INTRODUCTION.

The purpose of this book is to furnish in concise and convenient form for reference such information as is likely to be required by speakers, writers and others participating in the discussions of the Presidential campaign of 1904. However well advised the speaker or writer may be upon the topics of the campaign, he will require for reference many facts and figures which can only be had by consulting numerous publications, many of them so bulky as to be practicable for desk use only. This work is intended to present in concise and portable form the more important of these facts and figures, so condensed and arranged as to be convenient for ready reference in the field, on the stump, upon the train, or wherever they may be desired. The arrangement of the book will be apparent upon an examination of the table of contents which occupies the opening page. It will be seen that each of the subjects likely to require discussion in the campaign is treated under its proper title and that these discussions of the various subjects are followed by such statistical statements as may be required for further reference, while a copious index which follows the table of contents and occupies the opening pages of the book will, it is hoped, enable those utilizing the volume readily to find the detailed facts which they may require for instant reference. Care has been exercised so to arrange the matter with headings and subheadings as to add to the convenience of the volume as a reference work, while a line at the top of each page indicates the general subject discussed upon the page. The statistical and historical statements presented in the discussions have been carefully verified and the authority, in the more important statements, cited, while the tables are in most cases from official publications of the Government or from accepted authorities and duly accredited, thus enabling those utilizing them to quote their authority for the figures presented.

While a text book which must be a pocket companion in the field is necessarily limited in size, it has been deemed proper to present as fully as practicable in a book of this character information upon subjects likely to receive especial attention, and the space allotted to the chapters on Tariff, Trusts, Wages and Prices, the Philippines, and the Work of the Army has been adjusted to the possible requirements of those desiring information upon these subjects. Much unfounded criticism has been offered by the Democrats with reference to the enlargement of the army and the expenditures under its operations, and it has therefore been deemed proper to present somewhat in detail information regarding the work which it has so successfully accomplished both in war and in the development of conditions at home vital to the general requirements of a great nation and to the fact that the great expenditures under its operations have been made with the utmost fidelity. The criticisms of the work of the party in regard to the Philippines, coming from a party which has already the record of having hauled down the American flag in islands of the Pacific suggest the importance of a full presentation of the splendid work done in those islands and the improved conditions there which have resulted. The constant but unfounded assertions that cost of living has advanced more than wages justifies the detailed discussion of this subject which will be found in the chapter entitled "Labor, Wages, and Prices," and especial attention is called to the information there presented which fully disproves these assertions. This information is especially valuable by reason of its official character, being the work of the Bureau of Labor, whose accuracy and absolute fairness have never been called in question, and also by reason of the further fact that it brings the study of the relative advance in wages and cost of living down to the very latest date, covering fully the year 1903 with reference to retail prices-the prices which directly affect the consumer and wage-earner. These facts are the result of studies given to the public by the Bureau of Labor in its July, 1904. Bulletin, and therefore the very latest, most complete, and absolutely reliable information upon this vital topic, and will fully answer the asser tions of the Democracy upon this subject,

While many of the facts, historical and statistical, here presented are, in general terms at least, familiar to a large number, of those who will have occasion to utilize this work, their presentation in convenient form for reference is deemed proper in view of the fact that of the 20 millions of potential voters in the United States in 1904 a large number have never before had opportunity to participate in a Presidential election and therefore require special information of a fundamental character, and seems to justify the inclusion in this volume of many statements generally familiar to those who have had longer experience in national affairs.

Two other publications, intended for the convenience and use of speakers, have been issued and should be consulted by those desiring thoroughly to prepare themselves for the discussions of the campaign.

One of these volumes, entitled "Pages from the Congressional Record," contains the more important speeches delivered in Congress upon the subjects likely to be discussed in the present campaign, including the Tariff, Trusts, Labor, Reciprocity, the Treaty with Cuba, the Panama Canal, the Philippines, the Relations with the Orient, the Record of the Republican Party and the Present Administration, the Post-Office Department Investigation, Rural Free Delivery, Government Expenditures, the Merchant Marine, the Navy, the Old Age Pension Order, and other subjects of this character. These speeches are in many cases the result of much careful study of the subjects discussed, studies made by men thoroughly familiar with national affairs and able to obtain the best and latest information bearing upon the subjects under consideration, and should be of great assistance to those desiring thoroughly to acquaint themselves with every feature of the great subjects to be considered in the present campaign. Not only do they present the views and arguments of the speakers upon the subjects to which these discussions are respectively devoted, but, since they are verbatim reports of the Congressional proceedings, they include in many cases the arguments of the opposition injected into the speech in the form of questions and answered by the speaker in the running debate, which frequently form an important and instructive feature of the speech itself. This document, which contains several hundred pages of the size of the Congressional Record, while too bulky for other than desk use, will prove valuable to those desiring to have in a single volume the latest and best discussions upon these vital subjects by men who have studied them under exceptionally advantageous circumstances.

