Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1883 — ANOTHER OPEN LETTER-NO 13. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER OPEN LETTER-NO 13.

[The Indianapolis News.] Hon. Stanton J. Peelle: The surplus revenue is annoying th e pig-iron statesman. If tue people can b e persuaded that our revenues are derived from foreign manufacturers and are not paid by American consumers of for«ig« goods, they might feel comfortable in view of the fact that foreigners are paying tbo expenses of running our Government. But the .foreigner who makes g.'ods which aro sold here is no fool, uud when you put a tax on his imported go ds he knows that the American consumer pays the tax in addition to the price °f the goods at the pi.t of entry.— SomC of our wholesale merchants on South Meridian street are importing crockery and dry goods from fonigu c untries. In making up the pi ice, ;t winch ii.c. mark their goods for sale here th v add :o the sum they pay the manufacturer tl.e tariff lux and the Indiana easterner pays it Now it is pinin tLat a sin j lus r-vei.i.e made up of receipts from duties is a tax upon the peop e "who use goods upon which these duties are levied. In fact this is so plain that it is amazing that able statesmen should argue, and aide editors should assert, that a tariff du'y is not a lax, but a benevolence bestowed upon onr people by foreign manufacturers. It is a mark of progress that some of the ablest advocates o' the protection policy characterize all tariff duties ns taxes. Senator Sherman, in an interview or speech which was published a few weeks ago, called them taxes. Wiien it is settled that they are taxes, the. pro teclionist must go to the wall, Let ns see. The only purpose for which taxes can be levied is the suppoit of the Government. AsJColonel Ingersoll expressed it, ••The Government, is a pauper.” L hasn’t a cent which the people do not give it. It passes around the hat for couiributxous, and the fact that there is a musket behfr d the hat to compel payment, does not change the fact that the Government is a baggar and lives upon alms. But the people have fixed limits to the demands that can be made upon them. It is not honest to require more than is necessary, and it is neither honest nor lawful to cdlect money from the whole people for the public good, and bestow it upon a select few for their private greed . Nobody but a protectionist, who gets a share of the plunder, will insist that this is not so. Il a necessary tax levied for the public good gives an advantages one class of citizens, nobody has a right to complain if the inequality thus produced is unavoidable. But we have a surplus, that is, we are levying and collecting unnecessary taxes, and the ayowed purpose of levying these taxes is to increase the profits of a small class of citizens at ihe expense of the whole people. In his res cent address at Detroit, Mr. David A. Wells quoted from a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States', the following:

“Of all the powers conferred upon the Government, that of taxation is most liable to abuse. Given a purpose or object tor which taxation may be lawfully useJ, and thejextent of its exercise is in its very natuie unlimited. This power can readily be employed agamst one class of individuals and in favor of another, so as to uin the one class and give unlimited wealth and prosperity to the other, if there are no implied limitations for the uses for which the power may be exercised, To lay with one hand she power of the Government on the propeity of the citizen, and with the ether bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and to build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it is done under the forms of law, aiid is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms. Nor is it taxation. Beyond a cavil there can be no lawftn tau which is not laid foi a public purpose. It may not be easy to draw the line in all cases so as to decide what is a public purpose in this sense, and what is not. But in the case before us, in which towns are authorized to contribute aid by way of taxation to any class of manufac* tures, there is no difficculty in holding that this is not such a public purpose as we have beeu considering. If it be said that a benefit results to the local public of a town by establishing manufactures, exactly the same may be said of any other business or pursuit which employs capital or labor. The merchant, the mechanic, the inn-holder, the banker, the build*, er, the steamboat owner, are equally deserving of the aid of the citizens by forced contributions. No line can be drawn in favor of the manufacturer watch wo’d not open the public Treasury to the importunities of two-thirds of the business men of the city or town.” This decision was rendered in the case of the city of Topexa vs. the Loan Association. and is reported in 20 Wallace's Supreme Gourt Reports, page 655, It is mentioned with approval in the case of the city of Parkersburg in the last volume of the Supreme Court Reports. There is a principal recognized and declared in this decision of the highest judicial tribunal of the land which is worth the consideration of legislators who vote for and defend tax laws, the purpose of which is to enable a comparatively few persons to enrich themselves at the expense of the people. I am dealing with admitted facts. We have a surplus revenue which is the result of unnecessary taxation. We have laws under which these taxes have been collected, which laws were pasted to favor (protect) a limited class of cit - zens at the expense of the majority. We. have a decision of the Supreme Court saying that the legislative power has to right to pass such laws.

Obviously the wise course for Congress to pursue is to reform the tariff laws that we shall have no surplus revenue, and repea,} such parts of the law as were enacted to promote private interests. The mistake you made last winterwas in lowering the tobacco tax and repealing the tax on bank capital and bank deposits, while you n. tainbd nearly all the taxes which increase the cost of the food, shelter and clothing of the men who work for wages It does not surprise me to see th * protection professors trying to devise schemes for disposing of tne surplus revenue. Profess< r Thompson, whose college is n.-cated under the smoke stacks of the Pennsylvania blast furnaces iind ste d mills, ad vocaus its distribution among pen>L of t e States according to population. The Protionist, the pig-iron organ, suggests that it may be used in building levees on the Mississippi River and increasing the ap propriation for the improvement of rivers and harbors. Why not pa-s another salary grab law? This accumulation of surplus revenue has its advantages. It has compelled a discussion of the tariff laws. People a e reading and thinking about them, and soonei or later, much sooner than the politicians imagine, there will be a popular demand for the repeal of all laws which tax the whole people for the benefit oi the favoredfifew. »

W. P. FISHBACK.