Chapter IX: Great Questions and Great Answers (4)

“My view of the danger of extreme positions on the questions of
tariff rates may be illustrated by a remark made by Horace Greeley
in the last conversation I ever had with that distinguished man.
Said he:

“‘My criticism of you is that you are not sufficiently high
protective in your views.’

“I replied:

“‘What would you advise?’

“He said:

“‘If I had my way—if I were king of this country—I would put a duty
of $100 a ton on pig-iron and a proportionate duty on every thing
else that can be produced in America. The result would be that our
people would be obliged to supply their own wants; manufactures
would spring up; competition would finally reduce prices; and we
should live wholly within ourselves.’

“I replied that the fatal objection to his theory was that no man is
king of this country, with power to make his policy permanent. But
as all our policies depend upon popular support, the extreme measure
proposed would beget an opposite extreme, and our industries would
suffer from violent reactions. For this reason I believe that we
ought to seek that point of stable equilibrium somewhere between a
prohibitory tariff on the one hand, and a tariff that gives no
protection on the other. What is that point of stable equilibrium?
In my judgment it is this: a rate so high that foreign producers can
not flood our markets and break down our home manufacturers, but not
so high as to keep them altogether out, enabling our manufacturers
to combine and raise the prices, nor so high as to stimulate an
unnatural and unhealthy growth of manufactures.

“In other words, I would have the duty so adjusted that every great
American industry can fairly live and make fair profits; and yet so
low that if our manufacturers attempted to put up prices
unreasonably, the competition from abroad would come in and bring
down prices to a fair rate. Such a tariff I believe will be
supported by the great majority of Americans. We are not far from
having such a tariff in our present law. In some respects we have
departed from that standard. Wherever it does, we should amend it,
and by so doing we shall secure stability and prosperity.

“This brings me to the consideration of the pending bill. It was my
hope, at the beginning of the present session, that the Committee of
Ways and Means would enter upon a revision of the tariff in the
spirit I have indicated. The Secretary of the Treasury suggested in
his annual report that a considerable number of articles which
produced but a small amount of revenue, and were not essential to
the prosperity of our manufacturers, could be placed upon the free
list, thus simplifying the law and making it more consistent in its
details. I was ready to assist in such a work of revision; but the
committee had not gone far before it was evident that they intended
to attack the whole system, and, as far as possible, destroy it. The
results of their long and arduous labors are embodied in the pending
bill.

“Some of the rates can be slightly reduced without serious harm; but
many of the reductions proposed in this bill will be fatal. It is
related that when a surgeon was probing an emperor’s wound to find
the ball, he said:

“‘Can your Majesty allow me to go deeper?’

“His Majesty replied:

“‘Probe a little deeper and you will find the Emperor.’

“It is that little deeper probing by this bill that will touch the
vital interests of this country and destroy them.

“The chief charge I make against this bill is that it seeks to
cripple the protective features of the law. It increases rates where
an increase is not necessary, and it cuts them down where cutting
will kill. One of the wisest provisions of our present law is the
establishment of a definite free list. From year to year when it has
been found that any article could safely be liberated from duty it
has been put upon the free list. A large number of raw materials
have thus been made free of duty. This has lightened the burdens of
taxation, and at the same time aided the industries of the country.

“To show the progress that has been made in this direction, it
should be remembered that in 1867 the value of all articles imported
free of duty was but $39,000,000, while in 1877 the free imports
amounted to $181,000,000.

“As I have already said, the Secretary of the Treasury recommends a
still further increase of the free list. But this bill abolishes the
free list altogether and imposes duties upon a large share of
articles now free. And this is done in order to make still greater
reduction upon articles that must be protected if their manufacture
is maintained in this country.

“Let me notice a few of the great industries at which this bill
strikes. In the group of textile fabrics, of which I have spoken,
reductions are made upon the manufactures of cotton which will stop
three-quarters of the cotton mills of the country, and hopelessly
prostrate the business. Still greater violence is done to the wool
and woolen interests. The attempt has been made to show that the
business of wool-growing has declined in consequence of our present
law, and the fact has been pointed out that the number of sheep has
been steadily falling off in the Eastern States. The truth is that
sheep-culture in the United States was never in so healthy a
condition as it is to-day. In 1860 our total wool product was sixty
millions of pounds. In 1877 we produced two hundred and eight
millions of pounds.

“It is true that there is not now so large a number of sheep in the
Eastern States as there were a few years since; but the center of
that industry has been shifted. Of the thirty-five and a half
millions of sheep now in the United States, fourteen and a half
millions are in Texas and the States and Territories west of the
Rocky Mountains. California alone has six and a half millions of
sheep. Not the least important feature of this interest is the
facility it offers for cheap animal food. A great French statesman
has said: ‘It is more important to provide food than clothing,’ and
the growth of sheep accomplishes both objects. Ninety-five per cent.
of all the woolen fabrics manufactured in this country are now made
of native wool.

“The tariff on wools and woolens was adopted in 1867, after a most
careful and thorough examination of both the producing and
manufacturing interests. It was the result of an adjustment between
the farmers and manufacturers, and has been advantageous to both. A
small reduction of the rates could be made without injury.

