"Fourth. Our system of free schools, melting in a common crucible all differences of religion, language, and race, and giving to the child of the day laborer and the son of the millionaire equal opportunities to excel in the pursuit and acquirement of knowledge. This is an advantage and a blessing which the poor man enjoys in no other country."
The committee rejected several plans to aid immigration, and closed its report as follows:
"Your committee are of the opinion that the only aid to immigration the United States can now render would be, first, to disseminate in Europe authentic information of the inducements to immigration to this country; second, to protect the immigrant from the impositions now so generally practiced upon him by immigrant runners and the like, and, third, to facilitate his transportation from New York to the place of his destination, or to the place where his labor and skill will be most productive. These objects may be accomplished without great expenditure, and without changing the relation heretofore held by the United States to the immigrant.
"With this view your committee report the following bill and recommend its passage."
When, on the 27th of September, 1890, a bill was pending to restrict alien contract labor, I heartily supported it, and, after referring to the conditions which justified the act of 1864, said that since that time the class of immigration coming from some foreign countries had been such as would make it proper to exclude a portion of it, and therefore I was in favor of the bill or any other bill that would prevent the poisoning of the blood of our people in any way whatever by the introduction of either disease, crime, or vice into our midst, and would vote to exclude all paupers or persons who were unable to earn an honest livelihood by labor. That is the correct principle. I think we did, during the war, go to the extreme in one direction to induce people to come among us to share our benefits and advantages, and we gave the reasons why we did so; but now the period has arrived when men of all parties, all conditions of life, all creeds, ought to be willing to limit and regulate immigration, so that only those who are able to labor and toil in the ordinary occupations of life and to earn a livelihood should be allowed to come. It is a high privilege to enter into American citizenship. Neither a pauper, in the strict legal sense of the word, nor an imbecile, nor one who has a defect or imperfection of body or mind which lowers him below the standard of American citizenship should be allowed to immigrate to this country.
The most important measure adopted during this Congress was what is popularly known as the McKinley tariff law. I had not given as much care and attention to this bill as other Senators on the committee on finance had, nor did I participate in its preparation as fully as they. When the Mills bill came to the Senate in 1888, the work of preparing amendments to, or a substitute for, that bill was intrusted to Messrs. Allison, Aldrich and Hiscock. Their work was submitted to the full committee on finance, and, after careful examination, was reported to the Senate, and was known as "the Senate bill" to distinguish it from the "Mills bill," for which it was substituted. When the McKinley tariff bill came to the Senate on the 21st of May, 1890, it was referred to the committee on finance and was there submitted to the same sub-committee that had considered the Mills bill. The McKinley bill, as amended by the committee on finance, was in substance the Senate bill of 1888.
It is not necessary here to refer to the long debate in the Senate on the McKinley tariff bill and the amendments proposed in the Senate. The result was a disagreement between the two Houses and the reference of the disagreeing votes to a committee of conference, of which I was a member. When the report of the committee of conference came before the Senate I made a long speech justifying, as I thought, the public policy involved in the proposed tariff taxation. I stated that the sub-committee named was entitled to the credit of all the labor expended on the bill, that as a member of the committee of ways and means or on finance I had participated in framing all the former revenue laws since 1858, but as to this bill I had only done what I thought was my duty in keeping pace with the labor of the sub-committee, and in examining the bill as far as I could consistently with other duties, and giving my judgment upon its details whenever I thought it necessary.
My speech was turned into a colloquial debate by the interruptions of several Senators, among whom were Gray, Carlisle, Gibson and Paddock, but this enabled me to meet the chief objections to the conference report. More than four-fifths of the provisions of the bill, as reported by the conference, were precisely in the language of the bill as passed by the House. The residue was chiefly taken from the Senate bill, fully discussed in the previous session. The rates of duties must necessarily be changed from time to time to meet the change in prices, the course and balance of trade, the relative amounts of exports and imports, and the amount of revenue required. These changes are rapid and unforseen, so that under any system of taxation the revenue may rise or fall, whatever may be the rates of duty or taxes. Parties and politicians, in defining their political creeds, talk about a tariff for revenue and a tariff for protection. These are misleading phrases, for every tariff for revenue imposed on any imported article necessarily protects or favors the same article produced in the United States, which is not subject to the tariff tax.
The real struggle in tariff legislation is one of sections, or, as General Hancock truly said, it is "a local question." The Republican party affirms that it is for a protective tariff. The Democratic party declares that it is for a tariff for revenue only; but generally, when Republicans and Democrats together are framing a tariff, each Member or Senator consults the interest of his "deestrict" or state. It so happens that by the constitutional organization of the Senate, two sections have an unequal allotment of Senators in proportion to population. The New England States have twelve able and experienced Senators, with a population, according to the census of 1890, of 4,700,745, or one Senator for less than 400,000 inhabitants. The nine states west of the Missouri, commonly classified as the silver or western states, have eighteen Senators, with a population of 2,814,400, or one Senator for less than 160,000 inhabitants. This representation in the Senate gives these groups of states a very decided advantage in tariff legislation. The average of Senators to the whole population is one for 712,000 inhabitants. This inequality of representation cannot be avoided. It was especially manifest in framing the tariff of 1883, when New England carried a measure that was condemned by public opinion from the date of its passage.
I undertook, in my speech, to define the condition of tariff legislation, and the position of each party in regard to it. I said: