Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1884 — Page 10

where is the money ? It is in the hands of some one ; it is not out of the country — the millionaire monopolists have it. The advantages ot monopoly have been drawing it gradually into its great maw, taking it away from the people by driblets, as it were—a sacking process that has been going smoothly on for the last several years anti! it has brought depression upon ns. Take one instance for illustration: The tariff made a sugar monopoly, and it is fifty per cent. When you buy $3.00 worth of sugar you only get $2.00 worth —one dollar is tax. This sustains the sugar monopoly of Louisiana, because it gets SI.OO bonus on every $3.00 of sugar it sells; or, in other words, it sells $2.00 worth of sugar for $3.00. It is claimed the domestic product is not increased in price by this excessive tax. Well, go over to your grocery store and sample the sugar and you find one price, whether it is the imported or domestic article. It is so in the (fry goods and hardware stores. You know not the difference, if any, in the imported and the domestic goods, and there is one price. The imported goods have paid a high tariff to the government, while the domestic goods have paid none. The tariff alone is extortion to profits on the domestic article and cause immense monopolies to grow up to manufacture ; while the cost of manufacture is less in America on most things than it is in England, as hundreds of articles of American manufacture are shipped to English markets and sold there in competition with British prices. The reason for this I will discuss hereafter. It is clear that depression must last until the labor of America can accumulate a little surplus money to circulate again for a time in the channels of business and enliven trade. Then the “sucking process” of monopolies will be busy again, and in a few years another crop of millionaires will come oh or old ones double up their millions, and then count upon another period of depression. When this government withdraws its great and powerful aid to all individual enterprises, and refuses to build up men at the expense of others, then it will be the government of the people and tor the people, and then there will be a better and firmer basis ot business and regular prosperity. PROSPERITY OF THE COUNTRY. They talk in general terms of the grand prosperity of the country and claim the increased wealth and developement is due to Republican rule. The people are not wholly ignorant and will not be deceived by this claim, though I will examin'e it. I ask, did not the people themselves do something to develope the country ? Did they not plough the land and garner the harvests ? Did not they make splendid farms and build highways? Did not they build school ponses and churches, and build towns and cities? Did not the working, intelligent people of America pay their taxes and do these things, or was it done by one hundred and fifty thousand Republican officeholders at Washington ? Did the horde of officeholders of twenty-four years’ tenure develope your farms, and sow and reap your harvests? No, none of these things. Then what did they do? I had thought the people did all these things themselves and paid and Buppoited this horde ot officeholders besides for a quarter of a century. I always thought that patient toil from one shore of this country westward to the other, directed by skill and intelligence, brought volume, expansion and developement. God Almighty gave his children in America rich lands, good climate, timber, coal, iron, silver and gold, the bountiful showers and the glorious sunshine. I never knew the officeholders at Washington did all this before. These men step up to the old farmer and tell him that they developed his farm, made his house, planted his orchard and built his barn, and say : See your boys and girls around you, the Republican party gave you all these things! The old veteran farmer opens his weathereye and slowly says, I made all these myself, sir! They speak of the increased population under Republican management, so I conclude they claim the fatherhood of all the boys and girls of the country. All ot it is an insult to common intelligence. They claim credit in full for all the good things, but are silent as a tombstone on the bad things. Do they claim credit for all the jails and penitentiaties built in the last twenty years ? Do they claim credit for the increase of crime in the same period ? Do they claim credit for the multiplied alms houses, labor strikes, and bankruptcies ? Are the whirlwinds and cyclones due to their care of public affairs ? Shall we charge the great Ohio floods to them ? Did they cause yellow fever and smallpox ? I wonder if the earthquake in New York was a warning that they must cease wickedness. PROHIBITION. We have the prohibitory fight over again this year. The people decided against this issue two years ago. It copies up now in another way. Several amendments were submitted to the people by the Legislature and ratified by them and became a part of our Constitution. This did away with the necessity for a Constitutional Convention. Two amendments supported by the Republicans, and opposed by the Democrats, in le Legislature —the Woman Suffrage Amendment and the Prohibition Amendment, were not submitted. The people decided against submission of these amendments at the last election, and sent a majority of Democrats to the Legislature who voted them down. I said the amendments