THE TARIFF 
 
 AND 
 
 THE FARMER 
 
 Revised, 1911 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD CUMMINS 
 
 Published, by 
 
 THE HAWTHORNE ASSOCIATION 
 Berryville, Va. 
 
COPYRIGHT 1911 BY THE HAWTHORNE ASSOCIATION 
 
 COLLINS & CO.. PRINTERS, 
 
 628 CHESTNUT ST.. PHILADELPHIA, PA 
 
Blackburn 
 
 331 
 
 twllt 
 
 t»r. i <4 \. * $ o 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER 
 
 to 
 
 5 
 
 ro 
 
 The tariff question promises to be the chief 
 question before the country in the years immedi¬ 
 ately to come. It is a most important question 
 because the tariff laws affect so largely the char¬ 
 acter of our possessions. Throughouf the land 
 there will be discussion and contention. The 
 question will form the division line in politics 
 and voters will range themselves with the party 
 which best represents their views regardless of 
 old affiliations. Ours is a land of plenty but there 
 is much discontent and unrest. The city resident 
 with small income is in straits because of the high 
 cost of living; the factory workman finds that his 
 high wages with difficulty meet his needs; the 
 farmer feels the effect of his diminishing crops 
 and the high prices he must pay for the things he 
 buys; and the banker questions the soundness of 
 our affairs and whether our possessions are worth 
 the sums at which they are valued. The factory 
 workman is beginning to doubt the virtue of his 
 tariff wages when exchanged for food and 
 clothing rated at tariff prices; the farmer is 
 beginning to ask what advantage he gets from the 
 tariff protection enjoyed by the manufacturer; 
 and the banker is beginning to suspect that it is 
 the taint of the tariff laws which casts a doubt 
 upon the value of securities. 
 
 The motive for attempting this paper has been 
 two-fold: first, my observation that but few of 
 the whole number of farmers have clear ideas 
 concerning the tariff question, and second, my 
 belief in the importance of awakening my farmer 
 friends to a perception of the true nature and 
 effect of the tariff laws. In preparing this paper 
 I have studied to present the subject so that my 
 readers cannot fail to understand what is meant 
 by the tariff question, and to show clearly that 
 the tariff laws favor the manufacturer at the 
 expense of the farmer and serve to carry over to 
 
 the manufacturer and the trader an undue share 
 of the wealth of the country. 
 
 The profits of farming when all the farms of the 
 country are taken into the reckoning are small. 
 Upon the best of the lands the returns after the 
 labor is allowed for reach five per cent., but upon 
 the poorer of the farms the crops do not repay the 
 labor expended. We have heard much of the 
 prosperous farmers of Kansas and Nebraska but 
 our attention has been seldom called to the less 
 successful farmers of Virginia and the Carolinas. 
 The prairie lands of Illinois are widely known. 
 They are certainly very fertile. In price they 
 range from one hundred to one hundred and 
 fifty dollars an acre and there are occasional sales 
 at two hundred dollars an acre. Many of the 
 farms are rented, the owners having moved to 
 town. The rents are generally paid in money 
 and range from six to eight dollars an acre. The 
 owners pay the taxes and have left after doing so 
 five per cent, as the return or interest on the money 
 in the land. But the rich soil covers only two- 
 thirds of the state. Occupying the Southern one- 
 third is a region of which the soil is entirely 
 different from the prairie area. Its lack of 
 productiveness is indicated by the prices of the 
 lands. These prices range from fifty dollars down 
 to five dollars an acre. Much of the area, probab¬ 
 ly one-half of it, would command not more than 
 thirty dollars an acre. It is divided into small 
 farms upon which the owners for the most part 
 live. When the worth of the labor of the owner 
 and his family is deducted from the sales of the 
 products there is very little left as the income of the 
 land. So if this poorer third of the State of 
 Illinois is reckoned along with the richer two- 
 thirds, the average return upon the land after the 
 labor has been allowed for will be considerably 
 less than five per cent. Iowa is a fine agricultural 
 
 
6 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 TABLE RELATING TO THE PURCHASE OF 
 HOUSEHOLD GOODS. 
 
 
 Cost at 
 home 
 
 Cost 
 
 abroad 
 
 Duty if bought 
 Abroad 
 
 Cost 
 
 abroad 
 
 Rate 
 
 Amt. 
 
 & duty 
 
 Furniture. 
 
 $1500. 
 
 $1110. 
 
 35% 
 
 $388. 
 
 $1498. 
 
 Carpets & Rugs.... 
 
 900. 
 
 560. 
 
 60% 
 
 339. 
 
 904. 
 
 China ware. 
 
 450. 
 
 280. 
 
 60% 
 
 168. 
 
 448. 
 
 Linen goods. 
 
 150. 
 
 100. 
 
 50% 
 
 50. 
 
 150. 
 
 
 $3000. 
 
 $2055. 
 
 
 $945. 
 
 $3000. 
 
 I paid 3000 dollars for my goods, goods of home 
 manufacture. The cost if they had been bought 
 abroad would have been 2055 dollars, and the 
 duties to be paid on bringing them home 945 
 dollars, the two sums equalling the cost when 
 bought of our own factories. In these purchases 
 I have paid out 3000 dollars of my wheat and 
 cattle money, but by the same standard of value, or 
 cost to produce, I have got but 2055 dollars worth 
 of furniture, carpets, &c. in my house in return. 
 
 In the purchase of my household goods the 
 trading was against me three to two. In the 
 buying of farm implements and machines I 
 believe the odds are much worse. The high 
 prices of these things are the result of tariff duties. 
 The implements themselves may not be pro¬ 
 tected by extreme rates of duty but the materials 
 of which they are made are highly protected and 
 the factory which manufactures them is on the 
 same basis of high wages and high profits as the 
 factory from which the materials come. I bought 
 a harrow recently, paying nine dollars for it. 
 It is a form of harrow that I like because it has a 
 wooden frame and small teeth and plenty of 
 them. The one lately purchased is the third 
 one of the kind on the farm. It is simple, re¬ 
 quiring very little machinery or skill to construct 
 it. I have made an estimate of its cost, in mater¬ 
 ials and labor, which is as follows: 
 
 COST OF MATERIALS AND LABOR IN A NINE 
 DOLLAR HARROW. 
 
 8 pieces of oak lumber, 16 feet, at $40. per thousand. $.64 
 
 40 steel teeth, weighing 41 pounds, at $1.80 per 100.74 
 
 8 pieces of bar and 1 piece of round iron, 43 pounds 
 
 at $1.60 per 100.69 
 
 5 feet of chain, 6 pounds at $3.60 per 100.22 
 
 2 devices at 4 cents each..08 
 
 28 § in. bolts at 50 cents a hundred .14 
 
 40 rivets with washers, 2 pounds at 5 cents.10 
 
 Paint, very cheap red paint.14 
 
 Cost of materials.$2.75 
 
 Labor, 40 per cent, of materials. 1.10 
 
 Total cost to maker.$3.85 
 
 At the price of 9 dollars there was 5 dollars and 
 15 cents of profit in the harrow. And back of the 
 profit of the maker of the harrow there was the 
 profit of the lumber-men who cut, sawed and 
 planed the wood, the profit of the iron manu¬ 
 facturer who smelted the ore, rolled the iron into 
 bars and cut and shaped the bars into harrow 
 teeth, and the profits of the makers of bolts, rivets 
 and chain. If we assume that the profits of these 
 persons were upon an average 30 per cent, we 
 shall have reduced the cost of the harrow in 
 materials and labor to 3 dollars and 22 cents. And 
 I do not doubt that if one had the knowledge 
 to judge of the other machines used on the farm 
 the showing would be much the same as in the 
 case of the harrow. I have somewhere read that 
 the cost, in materials and labor, of the wheat 
 binder is but thirty-seven and a half dollars. I do 
 not know whether this is true but am inclined 
 toward the belief that it is. A binder is chiefly 
 castings, rods and bars. The iron in the rods 
 and bars would not cost above a dollar and sixty 
 cents a hundred weight. The castings would cost 
 less I think. Once the patterns have been made, 
 and these are not very costly, the expense of con¬ 
 verting a ton of metal into castings is not great. 
 The metal itself is not worth over sixteen dollars 
 a ton. A ton of wrought iron is made into nails 
 for four and a half dollars. It may cost more 
 to make a ton of metal into castings such as are 
 used in a binder, but I doubt whether it does. 
 The weight of the castings and the wrought iron in 
 the binder does not exceed three quarters of a 
 ton, I should say. These things suggest that the 
 binder does not cost, in materials and labor, more 
 than the thirty-seven and a half dollars. The 
 farmer pays one hundred and twenty dollars for it. 
 
 The farmer has been blind to the injustice done 
 him in his exchanges with the manufacturer. He 
 has been busy with his farm and its problems. 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 7 
 
 To plow when the fields are neither too wet nor too 
 dry, to plant neither too early nor too late, to 
 harvest when the grain is in the right condition, 
 to improve the productivity of his soil, to adjust 
 his live stock to his pastures and his winter’s 
 feed, to master the diseases which attack his 
 animals-—these and many other questions relating 
 to the farm have occupied his thought. He has 
 had no time to inform himself as to the cost of the 
 materials and the labor which go into the imple¬ 
 ments he uses, nor has he stopped to compare the 
 profits of the factory owner with those of the 
 farmer. Nor does he know of the many improve¬ 
 ments in the art of manufacturing whereby the 
 various parts of the implements he uses are turned 
 out in quantities at very low cost. When he 
 buys cattle or horses or land he is wise enough. 
 He is a judge of these things and he buys worth 
 the money. But as to the implements and 
 machines on the farm, he needs them and buys 
 without questioning. When looking at anew 
 machine he sees that there are a great many 
 wheels, castings, springs, levers and ratchets, 
 and thinks that these things must have cost a great 
 deal of money. And he pays the price and says 
 nothing. 
 
 The protection upon wool and manufactures of 
 wool is one of the most important features of the 
 tariff laws. It has a great deal to do with- the cost 
 of clothing, a matter of much interest to every 
 family in the land. I will speak first of raw wool 
 the protection of which is taken to be of great 
 benefit to the farmer because he owns sheep. 
 
