VII

THE TARIFF--"PROTECTION," OR SPECIAL PRIVILEGE?


Every business question, in this country, comes back, sooner or later, to
the question of the tariff. You cannot escape from it, no matter in which
direction you go. The tariff is situated in relation to other questions
like Boston Common in the old arrangement of that interesting city. I
remember seeing once, in _Life_, a picture of a man standing at the door
of one of the railway stations in Boston and inquiring of a Bostonian the
way to the Common. "Take any of these streets," was the reply, "in either
direction." Now, as the Common was related to the winding streets of
Boston, so the tariff question is related to the economic questions of our
day. Take any direction and you will sooner or later get to the Common.
And, in discussing the tariff you may start at the centre and go in any
direction you please.

Let us illustrate by standing at the centre, the Common itself. As far
back as 1828, when they knew nothing about "practical politics" as
compared with what we know now, a tariff bill was passed which was called
the "Tariff of Abominations," because it had no beginning nor end nor
plan. It had no traceable pattern in it. It was as if the demands of
everybody in the United States had all been thrown indiscriminately into
one basket and that basket presented as a piece of legislation. It had
been a general scramble and everybody who scrambled hard enough had been
taken care of in the schedules resulting. It was an abominable thing to
the thoughtful men of that day, because no man guided it, shaped it, or
tried to make an equitable system out of it. That was bad enough, but at
least everybody had an open door through which to scramble for his