all dealers in liquor, which would tend to prevent its use. 1 believed in a policy that would protect our own laborers from undue competition with foreign labor, and would increase and develop our home industries. This position was chiefly a defensive one, and experience has proven that it is not a safe one. The Republican party is stronger when it is aggressive.

On the 31st of August I attended the state fair as usual, and on the morning of that day made a full and formal political address covering both state and national interests. I quote a few passages on the liquor question, then the leading subject of state policy. I said:

"All laws are a restraint upon liberty. We surrender some of our natural rights for the security of the rest. The only question is, where is the boundary between rights reserved and those given up? And the only answer is, wherever the general good will be promoted by the surrender. In a republic the personal liberty of the citizen to do what he wishes should not be restricted, except when it is clear that it is for the interest of the public at large. There are three forms of legislative restriction: Prohibition, regulation and taxation, of which taxation is the mildest. We prohibit crime, we regulate and restrain houses of bad fame. We tax whisky and beer. I see no hardship in such restraints upon liberty. They are all not only for the public good, but for the good of those affected. If certain social enjoyments are prolific of vice and crime they must give way, or submit to restraints or taxation.

"I know it is extremely difficult to define the line between social habits and enjoyments perfectly innocent and proper and those that are injurious to all concerned. It is in this that the danger lies, for the law ought never to interfere with social happiness and innocent enjoyments. The fault of Americans is that they are not social enough. I have seen on the banks of the Rhine, and in Berlin, old and young men, women, children of all conditions of social life, listening to music, playing their games and drinking their beer, doing no wrong and meaning none. I have seen in the villages of France the young people dancing gayly, with all the animation of youth and innocence, while the old people, looking on, were chatting and joking and drinking their native wines, and I could see no wrong in all this.

"But there were other scenes in these and other countries: Ginshops and haunts of vice where the hand of authority was seen and felt. What I contend for is that the lawmaking power shall be authorized to make the distinction between innocent and harmful amusements and the places and habits of life which eventually lead to intemperance, vice and crime. Surely we can leave to our general assembly, chosen by the people and constantly responsible to them, the framing of such wise regulations, distinctions

and taxes as will discriminate between enjoyment and vicious places of

resort.

"It is a reproach to our legislative capacity to allow free whisky to be sold, untaxed and without regulation, at tens of thousands of groggeries and saloons, lest some law should be passed to restrain the liberty of the citizen. What we want is a wise, discriminating tax law on the traffic in intoxicating liquors, and judicious legislation to restrain, as far as practicable, the acknowledged evils that flow from this unlimited traffic."

This speech expresses my convictions in respect to temperance, and how far this and kindred subjects should be regulated by legislative authority. This was a delicate subject, but I believe the opinions expressed by me were generally entertained by the people of Ohio and would have been fully acted upon by the legislature but for revenue restrictions in the constitution of Ohio.

After I closed Governor Foster and Speaker Keifer spoke briefly. The general canvass then continued over the state until the election. As the only state officers to be elected were the secretary of state, a supreme judge and a member of the board of public works, the chief interest centered in the liquor question and in the election of Members of Congress in doubtful districts. I spoke in several districts, especially in Elyria, Warren, Wauseon, Tiffin and Zanesville. I spent several days in Cincinnati, socially, and in speaking in different parts of the city. The result of the election was that James W. Newman, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, received a majority of 19,000 over Charles Townsend, the Republican candidate. This was heralded as a Democratic victory. In one sense this was true, but it was properly attributed by the Republicans to the opposition to prohibition. It grew out of the demand of a portion of our people for free whisky and no Sunday. They were opposed to the liquor law, and believed it went too far, and voted the Democratic ticket.

A few days after the election I went with two friends to Lawrence, Kansas, arriving about the 15th of October. I have always retained a kindly feeling for the people of that state since I shared in the events of its early history. With each visit I have marked the rapid growth of the state and the intense politics that divided its people into several parties. This

848

RECOLLECTIONS OF JOHN SHERMAN.

was the natural outgrowth of conditions and events before the Civil War. As usual I was called upon to make a speech in Lawrence, which, in view of our recent defeat in Ohio, was not a pleasant task. However, I accepted, and spoke at the opera house, chiefly on the early history of Kansas and the struggle in that territory and state, which resulted in transforming the United States from a confederacy of hostile states into a powerful republic founded upon the principles of universal liberty and perpetual union.