 The country’s yearly product of wool is in 
 round numbers 300 million pounds. This is not 
 enough to meet the requirement of the factories, 
 and foreign grown wools are brought in to make 
 up the deficiency. The importations averaged 
 190 million pounds a year for the five years ending 
 with 1908. About 53 per cent, of this, being 100 
 million pounds, is of the same quality as the wool 
 produced in the United States, and the average 
 duty collected upon the 100 million pounds is 11 
 cents a pound. The remainder of the importa¬ 
 tions is of inferior wools on which duties of 3, 4 
 and 7 cents a pound respectively are charged. 
 
 The collecting of the n cents a pound on the 100 
 million pounds yields 11 million dollars of revenue 
 to the Government. But the existence of the duty 
 raises the price of the home produced wool 11 
 cents a pound, as it was intended to do. Eleven 
 cents a pound upon 300 million pounds is 33 
 million dollars. This goes to the wool growers of 
 the country. The two sums added make 44 mil¬ 
 lion dollars as the fund or tax created by the 
 tariff for revenue and protection. Upon the side 
 of the people it means increased cost of wool 
 clothing, 44 millions of dollars of tax upon what we 
 wear and need to keep us warm. As there are 18 
 million families in the population of the country, 
 the tax is equal to 2 dollars and 44 cents for each 
 family. This sum is as great as the poll tax 
 collected in many of the states. One reads in the 
 newspapers now and then of poor men who go to 
 jail because they cannot pay their poll taxes. 
 But in the case of the wool tax the poor do not go 
 to jail, they simply do without the clothing. And 
 we must remember that but one-fourth of the 2 
 dollars and 44 cents is revenue. The three- 
 fourths, to-wit, one dollar and 83 cents, is a tax 
 laid on every household for the benefit of the wool 
 growers of the country. 
 
 I have said that the Government receives 11 
 million dollars of the 44 million dollars and the 
 wool growers 33 million dollars as the result of 
 the 11 cents a pound duty on wool of the same 
 quality as that which is produced in this country; 
 and who are the wool growers and where are the 
 sheep? 
 
 Forty years ago Vermont, New York, Pennsyl¬ 
 vania and Ohio had a good many sheep but the 
 number has now diminished greatly. Michigan, 
 Wisconsin and Texas have some sheep but Illinois 
 Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and 
 Nebraska have very few. South Dakota has some 
 sheep but North Dakota only a handful. The 
 Southern States have no sheep to speak of. The 
 greater part of the sheep are west of the Dakotas, 
 Nebraska, Kansas and Texas. Sixty-four per 
 cent, of the whole 54 millions of sheep of the 
 country are in the eleven States nearest the 
 Pacific. Wyommg leads with 7 millions of sheep, 
 
8 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 Montana has over 6 millions, Idaho is next with 
 millions. New Mexico, Oregon and Utah 
 follow. But these eleven States have only a few 
 people and the title of much of the land is still in 
 the Govern ment. The total population is less than 
 6 millions and 47 per cent, of the land is public 
 property. Yet these States contain 34-^ millions 
 of sheep. What is the explanation? It is simple 
 enough. The sheep belong for the most part to 
 companies formed by eastern people who pasture 
 them on the public lands. These corporations 
 pay no rent to speak of, if any at all. The Gov¬ 
 ernment collects a little rent for pasturage on its 
 forest reservations but none on its unsold lands 
 in general. If we assume that 27 millions of these 
 sheep (one-half the sheep of the United States) 
 are so owned and are fed on the Government’s 
 unsold lands we shall not be far from the truth. 
 The worth of a sheep’s keep is figured by farmers 
 variously, some putting it as low as a dollar a 
 year, others as high as two dollars a year. If we 
 figure the 27 millions of sheep at a dollar a head 
 we have 27 million dollars as the worth of the 
 pasture the owners get for nothing. Add to this 
 the 11 cents a pound protection on the 150 million 
 pounds of wool which grows on the sheep, to-wit: 
 16^ million dollars, and we have 43^ million dol¬ 
 lars going yearly into the pockets of these sheep 
 owners by the gift of the Government. 
 
 Conversing with an acquaintance recently, 
 he chanced to say that he had formerly been 
 interested in cattle in the Far West. After ex¬ 
 plaining that the cattle ranching had ended by 
 reason of the Government having ordered all 
 fences removed from the public lands, he said that 
 the sheep people now controlled the public 
 pasturages through having purchased the watering 
 places without which the pastures cannot be used. 
 I asked if my information was correct that the 
 sheep on the public lands belong chiefly to cor¬ 
 porations of Eastern people. He said it was, but 
 that some persons interested in the sheep industry 
 live in the Far West. One of these he named, 
 saying tha t the man owned 80 thousand sheep and 
 held also a seat in the United States Senate. 
 And we have 43^ million dollars going 
 
 yearly into the pockets of these sheep owners 
 by the gift of the Government. 
 
 Turning now to manufactures of wool, I will 
 begin by setting down the list of woolen goods 
 imported, the values abroad and the duties 
 collected for the year ending June 30th, 1908. 
 It is an average year. I wish the reader to see the 
 list. 
 
 IMPORTS OF WOOLEN GOODS. 
 
 Year Ending June 30th, 1908. 
 
 Average 
 Per cent 
 
 
 Values Abroad 
 
 Duties Paid 
 
 Duty 
 
 Dress Goods. 
 
 _$9,135,688 
 
 $9,232,854 
 
 101 
 
 Cloths. 
 
 _ 4,599,274 
 
 4,416,603 
 
 96 
 
 Carpets and Rugs. 
 
 .... 2,949,586 
 
 1,788,090 
 
 61 
 
 Clothing, ready made. 
 
 _ 1,640,191 
 
 1,335,851 
 
 81 
 
 Beltings and Braids... 
 
 .... 294,437 
 
 253,321 
 
 86 
 
 Yarns. 
 
 
 134,804 
 
 89 
 
 Flannels. 
 
 _ 71,594 
 
 77,499 
 
 108 
 
 Plushes. 
 
 _ 60,755 
 
 56,372 
 
 93 
 
 Felts. 
 
 _ 51,876 
 
 49,239 
 
 95 
 
 Blankets. 
 
 _ 29,005 
 
 21,723 
 
 75 
 
 Knit Fabrics. 
 
 _ 8,908 
 
 7,503 
 
 84 
 
 Rags and Shoddy. 
 
 _ 109,604 
 
 50,875 
 
 46 
 
 
 $19,101,576 
 
 $17,424,734 
 
 91 
 
 Cost Foreign made Woolens.. . $19,101,576 
 Duties paid on same. 17,424,734 
 
 Total Cost.$36,526,310 
 
 Seventeen million dollars of duties collected on 
 nineteen million dollars worth of goods. A most 
 excessive tax surely. But the purpose of the high 
 rates ofi duty is not any urgent need the Govern¬ 
 ment has for money, but to give the trade of the 
 country in woolen goods to our own mills and at 
 prices which equal the cost of like goods bought 
 abroad with the duties added. The duties on the 
 nineteen million dollars’ worth of goods brought 
 over in 1908 has nearly doubled the cost of those 
 goods, but the broader effect of the high rates of 
 duty is to raise the price of all woolen goods made 
 at home correspondingly. And the quantity of 
 woolen goods made at home is more than nine 
 times the quantity imported, as I shall proceed to 
 show. 
 
 I have stated that our annual home product of 
 wool is 300 million pounds and that we import 190 
 million pounds, making a total of 490 million 
 pounds used each year by our factories. Wool 
 loses in weight on being washed a id scoured 60^ 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 9 
 
 per cent. The 490 million pounds when washed 
 and scoured would therefore weigh 193! million 
 pounds, which figures represent approximately 
 the weight of the cloth, dress goods, carpets, 
 blankets &c. made by our mills each year. Turn¬ 
 ing now to the list of imports of woolen goods for 
 the said year ending June 30th, 1908, I find that 
 of the goods which came in, 5,299,176 dollars 
 worth were rated by the pound, the weight being 
 4,937,1:47 pounds. The value is therefore equal 
 to one dollar and seven and one-third cents a 
 pound. If we take the one dollar and seven and a 
 third cents a pound as the index of the value per 
 pound of the whole, the weight of the wool in the 
 19 million dollars worth of imports is 17! million 
 pounds. If this be added to the 193 £ million 
 pounds manufactured at home we have a total 
 of 2ii\ million pounds of wool cloth, carpets, 
 blankets &c. used in the country in one year. 
 The proportions between the imported and the 
 home made goods stated in percentages are; 
 imported goods, 8^ per cent., home manufactured 
 goods, 91J per cent. 
 
 And now for the prices charged the people for 
 the 193^ million pounds of wool cloth, carpets 
 &c. made at home each year. I have already 
 stated that the cost abroad of the imports, which 
 I estimate as 1) f million pounds, is 1 dollar and 7 J 
 cents per pound. If we divide the 17! million 
 pounds into the total duties collected on woolens 
 for the year ending June 30th, 1908, we shall find 
 that the duties were equal to 98 cents for each 
 pound of the 17! million pounds. Adding the 98 
 cents to the 1 dollar and 7J cents, we have 2 
 dollars and 5 J cents as the total cost per pound of 
 the woolen goods imported. Applying the 2 
 dollars and 5J cents per pound to the 193J mil¬ 
 lion pounds, we have 397^ million dollars as the 
 price paid by our people for the wool cloth, dress 
 goods, carpets &c. made in our own factories each 
 year. And of this 47 \ per cent., nearly one-half, 
 is protection. The 33 million dollars of tax laid 
 on the people for the benefit of the wool grower has 
 become 189 6-10 million dollars of tax when the 
 cloth comes from the hands of the wool manu¬ 
 facturer. The yearly tax of one dollar and eighty- 
 
 three cents laid on each family of the population 
 for the benefit of the wool grower has become ten 
 dollars and fifty cents at the hands of the wool 
 manufacturer. Of* every twenty-five dollars 
 spent for cloth, dress goods &c., eleven dollars 
 and ninety-three cents is protection or added cost 
 because of the tariff on wool and woolen goods. 
 
 Woolen factories were first established in the 
 country in 1812. With one hundred 'years of 
 experience and protection they have not learned 
 the art of making good cloths. Why should they 
 when the country will take inferior cloths and pay 
 high prices for them? I asked a tailor of much 
 knowledge on the subject why it is that the 
 American cloths are not so good as the English? 
 His reply was “Our mills are in too much of a 
 hurry, they do not get all the grease out of the 
 wool, nor do they season the w T ool before making' 
 it into cloth, the colors are not good.” Another 
 tailor corroborated the first but said that in the 
 matter of colors there are some brown cloths now 
 made in the country which stand pretty well. 
 It is time our factories were getting something 
 right. I wear the English clothes, having early 
 learned their excellence. Good tailors keep little 
 else on their counters. The English cloths are 
 soft, light in weight and warm. They have a cast 
 or finish about them which very few if any of the 
 native cloths have. When old and worn they 
 still have character. Some of my suits go to the 
 foreman on the farm when I am done with them. 
 He wears them when he goes to the city in pre¬ 
 ference to his newer clothes of American cloth. 
 I doubt whether many of the owners of our cloth 
 factories wear their own goods. 
 