“Both of these interests consented to a reduction, and submitted
their plan to the Committee of Ways and Means. But instead of
adopting it, the committee have struck those interests down, and put
a dead level ad valorem duty upon all wools. The chairman tells us
that the committee had sought to do away with the _ad valorem_
system, because it gave rise to fraudulent invoices and
undervaluation. Yet on the interest that yields twenty millions of
revenue, he proposes to strike down the specific duties and put the
interest upon one dead level of _ad valorem_ duty without regard to
quality.

“I would not introduce sectional topics in this discussion, but I
must notice one curious feature of this bill. In the great group of
provisions, on which nearly fifty millions of revenue are paid into
the Treasury, I find that thirty-seven millions of that amount come
from imported sugar. No one would defend the levying of so heavy a
tax upon a necessary article of food were it not that a great
agricultural interest is thereby protected, and that interest is
mainly confined to the State of Louisiana. I am glad that the
Government has given its aid to the State, for not a pound of sugar
could be manufactured there if the tariff law did not protect it.

“As the law now stands, the average _ad valorem_ duty on sugar is
sixty-two and one-half per cent. But what has this bill done? The
complaint is made by its advocates that the rates are now too high.
The rates on all dutiable articles average about forty-two per
cent.; yet on sugar the average is sixty-two and one-half per cent.,
greatly above the average. This bill puts up the average duty on
sugar to about seventy per cent. This one interest, which is already
protected by a duty much higher than the average, is granted a still
higher rate, while other interests, now far below the average rate,
are put still lower. Metals, that now average but thirty-six per
cent. _ad valorem_, far less than the general average—but little
more than half of the rate on sugar—are cut down still more, while
the protection of the sugar interest is made still higher.

“If the planters of Louisiana were to get the benefit there would be
some excuse for the increase; but what is the fact? One thousand
four hundred and fifteen million pounds of sugar were imported into
this country last year, but not one pound of refined sugar; every
pound was imported in the crude form, going into the hands of about
twenty-five gentlemen, mostly in the city of New York, who refine
every pound of this enormous quantity of imported sugar. This bill
increases the rates on the high grades of sugar far more than on the
lower grades, and makes the importation of any finished sugar
impossible. It strengthens and makes absolute the monopoly already
given to the refining interest; yet we are told that this is a
revenue-reform tariff.

“Before closing I wish to notice one thing which I believe has not
been mentioned in this debate. A few years ago we had a considerable
premium on gold, and as our tariff duties were paid in coin, there
was thus created an increase in the tariff rates. In 1875, for
instance, the average currency value of coin was one hundred and
fourteen cents; in 1876, one hundred and eleven cents; in 1877, one
hundred and four cents. Now, thanks to the resumption law and the
rate of our exchanges and credit, the premium on gold is almost down
to zero. But this fall in the premium has operated as a steady
reduction of the tariff rates, because the duties were paid in gold
and the goods were sold in currency.

“Now, when gentlemen say that the rates were high a few years ago,
it should be remembered that they have been falling year by year, as
the price of gold has been coming down. When, therefore, gentlemen
criticise the rates as fixed in the law of 1872, they should
remember that the fall in the premium on gold has wrought a virtual
reduction of fourteen per cent. in the tariff rates.

“Mr. Chairman, the Committee of Ways and Means has done a large
amount of work on this bill. But the views which have found
expression in his bill must be criticised without regard to personal
consideration. A bill so radical in its character, so dangerous to
our business prosperity, would work infinite mischief at this time,
when the country is just recovering itself from a long period of
depression and getting again upon solid ground, just coming up out
of the wild sea of panic and distress which has tossed us so long.

“Let it be remembered that twenty-two per cent. of all the laboring
people of this country are artisans engaged in manufactures. Their
culture has been fostered by our tariff laws. It is their pursuits
and the skill which they have developed that produced the glory of
our centennial exhibition. To them the country owes the splendor of
the position it holds before the world more than to any other equal
number of our citizens. If this bill becomes a law, it strikes down
their occupation and throws into the keenest distress the brightest
and best elements of our population.

“It is not simply a stalking-horse upon which gentlemen can leap to
show their horsemanship in debate; it is not an innocent lay-figure
upon which gentlemen may spread the gaudy wares of their rhetoric
without harm; but it is a great, dangerous monster, a very
Polyphemus which stalks through the land. _Monstrum horrendum,
informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum._ If its eye be not out, let us
take it out and end the agony.” [Applause on the Republican side.]

