necessarily includes that of finance; it is a question of taxation, and taxation is the most important of all questions before the country; it is a question of personal freedom in pursuing lawful business, and it relates specially to the question of civil service reform. There is, therefore, no one of the economic questions now claiming an intelligent solution that includes so much as this, or, as we believe, that can be more easily solved if the people so determine.

There are many who claim to be in favor of revenue reform who say of the measures we propose, "Oh, yes; it is all very well in theory, but it is not practicable." Now, we say there is no "theory" about free trade absolute, and nothing but lack of will to make it practicable.

It does not need any theory to instruct us how to trade on the best terms that we can-fairly and openly. There is no theory about it, for men instinctively adopt it if not forcibly prevented.

The claim of any possible advantage resulting from protection-it being an obstruction and contrary to the natural order of trade-must rest upon some "theory" which our opponents should be required to establish.

The custom house system, if it exists only as a revenue tariff, is so indirect and disguised a method for that purpose that it is utterly impos sible for any man to ascertain how much it costs him. It is the most difficult of all methods of taxation to understand and almost impossible. to correct if wrong; yet there are persons who assert that the people will not submit to any other method; that they prefer being taxed indirectly and had rather be deluded into ignorantly paying more than paying less with a full knowledge of it. It seems to me that this is a libel upon the common sense and patriotism of the people, and I do not believe it is true. If you will ask the question of the first twenty men you meet, fifteen men out of the twenty will admit that the system of free trade and direct taxation is right and is the best for this country, yet each one will suppose that very few others agree with him.

Now, I believe that if the question was put fairly to the whole people, man by man, a majority would express the opinion, at least, that direct taxation is the most economical and least corrupting, and that it would be the best system for this country: each for himself would be wil!ing to have it adopted. I believe, too, that the people of this country will not object to taxation, having sense and honesty enough to recognize its necessity, their care being mainly that the money be honestly and properly expended. The most of the people here in New York, even with the large amount called for, would not object if the money paid into the Treasury were applied honestly and intelligently for proper and legitimate purposes. So would it be all over the country.

There is no expense the people submit to more willingly than taxation, if taxation purely. Who among us is not connected with some organization where all the members submit to assessments for mutual benefits, or for promoting some desirable object? All over the country you

find men contributing cheerfully to associations with which they are connected, and that is only a question of voluntary taxation. Men voluntarily submit to it not only, but they are glad to do so; and if they could feel satisfied that all money raised by taxation for the support of the government of the United States was properly expended, there could not be found an honest man in the country who would not feel proud to pay his proportion towards sustaining the government.

I think it is time that we should meet a question of this kind, and have it brought before the people, as to whether they will sustain a disguised and unjust system of taxation, which fosters extravagance, corruption and centralization, in preference to an open and equitable one, which can be intelligently dealt with.

Our nationality has existed nearly one hundred years, and we are preparing to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of our revolt from unjust taxation. Are we not to-day in danger of another revolution on the same question; not of just taxation, but the abuses which have grown out of taxation? The system of taxation in this country, the corruption and wrongs that have been fostered by it, is why we are now oppressed and burdened. Is there not need of a new departure on this question-one to be accomplished effectively and without disaster by the intelligence of the people through proper legislation? Is it not a timely question whether, in beginning our second century, we will begin it by taking the road we ought to have taken ninety years ago?

We were then at the diverging point of two methods for providing the government with necessary support. In 1789, when our federal constitution was adopted, the method of raising revenue was, of course, one of the absorbing questions. It was a question whether to apportion it among the states, according to their population and representation, or to raise it as they do in other countries, not republican but monarchical. Should they adopt a tariff on imports, which was a feature of those forms of government, or should they adopt that which we are now urging? How very near they were to absolute free trade! and yet they adopted this feature of monarchy-a road diverging from republicanism, which we have heedlessly followed ever since, and which has led to more sectional animosity and strife and bitterness, more panics, more overturnings of business plans and calculations, than all other questions put together. It has well-nigh severed this country in twain.

I don't want any one else to be held responsible for the opinion but myself; but I am just as firm in the conviction as that we are here together, that our war of 1861 grew out of the tariff system. And I will tell you why I think so. We began in 1789 with a very small tariff for revenue, as an experiment to be tried for the period of seven years, being so uncertain whether direct taxation would not be found the better method. It was an easy method to obtain revenue. It afforded, too, easy facilities for increasing expenditures without creating suspicion, as they could be met by a light annual increase in rates of duty and in the num

ber of articles on which selfish men sought "protection." It has, therefore, been an increasing incentive to selfish and improper legislation which has been too great a temptation for men to resist.

The tariff, therefore, has been subject to tinkering and changes at almost every session of Congress since 1789, resulting in an avowedly protective tariff in 1816, followed by repeated increase for class interests, producing animosity and alienation between different sections of the country, resulting in threatened civil war in 1832.

Before the adoption of a protective tariff, slavery was looked upon as an evil, even in the South, and many there were anxious to get rid of it, but high duties encouraging manufactures at the North, resulted in fastening slavery upon the South, as a form of cheap labor for producing raw material, rendered apparently necessary in order to protect themselves against high and higher prices which they had to pay to the protected manufactures of the North. The war seemed to be a result of slavery, but slavery was fastened upon the South by the Tariff Legislation. I repeat it, as my belief, that the tariff question has been the source of all the sectional animosities of this country since the adoption of the federal constitution, and the primary cause of the war of 1861.

Now, we find, in this hundredth year, that we have large burdens of taxation; we have extravagance and corruption in official life, such as never existed before; rings of officials who control and direct the political machinery which manages all parties-rings that put men in nomination and secure their election on one side or the other.