 Turning back to the list of imports of woolen 
 goods I have given, it will be noticed that dress 
 goods is the largest item on the list, is in fact, one- 
 half of the whole volume of woolen imports. The 
 fact shows that the women know that the nicest 
 dress goods are made across the water. And in 
 buying these goods they have gotten better value 
 notwithstanding the duties than if they had 
 bought native goods. But I have one regret in 
 this matter and I wish to mark it with emphasis. 
 It is that the imported dress goods do not reach 
 
10 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 the country women but stop with the well-to-do 
 and wealthy women in the cities. The country 
 women must do with the less attractive and less 
 valuable dress goods made in our home factories. 
 And this in the face of the fact that much of the 
 corn and wheat which the country woman’s 
 husband raises goes to feed the people who work 
 in the factories where the nice goods are made. 
 
 The other day I said to my foreman, “William, 
 what sort of blankets have the families which live 
 on the farm got, do you know?” After a little 
 study he said “There may be two or three blankets 
 among them” (there are four families) “which the 
 women got from their mothers on leaving home, 
 old-fashioned, pure wool blankets, but mostly the 
 folks have these cotton things you buy at the store 
 for a dollar and a half.” William’s remark about 
 the blankets which came from the mothers called 
 to mind the day of the little woolen mill on a 
 neighborhood stream to which the country 
 people carried fleeces of wool and had them made 
 into blankets and flannels. Tariff protection was 
 not thought of, and there were no high dividends 
 to the owner of the mill, but the people had 
 blankets and flannels in plenty, the poor as well as 
 the rich. And it has come to pass that the 
 blankets my work people on the farm have are the 
 - few which came as marriage gifts from the houses 
 so well supplied by the little mill. The high prices 
 have taken the blankets from the homes of the 
 poor; only the rich can afford to buy them. 
 
 The tariff and the high prices it causes the 
 people to pay comes home to the woman on the 
 farm in a most serious way. It is hard for her to 
 get money. And what study she must bestow 
 upon her purchases to bring them within her 
 means. If it is furniture, the piece she most 
 wants must be left out because it costs so much. 
 If it is a winter cloak, five dollars more would 
 buy one which fully satisfies her but the five 
 dollars cannot be spared for the better cloak. 
 And the children; how difficult it is to buy with the 
 money she has the necessary things and have them 
 at all nice. This woman and her interests have 
 had no place in the consideration of the wise men 
 who sit in Congress. These personages are busy 
 
 with the manufacturer and his interests. They 
 have regarded it their duty to make the factory 
 wheels go round, and believed, or thought they 
 believed, that if the wheels do go round there will 
 somehow be blessings for everybody. They 
 have not stopped to consider at whose cost manu¬ 
 factures have prospered so, nor to ask whether 
 favors to the owner of the mill does not mean 
 injustice and wrong done to the women on the 
 farm. 
 
 Not only do the things the farmer gets from the 
 factory come to him charged with the high profit 
 of the manufacturer, but they come loaded also 
 with the high rate of wages paid in the factory. 
 The manufacturing community is upon a basis of 
 high prices by association. High profits, high 
 wages, high values of property and high cost of 
 living go together. Recently when in one of the 
 large manufacturing cities I had occasion to buy 
 a few turnips in a reputable store. On looking at 
 my change, I saw that I had been charged thirty 
 cents for a half peck. As I went up the street 
 carrying my package I began to think: thirty 
 cents for a half peck, sixty cents for a peck, two 
 dollars and forty cents for a bushel; we farmers 
 would do well raising the turnips and delivering 
 them in the car at the railroad at the forty cents, 
 how does it come that turnips cost two dollars 
 and forty cents a bushel in the city? Then I re¬ 
 flect that this is a manufacturing city, that in it all 
 business and service take character from the mill, 
 its high profits and high wages. The prices of 
 land, of building materials, of labor, of clerk hire, 
 of professional service, of rent, are all on a high 
 profit basis. The merchant, the contractor, the 
 artisan and the investor think themselves entitled 
 to as much profit as the factory owner. And why 
 are they not? I begin to see why the price of 
 turnips is high. I reflect further and note that in 
 this city eight hours is a day’s labor, while with us 
 on the farm the day’s work is ten hours long in 
 winter and thirteen hours long in summer. I re¬ 
 call too the fortunes made by the men who have 
 had the city’s contracts, and this suggests waste in 
 its public improvements. I note too that the city’s 
 trolley system is capitalized at more than six times 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 11 
 
 the cost of the lines and equipment. Nor do I 
 forget that the city’s chief industries which have 
 given it fame have been turned over to the so- 
 called trust corporations in exchange for issues of 
 stocks and bonds so vast as to astonish the persons 
 familiar with the properties. I think the price of 
 turnips is accounted for. If the things I have 
 recited make for the prosperity of the city and the 
 public welfare, then I take it that the sale of 
 turnips at the two dollars and forty cents a bushel 
 does also. Turnips are principally water. The 
 city’s manufacturing properties and projects have, 
 I fear, taken on much of the same character. 
 And last of all I reflect that it is the workmen in 
 the factories who buy my forty cent turnips, pay¬ 
 ing two dollars and forty cents for them, and that 
 the price they pay for food, clothing and rent comes 
 home to me in the things they w’ork upon in the 
 factory, and which I buy of the manufacturer. 
 These workmen must receive wages equal to the 
 cost of their living, and such wages is part of the 
 cost of every garment, implement or other 
 thing which the farmer receives from the factory. 
 
 A custom prevailed among farmers years ago 
 of giving a bushel of wheat in exchange for a day’s 
 work in the fields. The farm hand does not now 
 carry away the bushel of wheat at the end of the 
 day, but the dollar a day wages he receives is a 
 close equivalent. 4 The sum paid the city or 
 factory workman, taking the skilled and the un¬ 
 skilled employments into view, is not far from two 
 dollars a day. The labor required on the farm is 
 by no means unskilled labor. The man who 
 works there must be able to manage horses and 
 must know how to operate farm machines. I 
 think it is a just estimate to say that the day’s 
 labor on the farm is as valuable to the country as 
 the day’s labor in the factory. I think too that the 
 man working on the farm at the dollar a day has 
 as good a living and as good an opportunity to 
 save as the man in the factory at the two dollars a 
 day. He has, to say the least, the essentials of 
 comfort, more encouragement to efficiency and 
 thrift and less temptation to waste. There are a 
 number of men living about me who twenty years 
 ago were farm hands, but now own farms. 
 
 And it should not cost any more to carry the food 
 from the farm to the workman in the city or 
 factory town than to carry thfc clothing and 
 groceries from the city to the laborer on the farm. 
 The bushel of wheat should be the measure of 
 the day’s work in the factory and the city 
 as it is the measure of the day’s work 
 upon the farm. The farmer’s quarrel is not with 
 the city workman and the living he gets. It is 
 with the condition or state of things which makes 
 the day’s labor in the city cost a double price, 
 the condition which makes it necessary to yield up 
 two bushels of wheat in order to have a day’s 
 work done there. 
 
 It has become a common practice to complain 
 of the so-called middleman, the man who deals 
 in food products after they leave the farm or 
 furnishes them to the people in the towns and 
 cities. The profit he makes adds greatly to the 
 cost of the food when it reaches the consumer. 
 I remember reading in an old city code a statute 
 forbidding anyone to intercept a farmer on 
 his way to the city market with his produce. 
 Such an act was known as forestalling and the 
 guilty person was to be severely punished. The 
 thing intended was that no one should come 
 between the farmer who produced the food and 
 
 4 The wages and allowances given in my own 
 neighborhood to farm hands who have families and 
 who engage by the year are as follows: 
 
 Wages, $15. per month.$180. 
 
 Allowances, 
 
 House and garden, yearly value .... $30 
 
 Fuel, yearly value. 18. 
 
 Flour, 3 barrels, worth. 18. 
 
 Corn, 25 bushels " . 12. 
 
 Meat, 300 pounds ” . 24. 
 
 Milk of a cow, yearly value. 18. 120. 
 
 $300. 
 
 If the man and his wife are thrifty, they will 
 raise a couple of hogs, keep chickens and have a good 
 garden. They may by these means add from 50 
 dollars to 100 dollars to the yearly living given by 
 the wages and allowances. The allowances count 
 for more than the money wages which goes, most 
 of it. to the country store for clothing, shoes and 
 grocerios, things produced on tariff wages and sold 
 at tariff profits. 
 
12 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 the city merchant and workman who consumed 
 it. In our day it is not possible for the farmer 
 to carry his products to the consumer and the 
 milddleman has become a necessity. But he 
 has run riot. He flourishes chiefly in the manu¬ 
 facturing towns and cities. The atmosphere of 
 the protected industries is particularly favorable 
 to him. There he can charge excessively for 
 the things he sells. The manufacturer allots 
 him a liberal share of his tariff pi ofits; the work¬ 
 man is compelled to divide with him his tariff 
 wages. He is part of a system. Ephraim is 
 joined to the idols of protection. When the 
 manufacturer learns to do with less profit the 
 middleman also will learn to do so. 
 
