Republican State Senator McCarthy Opens the Campaign of 1883

New York State Senator and Congressman Dennis McCarthy

The Cortland News, Friday, October 2, 1883.

OPENING THE CAMPAIGN.

Address of the Hon. Dennis McCarthy,

in Accepting a Renomination for the State Senate -The Position

of the Republican Party-The Necessity for Tariff Protection.

   When Senator McCarthy was presented to the Republican Senatorial Convention, after being renominated, he said:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:

   I have to thank you for this renewed honor and obligation, and can only say in the fullness of my heart that my ambition for the term for which you have nominated me is to serve you even better than I have done in the past.

   I believe this to be a Republican Convention—Simon pure—based upon the principles of the party without regard to internal divisions or offensive names. When we go out from this convention we will go as the State Convention has gone out, in harmony, determined to fight the battle and win.

   This party to which we belong is not a party of to-day, or of to-morrow. It is a party of principles that are as sure and as solid in their foundation as the mountains of our land. They are and must be eternal so far as this earth is concerned, because they are the only true and just principles by which this government can be carried on.

   It is said that the Republican party has fulfilled its mission. The Republican party has never been defeated by its opponents, only by itself. We have learned a lesson from this defeat that when it comes to the question as between principles and men, principles must override every personal feeling, and every difference of opinion, and no matter how offensive the man may be to us, or the men, in the management of party affairs, it is but for a day, for principles live and men die.

   What has not the Republican party done? It has carried this government through a civil war unparalleled for its strength, for the length of its existence, and restored it again to its united power. It carried out the principles of reconstruction. Within less time than that during which the war was prosecuted, it restored all the States and this union to their original condition and constitutional power. After reconstruction, or at least during the time of reconstruction, it became necessary to pay up the debt which had accumulated during that war.

   When the Democratic administration before the war, with a debt of only $70,000,000, or thereabouts, could not borrow upon the credit of the United States at less than twelve per cent, the fact stands before us and our party, and the country, and the world, that to-day, with a debt of nearly three thousand millions, the credit of the United States is above par and sought for throughout the civilized world. Is not this a record for us to remember? And while it has kept our credit up to par and above par, it has reduced and paid off one-third of the national debt; it has reduced taxation; it has reduced interest, and has mainly wiped out the internal revenue taxation of the country. It has brought the country to specie payments. It has left its obligations and indebtedness to the soldiers and sailors of the country, and has not forgotten them, when the hour of trial and necessity for their service was over. And yet you see here and there in the opposition papers criticisms of the bounty and the pensions given to the men who dared their lives and offered them as a sacrifice upon the altar of their country, men who are remembered with gratitude, but perhaps not always justly remembered by the country through the Republican party.

   I wish that every man would look over the condition of this country to-day, and see if the Republican party has finished its mission. A grander, more magnificent, wealthier condition of the country was never known to exist than exists to-day, brought about by the Republican party. And if we are to pass it over to our Democratic opponents, less than ten years, or even five years, will not have passed before you will see a backward movement in this progress. Why? Because the Democratic party boldly and openly proclaim that they are the enemies and opponents of the industry of the country. They say they are opposed to a protective tariff, and yet without that tariff what would this country have been to-day ? What would it have accomplished during the war? There would have been defeat, destruction and dissolution of the Union. What has been the result of the Republican policy upon the question of the tariff? Facts speak loudly, and cannot be overcome.

THE EFFECT OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

   From 1850 to 1865 the balance of trade against this country was over $804,000,000, every penny of which had to be paid in the hard earnings of the people of this country, in gold and in silver, that they could scrape up and send over to Europe, to pay and support its industries. Since 1865, when the tariff began to work with its full force, what are the facts? Why, from 1866 to 1882, instead of hundreds of millions of balance against us, the balance in our favor has been $600,000,000 of money, poured upon us to stimulate our industries of every kind and nature.

   And this is the policy upon which the Republican party stands today. It is the policy which has carried that party successfully forward. It has built up your cities, and it has built up your villages and towns. It has increased your population in a thousand ways that were not known before 1865. Stop this principle of protection! Roll back the wheels of progress! Reduce the population of your villages and towns and cities, and send it afloat and adrift! Where? Nowhere, except to the agricultural regions of the country. You will at once increase your agricultural products, adding one-half from the number that consume, and where will the agriculturist be to-morrow with that condition of things?