Another volume, entitled "Extracts from the Congressional Record," contains brief extracts from speeches delivered in Congress upon subjects likely to be discussed in the present campaign. This work was compiled with great care from speeches and addresses by leading members of the party, not only in the recent Congress but in earlier sessions of that body, and contains the best utterances of the party leaders during its entire history upon the great subjects likely to be considered in this campaign. Protection, Reciprocity, Trusts, Prices, Republican Prosperity, Democratic Adversity, the Workingman, the Farmer, the Soldier, the Colored Voter, Rural Free Delivery, the Post-Office Investigation, Panama, Cuba, the Philippines and the Pacific, Shipping, the Navy, and the Record of President Roosevelt are discussed in these concise extracts from the public utterances of party leaders past and present. The volume containing these extracts is of such compact size and form that it may readily be used as a pocket companion, in the field or on the train, and will prove a valuable supplementary work in connection with this text book.

Both of the above volumes, "Pages from the Congressional Record" and "Extracts from the Congressional Record," may be obtained upon application to the National Committee.

1

THE TARIFF.

"We denounce Protection as a robbery."-Democratic Platform, 1904.

"Protection which guards and develops our industries is a cardinal policy of the Republican party."-Republican Platform, 1904.

The question as to whether tariffs should be levied solely for the purpose of producing revenue or should also be so adjusted as to protect domestic industries from undue foreign competition has been à controverted one for many years-through generations in fact.

The primary idea in levying a tax upon merchandise entering a community or State was to require persons from abroad trading in that community to bear their proper share in the public expenditures. The tranquillity and order of the community, and hence its commercial possibilities, were maintained by the government, for whose support the local producers and merchants were taxed, and it was held that merchants from abroad desiring to enjoy the privilege of trading in that community should contribute their proper share to the maintenance of the government, which assured commercial privileges, and that they should contribute a relatively larger percentage of the value of the merchandise sold than was required of the local dealer, because the foreign merchant carried away with him his profits while the domestic producer or dealer expended his profits in the home community in the support of his family or in the employment of other members of the community. Hence the tariff-a tax upon merchandise entering a community from abroad.

While it is true that the actual payment of tariff duties is, under modern methods, made by the residents of the community who import the merchandise or act as local agents for the foreign producer, it is also true that at least a part of this is compensated for by the foreign producer or dealer through a reduction in his prices as an offset to the duty which the importer must pay. The claim that the foreign producer or merchant pays at least a part of the tariff levied on imported goods is now admitted in freetrade England, whose manufacturers and merchants have had long practical experience as sellers to high tariff countries and are now urging the adoption of a protective tariff system for their own country.

ALL NATIONS HAVE TARIFFS.

All nations raise a large share of their revenue by a tariff. The view which many have held that "free-trade" nations, such as the United Kingdom, have no tariff is an erroneous one. The total amount collected from tariff duties on merchandise entering the United Kingdom is more than 150 million dollars per annum-a larger sum per capita of her population than the per capita of tariff collected in the United States. See discussion of British tariff, page 70.

This sum, however, is collected from duties levied upon noncompeting articles, such as coffee, tea, tobacco, etc. This illustrates the difference between the methods of the free-trade and the protective-tariff schools. Under methods of the free-trade school tariff duties are placed upon articles of general consumption with the sole purpose of raising revenue, which articles must be obtained solely from abroad, while under protective tariffs they are levied upon articles of a class which can be produced at home and which if brought in in unlimited quantities and without payment of tariff taxes would place the cheap labor of foreign countries in direct competition with home labor.

The question upon which men have divided with reference to tariff, then, is not as to the wisdom of collecting funds through tariff taxation, but whether the tariff shall be so adjusted as to protect home producers and workmen from undue competition by low-priced labor abroad, as well as to encourage the establi ment of new industries through similar protection.

DANGER FROM OUTSIDE COMPETITION CONSTANTLY INCREASING.

Originally the danger to domestic industries from foreign competition was much less than at the present time. Merchandise brought into any country from abroad must first bear the cost of transportation, and in times when the cost of transportation was great, and when goods were necessarily transported by animal power and by sailing vessels only, this high cost of carriage was of itself a protection to the domestic producer in any country. True, the producer of merchandise just across the border line of a country had an enormous advantage over the producer a thousand or five thousand miles distant, but as only a small proportion of the producers were located near to the border line such countries did not find it necessary to establish high tariffs to protect their Own producers or manufacturers. The distance which foreign goods must be carried and the cost of transportation over that distance alone serve to create a protective wall for the domestic producer. In late years those conditions of distance and transportation have absolutely changed. The railroad and the modern steamship have reduced the cost of transportation compared with that in the early part or even in the middle of the century just ended; while the telegraph and the telephone have annihilated distance and time. Merchandise from the interior of Europe, ordered by telephone, telegraph, and cable, transported from its place of production by trolley road, canalized rivers, or boats operated by steam or electricity, or by railway to the Atlantic, and thence by great steamships, built to carry hundreds of carloads at a single voyage, across the ocean, and again transported to the interior of the United States by the cheapest land transportation ever known to man, can be placed at the door of the consumer in the Mississippi Valley for a very small percentage of the cost of transporting the same at the middle of the last century. As a result the protection which distance and the cost of transportation afforded to the local producer has disappeared, and without a protective tariff, established by the Government, he has as his direct competitor the low-priced labor of any and every part of the world. The cheap labor of the densely populated countries of Europe, the 140 million low-priced workers of Russia, the 300 million people of India, whose average wage is but a few cents per day, and the 400 million workers of China are to-day as much the competitors of the workman of the United States as though they were located but just across the border. Modern methods of transportation and communication have brought these great masses of producers to our very doors, and without the protection which the tariff affords would place that cheap labor in as close competition with our own as it would have been a half century ago if located but a hundred miles away.