 The inflated and false character given to our 
 affairs by the protective system has encouraged 
 greatly the manufacture of inferior wares. If the 
 manufacturer may lawfully take an excess price 
 he may by the same license furnish an article 
 which is not good although purporting to be so. 
 There is lacking in our manufactures today the 
 quality of goodness. No one intends to buy an 
 article which is not good, but every one almost 
 invariably does. The really good thing is rarely 
 made or sold. The farmer above all other per¬ 
 sons has been made to suffer through his pur¬ 
 chases of inferior and deceptive things. It is 
 a matter of frequent remark among farmers 
 that galvanized roofing and fencing wire are no 
 longer of good quality. The old wire fences are 
 the best ones today. The zinc is off much of the 
 wire of my fences put up six years ago. In one 
 lot of fencing three of the nine horizontal wires 
 are still good. They seem to have a proper 
 coating of zinc. I suppose I should be grateful 
 for small favors. I have not used the roofing. 
 When the art of galvanizing iron surfaces first 
 came in it was a good art; it must still be so if 
 honestly practiced. I think it is a just criticism 
 to say that of the implements and machines the 
 farmer uses there are few if any which are the 
 implements and machines they ought to be and 
 are sold as being. There is a flimsiness about 
 many of them which not only negatives their 
 usefulness, but is offensive to the eye. From the 
 
 wheelbarrow to the manure spreader, the idea 
 seems to be to furnish an implement which is 
 intended to shake to pieces in three weeks. I 
 have a goodly number of machines on the farm 
 and among them there is but one which has been 
 wholly satisfactory. It is a mill for grinding 
 shelled corn into meal. That this mill is a thor¬ 
 oughly good machine I attribute to the fact that 
 it was built for a miller and not for a farmer. 
 I frequently repair the machines on the farm. 
 Every job I do reveals some new fault, shoulders 
 which do not meet, bolt holes which do not 
 match, pinions which are set crooked or cogs 
 which mesh at the corners only. In many of 
 the implements the castings are heavy but of 
 low grade metal, and the steel rods and bars 
 softer and having less quality than the iron of 
 former days. The farmer has no engineer to 
 design his machines and to specify the kind of 
 materials which shall go into them as does the 
 railroad when it places an order for engines, 
 cars or rails. Nor can he place an inspector at 
 the factory to see that the materials used in his 
 implements are good and the work upon them 
 skilfully done, as does the navy when building its 
 ships. The farmer is entirely at the mercy of the 
 big factory. What it chooses to give him he must 
 take. Good tools mean something to the farmer 
 as well as to the mechanic, but the farmer rarely 
 has the opportunity to buy tools which are of 
 good quality. I often wonder if the mechanic 
 in the city shop has good tools, and if so, where 
 he gets them. I own a few good tools, but I 
 bought them thirty years ago. I have made 
 many purchases since I came to the farm, but 
 with the exception of a brace for boring holes 
 and a rat-tail file I have not added a first class 
 tool to my collection. Many of the tools were 
 next to worthless. One would think that a 
 carpenter’s square would be a properly made 
 instrument. I have bought three, one after the 
 other, and not one of them is square. My latest 
 purchases, made in the city, were a set of chisels, 
 a box of S wrenches and a half dozen large files. 
 A single using served to put a wire edge on four 
 of the chisels, two of the wrenches are broken 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 13 
 
 and the files are no better than the ones I have 
 been buying at the village store. This thing of 
 poorly built machines and implements and of 
 bad materials and tools furnished the farmer 
 has become an abomination. I think the cure 
 is the same as for the high prices, i. e. take oft 
 the tariff duties. Once open the way for the 
 goods of other countries to come in and our 
 factories will give the farmer good materials, 
 machines and tools and at just prices. Competi¬ 
 tion is the great arbiter not only of prices but of 
 quality in the things sold. There is nothing like 
 it. 
 
 And what I have said of the injustice done the 
 farmer by the protection given the manufacturer 
 is, it seems to me, doubly important in view of the 
 state of agriculture throughout the country. 
 The farmer has flourished in the past because of 
 the cheapness of land and the virgin fertility of the 
 soil. 5 As the population grew and as the farm 
 lands of the East lost in productiveness, farmers 
 moved Westward to new and more fertile lands, 
 first to Ohio and Kentucky, then to Indiana, 
 Illinois and Michigan, and later to Wisconsin, 
 Iowa and Missouri, and last to Nebraska, Kansas 
 and Indian Territory. The new country proved 
 a veritable garden. There is no computing what 
 the nation owes to this area of rich land in wealth, 
 in national power, in advanced civilization. But 
 the garden has been occupied, every nook and 
 corner being brought under cultivation. And now 
 much of it is beginning to lose its productiveness, 
 and its people are restless. Many would move 
 Westward if there were any more good land to 
 move to. Much of the travel in the Far West is 
 by farmers from the Middle West in search of 
 new and fertile land. They have quickly taken 
 
 ft Nature’s gifts are like fruits ripened and ready for use . 
 Time has been the great factor in the preparation; the use 
 or consumption is but the matter of a day. The minerals 
 most useful in the arts, coal, iron, copper &c. have been 
 millions of years in coming to their present state. Petro¬ 
 leum oil and natural gas are but the remnants of the gases 
 of a former geological age. The soil with its stores of plant 
 food has been long in the making. Some hundreds, often 
 some thousands, of years were involved. It too is a store 
 house ready, and is quickly emptied. The filling again 
 artificially may be possible, but not easy. I do not wonder 
 that when land is exhausted its owners leave it and seek 
 new fields. 
 
 possession of Oklahoma. And in the past six or 
 seven years large numbers have bought lands 
 in the Western provinces of Canada, that being 
 the only country where there is any longer 
 productive land offering at low prices. Irrigation, 
 it is true, is reclaiming.a few areas bordering the 
 Rockies in our own country. But these are mere 
 dots on the map. They are entirely inadequate 
 to meet the demand for new lands, and can con¬ 
 tribute but the merest fraction of the country’s 
 increasing food requirment. And there is also 
 the dry farming, the growing of crops on the plains 
 of Montana and Colorado where there is but 
 little rain and where crops cannot be grown in the 
 ordinary way. A crop is taken every second year 
 only, the intervening year being employed in 
 deep plowing and mulching in order to store the 
 water of the scant rain fall. I doubt whether the 
 25 to 35 bushels of wheat per acre harvested pays 
 for the two years farming. And then too the 
 lands will quickly lose in productiveness, more 
 quickly I should think, than did the Minnesota 
 wheat lands farmed under ordinary methods. 
 
 We have come, it seems to me, to the foot of the 
 hill of difficulty in our agriculture and must begin 
 the ascent however hard it may be. The coun¬ 
 try’s food supply must come from the lands now 
 under cultivation and the lands which were 
 formerly tilled but are now waste. The man on 
 land which was originally rich and productive, 
 but now worn and but half productive, has a 
 difficult task to bring his land back to what it 
 once was. And the man on land which never 
 did produce well, if he is to redeem its barrenness, 
 has a still harder problem. The only conditions 
 under which these things can be done are that the 
 prices the farmer receives for his products must 
 go up or the prices of what he buys must come 
 down. 
 
 We hear much of the so-called new agriculture. 
 Science we are told has come to the aid of the 
 farmer. We have agricultural colleges, experi¬ 
 ment stations, the laboratories at Washington 
 devoted to the study of soils and plants. The 
 magazines bring to interested readers golden ac¬ 
 counts of new discoveries in the management of the 
 
14 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 soil. Railroad presidents talk of the revolution in 
 farming, and railroad directors authorize the 
 purchase of lands to be used to illustrate the new 
 ideas. The notion is certainly abroad that 
 important discoveries and improvements have been 
 made in obtaining returns from the tilling of the 
 soil. But it is without much foundation in fact 
 I am sorry to say. No royal road has been found, 
 no way discovered of obtaining a paying crop 
 from barren land, or of maintaining without 
 much cost the productiveness of good land. When 
 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, three 
 hundred years ago, they were told by the Indians 
 that corn would grow in the barren sands if a 
 fish was put in each hill. 6 But it was soon learned 
 that the fish could with more profit be salted 
 and sold across the sea. The question of render¬ 
 ing fertile lands which are by nature void of plant 
 food is the same today that it was 300 years ago. 
 The farmer who is on such land cannot raise full 
 crops unless he fertilizes heavily. If he is on the 
 point of turning, his land out to commons and 
 going to the city it is because he cannot afford to 
 buy the plant food and sell his products at the 
 prices current for them. And the man who has 
 inherited a good farm, while he may have gradu¬ 
 ated from an agricultural college, and may talk 
 of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, of bac¬ 
 teria, nitrification and conservation of soil moisture, 
 yet he is no more capable in the matter of pro¬ 
 ducing good crops and maintaining the fertility 
 of his land than his grandfather was. The latter 
 knew that if he had manure enough he could 
 enrich the farm, knew that if he succeeded in 
 obtaining a good stand of clover, a full crop of 
 corn or of wheat was pretty certain to follow. 
 He knew also the value of lime. The manure 
 question and the clover question are the essential 
 questions of farming today, just as they were two 
 generations ago. There is the same shortness of 
 
 6 Because the soil was so barren the people of New Eng¬ 
 land early took to building ships and sailing them on the 
 sea. The business flourished until our high tariff with tne 
 consequent high cost of materials and labor broke it down. 
 The building of ships to be used on the high seas goes 
 naturally to the countries and places where materials and 
 lat or are cheapest. 
 
 manure, the same uncertainty in the growth of 
 the clover. Science discloses the seriousness of 
 the problems with which the farmer has to deal, 
 affords him some important information, but 
 leaves him still dependent upon his own resources 
 and judgment. 
 
 The man on land once good but now low in 
 fertility is not usually in condition to grow a crop 
 purely to enrich the soil, nor to feed cattle in 
 order to secure the manure. His first care is a 
 living for his family with enough giain and hay 
 left from sale to carry his live stock through the 
 winter. There is nothing over with which to 
 improve the land. The seed for a fertilizing crop 
 is expensive, the labor considerable and the 
 growth uncertain. If cattle are to be fed for the 
 manure they must first be purchased which 
 requires money, and unless the farmer is wel 
 prepared for feeding and for saving the manure 
 the project will result in a loss. The building 
 up of a depleted soil is by no means easy for the 
 man who has capital; it is next to impossible for 
 the man whose only resource is the yearly product 
 of his failing land. The majority of farmers are 
 bound hand and foot by their urgent needs, their 
 poverty I might call it, and are doing very little, 
 and can do but very little, toward maintaining 
 or restoring the fertility of the soil. 
 
 And since the farmer has a new burden to 
 carry in the matter of his failing soil, the load put 
 upon him by the unjust prices he is compelled to 
 pay the manufacturer should be taken off. He has 
 borne the old burden through ignorance and was 
 in fact able to do so because of the cheapness of 
 land and the virgin fertility of the soil. But now 
 that the burden of the costly care of the soil is 
 upon him he cannot carry the old burden. He 
 can no longer give three and take two in return. 
 He and the owner of the factory must begin to deal 
 on even terms. 
 
