A. Not because the artists ask for Protection. They’re such curious people that they all oppose it. So we choose to be benevolent to them in spite of their eccentric behavior.
Q. What other peculiar tricks have our Protection wise men?
A. A pretty good one is to say that we are not tied up to any present or definite “schedules,” but to remember constantly that, if any change is made in the tariff, it must be one that goes up and never one that goes down. It was a great mistake for Garfield to say, “I believe in a Protection that leads to Free Trade.”
Q. What is Reciprocity?
A. It is—well, suppose you should build a bonfire and then pour water on it, or build a levee on the Mississippi and then punch holes through it. It is a part of our consistent scheme. Blaine knew, and who can dispute Blaine?
Q. What is Free Trade?
A. It is any scale of duties for any purpose that is the least bit lower than the Dingley bill. Everything that preceded that “bravest tariff ever made” is Free Trade. If some day Protection should climb to loftier heights, those who should oppose it by the lower Dingley bill would be Free Traders.
Here a boy, who got surreptitiously into the class, asked this unauthorized question:
Q. But you say this country has prospered under almost unbroken Protection. Now, since everything tariff-like before the Dingley bill is either Free Trade or Free Tradish, why is not all our prosperity up to the passage of that owing to Free Trade?
A. A boy cannot be expected to understand the flexibility of our nomenclature or the grandeur of a great principle. We are struggling to help “American Industries.” Must so little a thing as mere consistency stand between us and our friends? Boys should be seen and not heard.