   Now to-day your great hope, your great strength, your great reliance is upon the markets of the other world. And these markets can only take from you what is necessary to make up any deficiency in Europe. Now you add to this surplus, increase the quantity, decrease the consumption, and before five years roll over this country there would be a cry, "God forgive us that we have made a mistake and allowed a party to come into power whose whole hope, whose whole desire, is to strengthen the monied powers of Europe instead of the industries of our own country."

THE NEEDS OF EUROPE.

   To-day the growth of wheat in the United States is five hundred millions of bushels, of which about two hundred millions, perhaps two hundred and fifty, are shipped mainly to England. The whole production of Europe is about one thousand millions. Europe markets about the same quantity that we market, over and above the needs of the producers. The price of wheat for the world is regulated in London, the great center of values. Now just so much as is added to or taken from the surplus in Europe is the proportion of benefit or disadvantage to the agricultural interests of this country.

   It has been said, "But if you don't have a revenue tariff, if you don't keep up trade with England and France and Germany, you won't have any customers for your grain; the trade will be cut off."

   What is the fact? Without regard to the condition of things as to the equalization of trade, necessity compels them to take almost every surplus article of agricultural produce that we have to spare, and no thanks to them for their disposition; it is the natural law of necessity. Consumption and demand regulate the prices of supplies. And in spite of the Democratic croakings, we still continue our protective tariff, and from day to day and week to week and year to year trade grows in our favor, and the demand upon us for the earnings of our industry increases.

THE SHIPMENT OF AMERICAN PRODUCTS.

   The exports of cheese in 1854 amounted to only $514,000. In 1881 they were $16,400,000. And yet it is not an article that they are obliged to have. This comes as a natural result and no thanks to them. For this we are indebted to the protection which the cheese of this country has against the cheese productions of Germany and France. We may go directly to their own markets and compete with them on more than equal footing. In 1855 only $418,000 worth of butter was shipped to Europe. In 1881, $6,251,000 worth of butter was shipped, all under the stimulus of the protective tariff, a tariff of which the Republican party is the father. Of bacon and ham in 1856, the value of the shipments was $3,195,000. This was at a time when there was a revenue tariff, and not a tariff for protection. In 1881, under this protective tariff, the agriculturists sent out of this country bacon and ham of the value of $61,000,000.

   And so I could continue to make comparisons that would astonish every sober, reflecting, thinking man, and show by facts the immense progress of the industry of this country, a great growth of material wealth and population, a wonderful advancement in intelligence and education. And where does the Republican party find its main support? It is where you find intelligence and education the broadest and the most general, the most generally distributed among the people. That is where you find the Republican party strongest.

A PLUNDERING LEGISLATURE.

   Now let us turn to the last Legislature, under Democratic rule and Democratic government. That body had no thought, no object, no work, except to increase the number of offices, to increase the salaries, to wipe out non-partisan boards and commissions, and to put one head, and that Democratic, in power.

   Take the Commissioners of Emigration. During their administration 11,000,000 people had landed at Castle Garden, in New York, and yet in all that time no man had been defrauded of his money or his rights; no woman had been ravished of her virtue, and everything had been protected and carried on with fair and proper justice to all the parties interested and concerned. Their proposition—and they carried it because they had a majority—was to wipe out this commission. One of those commissioners represented an Irish emigration society; another represented a German emigration society; but they were all to be wiped out, and the power put into the hands of one man, a straight-out, positive, active partisan, with a salary of $8,000 a year—when no commissioner ever received a dollar for his services—in order to make that office and that power a political machine with which to hold the party in power.

   And we, if we lend ourselves to individual bitterness and to individual ideas as to what is right and wrong, must never forget that there is a step beyond which we cannot, in justice to our consciences and to our obligation to the principles of our party, go. For the very moment that you do that, you do injustice to that party which is our honor and our glory to be members of.

A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION.

   The Democratic party gave us a reciprocity treaty with Canada, which allowed the people of that land to come here with their grain and their cattle and their sheep and their wool, and take advantage of our enterprise and our progress and our industry upon an equal footing with ourselves so far as the market was concerned. This would have been very well if they had been citizens of this country. Their markets were not sufficient to consume what they produced. They could not compete with us in London with their agricultural productions.