But the correlative of revenue is expenditure. Only one other man of this age ever attempted a philosophy of national expenditure besides Garfield—that was Gladstone. No other American ever attempted to regulate appropriations by a philosophical principle. No other man ever attempted to reduce the fabulous and irregular outlay of the Government to a science. Of Garfield’s studies in this direction we have spoken elsewhere. On January 23, 1872, upon the introduction of his first bill as Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations he delivered an elaborate speech on the subject of

PUBLIC EXPENDITURES

“It is difficult to discuss expenditures comprehensively without
discussing also the revenues; but I shall on this occasion allude to
the revenues only on a single point. Revenue and the expenditure of
revenue form by far the most important element in the government of
modern nations. Revenue is not, as some one has said, the friction
of a government, but rather its motive power. Without it the
machinery of a government can not move; and by it all the movements
of a government are regulated. The expenditure of revenue forms the
grand level from which all heights and depths of legislative action
are measured. The increase and the diminution of the burdens of
taxation depend alike upon their relation to this level of
expenditures. That level once given, all other policies must conform
to it and be determined by it. The expenditure of revenue and its
distribution, therefore, form the best test of the health, the
wisdom, and the virtue of a government. Is a government corrupt?
that corruption will inevitably, sooner or later, show itself at the
door of the treasury in demands for money. There is scarcely a
conceivable form of corruption or public wrong that does not at last
present itself at the cashier’s desk and demand money. The
legislature, therefore, that stands at the cashier’s desk and
watches with its Argus eyes the demands for payment over the
counter, is most certain to see all the forms of public rascality.
At that place, too, we may feel the Nation’s pulse; we may determine
whether it is in the delirium of fever or whether the currents of
its life are flowing with the steady throbbings of health. What
could have torn down the gaudy fabric of the late government of
France so effectually as the simple expedient of compiling and
publishing a balance sheet of the expenditures of Napoleon’s
government, as compared with the expenditures of the fifteen years
which preceded his reign? A quiet student of finance exhibited the
fact that during fifteen years of Napoleon’s reign the expenditures
of his government had been increased by the enormous total of three
hundred and fifty million dollars in gold per annum.

HOW SHALL EXPENDITURES BE GAUGED?

“Such, in my view, are the relations which the expenditures of the
revenue sustain to the honor and safety of the nation. How, then,
shall they be regulated? By what gauge shall we determine the amount
of revenue that ought to be expended by a nation? This question is
full of difficulty, and I can hope to do little more than offer a
few suggestions in the direction of its solution.

“And, first, I remark that the mere amount of the appropriations is
in itself no test. To say that this government is expending two
hundred and ninety-two million dollars a year, may be to say that we
are penurious and niggardly in our expenditures, and may be to say
that we are lavish and prodigal. There must be some ground of
relative judgment, some test by which we can determine whether
expenditures are reasonable or exorbitant. It has occurred to me
that two tests can be applied.

TEST OF POPULATION.

“The first and most important is the relation of expenditure to the
population. In some ratio corresponding to the increase of
population it may be reasonable to increase the expenditures of a
government. This is the test usually applied in Europe. In an
official table I have before me the expenditures of the British
government for the last fifteen years, I find the statement made
over against the annual average of each year of the expenditure _per
capita_ of the population. The average expenditure _per capita_ for
that period, was two pounds, seven shillings and seven pence, or
about twelve dollars in gold, with a slight tendency to decrease
each year. In our own country, commencing with 1830 and taking the
years when the census was taken, I find that the expenditures, _per
capita_, exclusive of payments on the principal and interest of the
public debt were as follows:

In 1830 $1 03
In 1840 1 41
In 1850 1 60
In 1860 1 94
In 1870 4 26

or, excluding pensions, three dollars and fifty-two cents. No doubt
this test is valuable. But how shall it be applied? Shall the
increase of expenditures keep pace with the population? We know that
population tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, that is, at a
per cent. compounded annually. If the normal increase of
expenditures follow the same law, we might look forward to the
future with alarm. It is manifest, however, that the necessity of
expenditures does not keep pace with the mere increase of numbers;
and while the total sum of money expended must necessarily be
greater from year to year, the amount _per capita_ ought in all
well-regulated governments in time of peace to grow gradually less.

TEST OF TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSION.

“But in a country like ours there is another element besides
population that helps to determine the movement of expenditures.
That element can hardly be found in any other country. It is the
increase and settlement of our territory, the organic increase of
the nation by the addition of new States. To begin with the original
thirteen States, and gauge expenditure till now by the increase of
population alone, would be manifestly incorrect. But the fact that
there have been added twenty-four States, and that we now have nine
territories, not including Alaska, brings a new and important
element into the calculation. It is impossible to estimate the
effect of this element upon expenditures. But if we examine our own
records from the beginning of the Government, it will appear that
every great increase of settled territory has very considerably
added to the expenditures.

“If these reflections be just, it will follow that the ordinary
movement of our expenditures depends upon the action of two forces:
first, the natural growth of population, and second, the extension
of our territory and the increase in the number of our States. Some
day, no doubt—and I hope at no distant day—we shall have reached the
limit of territorial expansion. I hope we have reached it now,
except to enlarge the number of States within our borders; and when
we have settled our unoccupied lands, when we have laid down the
fixed and certain boundaries of our country, then the movement of
our expenditure in time of peace will be remitted to the operation
of the one law, the increase of population. That law, as I have
already intimated, is not an increase by a per cent. compounded
annually, but by a per cent. that decreases annually. No doubt the
expenditures will always increase from year to year; but they ought
not to increase by the same per cent. from year to year; the rate of
increase ought gradually to grow less.

EXPENDITURES OF ENGLAND.