adopted by the people—seven or eight, I think—did away with the necessity of a Constitutional Convention. Then, tell me. my Republican friends, why you put in your platform, that you -wanted a Constitutional Convention ? Was it to amend the Constitution, to include Woman Suffrage and Prohibition? That is the sole purpose of the proposed Constitutional Convention. The people ot the State are to be put to the expense of $200,000 to add these provisions to the Constitution of our State. It was a slv plank in the platform, but our Kople will not be caught asleep. They tend to force prohibition down the people of Indiana if possible, and no cunning work will be omitted to accomplish the purpose. Will Cumback and a majority of the Prohibition Convention declared their support for the Republican ticket on account of this plank in the platform and their support for Blaine for the reason that

he (Blaine) had written prohibition tracts and contributed able columns to the prohibition press and supported the prohibitory laws of the State of Maine. My friends, do you want Prohibition and Woman Suffrage ? If so, vote the Republican ticket. TARIFF REFORM. A tariff is a dnty levied upon all goods, property and merchandiselshipped to America for sale. It is called a tax. The government owns Custom Houses in the seaport cities and puts in them collectors of custom duties. The importer of goods, property and merchandise must send them through the Custom House before they can go into the American markets. They cannot go throngh the Custom House without payment of a certain per cent, of their value called tariff-duty or tariff-tax, which goes into the public treasury for the government. This is the way the Federal government gets money for its support. It also collects taxes on tobacco and distilled spirits. The importer pays the Custom House collector the tariff-tax directly, and adds it to the selling price of his goods, property or merchandise. When sold, he receives back the tariff-tax. The wholesale purchaser of the imported goods pays back to the importer the tariff-tax he directly paid the government at the Custom House. He sells the goods to small buyers and they pay to him the tariff-tax in the price of the goods. They finally come to the consumer and he pays the* tariff-tax back in the price of the article. So, at last, the consumer pays all this tariff-tax that supports the general government. The people are the consumers, and they pay it all. Then the question is, shall there be a high tariff-tax or a low one ? The people can pay a low tax much easier than a high tax. A high tax makes higher prices for the consumer to pay—a low tax makes low prices. A protective tariff is a high tax—a Revenue tariff, sufficient to raise money enough to support the government, and no more, is a low tax. The people have this tax to pay, and shall it be a high or low tax ? The present law is highly protective, and, therefore, imposes high taxes. It is also unequal in its protection—the tax being high on some articles and lower on others of equal necessity and value in home consumption. I want this law reformed so as to do away with the inequalities and to reduce the taxes generally. The Morrison bill was a measure to reduce the taxes. That was all. It was not a measure to revise the law, not a measure to correct its inequalities, but solely a measure to reduce taxation. It was not thought advisable to offer and press a bill in Congress to gen- ‘ erally revise the tariff law for the reason the Senate was opposed to a revision, but all seemed to believe that a measure reducing taxation would be supported. I was surprised to see the Republican members vote solid, excepting four, against the reduction of taxes. The government had a Surplus of $100,000,000, and why keep up the rates of taxation ? By reduction of the tariff taxes we thought the millions might be left back among the people to aid them in their trades and business, which is better than to have them idle in the treasury. The forty Democrats voting against tax reduction represented high tariff districts, and they voted in the interest of their constituents. They admitted the measure was right for the whole people. I was surprised to see Republicans, representing the farmers and consumers of the Great West, voting with their high tariff brethren of the East. The high tax districts of the East get all the benefits of high tariff, and they are interested in maintaining it ; but how the consumers of imported goods in the South and West want a high tax to pay, when they purchase the goods, is not readily seen. The tariff-tax Bhould not be one cent higher than is necessary to support the government—any higher tax is robbery. A tariff tax high enough to raise one hundred and seventy-five millions of dollars, which is now required to support the government, gives ample protection to home manufacturers. Will any man tell me why he wants more protection given them? Will any Republican, within the sound of my voice, say they ought to have any more? This vast sum of money the consumers of this country pay—as much for the protection of our manufacturers as they do to support the government. Why the manufacturer wants more than one hundred and seventy-five millions of dollars’ protection is more than any honest man can coipprehend, unless the purpose is robbery of the consumer. The manufacturer is not fair to the consumer when he wants a higher tax on imports than is necessary to support the government. The