Cullom, Shelby M.; Carey, Joseph Maull; Hoar, George Frisbie; Palmer, John McAuley [1894], 'The Revenue Bill: Speech of Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, in the Senate of the United States, Friday, June 8, 1894' in 'The Congressional Record: Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session' (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office ) Permission: Northern Illinois University.

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Mr. PALMER (Democratic Senator from Illinois):

But I desire to state the views I entertain in regard to this question in opposition to those of my colleague. I state that in my belief Illinois has in it various industries; but, although there may be interests like those about which I spoke a few months ago, minor industries like barbed wire, which I should be willing to see protected — as in this controversy I did discover that in most cases we look after our own, though a few of us have enough broad patriotism to forget ourselves — I disagree with my colleague in another thing.

I never have yet believed and I do not now believe the declaration that the prosperity of the United States has been promoted or advanced by protection. Senators speak of protection. My colleague this morning spoke of the opinions of the fathers of the past. Without controverting them, without criticising his application of them, I have to say that, in my judgment, the man who overlooks facts, who supposes that this matter of protection has been beneficial to this country, or has promoted its prosperity, would be as wise, and is as wise, as the man who could empty a teacup of water into the great river Niagara just above the falls, and suppose the river had been raised by that slight contribution.

Mr. President, the United States of America have grown great and prosperous in defiance of all these embarrassments. Our rich soils, our immigration, our energy and thrift, have made us prosperous and great, and protection is a mere bagatelle. It is locally mischievous, like the prick of a finger with a thorn. It may in some instances have the advantages of a poultice upon a small burn and to that extent affect our interests. It has been used largely, as protection goes, as a means of gathering specific advantages to protected interests; and we have got to consider the question in this light.

If we were to revise the whole subject of the revenue laws and cease to regard the preparation of a tariff bill as involving more than the power of Congress to law and collect taxes and duties, or if we treat protection as a secondary idea — while something has been done incidentally I have no doubt to protect special interests — there is no doubt we should find that that portion of such legislation as goes beyond the true revenue theory has been an unmitigated curse to this country. It is a curse, in the first place, because it assumes too much. It assumes a right to control the property of the people of the country, and under the pretence of serving all, subordinates the interests of one for the promotion of the interests of another. But I do not think that that is protection.
It is a nuisance; it is unjust; and that is what is meant by the expressions of the Chicago Democratic platform, not that a tariff for revenue is improper, but that a tariff for protection is improper where the idea of revenue is abandoned and the attempt is made to distribute these burdens so as to promote special interests.

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Somebody says the tariff on horses ought to be adjusted in reference to the fact that there is a herd of Mexican horses down South, and that in Canada they raise horses. The problem is to find some way which will protect the horse growers, but it must be so done as to impose no burden on anybody. By the way, it is an excellent pony or an excellent horse that is brought into this country. I buy a horse because I think it is to my interest to buy him, and I think I will be benefited by it; but the other rule is, you shall not buy this pony without paying an extra price for him, although you want him and he will suit you better than any other, but you must buy a pony from a man right close to you, your neighbor, and the American horse jockies on the line of Maine and the States that border upon Canada — because it does not extend any further — must have the advantage of dealing with their fellows just across the line.

Here are two ponies — one of these ponies may have a little more
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value than the other, and I can get them at the same price; but the duty must be imposed for the benefit of the horse jockey on the one side of the line so that he may have an advantage over the horse jockey on the other side. So it goes. But without meaning to depreciate the importance of this subject, I say we sit here attempting to adjust the commerce of a great country. We in the first place admit that we have a right to do it without reference to the revenue power; and then we undertake in our wisdom to attempt to adjust all these industries; we undertake to correct the mistakes of the Almighty God, who made the great rivers and prairies and plains and mountains, and we will punish somebody because he lives at one place and not at another.

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Senators say they love their own people. It reminds me a good deal of what was said to be the love of John Paul Jones's father for his son. It is said of the old gentleman that he had charge of the garden of a Scottish nobleman where there were two summer houses, one on each side of the garden. He was devoted to symmetry, and when he would find a poaching boy in the garden he would shut him up in one of the summer houses, but, to preserve the symmetry he always imprisoned his own son in the other, so that the thing might be perfectly balanced.

This is very much like that. You say you do not want to serve the people abroad, but you want to serve us; you say you want to serve us and you want to make us pay somebody more for that which we need than we could buy it from somebody else; you want to bless me by taking $20 out of my pocket if I want to bring a cheap horse across the line. I am speaking now about protection; I am speaking about the blessings of it. The manufacturers of New Hampshire are afraid that some old woman with a basket of eggs will cross the line and come over, and some poor boarding-house keeper will buy the eggs of the Canadian old woman for a few cents less than she could buy them from a New Hampshire old woman, and that would be charged up to the borders. We are thus blest, I say, by excluding us from commerce with those people who have to sell that which we wish to buy.