Revenue Reform, ala 1888, aka Robber Baron Era

[Trillo]

I was reading on a topic of personal interest related to cooking food (lime juice vs citric acid), in a pharmaceutical journal from 1888. I noted the section following it was subtitled Revenue Reform, and I kept reading, it was a short speech in support of the industrialists.

The similarities, and the differences, from discussions I've read over the years, are striking. I've embedded one link within the text that helped me with context:

Revenue Reform.—The subject of taxation and tariff will always furnish plenty of material for controversy, but just here we want to put a few words of M. E. A. Hartshorn, of Troy, as spoken at a banquet in Providence, R. I., February 18, the entertainers being the American Protective Tariff League: A well-equipped American industrial establishment running on full time is an excellent revenue reformer. The country needs more of this kind and less of the revenue reformers who champion the European manufactory. The domestic workshop is both a revenue reducer and a revenue producer. The only possible improvement upon the American factory as a revenue reformer is two American factories instead of one. By the abolition of the internal revenue taxes the citizens of the United States would be the freest traders on earth, but the revenue reformers refuse to reform the revenue in this respect. They are trying to stop the surplus revenue from the tariff when as a matter of fact there is none to stop. Away with such revenue reform as this. It is a mockery and delusion. There has not been sufficient revenue from tariff taxes in the last 25 years to pay the current expenses of the Government economically administered. Now if, for the sake of argument, we admit what is not true, that the tariff adds 40 per cent, to the cost of these articles, we must still decline to purchase abroad if we would buy cheap. The real cost of a home-made article is the value of the crude or unwrought raw material, before labor has been expended on it, required to make the article. How much does it deplete the natural wealth of the United States to build a $10,000 locomotive? Not $100. Or a Harris-Corliss $3250 engine? Only about $13. Or a $125 harvesting machine? Only $1.25. Or a $7 pump? About 2 cents. Now, if we manufacture at home, we keep our money at home and deplete the natural resources of the country little indeed; only for the raw material. But if we purchase abroad, even at 40 per cent, less than we can purchase at home, our natural resources are largely depleted in paying for our foreign purchases. Where, then, does the robbery come in and who is the robber? The revenue reformer and not the manufacturer is the real robber.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&id=DDjnAAAAMAAJv=onepage&q&f=false

It appears we've had a bit of inflation since those days.

[jtuck004]

1. "It is a mockery and delusion". Some phrases are timeless. n/t