These are results which have grown out of the tariff, a method of taxation inimical to republican institutions; results which stand directly in the way of civil service reform, as the very men who, themselves, need to be reformed, control the political organizations of the country. Now, it seems to me that there is no way to secure civil service reform, or reform in taxation, other than by the course which we propose, namely, is to abolish our custom house system, and adopt other methods for supporting the government.

Here let me read to you from an article which appeared in the editorial columns of the New York Tribune, only a few days ago, a paper once the foremost champion of protection, and whose founder, more than once, in substance, said that if a tariff for protection is not right, then there should be no tariff at all.

"A very entertaining book might be made by collecting the experience of Americans returning from a foreign tour, in respect to their baggage. There have been many changes in the custom house system, and at frequent intervals a new set of regulations has been imposed. Smuggling in passengers' baggage has gone on continuously under all systems. It keeps pace in amount with the increase of travel. Its yearly total has been variously estimated by hundreds of thousands of dollars and by millions. For some inscrutable reason, men who never in their lives attempted a dishonest act, and ladies whose title to respectability has never been questioned, seem to think this a venial offense. The goods smuggled as baggage are pointed to in households with a sort of pride, for

months afterward, the owner tells his guest with a pleasant chuckle, Uncle Sam never got a dollar's worth of duty on that lot; and perhaps experiences are interchanged as to the most recent mode of managing such exploits.

"No new plan will make the present race of officials in this port as honest as-for instance-United States soldiers. A reform, to be effectual, must include the men as well as the methods of the custom house."

That paragraph in the N. Y. Tribune will serve to illustrate one of the reasons why we would propose to have the system abolished.

If this theory so undermines the characters of some of the better men in the community who are occasionally brought in contact with it, how does it affect all the mercantile community who are constantly tempted by it? Is it not like the cancer in the human system, which sends its roots into the very vitals, and which will surely prove fatal, unless it is eradicated.

Many of the people of this country have been for so many years accustomed to the present system that they can hardly believe any other can be adopted, and this is true of many who claim to be revenue reformers and free traders, who meet us, when urging our views, with various objections. One says, "O, yes, it will do after our large debt is paid; how can we pay that without a tariff?" I reply, that there are other ways to pay our debt. The debt of New York State was once about forty millions of dollars, now it is almost paid and it has been done without a tariff. The State apportioned it among counties, it was collected by the county machinery and sent to the State Treasurer; and the same method. may be adopted by the general government, by which course, the whole expense of collecting could be saved, the people would know the cost, and the federal tax-gatherers could be reformed out of office.

Another revenue reformer said to me: "You want so much all at once; why won't you take half a loaf, when you can't get the whole ?" I replied, that we believed the country ought to have the whole of this. system removed, and therefore we ask for the whole. We do not propose to compromise in advance, as revenue reformers do, and offer to take the half until our opponents offer, at least, to yield something on their part, which they have not yet offered to do, and I do not see that they are inclined to. I think we had better say we want the whole until,. at least, there is an offer to divide. Still another says, "Oh, yes; it is right, and it must come at some time in the course of a great many years,. but it won't do to attempt it now." We answer, if our principle is right, why not proclaim it as our purpose to secure its adoption, for it will never come of itself. We don't expect it immediately, to-day or to-morrow or the next day. We don't expect to have it in two, three, or five years perhaps, because there is a process of education which must be pursued throughout the country before it can be accomplished. But we do expect to have it in less than a hundred years, or before the millenium,.

which is the period suggested for it by some people. We do confidently expect it, and propose to work earnestly to secure it.

"Well, but," says still another, "is it not better to get the thin edge of the wedge in first ?"

It is very curious, I replied, to hear such an urgument from a free trader. Why, the "edge of the wedge," as you call it, was inserted by the "protectionists" ninety years ago, and they have been driving it home with all their might ever since until the country has well-nigh split in two; and it seems to me the work for us and all reformers, is to get the wedge" out just as soon as possible, that the heart of the country may grow together with the least delay.

Now, gentlemen, we don't know how we shall succeed. We have all heard the old story of the great oaks which from little acorns grew. Possibly, we may grow to the comparative proportions of an oak from a little acorn.

I was reading in a paper the other day of a man, who in California had two spoonsful of oats sent to him about three years ago; he planted those two spoonsful of oats, and carefully gathered the result, which he planted the next year; the third year he harvested two hundred bushels, all from two spoonsful of oats.

And we have read of the prophetic "handful of corn in the earth, "on the top of the mountain, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." Why may we not be encouraged by the suggestions unfolded in these illustrations? We are advocating a patriotic and economic question, unselfishly, at a time when it is not in popular favor. We are willing to disappear in the multitude, if the seed which we are sowing will grow, and be gathered and replanted and distributed by others, until the land be blessed with an abundant harvest, the fruits being "FREE TRADE, PEACE AND GOOD WILL AMONG NATIONS."

Mr. OSWALD OTTENDORFER next addressed the meeting, saying: Mr. PRESIDENT and GENTLEMEN,-I have been at all times a very honest and sincere advocate of the principles for which this organization has been created-Free Trade in the radical sense; but heretofore, at least, I have had very little opportunity to exercise any influence in that direction for the reason that the question has been very little impressed on the public attention. Other questions have occupied the public mind, and yet I feel deeply convinced that it is high time that this subject should receive the attention which its importance deserves. It is my opinion. that if the American people do not take up this question and discuss it and settle it on principles of right and justice, they will not have the opportunity to celebrate another centennial of liberty on this continent. They must retrace the steps they have taken in this first century in the interest of this pernicious principle of Protection. The American people have been called eminently a practical people, and that is the reason they have been so slow in approaching this subject. When it is discussed you