   The Republican party took that treaty away. Now they cannot come in here and compete with our agriculturists, except they pay a duty of fifteen cents a bushel on barley and eight or ten cents on wheat. And they ought to pay it. Why? Because they do not pay a dollar of the town or county or State or National taxes. They were not here in the times of war and trouble and difficulty, when men were called upon as patriots to stand up and defend their country. They were across the border. They gave us none of their support; and I say it is but fair when they come to our markets that they should pay such tariff as will indemnify the agriculturists and the other interests of the country for the costs and expenses of maintaining our government. [Applause.]

SALT AND THE TARIFF.

   Why, take the case of your city and look back to 1860, when there was no manufacturing interest here except in the production of salt. That salt interest has had its day. By unfortunate management its tariff was reduced and its markets were cut off; and property at one time worth $6,000 or $8,000 goes begging now for ownership.

   What has a general protective tariff done? It has put in the place of salt a power fifty fold stronger and better and more powerful to build up this city. Why, it is a fact today, as shown by statistics taken a year ago last winter, that 14,000 persons were employed in the city of Syracuse in the different kinds of manufacturing. Take this growth away from your city; depopulate it, the grass growing in these streets, the population tailing off. The farmer loses his home market. I would not give within five or ten or fifteen dollars an acre as much for any farm in the county of Onondaga under such conditions as I would to-day. Whereas, with the present foundation upon which to work we are to go on, we are to grow stronger, we are to have more manufacturing, we are to have more laborers and mechanics, we are to have a larger population to consume your produce. And if you only do that which God has given you the power to do, cultivate His soil, take advantage of His rains and His sunshine, with the stimulus which the Republican party has placed upon the country, we have only to go on, successfully, for all time. [Applause.]

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE PARTY.

   Fellow citizens, can we not lay aside offensive names? Can we not afford to lay aside personal jealousies and bitterness? Can we not see the fact that the Democratic party owes it not to itself but to us, the Republicans of New York, that they carried this State last fall? We have learned the policy of that party—nothing for you or for me, nothing for the people; all for the party; accumulation of offices, accumulation of salaries; every act to increase and strengthen their power over the government of the State, and the finances of this State.

A JUDAS EVERYWHERE.

   Why, it is said that corruption has crept into the Republican party. When the twelve Apostles were called by the Saviour of the world while He was upon earth, one of them was a Judas and sold himself for thirty pieces of silver. If the Saviour of the world could not choose honest and pure and incorruptible men, is it strange that the Republican party is sometimes deceived? [Applause.]

PARTY POLICY.

   Just so long as the Republican party remains true to itself and makes wise selections of representatives, and holds them to a strict accountability, keeping the principles of the party in view and laying aside local interests and local differences, why then there is no doubt that a majority of the electors of this State are Republicans.

   The lesson of last year was a severe one. It was said by some to have been a rebellion against bossism. It was said by some to have been a lesson against the dictatorial power of men high in office. Now, I concede this argument to be true and a good one, that we are all made with diversified talents; one goes in one direction and another in another, with success. Some men are born to command; some men are born to lead, with a magnetism over their fellow men to draw them to them.

   To all that I have no objection. It is only when the dictation comes down from the men, and the power does not come up from the people, that I object. Then I think the people have a right in their own caucuses and conventions to say to these men, "Hands off! The people speak; the party speaks, and if you are in harmony and accord with them, so be it. Otherwise stand aside, for we are determined that the Republican party shall be the successful party." [Applause.]

DANGER DEFIED.

   And when you do this, you have nothing to fear from a disjointed, disconnected, broken column of party, divided into sections and factions. They talk harmony and they cry harmony; yet they stand ready at the very extent of their exertion and ability to make war upon one another, unless there be a fair and equal division of what? Division of principles? No. Division of anything for the good of the people? No. Anything to which Republicans have a fair right in justice and equality? But for the spoils of the party they are ready to fight like the tigers and hyenas in a cage, and the one which is the strongest and succeeds in the end is to be congratulated in the end, but not by us.

   Gentlemen of the convention, I thank you for your attention, and I hope when you hear from me in the Legislature, you will have to say, as a great many of you have said to me before to-day, "You have done well. We are satisfied with your services."

   There is a stimulus here to-day in this unanimous nomination—I might say in this unanimous asking me throughout the whole district to be a candidate; and it shall be my ambition to seek with all the energy and intelligence and ability that I possess to so serve you during this winter and the following winter as to meet with the approbation of the delegates to this convention and the people of this district [Applause.]

Dennis McCarthy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_McCarthy_(congressman)