Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/386

362 American people. Our natural resources are so immense and the energy and ingenuity of American labor so exceptionally productive, that owing to the combination of these two tremendous factors the American people were bound to prosper and to grow rapidly in wealth under—or in spite of—any economic policy. The more I study the history of our economic development the more I become convinced that this country would have by this time been just as rich and prosperous as it is, had that development been permitted to take its natural course without any artificial protection. It would be healthier, too, as the human body is healthier when brought up, not on medicinal stimulants, but upon natural food. The economic activities would in some respects probably have taken different directions. The distribution of the product and accumulated wealth would probably have been different, too, and very likely more wholesome. People would have relied more upon their own energies and less upon the Government to make them rich. But, in my opinion at least, the aggregate production of wealth and the general state of popular prosperity would not have been less.

But, whether you agree with me in this academic view or not, upon one point, I am sure, I cannot fail to have the assent of every candid man: The idea that this country, of all known countries, the richest in natural resources, with its labor, the most intelligent, energetic and productive labor in the world, should need the highest protective tariff ever enacted in any civilized country to make our industries go and to save our people from ruin and starvation, is so wildly preposterous that I do not understand how any self-respecting man can utter it. And yet that is what we have the highest protective tariff of any civilized country a tariff which would have made Hamilton and Henry Clay stare in blank amaze-