Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1884 — Protection A Tax. [ARTICLE]

Protection A Tax.

The strength of protection lies chiefly in the fact that the mass of the voters do not understand that protection is a tax. Let them once understand that they are taxed, taxed agam and again by protection, let them once grasp the extent and certainty of this tax, and then protection is doomed. If the money taken out of the pockets of the people were taken directly, if every time bills of goods were bought the additional percentage due to protection were set aside and taken as a tax, then there would he few protectionists. Let the extent and certainty of this tax be once understood by the consumers who pay it, and then let the protectionists come forward to prove that protection is desireable; that for the tax imposed ajnst return is made. He would be laughed at- The truth once seen, no protectionist argument would avail. No argument would convince the people to vote upon their shoulders the tax demanded. Nothing would convince the people to pay such a price for what the protectionists pretend to give But, unfortunately, just here lies the difficulty for tariff reformers. The tax imposed upon the people is indirect. It Is a tax that does not force itself upon the attention; it has to be looked for. Its presence is only|to|be noted by disen. tangling it from the obscuring Influence that surround it. Like one of those insidious diseases that gnaw at the vitality of the patient, but which create no alarm because they do not force themselves upon the attention, so with protection. The evils Me there but they hide themselves, The hope of revenue reformers must be, that Dy agair and again pointing out the elementary principles of the tariff question the evils may at laii become apparent to aJI. Let me, in this paper, attempt to do away with some of the darkness that envelopes toe subject. What, then, is a protective tariff? Suppose a farmer in New York city who Wishesito buy a trace chain. Upon a vessel in the harbor there is a chain, bro’t irem England, In every way suitable to the farmer's purpose. He asks the owner the price of the chain, and is told $lO. The price,is satisfactory. The farmer hauls out his pocket-book to pay for the chain. But just then an official steps forward and says; -‘Wait a bitDo you know that if you buy that chain you will not be allowed to take it home with you until you have paid an import duty of £5,30? In other words, if you buy this chain the government taxes you 3U.* This alters things somewhat Under such .circumstances the price of the chain to the farmer is $15.30. Of this price $5.30 is owing to a law passed by congress If the farmer buys the chain he is poorer by f 5.80 because of this law , and the goverment has $5 30 more in its treasury. He certainly H|taxed by the tariff in this transaction.

Now, the farmer not being a fool, does not want to pay more for the chain than needs must. He would prefer to take the chain for $lO, hut the law forbids that. If now an American chain just as good as the other is oflered for a little less than the price of the other plus the tax, say sls the farmer will take that. He prefers paying sls to paying $lO and a tax of $5 80. He therefore buys the American chain and pays for it sl6. Now how do things stand? The government gets nothing in this transaction. But the farmer pays $5 more than he would have done were it not for the law of Congress. He is poor by $6 in this transaction because of the law. Is it a misuse of the words to say that the law has taxed him $5 even if the government got nothing? These are the two types of tariff tax* ation. Variations from these tyres are consequently of some influence outside of the tariff. The influence, generally competition, may be such as to entirely overcome the tendency of the tariff, or may modify the tax from the zero point up the fall amount. The tendency of the tariff, howeyer, is in either one or the ether direction. In one the resu.t goes to (ho government, in the other else-where; but in both it is a tax, a bur dea upon tbo people. By F. J. Krameis—The million* (Indianapolis News] Th ere comes up every once in awhile evidence or the desirability of perpetual youth for Judge Drummond, that he

might remain upon the bench forever Once he slopped the late Matt. Oarj-en-ter, who was attempting to quibble and get around the application of a law, by reminding Carpenter that as Benator ho had helped to make that law, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself f<>r trying to thus discredit his own work. That shut Carpenter up. The other day there was a case before him of an estate to be settled, in which three Milwaukee lawyers participated. The estate was worth *32,«00. The lawyei s had considerately left the heirs S7,«CO of it, applying for 25JMI for their own services. A) this Judge Drummond, with all hit integrity fused into the very incarnation of justice, as any one knows him can easily imagine, said: ‘Gentlemen, you consider yourselves good lawyers. How much more are your services worth io your c’tents than mine are to the people? You have charged $25,00 lor sixty days’ service. Can you not be cwntont, each of you, to take my pro rata for the same time? These charges are infamous They are such as scoundrels and thieves at heart would make. This charge of t 15,000 is cut down to $1,500, those of $.6000 to SSOO. Repeat Buch a piece of rapine in this court and I will disbar every one of you."