“In England, for example, where the territory is fixed, and they are
remitted to the single law of increase of population, the increase
of expenditure during the last fifteen years of peace has been only
about one and three-quarter per cent. compounded annually. I believe
nobody has made a very careful estimate of the rate in our country;
our growth has been too irregular to afford data for an accurate
estimate. But a gentleman who has given much attention to the
subject expressed to me the belief that our expenditures in time of
peace have increased about eight per cent. compounded annually. I
can hardly believe it; yet I am sure that somewhere between that and
the English rate will be found our rate of increase in times of
peace. I am aware that such estimates as these are unsatisfactory,
and that nothing short of the actual test of experience can
determine the movements of our expenditures; but these suggestions
which have resulted from some study of the subject, I offer for the
reflection of those who care to follow them out.

EFFECTS OF WAR ON EXPENDITURES.

“Thus far I have considered the expenditures that arise in times of
peace. Any view of this subject would be incomplete that did not
include a consideration of the effect of war upon national
expenditures. I have spoken of what the rate ought to be in time of
peace, for carrying on a government. I will next consider the effect
of war on the rate of increase. And here we are confronted with that
anarchic element, the plague of nations, which Jeremy Bentham called
‘mischief on the largest scale.’ After the fire and blood of the
battle-fields have disappeared, nowhere does war show its destroying
power so certainly and so relentlessly as in the columns which
represent the taxes and expenditures of the nation. Let me
illustrate this by two examples.

“In 1792, the year preceding the commencement of the great war
against Napoleon, the expenditures of Great Britain were less than
twenty million pounds sterling.

“During the twenty-four years that elapsed, from the commencement of
that wonderful struggle until its close at Waterloo, in 1815, the
expenditures rose by successive bounds, until, in one year near the
close of the war, it reached the enormous sum of one hundred and six
million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

“The unusual increase of the public debt, added to the natural
growth of expenditures from causes already discussed, made it
impossible for England ever to reach her old level of expenditure.
It took twenty years after Waterloo to reduce expenditures from
seventy-seven million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the
annual average of the second decade of the century, to forty-five
million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the expenditure for
1835.

“This last figure was the lowest England has known during the
present century. Then followed nearly forty years of peace, from
Waterloo to the Crimean war in 1854. The figures for that period may
be taken to represent the natural growth of expenditures in England.
During that period the expenditures increased, in a tolerably
uniform ratio, from forty-five million seven hundred and fifty
thousand pounds, the amount for 1835, to about fifty-one million
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the average for the five
years ending 1853–’54. This increase was about four million dollars
of our money per annum. Then came the Crimean war of 1854–1856,
during one year of which the expenditures rose to eighty-four
million five hundred thousand pounds.

“Again, as after the Napoleonic war, it required several years for
the expenditures of the kingdom to get down to the new level of
peace, which level was much higher than that of the former peace.

“During the last ten years the expenditures of Great Britain have
again been gradually increasing; the average for the six years
ending with March 31, 1871, being sixty-eight million seven hundred
and fifty thousand pounds.

WAR EXPENDITURES OF THE UNITED STATES.

“As the second example of the effect of war on the movement of
national expenditures, I call attention to our own history.

“Considering the ordinary expenses of the Government, exclusive of
payments on the principal and interest of the public debt, the
annual average may be stated thus:

“Beginning with 1791, the last decade of the eighteenth century
showed an annual average of three million seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. During the first decade of the present century,
the average was nearly five million five hundred thousand dollars.
Or, commencing with 1791, there followed twenty years of peace,
during which the annual average of ordinary expenditures was more
than doubled. Then followed four years, from 1812 to 1815,
inclusive, in which the war with England swelled the average to
twenty-five million five hundred thousand dollars. During the five
years succeeding that war, the average was sixteen million five
hundred thousand dollars, and it was not until 1821 that the new
level of peace was reached. During the five years, from 1820 to
1825, inclusive, the annual average was eleven million five hundred
thousand dollars. From 1825 to 1830, it was thirteen million
dollars. From 1830 to 1835, it was seventeen million dollars. From
1835 to 1840, in which period occurred the Seminole war, it was
thirty million five hundred thousand dollars. From 1840 to 1845, it
was twenty-seven million dollars. From 1845 to 1850, during which
occurred the Mexican war, it was forty million five hundred thousand
dollars. From 1850 to 1855, it was forty-seven million five hundred
thousand dollars. From 1855 to June 30, 1861, it was sixty-seven
million dollars. From June 30, 1861, to June 30, 1866, seven hundred
and thirteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and
from June 30, 1866, to June 30, 1871, the annual average was one
hundred and eighty-nine million dollars.

“It is interesting to inquire how far we may reasonably expect to go
in the descending scale before we reach the new level of peace. We
have already seen that it took England twenty years after Waterloo
before she reached such a level. Our own experience has been
peculiar in this, that our people have been impatient of debt, and
have always determinedly set about the work of reducing it.

DURATION OF WAR EXPENDITURES.

“Throughout our history there may be seen a curious uniformity in
the movement of the annual expenditures for the years immediately
following a war. We have not the data to determine how long it was,
after the war of independence, before the expenditures ceased to
decrease; that is, before they reached the point where their natural
growth more than balanced the tendency to reduction of war
expenditure; but in the years immediately following all our
subsequent wars, the decrease has continued for a period almost
exactly twice the length of the war itself.

“After the war of 1812–’15, the expenditures continued to decline
for eight years, reaching the lowest point in 1823.

