The Negro Congressman, too, had an interest in the more important economic questions. On the question of the tariff several Congressmen expressed opinions. In the Forty-second Congress, Josiah T. Walls sought to amend the tax and tariff bill relative to certain commodities produced in the State of Florida.[88] He favored a tariff for protection as opposed to one for revenue only. During a similar discussion, in the House, John R. Lynch, a member of the Forty-seventh Congress, urged a protective tariff[89] for cotton, lumber, and sugar. His argument was that the cotton producers of the South were in favor of a protective tariff. When its producing class (meaning labor) was slave, when all of its products were exported, when all of its wants were supplied from without, and when cotton was its only interest, the South favored cheap labor and free trade. At this time, however, labor was free as distinguished from slave, and it therefore added to the cost of production, while jute, sugar, rice, lumber, and manufactures in the embryonic stage, shared with cotton the interests of producers. These changed conditions, he maintained, demanded for the South a policy of reasonable protection.

Regarding protection as a panacea for all the economic ills of the South, Lynch asserted that it would foster the growth of industries, permit the manufacturing interests to develop, and prevent the recurrence of a situation in which the whole output of raw material is shipped to a foreign market and sold at a price fixed by market, whereas goods manufactured from this same raw material are shipped to the South and sold at a price dictated by the sellers. He said, moreover, that a protective tariff would effect a decrease of American imports in cotton goods and at the same time an increase of employment among the folks at home. With reference to tariff on sugar and lumber, Lynch held that the South needed diversified industries, that the investment of capital in the South was essential to a diversification of industries, that a reasonable interest must be guaranteed to attract the capital, and that inasmuch as protection afforded the only way whereby the interest could be assured, protection for these industries was nationally demanded.

Any consideration of the merits of the arguments advanced by Lynch must not overlook the fact that protection has been the policy of the nation during its periods of remarkable growth. Two arguments largely supported this policy. In the first place, it was early conceived that protection was essential to the development of infant industries; in the second, the belief was accepted that to an agricultural country a home market is the only guarantee of a regular market. Because, however, of the unprecedented growth of the country and its final achievement of economic independence, other reasons were sought to support the protective policy. It was contended, therefore, that the high wages paid in the United States would discourage producers from introducing new industries which, without protection, must compete on equal terms with the products of low waged Europe. Finally, it was pointed out that the owners of great wealth must suffer tremendous loss of capital if protection were withdrawn from certain industries, compelling them to compete on equal basis with the industries of like kind of foreign countries.

In addition to these economic arguments, moreover, a political argument was not lacking. Ambitious statesmen have ever dreamed of a policy with which to cement the bonds that unite the different sections of the country, making them mutually dependent and, at the same time, independent of Europe. Protection, it was said, would do this. In full justice to Lynch, therefore, it must be said that his doctrine, whether or not sound, was not without basis. His firm stand for a protective tariff conformed to the policy that has recently controlled in the nation.

Sometime thereafter, White, in the Fifty-fifth Congress, had occasion to speak on the Wilson Tariff Law enacted in 1893. This measure[90] he held to be responsible for the unemployment among mill workers in his community and the loss of contracts by the Southern producers. He advocated, therefore, protection for the industries and labor of America against the pauperism and cheap labor of foreigners.

Several other subjects of economic character were discussed by the Negro Congressmen. During his terms in the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses, James E. O'Hara discussed at length the measure on labor arbitration.[91] Shortly thereafter, in the Fifty-first Congress, John M. Langston made informing remarks on the shipping bill.[92] Presenting in support of his position communications from the chambers of commerce of the principal cities of his State urging his support of the pending bill, facts and figures exhibiting recent progressive development of trade in Newport News, and information showing the growing dependence of world trade upon the development of an American merchant marine, he urged the passage of the shipping bill, with legislation to subsidize an American marine that would assist this nation to recover her former position upon the sea. While pointing out causes underlying the decadence of the merchant marine, he enumerated also the conditions which at that time favored its certain development.... He was, therefore, committed to a vigorous prosecution of any constructive plan leading in that direction.

In the Fifty-second Congress, H. P. Cheatham logically discussed the anti-option bill,[93] a measure defining "options" and "futures," imposing special taxes on dealers therein, and requiring such dealers and persons engaged in selling specified products to obtain a license to do so. Speaking in the behalf of the agricultural class of people whom he represented, Cheatham set forth the disastrous economic effects that dealing in "futures" and "options" has always had on the farming class in fixing the price of cotton and other commodities. As a measure contemplating an adjustment of this most portentous evil in the industrial life of the nation, he urged the passage of the bill then under consideration.

Racial Measures

In the case of some of the Negro Congressmen measures designed either to promote the welfare of their race or to give publicity to its achievement commanded precedence over all others. Many offered petitions and bills providing especially for the benefit of Negroes. Benjamin Turner, of Alabama, secured from the Federal Government several thousands of dollars in payment of a claim for damages to his property during the Civil War. In the Fifty-first Congress, Thomas E. Miller submitted two measures in the interest of his race.[94] The first proposed the establishment of a home for indigent freedmen, and the second sought to authorize the erection of a monument in commemoration of the Negro soldiers who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

The World's Columbian Exposition received much consideration during the first session of the Fifty-second Congress. Henry P. Cheatham,[95] a representative from North Carolina, during the course of his remarks on the Negro race urged that Congress make provisions for exhibiting, at that fair, the facts and statistics of the progress that the Negro had made during his thirty years of freedom. He deplored the fact that "politics" had crept into the amendment designed to effect his purpose and urged its acceptance as a matter of encouragement and justice to a numerically significant group of the American people. Cheatham proposed, also, a measure which sought to have printed the historical record of the Negro troops in the wars in which they had participated.