The Tariff in Our Times

by Ida M. Tarbell

In this outburst of Senator Dolliver we have the heart of the insurgent revolt against stand-patism. In essence it is a revolt against years of betrayal of the principles the stand-patters were pretending to uphold, of solemn-faced defence of things which are not so, of silencing critics by sneers and threats. And for what? That those who support them by votes and campaign donations may monopolize the great industries of this land and pile increasing burdens on the backs of its humble toilers.

Is it any wonder that as men understand the real meaning of the system they declare, as did Senator Dolliver:

“So far as I am concerned, I am through with it. I intend to fight it.... I intend to fight without fear—I do not care what may be my political fate. I have had a burdensome and toilsome experience in public life now these twenty-five years. I am beginning to feel the pressure of that burden. I do not propose that the remaining years of my life, whether they be in public affairs or in my private business, shall be given up to a dull consent to the success of all these conspiracies, which do not hesitate before our very eyes to use the law-making power of the United States to multiply their own profits and to fill the market-places with witnesses of their avarice and of their greed.”

But there is more than what Senator Dolliver, even, saw wrapped up in the question of protection as we are applying it. Deeper than the wrongs it is doing the poor, deeper than its warping of the intellect, is the question of the morals which underlie its operations. Simmered down to its final essence the tariff question as it stands in this country to-day is a question of national morals, a question of the kind of men it is making.

The happiness and stability of the peoples of this earth have always been in strict accord with their morality—not a morality made up of rules and traditions, of do’s and don’t’s, but that living force which pervades the world of men like an ether, the only atmosphere in which self-respect can flourish, and in which the rights and happiness of the other man are as sacred as your own. Emerson saw this force everywhere, “like children, like grass”; yet, sadly enough, “like children, like grass,” its essentiality is often ignored. Men try to construct systems and work out plans in defiance of it, only to see them destroyed; they try to live without it, only to die. Activities that ask toll of our inner honor and crowd our fellow-men, that do not contribute to the general goodness and soundness of life and things, cannot endure. Every practice, law, system of religion, government or society must be finally sifted down to this: Are men better or worse for it? What does it make for, in the main, callousness or gentleness, greed or unselfishness? Are men because of it more eager for freedom of mind and joy of heart, or are they more eager for gain and material comfort?

The troubled face of to-day is chiefly due to the realization that so much of our achievement does not stand the morality test—does not make the right kind of men. Here is where the trust fails. A Standard Oil Company violates a man’s self-respect and outrages the rights of the other man. The harsh judgment of the world is due to that. The gathering into a few hands of what nature made for all, weakens equally the sense of justice in the individual and limits the natural freedom of his fellow, and doing so must cease. Here, too, is the final case against the doctrine of protection. As we know it, it operates in defiance, and often in contempt, of the imperative moral demand that all human activities improve, not injure, those concerned, that men be better, not worse, for them. The history of protection in this country is one long story of injured manhood. Tap it at any point, and you find it encouraging the base human traits—greed, self-deception, indifference to the claims of others. Take the class chiefly involved in making a tariff bill—the suppliants for protection. We have seen in previous chapters the ends they seek, the methods they employ. What kind of men does this make? It makes men deficient in self-respect, indifferent to the dignity and inviolability of Congress, weak in self-reliance, willing to bribe, barter, and juggle to secure their ends. All this is on the face of the activities of men who run their business through Congress.

There is another moral angle of this matter which must be faced. These men who tremble at the idea of unprotected business, what kind of producers does it make of them? Quality is a moral issue. A man’s handicraft is the final test of his integrity: let it be slovenly and unfinished, let it be showy but unsound, let it never get beyond a first stage of value, let it be turned to quantity, not value, and you have a measure of the man’s character. Moreover, you have a contaminating thing. People forced by conditions to use dishonest goods, who find their shoes quickly falling to pieces, their coats quickly threadbare, their food adulterated, their rented rooms out of repair, who are forced to pay for things without virtue, quickly lose all sense of quality. They never give it because they never see it. Can an employee who knows that his employer adulterates his fabrics and covers up imperfections regardless of the interests of the consumers, be expected to continue to care for the quality of his own work? There is a universal outcry against the poor workmanship the day laborer gives—the lack of interest in the work—but can he be expected to care if his employer does not? At the very basis of the laborer’s general indifference as to whether he gives a full day of honest work or not lies a widespread indifference among business men as to the quality of the output of their factories and shops.

If there were no other case to-day against protection, as we apply it, it ought to fall in more than one industry, on the deterioration of quality it has encouraged, in the ambition it excites to turn out quantity, not give value. Moreover, this vicious result hits the poor man. We can make as good woollen textiles in the United States as are made anywhere in the world; we do make many of them—at double the price that they cost abroad; but cutting off all competition in cheap goods as our tariff does, enables the domestic manufacturer to ignore the quality of these goods as he could not do if he were subjected to proper foreign competition. He knows he can sell what he turns out. There are no other goods for the poor man to buy; the cheaper he can make them the better; they will have to be replenished the oftener, and so trade will be encouraged! So flagrant has this offence against sound morals become in cloth manufacturing that in the last two years there has developed an organized revolt against it among manufacturers of clothing. And this attack has been based by certain of them on the sound ground that it is unethical.

It is but a step from indifference to the quality of goods, to indifference to the lot of those who make the goods. The tariff is laid to help and protect the working-man. According to the protectionist argument a tariff-made state like Rhode Island, a tariff-made city like Pittsburg, should produce the happiest, most prosperous, best conditioned working-men and women in the country. We have seen something of what the tariff has done in Rhode Island. In Pittsburg it has worked contrasts between labor and capital still more violent. It has produced on one hand an absentee landlord, the “Pittsburg Millionnaire,” and on the other a laborer, whose life as pictured by one of the most careful investigations into living conditions ever made in this or any country, the Pittsburg Survey, is made intolerable by a twelve-hour day, Sunday work, cruel speeding, and cheerless and unsanitary homes. This Pittsburg Survey is the most awful arraignment of an American institution and its resulting class pronounced since the days of slavery. It puts upon the Pittsburg millionnaire the stamp of greed, stupidity, and heartless pride. But what should we expect of him? He is the creature of a special privilege which for years he has not needed. He has fought for it because he fattened on it. He must have it for labor. But look at him and look at his laborer and believe him if you can.

This, then, is the kind of man the protective system as we practise it encourages: a man unwilling to take his chances in a free world-struggle; a man whose sense of propriety and loyalty has been so perverted that he is willing to treat the Congress of the United States as an adjunct to his business; one who regards freedom of speech as a menace and the quality of his product of less importance than the quantity; one whose whole duty toward his working-man is covered by a pay envelope. This man at every point is a contradiction to the democratic ideal of manhood. The sturdy self-reliance, the quick response to the ideals of free self-government, the unwillingness to restrain the other man, to hamper his opportunity or sap his resources, all of these fine things have gone out of him. He is an unsound democratic product, a very good type of the creature that privilege has always produced.