“After the Seminole war, which ran through three years, 1836, 1837,
and 1838, the new level was not reached until 1844, six years after
its close.

“After the Mexican war, which lasted two years, it took four years,
until 1852, to reach the new level of peace.”

Probably the most remarkable portion of this speech is the following prophecy:

WHEN SHALL WE REACH OUR NEW LEVEL OF EXPENDITURES?

“It is, perhaps, unsafe to base our calculations for the future on
these analogies; but the wars already referred to have been of such
varied character, and their financial effects have been so uniform,
as to make it not unreasonable to expect that a similar result will
follow our late war. If so, the decrease of our ordinary
expenditures, exclusive of the principal and interest of the public
debt, will continue until 1875 or 1876.

“It will be seen by an analysis of our expenditures, that, exclusive
of charges on the public debt, nearly fifty million dollars are
expenditures directly for the late war. Many of these expenditures
will not again appear, such as the bounty and back pay of volunteer
soldiers, and payment of illegal captures of British vessels and
cargoes. We may reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions
will hereafter steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be
unwarrantably extravagant. We may also expect a large decrease in
expenditures for the internal revenue department. Possibly, we may
ultimately be able to abolish the department altogether. In the
accounting and disbursing bureaus of the treasury department, we may
also expect a further reduction of the force now employed in
settling war claims.

“We can not expect so rapid a reduction of the public debt and its
burden of interest as we have witnessed for the last three years;
but the reduction will doubtless continue, and the burden of
interest will constantly decrease. I know it is not safe to attempt
to forecast the future; but I venture to express the belief that if
peace continues, the year 1876 will witness our ordinary
expenditures reduced to one hundred and twenty-five million dollars,
and the interest on our public debt to ninety-five million dollars;
making our total expenditures, exclusive of payment on the principal
of the public debt, two hundred and thirty million dollars. Judging
from our own experience and from that of other nations, we may not
hope thereafter to reach a lower figure. In making this estimate, I
have assumed that there will be a considerable reduction of the
burdens of taxation; and a revenue not nearly so great in excess of
the expenditures as we now collect.”

Seven years afterwards, in the June number (1879) of the _North American Review_, General Garfield quoted the above paragraphs from the speech of January, 1872, and called attention to the fulfillment of his prediction in the following words:

“Reviewing the subject in the light of subsequent experience, it
will be seen that the progress of reduction of expenditures from the
war level has been very nearly in accordance with these expectations
of seven years ago.

“The actual expenditures since the war, including interest on the
public debt, as shown by the official record, were as follows:

1865 $1,297,555,224 41
1866 520,899,416 99
1867 357,542,675 16
1868 377,340,284 86
1869 322,865,277 80
1870 399,653,560 75
1871 292,177,188 25
1872 277,517,962 67
1873 290,345,245 33
1874 287,133,873 17
1875 274,623,392 84
1876 258,459,797 33
1877 238,660,008 93
1878 236,964,326 80

“Omitting the first of these years, in which the enormous payments
to the army swelled the aggregate of expenses to $1,297,000,000, and
beginning with the first full year after the termination of the war,
it will be seen that the expenditures have been reduced, at first
very rapidly, and then more slowly, from $520,000,000 in 1866 to
about $237,000,000 in 1878.

“The estimate quoted above was that in 1876 expenditures would be
reduced to $230,000,000, including $95,000,000 for interest on the
public debt. In 1877, one year later than the estimated date, the
actual reduction had reached $238,000,000, including $97,000,000 for
interest on the public debt. [He means the expenditures _had been
reduced to_ $238,000,000.]

“It is evident that in 1877 we had very nearly reached the limit of
possible reduction, for the aggregate expenditures of 1878 show a
reduction below that of the preceding year of less than $2,000,000;
and the expenditures, actual and estimated, for the current year
ending June 30, 1879, are $240,000,000. It thus appears that 1878
was the turning-point from which, under the influence of the
elements of normal growth, we may expect a constant, though it ought
to be a small, annual increase of expenditures.”

If anywhere there is to be found a more scientific statesmanship than this, the average man knows not the place to seek it out. Garfield had discovered the law of the increase and decrease of national expenditures. It was as fixed as the laws which lengthen and shorten the day. Scientists agree that the laws of society are far more difficult of discovery and of demonstration than the laws of nature. Only one man in a generation makes any real advance in the study of those laws which pervade the affairs of men. In his philosophy of public expenditures, James A. Garfield was that man of his political generation. On March 5, 1874, in another speech on the same topic, he unfolded the philosophy and laws of growth of the public debt. As usual, it is an illumination of a vast and foggy subject. It is impossible to give, in our already crowded pages, even a synopsis of this address.

