gain through increments in land values tends to be offset elsewhere, has been recognized in the foregoing argument. Our numerical illustration assumed a six per cent return for the $30,000 free capital, but allowed a return of only four per cent on the $50,000 in appreciating land. The writer believes that, in general, appreciating land does yield a low percentage on its capitalization, and that this fact adequately represents the working of the principle referred to, when account is taken of the speculative character of the "unearned increment."

These observations are designed merely to narrow the issue between the single taxers and their opponents, by blunting some of the weapons on both sides. They cover only a small part of the points in controversy.

B. M. ANDERSON, JR.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON THE TARIFF: A MYTH

THOSE Who have followed the campaign literature on the tariff during recent years will have become familiar with a phrase attributed to Abraham Lincoln. The following version is taken from Curtiss's Industrial Development of Nations (1912), a pretentious three-volume publication, in which are collected indiscriminately all sorts of protectionist arguments. Under a portrait of Lincoln this is printed:

I do not know much about the tariff, but I know this much, when we buy manufactured goods abroad, we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money. When we buy the manufactured goods at home, we get both the goods and the money." 1

1 Vol. iii, p. 6. Elsewhere in the book the version is in somewhat different form: "Abraham Lincoln said: 'When an American paid $20 for steel rails to an English manufacturer, America had the steel and England had the $20. But when he paid $20 for the steel to an American manufacturer, America had both the steel and the $20.'" Ibid., vol. ii, p. 471. This obviously is an anachronism, since such a thing as a steel rail was unknown in Lincoln's time.

No reference is given by Curtiss to Lincoln's writings; nor is such a reference given in any place where I have found the phrase quoted. A careful examination of the various editions of Lincoln's published works brings to light nothing that remotely resembles it. There is nothing in either of the two editions of his writings put together by Nicolay and Hay, nor is there anything in the so called Federal Edition. Nicolay and Hay's Life yields nothing of the sort, nor any of the biographies. So with Lincoln's Speeches in Congress and his Messages to Congress. There is no lack, to be sure, of references to the tariff by Lincoln. He began his political career as a Whig, and remained a protectionist; tho during the decade preceding the war his political insight led him to put it aside as an issue on which to appeal to the people. Those who are interested in the history of the tariff controversy may find it worth while to turn to some notes of his, written in 1846-67, containing a sketch of an address on the tariff. Here the main thought is that labor given to transporting a commodity from foreign countries is wasted, if the commodity can be produced within the country with as little labor as elsewhere.1 This may be an echo of some of Carey's well-known utterances; and it could be made the text for some explanation of the principle of comparative cost. A passage of a similar sort is in an address made at Pittsburg in 1861, indicating that Lincoln had kept this particular turn of reasoning in mind. But there is not the slightest suggestion of the much-quoted phrase.

Now, what is the history of the phrase?

The very first mention which we have found 2 is in 1894, in the American Economist, a weekly protectionist sheet published in New York. In that periodical for June 29, 1894, the following is given as having been copied from the Independent of Howard, Illinois, of June 9, 1894:

"Lincoln's first speech on the tariff question was short and to the point. He said he did not pretend to be learned in political economy,

1 Lincoln's Complete Works (2 vol. edition), vol. i, p. 90. Cf. p. 679 for the Pittsburg address.

2 I say " we,' ," because in the endeavor to trace the phrase to its origin I have had invaluable assistance from Mr. D. M. Matteson, well-known for his thoroness in research on problems of American history.

but he thought that he knew enough to know that' when an American paid twenty dollars for steel to an English manufacturer, America had the steel and England had the twenty dollars. But when he paid twenty dollars for the steel to an American manufacturer, America had both the steel and the twenty dollars.'

In a later issue (Oct. 26) of the American Economist of that same year, it is stated that another newspaper, the Peoria Journal, protested that the "goods and money" speech was made at Kewanee; while still another newspaper, the Chicago Record, pointed out that this version was not at all in accord with Herndon's report of Lincoln's first speech.1

That the phrase was not current before 1894, at least in its attribution to Lincoln, and probably was not known at all, is indicated by its absence from those collections of opinions of "the fathers" which form a familiar part of the protectionist stock in trade. It is not to be found in Stebbins' American Protectionist's Manual (1883); tho Lincoln is there mentioned as being " in favor of a high protective tariff." Nor is it in a tract published in 1892 by the American Iron & Steel Association, under the title The Testimony of the Fathers. The tract contains a choice collection of excerpts from the utterances of Hamilton, Jefferson, Calhoun, Webster, Clay, even Fillmore and Buchanan; but not a word from Lincoln. Nor is it used with any frequency for some years after its first appearance in 1894. But after 1900 it turns up repeatedly in the file of the American Economist: in 1901, in 1905, twice in 1906, again in 1908.2 After the very first appearance, the commodity mentioned seems to be invariably rails, times iron rails, sometimes steel rails.

some

Usually, a newspaper

1 Mr. Matteson reports that Howard appeared on the maps until about 1902; since then a village at the same spot, a mere junction-point, apparently, is named "Lotus" on the map. It is in the northwest corner of Champaign County, forty miles from Lincoln's early home at New Salem. Mr. Matteson adds: 'I am forced to the conclusion that the Howard Independent is a myth, or at least a misprint. The postmaster at Lotus writes me that no paper has ever been printed there; and there is no other town in Illinois, so far as I have been able to discover, with which the name Howard is associated. No Howard Independent was published elsewhere in the United States, according to the newspaper directories of 1891, 1894–95, and the last issue."