 And the question whether farmers shall be 
 supplied with implements and machinery at 
 just prices or at very exorbitant prices is one in 
 which the whole country is interested. It affects 
 the supply of wheat, corn and cattle and the price 
 of bread. The implements and machines are 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 15 
 
 necessary to the farmer if he is to raise grain in any 
 quantity. With many a farmer, to charge him 
 for one cultivator a price which should have paid 
 for two, is to curtail his crop of corn by one 
 half. The costliness of an outfit for farming sends 
 a great many young men from the farm to the 
 mines or the city to seek employment. And with the 
 young man who does make a start on the farm, 
 but with small capital, it is a matter of years before 
 he is properly equipped with implements. In the 
 meantime he cannot produce muclngrain. A re¬ 
 duction of the price of implements, clothing and 
 whatever else the farmer uses to a just basis will 
 increase the supply of wheat, corn and cattle, and 
 keep the price of bread down. 
 
 In order to mark more effectually the result 
 of the farmer’s uneven trading and to give an 
 idea of his losses in figures I have made an 
 estimate of his sales in the past forty years and 
 have applied to these sales the same rule as in 
 the purchase of my household goods, viz.: that 
 for every three dollars of value the farmer- gives 
 he receives two dollars of value in return. The 
 Secretary of Agriculture has undertaken to give 
 the value of the products of the farms each year, 
 beginning with 1900. These estimates are the 
 only prepared figures relating to the products 
 of the farms of which I have any knowledge. 
 The values for each year appear under the head¬ 
 ing “Wealth Production on Farms” in the 
 Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1909. 
 The total value for the ten years, 1900 to 1909, 
 is 65,178,000,000 dollars. As only the total 
 figures for each year are given out I have made 
 inquiry at the Department of Agriculture whether 
 the value of the grain, hay, etc., fed on the farms 
 to live stock is included in the estimates. I was 
 told that it is. This being the case the estimates 
 do not represent truly the product or income of 
 the farms. To count the value of the animals 
 fattened and also the value of the corn, hay, etc., 
 used to fatten them is to count the same value 
 twice. Turning to the Census reports for 1900 
 I find that the value given to the products of the 
 farms does not include the value of the grain, etc., 
 fed on the farms to live stock. The figures are 
 
 given, however, for the value fed and it is one- 
 third of the crop value and equal to one-fifth of 
 the total crop and animal value. I think this is the 
 correct way of stating the matter. I shall therefore 
 deduct one-fifth from the 65,187,000,000 dol¬ 
 lars, reducing it 10 52,150,000,000 dollars, believ¬ 
 ing this sum to represent more correctly 
 the product or income of the farms for the years 
 1900 to 1909. There being no published figures 
 for the value of farm products back of 1900 1 
 must derive an estimate for the thirty years, 1870 
 to 1899, from the value of the farm products 
 exported during those years, the record of which 
 has been kept. By taking the figures for every 
 fifth year which are before me and supplying pro¬ 
 portionate figures for the intervening years, I 
 learn that the value of the total exports of farm 
 products for the thirty years^ approximates 
 17,128,791,000 dollars. Adding to this sum the 
 value of the exports for the ten years, 1900 to 
 1909, to wit, 9,555,764,000 dollars, we have 
 26,684,555,000 dollars as the value of the exports 
 of farm products for the forty years. The exports 
 for the ten years 1900 to 1909 were 18.3 per cent, 
 of the total farm products of those years. The 
 proportion of our farm products sent abroad is 
 diminishing as the years goby. Our population 
 is increasing and a larger share of our food is 
 consumed at home. In 1900 we sent abroad 
 21.2 per cent, of our farm products, in 1909 we 
 sent, but 16.2 per cent. But the change was not 
 so rapid prior to 1900. I think that 20 per cent, 
 or one-fifth would represent fairly the proportion 
 of the exports during the forty years, 1870 to 
 1909. That is to say, that of our farm products 
 in the past forty years we have shipped one-fifth 
 abroad and have consumed four-fifths at home. 
 Upon this basis the home consumption had a 
 value of 106,738,220,000 dollars. The next 
 question is how much of the products of the farm 
 consumed in our own country did the farmers 
 themselves consume and how much did they sell. 
 One would expect that the Census reports would 
 show the proportion of the people who are on 
 farms, but they do not. The part of the popula¬ 
 tion designated as rural in the reports includes 
 
16 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 the towns up to 4000 inhabitants. An idea of 
 the proportion is gotten from the tables relating 
 to occupations. In 1840 77 per cent, of the 
 persons to whom occupations were assigned 
 were engaged in agriculture. By 1870 the pro¬ 
 portion had fallen to 48 per cent., by 1900 to 36 
 per cent, and by the same rate of decrease will 
 be 30 per cent, in 1910. These figures indicate 
 the proportion of the population on the farms. 
 I think 40 per cent, is a fair estimate of the pro¬ 
 portion of the people who have been upon the 
 farms, on an average, during the past 40 years. 
 I doubt whether they used or consumed 40 per 
 cent, of the home consumption of food. Of what 
 they sold part went to feed horses in the cities 
 and cows in the suburban dairies. But assuming 
 that they used 40 per cent, there was left 60 per 
 cent, to be sold. Sixty per cent, of the 106,738,- 
 220,000 dollars is 64,042,932,000 dollars. Adding 
 to this the value of the exports, i. e. 26,684,555,000 
 dollars, we have the sum of 90,727,487,000 
 dollars as the value of the products sold from 
 the farms during the past 40 years. In exchang¬ 
 ing the products represented by this great sum, 
 the loss to the farmers was one third, or 30 billion 
 dollars. The amount is more than double all 
 the taxes the Government has collected in the 
 forty years, and it is one and a half times the 
 value given to the farms, the implements and the 
 live stock thereon by the Census of 1900. 
 
 It is of interest to note the changing propor¬ 
 tions between the value of the farms and the 
 value of the other wealth of the country as shown 
 by the several Census. 
 
 Farms, Live Stock, Implements 
 
 City Real Estate, Factories 
 
 
 and Machinery 
 
 
 Railroads &c. 
 
 
 1850 
 
 3,967,343,580 
 
 56% 
 
 3,168,436,648 
 
 44% 
 
 1S60 
 
 7,980,493,063 
 
 49% 
 
 8,179,123,005 
 
 51% 
 
 1870 
 
 8,944,857,746 
 
 37% 
 
 15,109,957,059 
 
 63% 
 
 1880 
 
 12,180,501,538 
 
 28% 
 
 31,461,498,462 
 
 72% 
 
 1890 
 
 16,082,267,689 
 
 25% 
 
 48,954,823,508 
 
 75% 
 
 1900 
 
 20,439,901,164 
 
 23% 
 
 68,077,405,611 
 
 77% 
 
 The farms, live stock, implements and machinery 
 thereon were about equal in value to the other 
 wealth of the country in i860. In the forty years 
 following the value of the farms and the things 
 thereon grew from 8 billions to 20 billions of 
 dollars, being a gain of 150 per cent. During 
 
 the same period the other wealth grew from 8 
 billions to 68 billions of dollars, a gain of 750 
 per cent. 
 
 The advantage which the factory has over the 
 farm is well shown by the following figures. 7 They 
 relate to the Census year 1900. 
 
 Value of farms, live stock, &c. $ 20,440,000,000 
 
 Number of persons engaged, owners, 
 
 laborers. &c. 10,360 000 
 
 Value of products, prices of 1900 to 1909. 4,735,780,000 
 
 Capital in Manufactures. 8,97S,825,000 
 
 Number of persons engaged, owners, 
 
 workmen, &c,. 4,958,000 
 
 Value of products, less cost of materials.. 9,465,658,000 
 
 The capital in manufactures bears nearly the 
 same relation to the persons engaged as the 
 capital in the farms bears to the persons engaged 
 on them. Stated in round numbers, in the case 
 of the farms the capital is 2000 dollars to each 
 person, while in the case of manufactures the 
 capital is 1800 dollars to each person. But the 
 results, the values given to the products are very 
 different. The 2000 dollars of capital and the 
 one person on the farms produce 462 dollars, 
 the 1800 dollars of capital and the one person 
 in the factories produce 1909 dollars. 
 
 In the preceding paragraph it appears that 
 capital and labor in manufactures are rated four 
 and a half times a,s high as capital and labor in 
 agriculture. There is no just reason why they 
 should be so rated. Capital and labor in a factory 
 can be nothing different from capital and labor 
 on a farm. Like compensation is due in the two 
 places. In order to compare the factories and 
 the farms in point of wealth production it is 
 necessary to bring both to a common standard 
 or basis of compensation. We cannot bring the 
 products of the farm up to the basis of the pro¬ 
 ducts of the factory, but we can bring the pro¬ 
 ducts of the factory down to the basis of the pro¬ 
 ducts of the farm. To do so is to perform a 
 simple equation. If the products of 20 billion 
 dollars of capital and io| millions of persons on 
 the farms are worth 4-f billion dollars then the 
 
 7. Compiled from the tables in the Statistical Abstract 
 of the United States for 1909. Deductions made for cost 
 of materials as per table 95 and the note following in said 
 abstract. 
 
17 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 Products of 9 billion dollars of capital and 5 
 millions of persons in the factories are worth 2 
 billion dollars. The wealth producing power 
 of the factories is to the wealth producing power 
 of the farms as two is to five. 
 
 Agriculture ranks first in the production of 
 the country’s wealth. Manufactures when justly 
 compared, as w T e have seen, fall far below agri¬ 
 culture in wealth productive power. Transporta¬ 
 tion, by which is meant the railroads, canals, 
 ships, etc., is probably entitled to a place along 
 side of manufactures as a source of wealth. 
 Next after these would come the mines of coal, 
 iron, copper, lead, gold, etc., then merchandising, 
 then professional service and lastly inventions 
 and discoveries. It is not possible to assign to 
 ach its proportional share of the wealth pro¬ 
 duction in figures, but it is a fair question whether 
 the farms are not entitled to be credited with one 
 half of the whole. The areas of fertile land 
 yearly sending forth their great quantities of corn, 
 wheat and cotton are the chief spring of our 
 prosperity. The greater number of our railroads 
 are built to carry the farmer’s crops to market 
 and to take to him the things he needs. The 
 volume of manufactures each year depends 
 largely upon the buying power of the farmer and 
 the railroad. The merchant expects a good 
 season when the farmers are prosperous, and 
 the price of stocks is sensitive to crop prospects. 
 