manufacturers are no longer experimenters, but giants in their business. They can compete* with the world. They have raw materials at home, the best skilled labor and an abundance of capital. They do manufacture most articles cheaper than in any other country. Eugland is the greatest of foreign countries in manufacturing, but she must import her raw materials thousands of miles. She comes to North and South America for raw material, ships them across the Atlantic and rehandles them to her mills and factories. She goes miles Junder the sea tor her coal. Our manufacturers have none of these disadvantages. Our cotton and woolen mills turn out better goods than can be purchased in England. The high tariff men admit this but say the cost of labor is higher than in England. I deny this ; but, say it is true, the average cost of labor is about 20 per cent, of the cost of the manufactured article. The average tariff is about 42 per cent. The tariff-tax could be reduced 20 per cent, and then they could have their labor free; that is, tariff enough is allowed them to pay for all their labor. They ought to compete with the worldwit h free labor certainly. The consumers most pay tariff-tax enough to more than make labor free to the manufacturer. Their labor is not only free but they draw from the consumers a bonus of over 20 per cent, after they get their labor free. They talk continually of labor when the people pay for their labor twice over in the tariff. Any sane man must say this is shameful, and they wonder at hard times among the people. Our manufacturers have had 20 per cent, over cost of labor tor twenty years. The consumer has made labor free to them and paid them a bonus besides ot over 20

per cent. Do yon wonder they become millionaires in a few years ? The American factories have the best and most modem labor-saving machinery; their employes are mostly women and children who are paid the lowest kind of wages; they are worked over ten hours per day and numbers are huddled into a single room in righteous Massachnssette. Our skilled labor is no better paid than skilled labor any where else on the globe. They hire the common laborer for less money than is paid laboring men in other kind ot business. In the iron and coal mines they have imported thousands of cheap laborers who work tor 60 cents per day by contract made in the old countries, and yet these monopolists cry for American labor. In the iron and steel mills and factories the laboring men are compelled to strike for higher wages to live, yet the monopolists cry for American labor. They do not want a high tariff for themselves; oh, no! but for the laboring man whose low wages compel him to stnke for the bread of life. The monopolists go into the labor market and hire labor as cheaply as they can get it, regardless of consequences to education and support of families, and still they cry for labor. The tariff has no protection for the laboring man ; he must compete with the world. The manufacturer has protection to his business and capital, but the workingman has free trade for his labor — his capital. He must compete with the free markets in the price of labor. How has protection benefited the laboring man in the last twenty-four years ? Is he richer by it to-day ? His employers have grown fat off of him and the people, but he has no more than maintained himself and family. No policy could do worse for him. A large part of his wages are taken back by the high government tax on every article he buys. All he buys at the grocery store has paid a high government tax, or has the amount of it charged in the price. The seller must have the tax back, and he adds it on the price, and the laboring man pays it. It is so at the dry goods store. The iron, the coal, the leather he buys is heavily taxed by the government, or has the tax added to them to make them equal in price to these articles that have paid the tax. What I say is, there is qo difference in the price at the store of an iron article that has been through the Custom House aud paid the government tax, over the article manufactured at home and which has paid no tax. This is how the manufacturer gets the benefits ot a high government tax without paying it. The importer fixes the price after payment of the government tax, and the home manufacturer and salesman makes that his price. I buy a set ot knives and forks, a sewing machine, a reaper or mower in England and ship them to this country, pay the duty or tax on them, and then have them as cheap as I can buy them in America, though all these articles were made in America and sent to England and sold much cheaper than we can buy them at home. Tbis.goverament does not need high taxation now tAßupport it. It has a great surplus revWue, and I say cut the taxes down. Any party voting against the redaction of taxes, which the people must pay by sweat and labor, does not longer deserve the confidence of the people. The cry should be emphasized all over this land for redaction of taxation. Let the cry, reduce taxation, be made in every household. Reduce taxation for the laboring man and the business man; reduce taxation for tbe farmer and the mechanic. This government has no right to collect one hundred millions of money and let it lie idle in the treasury. The people need it at home; the laboring man wants it; our depressed industries want it. Stop this flow of money that creates so much idle surplus. The Republican party has been tried and it will not do this. When it