The Tariff Question
Performed by William Jennings Bryan
Recorded July 21, 1908
There is an important difference
between a revenue tariff and a tariff levied purely
for protection. A revenue tariff is so framed that
it will raise the needed revenue and you stop when
you get enough. A protective tariff may be so framed
that a heavy burden will be laid upon the people and
little revenue collected and you never know when to
stop. The revenue tariff of 1846 was so satisfactory
that after it had been in operation for ten years,
the first Republican platform -- the platform of 1856,
did not mention protection. When the war began between
the states, the tariff was raised for the purpose
of increasing the revenue, and when the war was over,
it was continued on the ground that the infant industries
needed protection for a few years until they could
stand upon their feet. But in a little while, these
infants were not only able to stand upon their own
feet, but to walk all over everybody elses feet.
Then a new excuse had to be found, and the advocates
of the high tariff began to argue that a protective
tariff must be retained permanently for the benefit
of labor but that the duty should only be high enough
to cover the difference between wages here and abroad.
Under the pretense that such a tariff was being framed,
the protectionists have made the tariff twice as high
on an average as the entire labor call. For a third
of a century the protected manufacturers have been
acting as the trustees for their employees. Trustees,
too, without bond. They have been securing discriminating
duties on the ground that these duties would enable
them to deal generously with their employees, but
they have only given in wages what the labor organizations
were in a position to compel. Many of our manufacturers
are now selling in foreign markets in competition
with the cheapest labor of the world, and they often
sell at a lower price abroad than at home. The tariff
has thus become a full work for the protection of
the trusts, and the Republican leaders, no longer
able to defend the tariffs scheduled as they exist
simply ask that tariff reform be left to the beneficiaries
of the tariff. But how can we expect the men who profit
by an extortion of the tariff to join in the crusade
for the reduction of that tariff? We believe that
the tariff must be reformed by those who have suffered
from it, not by those who have profited by it. Our
platform says we favor immediate revision of the tariff
by the reduction of import duties. Articles entering
into competition with trust controlled articles, should
be placed upon the free list. Material reductions
should be made in the tariff upon the necessaries
of life, especially for articles competing with such
American manufacturers as are sold abroad more cheaply
than at home, and gradual reduction should be made
in such other schedules as may be necessary to restore
the tariff to a revenue basis. This tariff plank of
the Denver platform not only demands tariff reduction,
but it specifies the steps to be taken in securing
that reduction. And I believe that it embodies the
sentiment of a large and growing majority of the American
people.