There can be no question that Garfield was the most perfect master of the themes of revenue and expenditure in his generation. With the exception of the tariff, they were not questions which could be brought into politics. In their nature, they were so dry and complicated that the House itself, much less the people, knew but little of the enormous labor performed by General Garfield on the subject. He applied his immense energies to the task as cheerfully as if the questions were those of the next campaign, instead of being known only in the committee-room. His research would gain him no contemporary laurels, his toil bring him no applause. But he grappled with the monster of public debt, which had its clutch on England’s throat, and was reaching toward the New Republic. He who knew so well how to thrill the audience and shake the building with plausive thunders, embodied the results of his work in speeches, which his friends possibly thought impractical and certainly tiresome. They lie embalmed in the mighty mausoleum of the _Congressional Record_, hidden away from the prying eyes of mankind. Some future statesman, with more industry or genius than his contemporaries, will, perchance, come with pick and shovel to excavate and disinter the buried children of the brain. If so, like the recently-discovered remains at Mycenæ and Thebes, they will be pronounced of royal blood.

We now pass to the last branch of the subject discussed in this chapter. This relates to the record of Garfield in relation to questions concerning the general character and tendency of American institutions.

This question opens the door to what would make a volume of General Garfield’s speeches. Under a rigid necessity of condensation, we can only give broken extracts from three addresses.

On July 2, 1873, before the students of the Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio, he spoke on—

THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC.

“What do men mean when they predict the immortality of any thing
earthly?

“The first Napoleon was one day walking through the galleries of the
Louvre, filled with the wonders of art which he had stolen from the
conquered capitals of Europe. As he passed the marvelous picture of
Peter Martyr, one of the seven masterpieces of the world, he
overheard an enthusiastic artist exclaim: ‘Immortal work!’ Turning
quickly upon his heel, the Emperor asked: ‘What is the average life
of an oil-painting?’ ‘Five hundred years,’ answered the artist.
‘Immortal!’ the Corsican scornfully repeated as he passed on,
thinking doubtless of Austerlitz and Marengo. Six years ago the
wonderful picture of Peter Martyr was dissolved in the flames of a
burning church at Venice, and, like Austerlitz, is now only a memory
and a dream.

“When the great lyric poet of Rome ventured to predict immortality
for his works, he could think of no higher human symbol of
immortality than the Eternal City and her institutions, crowded with
seven centuries of glorious growth; and so Horace declared that his
verses would be remembered as long as the high-priest of Apollo and
the silent vestal virgin should climb the steps of the Capitol.
Fifteen centuries ago the sacred fires of Vesta went out, never to
be rekindled. For a thousand years Apollo has had no shrine, no
priest, no worshiper on the earth. The steps of the Capitol, and the
temples that crowned it, live only in dreams, and to-day the
antiquary digs and disputes among the ruins, and is unable to tell
us where on the Capitoline hill the great citadel of Rome stood.

“There is much in the history of dead empires to sadden and
discourage our hope for the permanence of any human institution. But
a deeper study reveals the fact that nations have perished only when
their institutions have ceased to be serviceable to the human race;
when their faith has become an empty form, and the destruction of
the old is indispensable to the growth of the new. Growth is better
than permanence; and permanent growth is better than all. Our faith
is large in time; and we—

“‘Doubt not through the ages, an increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.’

“It matters little what may be the forms of national institutions,
if the life, freedom, and growth of society are secured. To save the
life of a nation, it is sometimes necessary to discard the old form
and make room for the new growth; for—

“‘Old decays but foster new creations;
Bones and ashes feed the golden corn;
Fresh elixirs wander every moment
Down the veins through which the live part feeds its child, the life
unborn.’

“There are two classes of forces whose action and reaction determine
the condition of a nation—the forces of repression and expression.
The one acts from without—limits, curbs, restrains. The other acts
from within—expands, enlarges, propels. Constitutional forms,
statutory limitations, conservative customs belong to the first. The
free play of individual life, the opinion and action belong to the
second. If these forces be happily balanced, if there be a wise
conservation and correlation of both, a nation may enjoy the double
blessing of progress and permanence.

“How are these forces acting upon our nation at the present time?

“Our success has been so great hitherto, we have passed safely
through so many perils which at the time seemed almost fatal, that
we may assume that the Republic will continue to live and prosper,
unless it shall be assailed by dangers which outnumber and outweigh
the elements of its strength. It is idle to boast of what we are,
and what we are to be, unless at the same time we compare our
strength with the magnitude of our dangers.

“What, then, are our dangers: and how can they be conquered?...

“In the first place, our great dangers are not from without. We do
not live by the consent of any other nation. We must look within to
find the elements of danger. The first and most obvious of these is
territorial expansion—overgrowth; the danger that we shall break in
pieces by our own weight. This has been the commonplace of
historians and publicists for many centuries; and its truth has
found many striking illustrations in the experience of mankind. But
we have fair ground for believing that new conditions and new forces
have nearly, if not wholly, removed the ground of this danger.
Distance, estrangement, isolation have been overcome by the recent
amazing growth in the means of intercommunion. For political and
industrial purposes, California and Massachusetts are nearer
neighbors to-day than were Philadelphia and Boston in the days of
the Revolution. The people of all our thirty-seven States know more
of each other’s affairs than the Vermonter knew of his Virginia
neighbor’s fifty years ago. It was distance, isolation, ignorance of
separate parts that broke the cohesive force of the great empires of
antiquity. Public affairs are now more public, and private less
private, than in former ages. The Railroad, the Telegraph, and the
Press, have virtually brought our citizens, with their opinions and
industries, face to face; and they live almost in each other’s
sight. The leading political, social, and industrial events of this
day will be reported and discussed at more than two millions of
American breakfast-tables to-morrow morning. Public opinion is kept
in constant exercise and training. It keeps itself constantly in
hand—ready to approve, condemn, and command. It may be wrong, it may
be tyrannical; but it is all-pervading, and constitutes, more than
ever before, a strong band of nationality.

