OCR Text |
Show ufacturing field. It has only been when we have deviated from our tariff policy that we have suffered a recession of our forward march along the road to prosperity and progress. That the system is worked work-ed is best evidenced by the conditions in the United States and the rest of the world today. Compare the conditions in the United States with the rest of the world. Compare the conditions of our workers with those of Europe and Asia and then make lip your mind what kind of a tariff system you want. And don't forget that during a time our population was trying to double itself our bank deposits increased twelve fold- After all the greatest proof of the pudding is in the eating. OUR NATIONAL PROGRESS If you don't believe that the United States is a wealthy and a progressively prosperous nation, it is well to call your attention to some figures recently made public by Stone, Webster and Blodget, in which it is pointed out that in 1 926 the national income was ninety nine-ty billion dollars. In 1 890', less than forty years before, the total national na-tional income was nine billion dollars. It has therefore increased ten fold in forty years. For each American family the annual income now averages over $2,000. During the same period the value of American manufactures annually has increased from $9,372,3 79,000 to $62,700,000,000 and the value of farm products has incresed from $2,460,000,000 to $19,700,000,000- Individual deposits in banks have increased from; $4,060,000,000 to $48,880,000,000. The population has increased in-creased from 62,000,000 to 1 17,136,000. These figures will give you some idea of the great growth of America during the past eighty years. Significantly enough, although we hear a great deal about the rise in manufacturing and the decline in farming in the United States the value of farm products has increased in-creased a shade more in proportion than has the value of manufactured manufac-tured products. In other words, the value of farm products annually annual-ly now is eight times as great as in 1890 while the value of manufactured manu-factured products is a little less than seven times as great. More significant than this, however, is the fact that the bank deposits of the people have increased nearly twelve times during the same period of time. Now with value of manufactured products nearly seven times as great, farm products eight times as great and bank deposits twelve times as large, the population has not quite doubled. It is hard to see, therefore, that the individual is a great deal better off in the United States in 1928 than he was in 1890- This in spite of the fact that we heard a great deal of bunk about the good old days and how the farmers are slipping into "peasantry." We must not lose sight of the fact either that during1 practically all of this great era of the development of our country, the same fiscal policies have been in effect that are now in effect. In other words, during the past seventy-five years, for a greater part of the time the United States has been operating under a protective tariff, a plan which had for its purpose the holding of the great American trtarket, for the American producer both in the agriculture and ma.n- |