 The past fifteen years has witnessed great in¬ 
 creases in the capital stock and bonds of the manu¬ 
 facturing corporations of the country. This has 
 in truth been largely the issuing of stock or securi¬ 
 ties upon the business which these corporations 
 expect to do with the farmer at high prices. It 
 has been not only the mortgaging of the future of 
 the industrial properties, but the mortgaging of 
 the future of the farmer’s lands as well. For if the 
 implement factory charges me, and must continue 
 to charge me, a high price for my machines in 
 order to pay interest on its excessive issue of bonds 
 and stock, is not that a mortgage on my farm? 
 Is it not as much a charge as my going on a 
 neighbor’s bond? I think it is worse, for my 
 neighbor will most likely pay the bond, but I 
 
 must pay the debt created by the high prices of 
 my implements. I must have the machines, and 
 if the high prices I pay added to the failing 
 productiveness of my land or to losses caused by 
 drouth or disease among my animals, drives me 
 to the wall and I lose my farm, has not the im¬ 
 plement factory foreclosed its mortgage? 8 I can 
 regard the excessive capitalization of the factory 
 in no other light than as an added charge on all 
 who are to use its products. The farm is involved 
 in the false marking up of the value of the mill. 
 The marking up means that the farmer must pay 
 not the just cost of the things he buys of the fac¬ 
 tory but much added cost for interest on bonds and 
 dividends on stock which should never have been 
 issued. 
 
 It has been said that tariff protection is father 
 to the trust. I think this statement is true in the 
 case of many of the so-called trusts. There may 
 be a trust or monopoly which has no connection 
 with tariff protection but the trusts of which there 
 is most complaint are the combinations made by 
 manufacturers to protect themselves against over¬ 
 production and the cutting of prices. Factories 
 have greatly multiplied and the competition 
 among them has threatened to take aw T av the 
 advantage given by the tariff laws. Nurtured 
 in the warmth of protection against the outside 
 world it is to be expected that the manufacturer 
 should try to escape the cold of competition at 
 home. He reasons that if the tariff laws protect 
 him against the foreign competitor he is justified 
 in protecting himself against the home competitor. 
 It can, however, be said for the manufacturing 
 trusts that they have not exacted higher prices 
 than the tariff laws authorize and that if high 
 profits to manufacturers and high wages to his 
 workmen are signal benefits to the country it 
 can make little difference whether these things 
 are secured by the instrumentality of the tariff 
 laws or of the organized trusts. And it is proper 
 to ask whether the tariff laws have not brought 
 
 8. The farmer has no control over the rains and has 
 but little control over the diseases which attack his live 
 stock, but he has some voice in the legislative bodies 
 which frame the laws governing corporations, their stock 
 issues and profits. 
 
18 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 about the very state of things against which we 
 protest in the trusts. Are high prices and inflated 
 values benefits when created by the tariff laws 
 but evils when upheld by the trusts? I think 
 there is no distinction. Monopoly is equally 
 obnoxious whether it exists by means of statute 
 law or by combination of rivals in secret cham¬ 
 bers. 9 
 
 I have been much impressed by a remark made 
 by John Stuart Mill, that the distribution of 
 wealth is a matter of human institution solely. 
 When thinking of the condition of society, its 
 wealth so concentrated, the few rich with so much 
 and the great mass of the people with so little by 
 comparison, we are apt to regard the circumstance 
 as one of divine ordering. We overlook the fact 
 that much of the wealth concentration is the 
 result of ideas or policies expressed in our laws. 
 That is what Mr. Mill meant when he said that the 
 distribution of wealth is a matter of human 
 institution solely. If we were to search out the 
 origin of the great fortunes or aggregations of 
 wealth in the country we would find that the 
 majority of them trace either to nature’s gifts or 
 to privileges given by our laws. The finding of 
 deposits of valuable ore and fields of petroleum 
 oil and the occuping of fertile lands are the more 
 important instances of opportunities afforded by 
 nature’s bounty. The granting of patents upon 
 inventions and the conferring of the right to take 
 increased prices upon manufactured things are 
 
 9. The combination or monopoly idea permeates busi¬ 
 ness much more than the farmers of the country realize. 
 A story told me by a city friend is in point. Said he, 
 
 ‘ 1 have a neighbor, a young man who having a few 
 thousand dollars several years ago started a little foundry 
 for the manufacture of a much used casting. He did very 
 well and stated to me recently that he was making thirty per 
 cent, upon his capital. A few weeks after this I met my 
 neighbor in New York. Surprised to see him 1 asked 
 what brought him there. He said, Oh, there is a meet¬ 
 ing of the men who make the same thing that. Y do; there 
 are eighteen of us and we are going to get together; we 
 can make more money that way.” Although the common 
 law is very pronounced against combinations to restrain 
 trade and to raise prices and there are many laws on our 
 statute books upon the subject of fnonopolies, compara¬ 
 tively little has been done in preventing the evils. There 
 would seem to have been lacking a proper enforcement 
 of the law's. There is a cry for their modification. I think 
 there is more need of seeing to it that they are properly 
 observed. 
 
 the chief instances of opportunities created by the 
 laws. The principle of granting patents upon 
 inventions is a just and wise one. Inventions 
 greatly advance the arts, they increase the com¬ 
 forts of the people, they reduce the cost of things 
 and they augment materially the store of wealth. 
 The field of discovery and improvement in the 
 arts is a very broad one: of things which are both 
 new and good we can never have too many. 
 Aside from securing to the inventor the fruits of 
 his genius and toil the patent laws have served 
 a most excellent purpose in the past and must 
 continue to do so in the future. I wish as much 
 could be said of the protection of the tariff laws, 
 but it cannot. Protection in its inception had 
 relation to special circumstances which have long 
 since ceased and was even then of doubtful 
 propriety. It could not have lived beyond the 
 day of those special circumstances had it not been 
 strenuously upheld by those who derived from 
 it a direct profit. Capital is now and has long 
 been abundant: the infants which the tariff laws 
 were framed to nourish are full grown, in fact, 
 have become giants. The things made in the 
 factory are no more worthy of favor or privileged 
 price than the things grown on the farm or the 
 things produced from the mine. Protection as 
 it now exists is in no sense a creator of wealth. 
 As between the farmer and the manufacturer 
 its office is that of transferring part of the wealth 
 of the one over to the other without consideration. 
 The effect of the high profits to the owner of the 
 factory as against the low profits to the owner 
 of the farm is that of dividing the wealth created 
 by the farm between its owner and the owner 
 of the factory. 
 
 There is a great difference between transferring 
 wealth and creating it. If I and my neighbor agree 
 together to exchange our farm products for a 
 number of years upon the basis of 30 per cent, 
 profit to me upon my products and 5 per cent, 
 to him upon his products, no wealth is created 
 by the fact that I get so much profit out of the 
 exchange. But a most important result of 
 such a method of trading is that I win off my 
 neighbor a part of his wealth each year. If he has 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER . 
 
 19 
 
 no other resource or means of payment, he will, in 
 the course of a few years, turn over his farm to 
 me. I will then own two farms and he will have 
 none. But not a penny of wealth has been created 
 or brought into existence by what has taken 
 place. I may instead of taking my neighbor’s 
 farm demand the money and may use it in build¬ 
 ing a house in the city but the result will be the 
 same. The city property will represent the farm 
 which my neighbor has lost. The high profit 
 to me as against the low profit to him results 
 simply in transferring his property to me. And 
 such I conceive to be the working of the protective 
 system. It does not add one iota to the fund of the 
 country’s wealth, but by a slow and certain pro¬ 
 cess it transfers that wealth to the possession of 
 those whom it licenses to take the high profits. 
 
 Mr. Charles B. Spahr, a student of economics, 
 some years ago made some studies relating to the 
 distribution of the wealth of the country. His 
 figures were deduced from the Census reports of 
 1890 and the tax lists of certain of the large cities. 
 He treated the population by families or house¬ 
 holds, of which there were then twelve and a half 
 millions. The wealth of the country was then 
 sixty-five billion dollars. Of this Mr. Spahr 
 estimated that thirty-three billion dollars was 
 owned by one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 families; that is to say that more than one half 
 of the wealth of the country was vested in one 
 family out of every one hundred of the population. 
 He did not have a great deal of data upon which 
 to base his conclusions but they are, to say the 
 least, suggestive. That a very large share of the 
 wealth is in the hands of a comparatively few 
 persons and that the institution which we call 
 the protective system has been the largest factor 
 in this concentration I think no one will gainsay 
 nor deny. If it had been the design of.the Govern¬ 
 ment to carry the wealth arising from the most 
 abundant resources and the labor of the whole 
 people over to a small fraction of the population, 
 no better scheme for effecting it could have been 
 devised than the protective system. No truer 
 exemplification of Mr. Mill’s dictum can be 
 found in history than the working of our tar iff laws. 
 
 Wealth or capital when massed together has 
 great absorbing and ruling power. Nothing 
 gains wealth faster or more surely than wealth 
 does. It is hard for those who have no property 
 to get any, but comparatively easy for those who 
 have large estates to add to them. The interest 
 bearing power of money is very great but one 
 must first have money before he can receive any 
 interest. Wealth or capital is in a sense like one 
 of nature’s forces; its power is within itself. 
 It is a thing apart from its ownership and it is 
 very aggressive. It holds possession of the best 
 channels of investment and its volume protects 
 it from damaging losses. It has ready money 
 to use when trade is active and it can gather in 
 the bargains when trade is depressed. When 
 confronted by the anti-trust laws it can change 
 the form of its organization and go on doing busi¬ 
 ness as before. In time of financial crisis or 
 panic it expects the Government to come to 
 its relief. It furnishes the money to carry elec¬ 
 tions and keeps a heavy hand upon those who 
 make and those who administer the laws. Capi¬ 
 tal dictates the banking laws and upholds the 
 tariff laws but it resists the tax laws when directed 
 towards its own treasuries. The persons who 
 appear before the committees of Congress are 
 not the learned economists f rom the colleges who 
 study the science of government and the welfare 
 of the whole people but the representatives of 
 the capital interests who have come to sustain 
 some advantage already enjoyed or to ask for 
 some new favor. 
 
 When the two things, the extent to which the 
 wealth of the country has become concentrated 
 and the power which wealth has within itself, 
 are considered I think there is just cause of 
 alarm. The equality of the people which has 
 distinguished our civilization cannot long con¬ 
 tinue to exist. The opportunity which has been 
 open to every one in the past of acquiring a com¬ 
 petence of wealth will greatly diminish. An 
 aristocracy of wealth with the great part of the 
 people serving is in prospect. The country is no 
 longer new. Its lands are occupied, its cities 
 and railroads are built. We must of necessity 
 
20 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 move more slowly hereafter. In the changed 
 state of things the advantage will be more and 
 more with wealth and less and less with the 
 individual. 
 