made the last pretended revision of the tariff it increased the tariff on iron, woolen and cotton goods, earthenware, &c. The things used every day by the people were increased in price. That act is a shameful blot on the page of American history. The people need every dollar of their hard-earned money; they cannot pay home taxes without inconvenence or distress. Then why should the federal government haye taxation so high as to take from these people one hundred millions of money more than it needs! Why should you, fellow-citizens, vote for a party that is in favor of hording your money in the public treasury where it can do no one any good ? The manufacturer does not need this* high tax for protection—his average profits are from 28 to 34 per cent, upon the invested capital. Is it fair for our manufacturers to have high protection and make these enormous profits while the American farmer has no protection at all, and must compete with the whole world in the prices of farm products? The government tax collected from imported goods and merchandise is an uneqaal burden upon the people. The State and*county taxes are equal, and the property of all is equally burdened. But the taxes paid to support the government is not an equal tax; it is not collected on property values. The people pay this tax when they purchase goods and merchandise. Some men with limited means pay more tax to support the Feberal Government than other men of ample fortune. This is not the theory of American taxation. The burdens of government should fall equally Upon the people and be borne according to property values. A poor man with a large family will pay as much tax to support the government as the nch man pays. Why ? The tariff is highest upon articles of home comfort and necessity—cotton goods, woolen and part woolen goods, leather goods, salt, sugar, rice and dried fruits are a necessity in every man’s family. The tax on these range from 45 to 100 per cent. The tax is much lower on fine goods and the luxuries. The majority of the American people are poor, and -buy only articles of necessity. They buy these in large quantities in the aggregate ; they are compelled to buy them. The tariff monopolists obtain the highest tarifftax on these articles, knowing that they must be purchased by the tens of millions of people. Why should this government tax the poor man’s clothing and living higher than the rich man’s fine goods and luxuries? There is no justice or reason m it. A poor man, with an average family,

will buy as much of these articles of necessity as the man of ample fortune buys for his family. Then the poor man pays as much tax to support he General Government as the man of ample fortune pays, when the rich man should pay much more. The rich man has more need of protection to his property rights, and, therefore, is justly chargeable with greater tax than the poor man. Let me make this plain statement: John Jones is worth S6OO and has six in his family; James Smith is worth SIO,OOO and has six in his family. and they are neighbors. In September both families come to town and each buys boots and shoes, woolen and cotton goods for the winter, and each family buys $75 worth. Now, here the poor man of S6OO fortune pays as much government tax as the man worth SIO,OOO. Here you compel this poor man to pay as much tax to support the General Government as the man of fortune. I appeal to the justice and fairness of the human heart on this question; I appeal to the impartial sense of humanity to right this wrong upon the poor of our land. Take one more instance: A man worth $2,500 will buy for an average family SSO worth of sugar a year; his neighbor worth $50,000, with his average family, will buy no more. Here the man worth twenty times less property pays as much tax to support the government as the man worth twenty times more property. Will any man say this law is right ? These examples show that this government is supported, under the present law, by the poor of this country much more than by the rich. The tariff-tax being a burden on goods and merchandise, and only paid when they are purchased, it follows that all corporate wealth escapes the burdens of government. The great bank wealth of this nation pays comparatively nothing; all mortgage wealth, all money loans and all idle capital pays nothing while the poor man, who buys SIO.OO worth of woolen goods, pays from 65 to 80 per cent, tax to the government. This system of taxation is manifestly unjust, and if we must have it then it ought to be so regulated as to fall lightest upon labor —highest upon fine goods and luxuries and lowest possible upon all articles of necessity; and the system being unequal and unjust at best, it should be made low as possible, consistent with the raising of sufficient revenue to support the government, and not a dollar beyond that. Do our manufacturers want protection at the expense of the poor of our land? Do they want the poor man’s money more than a just share from the rich man ? Do they want to make collossal fortunes from the poor of our land ? Will they not do j nstice and help us to reform this bad law ? Every Republican platform ever writien condemns this law, and yet no Republican Congress ever convened reforms it. Their platforms say we have had a bad law for twenty-three years, and, I ask you, what party is responsible tor it and what party continues this bad law ? My government has no right to tax me for the protection of another; it has no right to