Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1884 — To Blaine—Greeting. [ARTICLE]

To Blaine—Greeting.

Mr. Blaine has been telling the West Virginians how nuch they have been enriched by taxation. He told them at irafton that at the close of ;he war .their realized (wealth >,t the most liberal estimate lid not exceed $100,000,000; hat in 1870 it had increased to 190,000,000, and in 1880 to $350,00,000. And then he turned limself loose thus: “What agency was it that nerved the irm of industry to smite the nouiitains and create this vealth in West Virginia? It vas the protective tarifi, and i financial system that gave ■on good money.” After mounding the praises of the inancial system for a time, he etumed to taxation as a ource of wealth. “Under the >rotective tariff,” said he, ‘your oal industries, andjyour iron ndustries, and the wealth of rour forests have been bro’t >ut, and it is for you, voters of West Virginia to say whether ;ou want this to continue, or vhether you want to try free srade.” And this sort of thing passjs with some people for statesnanship and powerful argunent The logic of it is just his: “Your state has increasid in wealthsince the civil war tnd during this time you have rad a high tariff; therefore the ligh tariff has made you rich, .t is probably beneath the dignity of a great statesman to ittempt to show, that any relaion of .cause and effect exists letween the two things. It is statesmanship to‘take all that ‘or granted. But why not ake some other things for ’■ranted? Why not say this: There was a furious civil war from 1861 to 1865, in volving an expenditure r;n both sides of eome ss,' 00, () 00,000 of treasure, md the loss of some hundreds )f thousands of lives. You lave grown rich since the war. Therefore the war . and the mmense war expenditure and oss of life made you rich.— Isn’t that jnst as good logic as 31aine ? s? Isn’t it, injact, exictly his logic? It is . the post roc ergo propter hoc argument in which the taxationists ilways indulge, It is as rational as to say that there lave been a member of polar expeditions while we have eeen getting rtch; therefore the polar expeditions ,have made us rich. To the rational mind itiwo’d ippear that taxation is better alculated to impoverish "than o enrich those who pay >the axes. When they are collected, as under our tariff laws, rom some of the people .by >thers of the people, and pocketed by the latter, they are nade rich, no doubt; but the people as a whole can not very veil be enriched by the transer of the earnings oi some of hem to the pockets of others f them. But if, Ju spite of axation, the people have the adustry, the soil, and econoiy to increase their wealth, he beneficiaries of the taxaion system and the econolists of the Blaine school rise p with one accord and say: ve did it all with our little ix. If we hadn t taxed you n average of more than 40 per ent. on pretty much aU the lanufactures you have to buy, ou wo’d to-day be miserable, overty-stricken wretches in . ittered clothes, and with . arely food enough to keep ?. ody and soul together. This ; < a efficiently impudent claim, ;id insulting enough to the 5 itelligence of the people, but is put forth without a blush y the Blaine sort of statesen, and the men whom gov-j-nment has kindly invested ith the taxing power, ihe y eople ought to resent suchan ; isujt to their common sense. Mr. Blaine felt called upon ' *■) make another attack on the . iorrison bill in his Grafton >eech The Morrisan bill,” t dd he “would have struck at '> le interests of w est Virginia i.i many vital respects, and it •• an amazing -fact that the ipresentatives in congress □m West Virginia voted for iat bill.” Now the Morrison ■j 11 was not perfection by any eans,butit ill becomes Mr. 'laine or any economist of his hool to find fault with it It as based on the tariff f i amed .d enacted by a congress contiled bi just such econosta a ..himself, and it speciy provided tnat no duty ould be less than that laid / the WorrilL tariff of j 1861, ich at that time was quite

satisfactory even to the ;pro tected recipients of the taxing power. And, to crown all. it proposed no greater reduction than the tariff commission, composed wholly of recipients of the taxing power and their friends said ought to be made. It ill becomes them to criticise the Morrison bill.—Chicago'Times.

(From the New York Tribune, Scpt.-^8,1872.) If Hueaker Blame thinks be lias effectually ‘squelched’ the Credit Mobilier scandal bv his pompous denial, be may find new exercise for his peculiar talents in that direction in the story which we print to-day. In the course of railway litiga ion, proofs of Mr. Blaine's operations in raitwav stocks have come out and are now i possession of lawyers in lawyers in this city., We publish as much of this business as Mr.. Blaine will find'time to attend to at once. By these documents, the Speaker is .proved to have received 32,500 of assessable s <>ck of the Union Pacific Railway, lE. D., and 2,000 unassessable shares of'the same.— Why was the Speaker of the House dabbling in this business* Why receiving stock? The entries show was assigned to him, among others, to secure the ratification of the Delaware and Pottawatomie treaties and the passage<of i. oill in Congress. Mr. Blaine’s record in regard to railway matters grows dariier as it is examined. He has never yet given any explanation of his conduct iu peddling stock in the Fort Smith and Little Rvok Railroad among his neighborsdn Maine He has now an opportunity Unriseto an explanation of bis extensive operations iu Union Pacific E. D., stock. It may be nobody’s business h >whe has become a millionaire on a Congressman's pay; but it is the business of his constituents and of the country to know how the Speaker of the House or Representatives came into this rich railway speculation.