urgently pressed, is no mere conjecture: it is well-ascertained history. Only the first Congress, that of 1789, made its tariff, the lowest one we ever had, untroubled by such pressure; and we have the testimony of my friend himself that one other tariff, belonging to another period of which I shall speak hereafter, was also made without demand. In the making of all other protective tariffs the urgency of the beneficiaries assisted with a vigor unrestrained by any morbid modesty. This is history, notorious and unquestionable. What my friend must have meant is that the clamor for high duties did not come from those manufacturers whom he classes as the “experienced” and “prudent,” but from the “unskilled,” those “working with inferior machinery” and the “reckless.” And here Mr. Morrill touches one of the sorest points of the protective policy.
Yes, it is true that high protective duties encourage the “unskilled,” men without solid business ability, to go into manufacturing enterprises in a speculative way, relying upon “legislative favors” to help them; that protection frequently enables them “to flourish for a day”; that their lack of business knowledge and ability then will entangle them in embarrassment until they are in danger of “going down with a crash”; that then they rush to Congress, clamoring for higher duties, in order to get higher prices for their wares, thus to be helped out of the lurch; that, when the higher duties are granted, they go on in the old manner, again “flourishing for a day,” until they are obliged to run to Congress once more for still higher duties to be helped out of the lurch again, and so on; that thus the high protective policy keeps a horde of incompetents in business at the expense of the people, and that their reckless ventures, constantly disturbing the business situation, are a danger to those manufacturers “whose prudent management deserved success.”
