctrine of Protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress.
We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.
We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operation of the tariff act of 1890.
We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our tariff laws, as is manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead and lead ores, the chief product of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.

We denounce Republican Protection as a fraud—as a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of a few. We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the government has no constitutional power to impose and collect a dollar for tax except for purposes of revenue only, and demand that the collection of such taxes be imposed by the government when only honestly and economically administered.
[The above paragraph was adopted by a vote of 504 to 342 as a substitute for the following, reported from the majority of the committee: “We reiterate the oft repeated doctrines of the Democratic party that the necessity of the government is the only justification for taxations, and whenever a tax is unnecessary it is unjustifiable; that when Custom House taxation is levied upon articles of any kind produced in this country, the difference between the cost of labor here and labor abroad, when such a difference exists, fully measures any possible benefits to labor, and the enormous additional impositions of the existing tariff fall with crushing force upon our farmers and workingmen, and, for the mere advantage of the few whom it enriches, exact from labor a grossly unjust share of the expenses of the government, and we demand such a revision of the tariff laws as will remove their iniquitous inequalities, lighten their oppressions and put them on a constitutional and equitable basis. But in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this government, taxes collected at the Custom House have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution of this plain dictate of justice.”]