There are one or two points about Protection which a wayfaring man, even
if people labor under the impression that he is a fool, can understand.
If you are JOHN SMITH and own a coal mine or an iron mill, you go to
Washington, see your Congressman, (by see I mean look at him, of
course,) donate large sums of money to certain poor, but honest men, who
adorn the lobby of the House, while they are waiting for generous
patrons like unto you, then go home and calmly await the result. Your
representative makes a speech, the exordium of which is Patriotism, the
peroration of which is Star-Spangled Banner, and the central plum of
which is your coal mine or iron mill. Your poor and honest friends wear
out several pairs of shoes, the tariff bill is passed, your mine or mill
is abundantly protected, and the country is saved. If, on the other
hand, you are JOHN BROWN, and raise cabbages and turnips on a farm, you
are allowed to pay high prices for SMITH'S coal or iron, but you expect
no Protection, and you've a sure thing of getting what you expect.

Of course you don't imagine that I shall explain the details of this
profound subject. There are only two men in this country who think they
can do that, and each one of those says that the other is an idiot. As a
rule, figures can't lie; but look out for the exceptions when you run
across the subject of Protection. The very same figures have an ugly way
of proving both sides of a question. You run down a fact, and think
you've got it, but, before you know it, it has slipped, like the "little
joker," over to the other side.

Personally, I am a Protectionist. Formerly I indulged in that monstrous
absurdity, Free Trade, but then I was an importer; now, being a
manufacturer, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I am of the
straitest sect a Protectionist. You can't give me too much of it. Of
course I can't see why pig-iron should be protected, and pigs not. I