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sophistical reasoning, and charlatanry of protectionism should be encouraged and freely used by free traders. The fact that all through my book I am obliged to define what I mean by "free trade" when I use the term, shows how protectionists have succeeded in obscuring its true meaning, as well as the meekness and want of self-assertion with which free traders have calmly submitted to this obscuration.

I think, further, the time has come when free traders should dwell more not only upon the inherent immorality of protection, but also upon what I consider to be established fact-the fraud and corruption that protection breeds. No one can deliberately and judicially study the history of the successive tariff revisions of the past fifty years without coming to the conclusion that each one is attended by more and more misrepresentation, lobbying in its worst forms, and greediness in securing more special favor by each particular interest, combined with "log-rolling" or pooling of interests to secure benefits for all in the pool. So far has this been carried that it has become the controlling force in screwing up protection ever higher and higher, even when the mandate of the country has been in favor of reduction. While admitting the value of the researches of Edward Stanwood as published in his American Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century, I think he is entirely in error when he says, "There has never been a time in the history of the

country when the predominant motive to protection was found in a selfish wish of manufacturers that the government should increase their profits by laying heavy duties upon foreign goods." He admits that such a motive has been present, and that it has been aggressive and occasionally offensive. Similarly, I admit that many protectionists are perfectly honest and sincere in their advocacy of protection, but I maintain that now and for many years our overweighted system of protection has been and is maintained by the organized greed and selfishness of the great protected industries of the country, supported by the general ignorance of our people as to what free trade really is, and the aggressive, supercilious tone of protectionism, always on the alert to retain all the protection it has gained and to gain more whenever it can. Protection is the Old Man of the Sea that has got on our backs, and the question now is how we are to get rid of it.

I ask my readers to remember that by free trade I mean a tariff for revenue only. It might not be necessary to repeat this constantly, but protectionists perversely insist upon misusing the term and many persons who are not protectionists are so hazy in their understanding of what free trade is, that I am obliged to say over and over again that by free trade, I mean a tariff for revenue only. I do not mean by free trade the abolition of all custom houses, the abandonment of all duties on imports, absolute

free trade such as exists between the states of our Union. Great Britain is a free trade country in the proper sense of the term; she has custom houses and has a tariff for revenue only, with hardly any exception. Yet in the same breath protectionists will speak of England as a free trade country-and will ask you if, being a free trader, you intend to abolish all custom houses!

For their kindness in permitting me to use extracts from the undermentioned books, my thanks are tendered to authors and publishers: Miss Ida M. Tarbell, The Tariff in Our Times, the Macmillan Co.; Prof. F. W. Taussig, Tariff History of the United States, G. P. Putnam's Sons; Mr. Edward Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century, Houghton Mifflin Co.

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