“After all, territory is but the body of a nation. The people who
inhabit its hills and its valleys are its soul, its spirit, its
life. In them dwells its hope of immortality. Among them, if
anywhere, are to be found its chief elements of destruction.”

In the latter part of the address, he discussed Lord Macaulay’s famous letter, in which he predicted that, with universal suffrage, our Republic was all sail and no ballast; that when the country was populated like Europe, the Government would fall in the inevitable conflict between labor and capital.

“With all my heart I repel that letter as false. My first answer is
this: No man who has not lived among us can understand one thing
about our institutions; no man who has been born and reared under
monarchical governments can understand the vast difference between
theirs and ours. How is it in monarchical governments? Their society
is one series of caste upon caste. Down at the bottom, like the
granite rocks in the crust of the earth, lie the great body of
laboring men. An Englishman told me not long ago that in twenty-five
years of careful study of the agricultural class of England, he had
never known one who was born and reared in the ranks of farm
laborers that rose above his class and became a well-to-do citizen.
That is a most terrible sentence, that three millions of people
should lie at the bottom of society, with no power to rise. Above
them the gentry, the hereditary capitalist; above them, the
nobility; above them, the royalty; and, crowning all, the
sovereign—all impassable barriers of caste.

“No man born under such institutions can understand the mighty
difference between them and us in this country. Thank God, and thank
the fathers of the Republic who made, and the men who carried out
the promises of the Declaration, that in this country there are no
classes, fixed and impassable. Here society is not fixed in
horizontal layers, like the crust of the earth, but as a great New
England man said, years ago, it is rather like the ocean, broad,
deep, grand, open, and so free in all its parts that every drop that
mingles with the yellow sand at the bottom may rise through all the
waters, till it gleams in the sunshine on the crest of the highest
waves. So it is here in our free society, permeated with the light
of American freedom. There is no American boy, however poor, however
humble, orphan though he may be, that, if he have a clear head, a
true heart, a strong arm, he may not rise through all the grades of
society, and become the crown, the glory, the pillar of the State.

“Again, in depicting the dangers of universal suffrage, Macaulay
leaves wholly out of the account the great counterbalancing force of
universal education. He contemplates the government delivered over
to a vast multitude of ignorant, vicious men, who have learned no
self-control, who have never comprehended the national life, and who
will wield the ballot solely for personal and selfish ends. If this
were indeed the necessary condition of Democratic communities, it
would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to escape the logic of
Macaulay’s letter. And here is a real peril—the danger that we shall
rely upon the mere extent of the suffrage as a national safeguard.
We can not safely, even for a moment, lose sight of the _quality_ of
the suffrage, which is more important than its quantity.

* * * * *

“Our faith in the Democratic principle rests upon the belief that
intelligent men will see that their highest political good is in
liberty, regulated by just and equal laws; and that in the
distribution of political power it is safe to follow the maxim,
‘Each for all, and all for each.’ We confront the dangers of the
suffrage by the blessings of universal education.”

We present next a brief extract from an address delivered February 11, 1879,

ON THE RELATION OF THE GOVERNMENT TO SCIENCE.

“What ought to be the relation of the National Government to
science? What, if any thing, ought we to do in the way of promoting
science? For example, if we have the power, would it be wise for
Congress to appropriate money out of the Treasury to employ
naturalists to find out all that is to be known of our American
birds. Ornithology is a delightful and useful study; but would it be
wise for Congress to make an appropriation for the advancement of
that science? In my judgment manifestly not. We would thereby make
one favored class of men the rivals of all the ornithologists who in
their private way, following the bent of their genius, may be
working out the results of science in that field. I have no doubt
that an appropriation out of our Treasury for that purpose would be
a positive injury to the advancement of science, just as an
appropriation to establish a church would work injury to religion.

“Generally the desire of our scientific men is to be let alone to
work in free competition with all the scientific men of the world;
to develop their own results, and get the credit of them, each for
himself; not to have the Government enter the lists as a rival of
private enterprise.

“As a general principle, therefore, the United States ought not to
interfere in matters of science, but should leave its development to
the free, voluntary action of our great third estate, the people
themselves.

“In this non-interference theory of the Government I do not go to
the extent of saying that we should do nothing for education—for
primary education. That comes under another consideration—the
necessity of the nation to protect itself, and the consideration
that it is cheaper and wiser to give education than to build jails.
But I am speaking now of the higher sciences.

“To the general principle I have stated, there are a few obvious
exceptions which should be clearly understood when we legislate on
the subject. In the first place the Government should aid all sorts
of scientific inquiry that are necessary to the intelligent exercise
of its own functions.