 The inflated and false condition engendered by 
 the protective principle prevents the sale of our 
 manufactures in other countries. Our prices are 
 too high. Several years ago I was in Panama and 
 visited a ranch on the south coast belonging to a 
 gentleman who came there from California. He 
 had just received some machinery from Paris, 
 France. I said to him, “I wonder that you did 
 not order this stuff from San Francisco or New 
 York, since you are from the States.” But his 
 reply was, “Oh no, I would have had to pay two 
 prices, I never order anything from the States that 
 I can get elsewhere.” Our resources in coal and 
 iron, the two valuable things in manufactures, are 
 very great and we should long since have taken 
 first rank in supplying the world with manu¬ 
 factured things. But we early put up the wall of 
 protection and have kept building it higher and 
 higher and in consequence have made little pro¬ 
 gress in marketing our wares beyond our own 
 doors. As long as the manufacturer has had a 
 good volume of trade at home and at most profit¬ 
 able prices he has not sought trade-in other 
 countries. It has been easier to attend at Wash¬ 
 ington and. see to it that the lash of the tariff laws 
 is kept in motion and high prices at home as¬ 
 sured. I think however that the manufacturer 
 is coming to recognize that he must look abroad 
 for much of his trade. He will want to do more 
 business than the home markets afford him. 
 Moreover, there is need of more employment for 
 the people who live in the cities and towns than 
 now exists. I think the abandonment of the 
 protective system will do much to stay the passing 
 of the population from the farms to the cities. 
 But I have little faith in the return to the farms 
 of the masses now in the cities and towns. Nor 
 will their descendants likely come to the farms. 
 I doubt whether in succeeding census more than 
 one-third of the population will be found upon 
 the farms. A large number of our people in the 
 towns and cities will be dependent upon the 
 
 factories for employment and the goods made 
 will exceed the quantity which the country can 
 consume or use. A market for a part must be 
 found in other countries. Our mills have already 
 multiplied beyond the home requirement and 
 some goods are being disposed of in foreign 
 markets. 10 Complaint is made among our own 
 people because these goods are sold at lower 
 prices than are charged at home. The manu¬ 
 facturer will plead that he makes the sales in 
 order to furnish work for his employees at times 
 when the mills would otherwise be idle. The 
 fact that our goods are sold abroad at less money 
 than the people at home pay is a most telling 
 comment upon our protective system. Tariff 
 protection is thus made to serve the interest of 
 the people of other countries at the expense of our 
 own people. The high prices we pay at home 
 make it possible for the manufacturer to sell at 
 the low prices in other countries. The matter of 
 the two prices is discreditable to the manufacturer 
 and discloses the anomalous condition into which 
 our manufacturers have come. Under it there 
 can be little progress in building up a foreign 
 trade. The sale of our goods abroad cannot 
 assume any very great proportions until our 
 cost of production is reduced. We must have 
 lower wages, lower cost of transportation, lower 
 profits and lower capitalizations. The change 
 will begin with the cost of taking the coal and 
 the ore from the mines and the wood from the 
 forests and will extend to every process through 
 
 10. A couple of years ago I was making a journey in the 
 South. The train made a stop at an Alabama town where 
 there was a large cotton factory. One of the persons who 
 got on the car at this station sat down beside me. I said 
 to him that I was curious to know what was done with 
 the goods made at the many cotton mills now in the South. 
 He replied that he could speak for the mill 1 had just seen, 
 that he was its manager: and then told me that they had 
 finished putting a shipment of goods on the cars that 
 afternoon which was bound for China and that the ship¬ 
 ment made almost a train load of itself. I afterwards 
 learned that the company owning the mill in question 
 had other mills in New England. These mills iri the South 
 employ people from the mountains and the poor land area 
 and pay very low wages. The mill I have mentioned ran 
 upon coal mined from the hill near by. With cheap labor 
 and cheap fuel it could certainty make cotton goods at low 
 cost. And the goods were going to China, a country of 
 low prices. The goods made in the New England factories 
 doubtless go to our own people at the usual tariff prices. 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 21 
 
 which materials go until they become finished 
 products. 11 The change will also affect other 
 things. The workman can no longer be charged 
 a double price for the food he eats, the clothing 
 he wears or the tenement he rents. 12 Service in all 
 lines will be rated lower and profits will be smaller. 
 We must make our things at a cost which will 
 allow them to be sold in competition with like 
 things made in other countries. And so the 
 necessity of broadening the market for our 
 manufactures and providing employment for 
 the hosts of our people in the towns and cities 
 points to the wisdom of abandoning the pro¬ 
 tective system. The reform in our tariff laws 
 which justice to our agricultural interests requires 
 will remove the bar to a substantial and lasting 
 trade in our manufactured things in the markets 
 of the world. 
 
 Since tariff protection is directed towards 
 manufactures the prices of which it greatly 
 raises and not towards farm products the prices 
 of which are left to their natural course, such 
 protection has created a divided or double stand¬ 
 ard of values. The factory furnishes a standard 
 of value which is different from the standard of 
 the farm. The productions of the farm arise 
 from just wages and small profits: the production 
 of the factory involve high wages and large profits. 
 The values given to farm products are incontes- 
 tible, they are good values. The values given to 
 the products of the factory are open to question, 
 they are by comparison not good values. Once 
 before we had two standards. It was during the 
 Civil War and the years immediately following, 
 and related not to the values attached to com¬ 
 
 11. The extent to which wages anrl protit enter into the 
 price of manufactures is well illustrated by the case of 
 iron and steel products. The ore from which the iron and 
 steel are derived is worth in royalty when being taken 
 from the mine about one dollar per ton of iron or steel. 
 When the iron or steel reaches the farmer in the form of a 
 corn planter or a wheat drill it sells for more than one 
 hundred dollars a ton. In the coarser forms of steel such 
 as rails and beams, the prices are from 28 dollars to 33 
 dollars per ton. From this it appears how necessary it is 
 that reductions be made all along the line, if there is to be 
 any material change in the prices of the finished products. 
 
 12. The question with regard to the wage earner is 
 not what money he or she gets for the days work, but 
 how much of the necessaries and comforts of life. 
 
 modifies but to the credit given to the money in 
 circulation. We had not then a good money 
 system. There was some gold, but the money 
 was chiefly the notes of state banks and the 
 greenbacks which the Government had issued 
 as a war measure. Neither the bank notes nor the 
 greenbacks were esteemed of equal value with 
 the gold, so there were the two standards. The 
 business of the country followed the less valuable 
 standard, the paper money. Prices rose greatly 
 and possessions of every kind were rated much 
 above the values given them before and after the 
 period mentioned. The time of reckoning began 
 with the panic of 1873. Seven years of stagna¬ 
 tion in business, of falling prices, of financial 
 failures and of suffering among the people served 
 to purge affairs of the inflation and to again 
 establish the single standard. The greenback 
 movement, a factor in politics from 1876 until 
 1884, threatened to extend the existence of the 
 double money standard and to revive the inflation. 
 Fortunately nothing came of it. The contest 
 over the free coinage of silver, a second inflation 
 movement, was more formidable. It was, 
 however, of short duration being decisively 
 settled in the election of 1896 against the coinage. 
 Had silver been given the place demanded for it 
 we would again have had a double money 
 standard. Trade would have followed the less 
 valuable standard, the silver, prices would have 
 gone skyward and possessions would have been 
 rated artificially and falsely. The inflation grow¬ 
 ing out of the double money standard in the war 
 period affected all possessions and employments 
 alike. The inflation arising from the tariff laws 
 is not thus universal but it is more deeply seated 
 and insidious. Ours is a house divided against 
 itself. The factory and its people are against 
 the farm and its people. As in the War period 
 trade has adopted the less valuable, the question¬ 
 able standard. High wages, high profits and high 
 values pervade merchandising and construction 
 as well as manufacturing. The high prices rule 
 everywhere except in the sale by the farmer of 
 his products. The manufacturer, the merchant and 
 the contractor give silver, the farmer gives gold. 
 
22 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 I think that we will return to the single stand¬ 
 ard, the standard of the farm, with its good value. 
 It must of necessity come and for two reasons: 
 first, the people are losing faith in the false 
 standard. The principle which must govern 
 in the end is that of the best value. Every man 
 loves full measure. Even the savage perceives 
 the quality of his bargains and no degree of civili¬ 
 zation can reconcile a man to the paying of a 
 double price. The just exchange appeals to the 
 mind as strongly as the possession of property. 
 Unfair exchanges break up trade; enforced 
 exchanges are usually robbery* Second, the 
 manufacturing and the business interests of the 
 country have outgrown the farming interest 
 although largely dependent upon it. The pro¬ 
 ducts of the factory are easily increased, the 
 products of the farm are diminishing relatively 
 to the consumption. Trade is slack, the factories 
 are partially idle, many workmen are on half 
 time! The farmer cannot increase his purchases 
 at the old prices and thus make more work for 
 the factory. Nor can the products of the fac¬ 
 tory be sold abroad because of the high 
 prices. These things certainly point to the 
 going out of the standard of the factory and its 
 high prices, and the adherence to the one standard 
 of good value, the standard of the farm. 
 
 It was the acquisition of fertile land at nominal 
 prices which brought the people over the sea in the 
 early days. Land was to be had at a very little 
 cost beyond the labor of clearing it. The settlers 
 sent grain and tobacco to the old countries and it 
 was natural that they should take iron, cloth and 
 other manufactures which their wants required 
 or their tastes suggested in return. Aside from 
 cloth which could be made in the home very little 
 attention was given to manufactures. The ex¬ 
 penses of the Government made it necessary for 
 Congress to enact rates of duty which appear low 
 to us but appeared high to the men of those days. 
 The justification was that the high rates would 
 encourage the building of factories in our own 
 country, that we ought to make our own things, 
 not buy them, and that having factories of all 
 kinds of our own we would be more independent 
 
 in case of war with any other nation. There was 
 little capital in the country except in land. And 
 so the high tax on imports with its encourage¬ 
 ment or protection to home factories early be¬ 
 came a national policy. But its advocates thought 
 of the high rates as a temporary expedient. When 
 capital should become more abundant and factor¬ 
 ies had become established it was expected that 
 Congress would withdraw the favors to manu¬ 
 facturers. The Civil War with its great need for 
 funds postponed the withdrawal and served to 
 strengthen the hold of the protected interests 
 upon the advantages they enjoyed. This hold 
 although several times attacked has never been 
 broken. That it has not been is owing, it seems to 
 me, to the apathy of the people and their lack of 
 knowledge of the harmful effects of protection as 
 it has existed since its proper purpose was served. 
 