2 May 10, 1901; June 9, 1905; Feb. 16 and Dec. 21, 1906; Dec. 18, 1908; Dec. 23, 1910. The set of the American Economist in the Harvard Library is not complete; there may be other references in the missing numbers.

is quoted as having used the phrase or reported its use. Thus, in 1905, the following is quoted from the Worcester Telegram:

"Senator Scott of West Virginia is scored in some places for quoting President Lincoln in support of the policy of standing pat on the Tariff issue, and some of the critics appear to doubt that Lincoln ever used the words attributed to him. The words at least are good enough to have been used by the war President. Senator Scott says: President Lincoln once remarked that if we gave $30 a ton for iron rails made in this country we would have both the rails and the money, but if we bought them in England the rails only would be ours, while the Britishers would get the cash.' . . . Neither does it matter. . . whether the rails are iron of the days of Lincoln or the steel of today."

In 1908, again, the then Secretary of the Treasury, Leslie M. Shaw, is quoted in the Economist as having used the quotation in a Boston speech.

The first appearance for express campaign use appears to be in 1904. The phrase is to be found in the Republican Campaign Book of that year. In earlier campaign books, for 1892, 1896, 1900, it does not appear; altho in that of 1896 Lincoln is cited as an advocate of protection. Evidently the phrase was not widely known during these earlier years. In the Campaign Book of 1904, there is an extended quotation from Lincoln's tariff notes of 1846-47 (referred to a moment ago) and then at the close we find:

"On another occasion Mr. Lincoln is quoted as saying: 'I am not posted on the tariff, but I know that if I give my wife twenty dollars to buy a cloak and she buys one made in free-trade England, we have the cloak, but England has the twenty dollars; while if she buys a cloak made in the protected United States, we have the cloak and the twenty dollars.'

Here, it will be observed, "a cloak" appears. In a speech by McCleary of Minnesota, in the House of Representatives, April 22, 1904,2" a dress" and "my wife " appear, with the

1 Italics are mine. The guarded way in which the passage is used would seem to indicate suspicion. It does not appear in the Republican Campaign Handbooks of 1908 and of 1912.

1 Congressional Record, 58 Cong., 2 Session, appendix, p. 246.

same sum of $20. It may be that the campaign book version of 1904 was taken from McCleary's speech.

In 1910 the phrase appears conspicuously in a booklet entitled Story of a Tariff, published by the American Protective Tariff League, the organization which publishes the American Economist also. This booklet lauds the tariff of 1909 as "the best tariff bill (sic) the Republican party ever passed," and gives a quantity of extracts from speeches on that measOn the inside cover page there is printed in large type "Lincoln's Tariff Creed," in these words:

ure.

"Secretary Stanton once asked Abraham Lincoln what he thought of a Protective Tariff. Mr. Lincoln replied: 'I don't know much about the Tariff, but I do know that if my wife buys her cloak in America, we get the money and the cloak, and that American labor is paid for producing it; if she buys her cloak abroad, we get only the cloak, the other country gets the money, and foreign labor receives the benefit.'"

It will be observed that this is somewhat enriched. American labor and foreign labor are smuggled in; and not only is the wife introduced, but Secretary Stanton also.1

Not the least interesting episode in the history of the phrase is its voyage across the water and subsequent return to the United States. In 1908, the American Economist reports

that a London correspondent has written:

"An interesting development has been the appeal to Abraham Lincoln... as the final authority in an English fiscal controversy. A number of Unionist papers closed the controversy simultaneously by quoting the following extract from a speech made by Lincoln shortly before his death: 'The problem seems to me a simple one. If we adopt Free Trade it means that we import our goods, in which case the foreigner will have our money and the work, and we his goods. If, however, we adopt a system of Protection, or a sys

1 In response to an inquiry, Mr. W. F. Wakeman, Secretary of the American Protective Tariff League, wrote me on June 28, 1914: "About five years ago I took up this subject of what Lincoln really did say on the Tariff Question and found that the extract as printed is correct. I consulted the family and every possible authority. I will try to run over the original correspondence shortly and give you additional information if desired." But the information, tho asked for, has not been supplied. Mr. Wakeman was Secretary of the League in 1894, and has been so ever since, except in 1900-1901, when he was Appraiser in New York.