Blaine’s attitude on the tariff was well known. He believed in high protection, but he was a politician before he was an advocate, and could be depended upon to give full hearing to anybody in his party who could muster votes. That he did not consider the tariff reformers strong enough to receive much consideration on the Ways and Means Committee was shown by his appointment of the chairman—Robert C. Schenck of Ohio. General Schenck’s tariff position had been well characterized by himself when the bill of 1866 was up. “Sitting here a friend of protective tariff for eight years,” he said, “I have voted aye or nay as those who got up the tariff bills have told me.” “But,” he went on to say, “we begin to find something like fair play is proper in these things: We claim that what we do and can produce shall have the same protection which is given to the industry of the country, applied to the business of manufacturers.” And henceforth Mr. Schenck worked for duties for the farmer, for anybody in fact that asked one. It is clear that the House thus organized could be depended upon to support the doctrine of high protection.
The vitality of the opposition within the party made itself evident, however, almost at once. Republican district conventions, particularly in the West, showed themselves restive, and at Mansfield, Ohio, in June, 1869, General Roeliff Brinkerhoff actually succeeded in getting into a Republican platform the following resolution:
“Resolved, That we are opposed to all class legislation, government subsidies and grinding monopolies of every kind, and, therefore, we heartily favor a revision of the present oppressive tariff, so as to adjust it purely to a revenue standard.”
The way the press took up General Brinkerhoff’s resolution showed how popular his theory was. Murat Halstead published in full the speech the General had made in presenting the resolution—and it was copied and commented on all over the country. The Free Trade League of New York City, a very energetic organization, sent for the General, and with him planned a lecture campaign. This plan was carried out; General Brinkerhoff and Professor Arthur L. Perry, of Williams College, the author of a book generally used at the time, “Elements of Political Economy,” spending much of the fall and winter in discussing the need of tariff reform. At the same time a group of strong Republican newspapers, including the Portland Advertiser, the St. Louis Democrat, the Pittsburg Commercial, the Cincinnati Gazette, and the Chicago Tribune, one of the very ablest papers in the country, turned their batteries on the tariff. The last-named led in the campaign and led well. The Tribune was edited, at that time, by Horace White, and under his direction had attracted general attention and respect for its sound and authoritative economic discussion. Mr. White was a zealous student of economics, and he poured into the Tribune all the results of his careful work.
The chief opponents of Perry and Brinkerhoff and White in the discussion, were Horace Greeley and Henry C. Carey. Greeley was an extremist. “If I had my way—if I were king of this country,” he told Garfield once, “I would put a duty of $100 a ton on pig-iron and a proportionate duty on everything else that can be produced in America. The result would be that our people would be obliged to supply their own wants, manufactures would spring up, competition would finally reduce prices, and we should live wholly within ourselves.” And to prove the wisdom of this belief he began the publication in the New York Tribune of a series of Essays on Political Economy.
At the same time Henry Carey threw himself into the debate, writing a long series of letters to public men. Carey was at this time over 75 years old—and a more fierce and dogmatic championship of a cause could not be conceived than his of high protection and of paper money. Originally a free-trader Carey had early concluded that society was too undeveloped to practise it, and that a long period of protection must precede. His views on social and economic subjects he had elaborated in many volumes, the first of which had been published in 1835. The chief of his works are his “Principles of Political Economy” and his “Principles of Social Science.” Both of these have been translated into a half dozen European languages, and they certainly must be reckoned with largely in tracing the influences which have made for protection in our time. Carey in spite of all his hard labor saw the people recede from his views in 1846, and the return to protection in 1860 had given him unbounded joy. He wrote Morrill frequent letters of counsel and instruction when he was at work on the bill of 1861, urging him always to more arbitrary action than his just and reasonable mind relished. “Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff,” Carey once said to him. So convinced was he of his position, so sure that he had solved finally the economic problem that any discussion or criticism spurred him to the most intolerant opposition. After Richard Cobden’s death in 1865, Carey said in a public gathering in Philadelphia that he regarded it as one of those instances of special providence for which the United States had especial reason to be thankful; for, said Carey, it was the intention of Mr. Cobden if he had lived to have again visited the United States; if he had done so he might have lectured, and so have done great harm to the cause of protection.
David Wells was a particular abomination to Carey. His reports pointing out the unjust discrimination caused by certain tariffs, and the fact that wages were not increasing in the ratio of expenses Carey charged to be untrue—juggling of figures paid for with “British gold.” One of his pamphlets answering Wells he headed with this quotation from the New Testament: Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went unto the chief priests and said unto them “what will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?” And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver and from that time he sought opportunity to betray him ... and forthwith he came to Jesus and said “Hail Master,” and kissed him.
As a matter of fact Wells was doing serious injury to the schedules then in force by pointing out what they were and were not doing. For instance there was the wool bill of 1867. It had been in operation for nearly two years, and according to Mr. Wells wool was in a more depressed state than before its passage. His summary of conditions was startling:
1st. Wool to the agriculturalist at a lower price in gold than has almost ever before been experienced.
2d. A decrease in the number of sheep in the United States, estimated by the Commissioner of Agriculture at four millions for the single year of 1868, while other authorities place the total decrease as high as 25 per cent since the passage of the wool tariff.