DESTRUCTION OF NATURAL PROTECTION.

As an example of the reduction in cost of transportation may be cited the fact that the annual average freight rate on wheat from Chicago to Liverpool, by the cheapest method of transportation, in 1873 was 40 cents per bushel and in 1903 8 cents per bushel, or but one-fifth that of only 30 years earlier. Comparing conditions now with those of the early part of the last century the reduction is still greater, and the cost of transportation at the present time may safely be said to be less than one-tenth of that then existing. An illustration of the reduction in cost of transportation through modern methods is found in the fact that the census of 1880 showed that the railways could transport a ton of wheat for a given distance as cheaply as a single bushel could be transported the same distance by horse power, and railway rates have fallen practically one-half since that time. That high authority the Encyclopedia Britannica states in its 1903 edition that the mechanic in Liverpool may now pay with one day's wages the entire cost of transporting a year's supply of bread and meat for one man from Chicago to that city.

These facts illustrate how completely modern methods have destroyed the protection which the local producer formerly had against foreign competitors, and explain the reason why modern overnments have found it necessary, one by one, to adopt the pro

tective system, until now the most ardent and only remaining supporter of the nonprotective system, the United Kingdom, is seriously discussing the adoption of a protective tariff. This gradual destruction of the natural protection formerly afforded by distance and cost of transportation accounts for the fact that it has been found necessary to maintain the protective tariff on the various industries as they have developed, and that this necessity for maintaining protection for those industries has meantime been recognized by all other leading manufacturing countries of the world whose industries were developed even before those of the United States, except in the case of the United Kingdom, whose people are now clamoring for a return to protection of their long established domestic industries. This reduction in cost of transportation is indeed one of the chief causes of the steady movement toward protection which has characterized the history of the world during the last half century. The fact that, with improved methods of transportation and a narrowing of distances and cheapening of cost of transportation, the whole world has become the next-door neighbor of each community has compelled that community to establish tariff duties of a character which would reduce the competition offered by the cheap labor of those communities against which distance no longer affords protection.

Practically all of the 500,000 miles of railway and 16 million tons of steamship tonnage with which the world is now supplied have been created since the middle of last century; the world's international commerce has quadrupled while the world's population was increasing but 50 per cent, and during that very period the nations of the world have one by one found it necessary to establish tariff protection to take the place of that protection which distance and high cost of transportation formerly afforded.

TARIFFS OF OTHER COUNTRIES.

France, which adopted a protective system in the early part of the nineteenth century, experimented briefly with free trade between 1860 and 1880, but promptly returned to the protective system, which she has maintained ever since that time with great prosperity to her people. Germany experimented with free trade between 1868 and 1878 by a reduction of the tariff schedules of the Zollverein, but gladly returned to protection in 1879 and 1881, and since that time the development of German industries and the progress and prosperity of the nation and its people have commanded the attention and admiration of the whole world. Russia had a protective tariff system in the early years of the last century which she abandoned in 1819, but after experiments in the line of free trade gradually returned to the protective system, and under it has developed in recent years manufacturing industries of great magnitude. AustriaHungary experimented between 1853 and 1882 with a series of comparatively low tariffs, but in 1882 restored thoroughly protective duties and has further increased them since that time, developing a great manufacturing system and prosperity far greater than that of earlier years. Italy had low tariffs prior to 1870, but began about that time a system of protection, adding articles from time to time to the tariff schedule and making her tariff system a thoroughly protective one, resulting in a rapid development in recent years of her manufacturing industries and in generally improved conditions. Belgium adopted a protective tariff system in 1844, and under it her manufacturing industry has become of greater importance in proportion to population than that of almost any other European country. Netherlands adopted the protective system in 1845, abandoning it in 1862, but has now taken a step toward a return to protection, a tariff measure increasing the rates of duty on manufactured articles having been recently sent by the Government to the legislative body with a recommendation for its adoption. Sweden and Norway have, after experiments with low tariffs, adopted a protective system which is described by Curtiss as "perhaps on the whole more protective than that of any other European country," the tariff act of 1892 having been termed the "McKinley Bill of Sweden." Spain and Portugal experimented with free trade from 1859 to 1882, unsuccessfully, and have since those experiments materially increased their tariff rates with a strong protective tendency. In other parts