From Lawrence we went into Texas, and for the first time traversed that magnificent state, going from Denison to Laredo on the Rio Grande, stopping on the way at Austin and San Antonio. On the route I met Senator Richard Coke and his former colleague, Samuel B. Maxey. I have studied the history of Texas and its vast undeveloped resources, and anticipated in advance its growth in wealth and population. It is destined to be, if not the first, among the first, of the great states of the Union. We returned via Texarkana to St. Louis and thence home.

CHAPTER XLV.

STEPS TOWARDS MUCH NEEDED TARIFF LEGISLATION.

Necessity of Relief from Unnecessary Taxation - Views of the President as Presented to Congress in December, 1882 Views of the Tariff Commission Appointed by the President-Great Changes Made by the Senate-Regret That I did Not Defeat the Bill - Wherein Many Sections Were Defective or Unjust —

Bill to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service — A Mandatory Provi

T

sion That Should be Added to the Existing Law - Further Talk

of Nominating Me for Governor of Ohio-Reasons Why I

Could Not Accept-Selected as Chairman of the State Con

vention Refusal to Be Nominated - J. B. Foraker

HE President was able to present, in his annual message to Congress on the 4th of December, 1882, a very favorable statement of the condition of the United States during the preceding year. He recalled the attention of Congress to the recommendation in his previous message on the importance of relieving the industry and enterprise of the country from the pressure of unnecessary taxation, and to the fact that the public revenues had far exceeded the expenditures, and, unless checked by appropriate legislation, such excess would continue to increase from year to year. The surplus revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881, amounted to $100,000,000, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1882, it amounted to more than $145,000,000. This was applied to the payment of the public debt. He renewed the expression of his conviction that such rapid extinguishment of the national indebtedness as was taking place was by no means a cause for congratulation, but rather for serious apprehension. He therefore urged upon Congress the policy of diminishing the revenue by reducing taxation. He then stated at length his opinion of the reductions that ought to be made. He felt

justified in recommending the abolition of all internal taxes except those upon tobacco in its various forms, and upon distilled spirits and fermented liquors. The message was a clear and comprehensive statement of the existing tariff system, and the unequal distribution of both its burdens and its benefits. He called attention to the creation of the tariff commission, and to the report of that commission as to the condition and prospects of the various commercial, manufacturing, agricultural, mining and other interests of the country, and recommended an enlargement of the free list, so as to include within it the numerous articles which yielded inconsiderable revenue, a simplification of the complex and inconsistent schedule of duties upon certain manufactures, particularly those of cotton, iron, and steel, and a substantial reduction of the duties upon those and various other articles. The subsequent action of Congress did not, in my opinion, conform to this, in some respects, wise recommendation of the President. In his closing paragraph he stated:

"The closing year has been replete with blessings for which we owe to the Giver of all good our reverent acknowledgment. For the uninterrupted harmony of our foreign relations, for the decay of sectional animosities, for the exuberance of our harvests and the triumphs of our mining and manufacturing industries, for the prevalence of health, the spread of intelligence and the conservation of the public credit, for the growth of the country in all the elements of national greatness for these and countless other blessings we should rejoice and be glad. I trust that under the inspiration of this great prosperity our counsels may be harmonious, and that the dictates of prudence, patriotism, justice, and economy may lead to the adoption of measures in which the Congress and the Executive may heartily unite."

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury emphasized and elaborated the recommendations of the President.

The real cause of the delay of the Senate at the previous session, in acting upon the internal revenue bill, was the desire to await the action of the tariff commission appointed under the act approved May 15, 1882. To secure a comprehensive scheme of taxation it was necessary to include in a revenue bill duties on imported goods as well as taxes on internal productions. The members of the tariff commission appointed by the President, and who signed the report, were John L. Hayes, Henry W.