Speech #570101427

If that be so and if that .rgument is a good one. what is to be done with the Republicanism of the chairman of the Congressional committee of the Republican party . who a year ago declared that the tariff schedules in the Dingley bill were too high and must be changed? He declared emphatically. and it was the truth. as I showed here in the discussion on the McKinley bill from export journals. that our manufacturers. after supplying the home market. were selling their surplus abroad at from 35 to 50 per cent less than they were charging their own countrymen. and yet they were demanding a protective tariff of from 40 to 60 per cent in order that they might compete with the labor of other nations-" the pauper labor." as it is termed by the spellbinders of the Republican party. There are hundreds of Republicans. as good as ever lived. who think those duties are too high. I protest now in the name of humanity against this "standpat" policy which disregards the suffering. the disease. and the deaths in this country in order to preserve the enormous duties. higher than were ever imposed by any other civilized country in the world. and which can not be defended except upon a single argument. that the manufacturers of the United States are the favored class who are to have their interests advanced at the expense of the interests of the remainder of the people.