 From the formation of the Union until the 
 Civil War the nation’s revenues came almost 
 wholly from the duties collected upon things 
 imported from other countries. Not only the 
 restrictions of the Constitution, but the sentiment 
 of the people of the States prevented the taxing of 
 the lands and the products of the country for the 
 support of the central government. Congress 
 several times passed bills authorizing such taxa¬ 
 tion but these were with slight exceptions soon 
 repealed. Not until the war made it necessary to 
 greatly increase the revenues was there any 
 earnest resort to excise or internal taxes. Once 
 introduced these internal taxes have grown until 
 they now almost equal the taxes raised from im¬ 
 ports. The average of the internal taxes for the 
 ten years ending with 1908 was 261 million dollars 
 a year. The average of the taxes or duties on 
 imports for the same ten years was 266 million 
 dollars a year. The chief subjects of the internal 
 taxes are liquors and tobacco. The loss in revenue 
 caused by the removal of the protective duties 
 can be made up by extending the internal taxes to 
 other subjects than liquors and tobacco, and 
 by placing a tax upon incomes. This last 
 is a just method of raising a revenue because 
 it falls most heavily upon those who are best 
 able to pay. An amendment is now before the 
 
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 23 
 
 legislatures of the several states which is intended 
 to remove the limitation of the Constitution 
 relating to direct taxes from taxes on incomes. 
 It is to be hoped that it will be ratified by the 
 necessary three-fourths of the states. 
 
 I think that as a nation we have come to take 
 too little account of our agriculture. As things 
 are the farm and its people are expected to shift 
 for themselves. They tag on behind as it were. 
 The world of manufactures and the world of 
 business occupy first place. In the mind of the 
 average man they are the principal things. 
 Even the men who lead in finance and those who 
 are charged with the duty of governing the 
 country take little thought for the farm. It is a 
 habit to regard the spring of prosperity as lying 
 in the factory and in the avenues of commerce. 
 The mill or the counting house, not the farm, 
 makes the fortune. In times of depression the 
 changes are rung as to the causes of the idleness 
 of the factory, the scarcity of money and the 
 dullness of trade. The earnings made by the 
 railroads are in financial circles of much greater 
 moment than the incomes of the several millions 
 of farmers. My city friends disclose their esti¬ 
 mate of the farm by the comforting remark, 
 ‘ l There is nothing in farming, is there?” The 
 protective system is defended upon the theory 
 of direct benefits to the manufacturer with inci¬ 
 dental benefits to the farmer. 13 The proposed 
 reciprocity agreement with Canada is the old 
 story of making free with the farmer’s things 
 when advantages to other classes are to be secured 
 
 13. I quote from a published address by James M 
 Swank, Secretary of the American Iron and Steel Associa¬ 
 tion. “Admitting for the sake of argument that the 
 allegation is true that special legislative privileges have 
 been accorded to the manufacturer, the ship-builder and 
 the banker, it does not follow that the benefits of these 
 privileges have not been shared by the farmer. If the 
 protective tariff legislation has built up domestic manu¬ 
 factures have not the mills and furnaces and factories and 
 workshops created by the legislation greatly increased the 
 demand for agricultural products? Have not the farmers 
 grown with the wonderful development of our manufactur¬ 
 ing industries? Every intelligent farmer knows that the 
 protective tariff legislation has had just this effect.” This 
 is the stock argument for protection in its relation to the 
 farmer. Rightly interpreted it means a feast for the manu¬ 
 facturer with crumbs from the table for the farmer. 
 
 thereby. 14 It is high time for the nation to awake 
 to the perception that farming ranks first among 
 the industries and that the people engaged in it 
 are entitled to equal consideration with the other 
 classes. If there is nothing in farming, as my 
 city friends express it, then the farmer must 
 leave the farm or he must go down in the scale 
 of manhood through discouragement, loss of 
 energy and the narrow conditions. The nation 
 can afford neither of these things. She does not 
 want her farms abandoned nor her farmer class 
 to become weak. She does not want the supply 
 of food to shorten nor the capital interests to 
 take over the farms. The nation’s best interest 
 lies in the success of the farm and the encourage¬ 
 ment of its owner. Our agriculture has been 
 the main factor in our progress in the past, it 
 must continue to be so in the future. There is no 
 reason why the farm should be discriminated 
 against or its owner made to carry an unjust 
 burden. 
 
 14. By the reciprocity agreement the tariff duties on 
 manufactures are lowered and the duties on farm products 
 practically abolished as between the two countries. The 
 result of the agreement will be the larger sale in Canada 
 of goods manufactured in the United States and the entry 
 into the United States of quantities of farm products from 
 Canada. Canada like the United States is a protective 
 tariff country. She is principally agricultural and does 
 not do much in manufactures. When she looks toward 
 the United States aud observes that two-thirds of our 
 people are in the cities and towns and that our consumption 
 of food is increasing relatively faster than its production 
 our markets for food must appear attractive to her. With 
 regard to our own farmers the duties on farm products 
 written in our tariff laws have in the past been largely 
 a dead letter in increasing the prices received by them. 
 Rut the moment the country reaches the point of consum¬ 
 ing more food than she produces the duties on the part 
 brought in will raise the price of that produced at home 
 and the farmer will be benefited by the tariff just as the 
 manufacturer now is. If however the reciprocity agree¬ 
 ment becomes operative the prospective benefit to our 
 farmers will be taken away. Farm stuff will flow in from 
 Canada in abundance duty free and our farmers will remain 
 in bondage. They will continue to sell at free trade prices 
 while buying at tariff prices. When L the reciprocity 
 bill was before Congress the Democrats looked upon 
 it as an important step in tariff reform and thought 
 to compensate our farmers by passing the Farmers’ 
 Free List bill. But Mr. Taft promptly vetoed the 
 farmers’ bill. If the protective system is to be thrown 
 overboard this agreement with Canada (it has not yet 
 been approved by Canada) cannot do our farmers much 
 hurt. But the system is not likely to be cast off immediate¬ 
 ly; we will have it for awhile yet. 
 
24 
 
 THE TARIFF AND THE FARMER. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 List Of Imports Subject To Duties. 
 
 Year Ending June 30, 1909. 
 
 Duties 
 
 
 Values 
 
 Amount 
 
 Average Rate 
 
 Sugar and Molasses. 
 
 . $93,379,021 
 
 $56,362,789 
 
 60.36 
 
 Wool, Raw. 
 
 . 34,758,788 
 
 17,082,990 
 
 49.12 
 
 “ Manufactures. 
 
 .. 18,048,453 
 
 16,278,828 
 
 90.20 
 
 Cotton Manufactures. 
 
 . 61,902,662 
 
 33,060,402 
 
 51.41 
 
 Fibers. 
 
 . 50.385,870 
 
 18,438,161 
 
 36.59 
 
 Chemicals and Drugs. 
 
 . 31,817,870 
 
 7,360,396 
 
 23.13 
 
 Wood and Its Manufactures. 
 
 . 31,980,328 
 
 4,033,289 
 
 12.61 
 
 Silk and Its Manufactures. 
 
 . 30,486,367 
 
 16,186,131 
 
 53.09 
 
 Iron and Steel and Ore. 
 
 . 24.172,807 
 
 8,855,382 
 
 35.38 
 
 Diamonds. 
 
 . 24,147,124 
 
 2,497,521 
 
 10.34 
 
 Tobacco. 
 
 . 27,332,038 
 
 23,269,458 
 
 85.14 
 
 Liquors, Wines and Spirits. 
 
 . 21,856,363 
 
 15,650,113 
 
 71.60 
 
 Hides. 
 
 . 20,344,975 
 
 3,034,736 
 
 14.92 
 
 Furs and Feathers. 
 
 . 20,015,800 
 
 5,880,714 
 
 28.25 
 
 Meats and Breadstuff's. 
 
 . 19,134,660 
 
 6,526,912 
 
 34.11 
 
 Fruits and Nuts... 
 
 . 16,888,802 
 
 5,922,309 
 
 36.55 
 
 Leather and Tanned Skins. 
 
 . 13,693,297 
 
 4,966,475 
 
 36.27 
 
 Earthen Ware, China and Glass. 
 
 . 14,934.701 
 
 8,537,054 
 
 57.16 
 
 Vegetables. 
 
 . 12,569,477 
 
 4,955,805 
 
 39.43 
 
 Fish. 
 
 . 10,524,097 
 
 1,968,657 
 
 18.71 
 
 Paper and Manufactures of. 
 
 . 11,476,962 
 
 2,875,092 
 
 25.05 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 . 92,415,404 
 
 30,938,145 
 
 33.48 
 
 Totals.. ..:. 
 
 .$682,265,866 
 
 $294,377,360 
 
 43.15 
 
 Imports Free Of Duties. 
 Year Ending June 30, 1909. 
 
 Values 
 
 Silk, raw.$ 80,139,348 
 
 Coffee. 79,103,933 
 
 India Rubber. 64,735,438 
 
 Hides. 54,692,017 
 
 Chemicals. 46,092,201 
 
 Copper. 37,763,798 
 
 Fibers. 27,667,273 
 
 Tin. 26,010,350 
 
 Tea. 18,628,390 
 
 Cotton, Raw. 14,844,321 
 
 Cocoa. 14,830,511 
 
 Fruits and Nuts, no duty. 14,035,029 
 
 Oils. 12,477,019 
 
 Furs. 11,652,619 
 
 Wood. 11,329,526 
 
 Miscellaneous. 72,835,027 
 
 Total.$586,836,801 
 
 The duties collected for the year ending June 30th, 
 1910 averaged 41.52 per cent, or 1.53 per cent, less than 
 the average of the previous year. During ten and a half 
 months of the new year the duties were under the Payne- 
 Aldrich law of 1909. The changes made by this law were 
 chiefly that the hides not already on the free list were put on 
 it and the duties on iron and steel and iron ore were reduced. 
 With these exceptions the new law was substantially a 
 re-enactment of the old one. 
 
 Berryville, Va., Sept. 2, 1911 
 

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