increase the price of boots in my neighbor’s store in order to protect him from competition in his trade. When my government does that, it arbitrarily depreciates my day’s wages ; it reduces the purchasing power of my $1.50 to the extent of 40 to 50 per cent. My government has no right to lessen the purchasing power of my hard-earned money to protect any one. I may stand it for enough revenue to support the government, but I will not consent to it to protect any person in his trade or business. It is robbery ot me for the other man. The dollars of the laboring man loose their purchasing power when you increase the price of articles that he must buy with them. Protection takes money out of the daily wages ot the laboring man. Prices of most articles ought to be much lower than they are to be just and fair to the workingman’s earnings. If I had time I would show you what a yard of muslin and a yard of woolen goods cost. The enormous profit in present prices will surprise you—the manufacturer and not the retail dealer gets it. I have stood faithfully by the laboring man of this country; I have stood faithfully by the Union soldiers of this land, and I shall stand by the interest of both, not trom policy but from principle founded upon the justice of their cause. I ask the farmers to view my record in Congress and if they find my votes against them, then condemn me at the ballot-box. OUR IRISH-AMERICAN CITIZENS. I want to say to our Irish fellow-citizens that the Democratic party is the only party friend the Irish ever had in this country. For half a century the Democratic party stood up for the Irish against every assault made by the brainless fanatics and defended them before the American people. Mr. Blaine has done nothing in his whole political or private life for the Irish people. He has done much to make them say he is no friend. Point me to one speech he ever made for the Irish; point me to one vote he ever gave them; point me, if you can, to one single act in their behalf! I know of none. I can point you to many things he said and done against them and their countrymen. Long years ago he edited a paper in Maine, called the Kennebec Journal. In that paper he wrote bitter articles against the Irish Catholics and invoked his fellowcitizens not to vote for a certain candidate for Congress because he was an Jrish Catholic. He appealed to the lowest prejudice of humanity to defeat a candidate for office because he was an Irish Catholic* He has been in high positions of official life and had the power to speak and act for the Irish people, but he did not. While Secretary of State he permitted Daniel McSweeney, an Irish-American citizen, to be arrested without cause, imprisoned in an English Bastile without indictment, and permitted him to suffer in a damp and unhealthy dungeon tor months with no solace for bitter hours and no company save the sickly glare of a miserable lamp upon the slimy walls ot this chamber of death. When be moved about he was compelled to wade filthy mud and stagnant water ankle-deep —a fit recluse for poisonous rodents and crawling reptiles. It was a horrible bastile built to ‘'fight the souls of men,” and he was put there to die. Hear the sweet voice of his faithful wife over the sea appealing to James G. Blaine for the release of her hnsband. Her appeals to the American government for his release,

so fall of pathos and prayer as only a true and disconsolate wife can make for one she loves more than all others, were laid away in the pigeon-holes in the State Department without action and unnoticed, when a single stroke of the pen would have given Daniel McSweeney a trial or his liberty. Bueh a friend to the Irish! God forbid such friendship to the meanest mortal that ever walked the earth. The charred and blackened depths of the lost region below can turn loose an ugly form, brimfull ot unforgiven sin, as friendly to the Irish as this James G. Blaine. Since he was nominated for President he discovers all at once that he is Irish and that his mother was Irish. Since he has permitted mi Irish citizen to languish in the hated dungeon of a foreign government, I would want many affidavits that Irish blood flowed in his veins, and if it be true, I would declare him an apostate to his countrymen before God and man. The great Irish leagues of New York know this man well and the way they will ratify the nomi cation of Cleveland and Hendricks next week will cause thehalf-grown urchins to exclaim, “Not an Irish vote for Blaine.” Daniel McSweeney wrote a letter to a friend in America of date August 10,1884, in which he says: “But tell me, is it possible that any number of our countrymen will vote the Republican ticket ? I can not believe it possible in the face of the treatment received by Irish-Americans abroad during Blaine’s administration. I will write a public letter soon on the subject, but m the meantime you are at frill liberty to publish any letters of mine from “Victoria’s dungeon.” I feel strongly, I assure you, on this subject, and had it not been for the loss I have just sustained here in my fight with the enemy I certainly would have gone to the States to work against Blaine and his party, armed with Lowell’s original letter, to tell the story of my imprisonment and Republican sneers at my appeal for protection.” Now, after this conduct of James G. Blaine is known, if any Irishman will vote for him he has a good English stomach. > I thank you, one and all, for this splendid demonstration to-night.