“For example, as we are authorized by the Constitution, and
compelled by necessity, to build and maintain light-houses on our
coast and establish fog-signals, we are bound to make all necessary
scientific inquiries in reference to light and its laws, sound and
its laws—to do whatever in the way of science is necessary to
achieve the best results in lighting our coasts and warning our
mariners of danger. So, when we are building iron-clads for our
navy, or casting guns for our army, we ought to know all that is
scientifically possible to be known about the strength of materials
and the laws of mechanics which apply to such structures. In short,
wherever in exercising any of the necessary functions of the
Government, scientific inquiry is needed; let us make it to the
fullest extent, and at the public expense.

“There is another exception to the general rule of leaving science
to the voluntary action of the people. Wherever any great popular
interest, affecting whole classes, possibly all classes of the
community, imperatively need scientific investigation, and private
enterprise can not accomplish it, we may wisely intervene and help,
where the Constitution gives us authority. For example, in
discovering the origin of yellow fever, and the methods of
preventing its ravages, the nation should do, for the good of all,
what neither the States nor individuals can accomplish. I might
perhaps include, in a third exception, those inquiries which, in
consequence of their great magnitude and cost, can not be
successfully made by private individuals. Outside these three
classes of inquiries, the Government ought to keep its hands off,
and leave scientific experiment and inquiry to the free competition
of those bright, intelligent men whose genius leads them into the
fields of research.”

Passing abruptly from valley to mountain-peak, we present the substance of one of the most characteristic and original speeches mentioned in this book. It was delivered March 29, 1879. Though political in its immediate object, it will probably be remembered and quoted from as long as the name of Garfield lingers on the lips of men. The speaker states the question before the House better than any one else could do.

REVOLUTION IN CONGRESS.

“Let me, in the outset, state as carefully as I may, the precise
situation. At the last session, all our ordinary legislative work
was done, in accordance with the usages of the House and the Senate,
except as to two bills. Two of the twelve great appropriation bills
for the support of the Government were agreed to in both Houses as
to every matter of detail concerning the appropriation proper. We
were assured by the committees of conference in both bodies that
there would be no difficulty in adjusting all differences in
reference to the amount of money to be appropriated and the objects
of its appropriation. But the House of Representatives proposed
three measures of distinctly independent legislation; one upon the
Army Appropriation Bill, and two upon the Legislative Appropriation
Bill. The three grouped together are briefly these: first, the
substantial modification of certain sections of the law relating to
the use of the army; second, the repeal of the jurors’ test oath;
and third, the repeal of the laws regulating elections of members of
Congress.

“These three propositions of legislation were insisted upon by the
House, but the Senate refused to adopt them. So far it was an
ordinary proceeding, one which occurs frequently in all legislative
bodies. The Senate said to us, through their conferees: ‘We are
ready to pass the appropriation bills, but are unwilling to pass, as
riders, the three legislative measures you ask us to pass.’
Thereupon the House, through its conference committee, made the
following declaration. And, in order that I may do exact justice, I
read from the speech of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr.
Beck]:

“‘The Democratic conferees on the part of the House seem determined
that unless those rights were secured to the people—’

“Alluding to the three points I have named—‘in the bill sent to the
Senate they would refuse, under their constitutional right, to make
appropriations to carry on the Government, if the dominant majority
in the Senate insisted upon the maintenance of these laws and
_refused to consent_ to their appeal.’

“Then, after stating that if the position they had taken compelled
an extra session, and that the new Congress would offer the
repealing bills separately, and forecasting what would happen when
the new House should be under no necessity of coercing the Senate,
he declared that—

“‘If, however, the President of the United States, in the exercise
of the power vested in him, should see fit to veto the bills thus
presented to him, ... then I have no doubt those same amendments
will be again made part of the appropriation bills, and it will be
for the President to determine whether he will block the wheels of
Government and refuse to accept necessary appropriations rather than
allow the representatives of the people to repeal odious laws which
they regard as subversive of their rights and privileges.... Whether
that course is right or wrong, it will be adopted, and I have no
doubt adhered to, no matter what happens with the appropriation
bills.’

“That was the proposition made by the Democracy in Congress at the
close of the Congress now dead.

“Another distinguished Senator [Mr. Thurman]—and I may properly
refer to Senators of a Congress not now in existence—reviewing the
situation, declared, in still more succinct terms:

“‘We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England
established after two centuries of contest, to say we will not grant
the money of the people unless there is a redress of grievances.’

“These propositions were repeated with various degrees of vehemence
by the majority in the House.

“The majority in the Senate and the minority on this floor expressed
the deepest anxiety to avoid an extra session and to avert the
catastrophe thus threatened—the stoppage of the Government. They
pointed out the danger to the country and its business interests of
an extra session of Congress, and expressed their willingness to
consent to any compromise consistent with their views of duty which
should be offered—not in the way of coercion but in the way of fair
adjustment—and asked to be met in a spirit of just accommodation on
the other side. Unfortunately no spirit of adjustment was manifested
in reply to their advances. And now the new Congress is assembled:
and after ten days of caucus deliberation, the House of
Representatives has resolved, substantially, to reaffirm the
positions of its predecessors.

THE VOLUNTARY POWERS OF THE GOVERNMENT.

“I had occasion, at a late hour of the last Congress, to say
something on what may be called the voluntary element in our
institutions. I spoke of the distribution of the powers of
Government. First, to the nation; second, to the States; and third,
the reservation of power to the people themselves.