William D. Marvel, a wealthy iron dealer of New York, writes the New York Evening Post, as follows: If you will turn to the New York Tribune of August 31st, 1881, you will find an item setting forth the enormous monopoly of nearly all the coal and iron interests in the Hocking Valley, in Ohio, giving the names of the persons who provided the colossal capital, for the monopolization and operation of about 130 square miles or 90,000 acres of land. Among the stockholders will be found Governor Charles Foster, of Ohio-; Congressman William Walter Phelps, of New Jersey; and Secretary of State James G. Blaine, of Maine. When the tariff question was before Congress Mr. Blaine came forward as a special lobbyist of the coal and iron interests for a big duty on bituminous coal and iron ore. The duty on iron ore is seventy-five cents per ton; the duty on bituminous coal is seventy-five cents per ton. If you will turn to the file of the New York Commercial Advertiser you will find, on the 14th of July, 1884, a dispatch from Columbus, Ohio, stating that a large number of imported laborers had been sent down to the Hocking Valley mines, guarded by one hundred and thirty of Pinkerton’s special police, armed with carbines and revolvers. In the Commercial Advertiser of the 15th of July, 1884, you will find another dispatch stating that tbe owners say they will have 3,000 more foreigners to go into the mines in a few days. Now what are the facts ? A great monopoly has a protective tariff of seventy-five cents per ton on bituminous coal, ostensibly for the benefit of the poor worMngmen, to protect them against what is called pauper labor. Now, those miners only struck against having their wages reduced below seventy-five cents per ton. Thus they only asked as wages five cents less than the entire amount of the protective tariff, and they are treated with carbines and revolvers. This is a fine showing upon which to ask the laboring men to vote for Mr. Blaine. These plain statements can’t be denied. They are true, and we challenge any man to deny them.

The following terse and truthful characterization of James G. Blaine, the Republican candidate for President, comes from Ex-Sehator Bainbndge Wadleigh, of New Hampshire, a Republican of acknowledged ability and good standing in tbe Republican party: “With the advent of Mr. Blaine in the State Department there came another change, and a portentous one. Jobbery seemed to be installed in the vacant throne of slavery. It sought no field for profitable experiments among the nations of Europe, guarded by war ships or bristling, like the fretftil porcupine, with bayonets, but fastened on the comparatively weak American republics. Like slavery, it prated of the glory of the American flag, but, unlike slavery, it loved the jingle of shekels better than the clanking of shackles. Against any such policy as that shadowed forth in the six months’ rule of Mr Blaine every intelligent, honest, and patriotic man should vigorously protest by word, act and vote. It would lead to foreign wars and internal corruption, and eventually to national ruin. The foreign policy of the United States should not be made subservient to personal ambition nor audacious jobbery.” Believing these charges against Blaine, and which can’t be refuted by any Republican, Ex-Senator Wadleigh refuses to support him for President. Mr. Blaine’s vigorous foreign policy is a humbug—there is nothing in it.

Blaine’s palatial mansion in Washington City cost SIOO,OOO, and is one of the largest and finest private residences at the national capital. It is rented to a Chicago millionaire at $12,000 a year. Does any man believe that Blaine earned the money to build this SIOO,OOO mansion in a legitimate way ? He never did. It represents railroad-stock speculations.