Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1888 — HARMFUL HIGH TAXES. [ARTICLE]

HARMFUL HIGH TAXES.

Two Leading lowa Republicans in Favor of Tariff Reform. Tfiey Would Take the Duty Off Necessaries and Levy Revenue on Luxuries. [Marshalltown (Iowa) cor. Chicago Herald.] Among the Republican leaders of lowa none occupies a more honored place, not one enjoys a higher degree of esteem, than does Senator P. M. Sutton, of Marshalltown. He is counted as perhaps the most original thinker, withal the most fearless and outspoken champion in the cause of tariff reform. Mr. Sutton said that he was heartily in favor of tariff reform, and’ in reply to the question as to what his own ideas on the subject were, he replied literally as follows: “I am in favor of a protective system of taxation, both in tariff and internal taxes and in direct taxes. “I am in favor of so reforming taxation as to make it conform to the ideas which

we carry out in the transactions of ordinary every day business. “I am in favor of paying the expenses of government in the same manner in which a business man pays his own expenses, out of these things which can be most easily spared. “There never was a worse fraud practiced npon a credulous people than is practiced by Eastern monopolists in pretending that they need the benefits of a protective tariff in order to enable them to increase the wages of their employes. The iron industries of this country in 1870 paid their employes an annual wage of over SSOO. In 1880, after having had the benefit of ten most prosperous years and a high protective tariff, they paid their emploves an average yearly wage of less than S4OO, and this, too, when there was an increase of the net profits in the iron industry of over 25 per cent. That is to say, each employe in 1870 earned for his employer a net profit of about SBOO a year paid out of that kn average of $526. In 1880 eacn earned for his employer a net profit of about SI,OOO, and yet got out of that SI,OOO for his wages less than S4OO. “Now, the facts are, as stated by Smith and Ricardo, and all the other authorites on political economy, that profits have nothing whatever to do in any country in fixing the rate of wages paid the employes. Adam Smith, who wrote over 100 years ago, made thiß remarkable statement on the subject. He said: “ ‘Employers are everywhere and always combined by a tacit understanding not‘to raise wages above a certain rate, and he who doesn’t know this is ignorant both of the people and of the subject’ “It is further true that every means is resorted to that skill and science can suggest to secure cheap labor. Every manufacturer, while not free to raise wages, is perfectly free to lower them. And they vie with each other in seeing whioh can get the cheapest labor, and consider this a legitimate means of widening the margin of their profits. “Professor Langhlin, q{ Harvard, who has given us an American edition of Mill’s ‘Political Economy, ’ says in his own notes in discussing the question: ‘This striving to outdo each other in getting cheaper labor drove American labor out of the New England shops and filled the vacant places with cheaper Irish labor. The Irish are now being driven out to have their places ’ filled with French Canadians who will work for cheaper wages than the Irish. About the next step of our Yankee brothers will be to displace the French Canadians by the heathen Chinee.’

“Now, in the face of these faots, it is sheer nonsense to think that the wages of these employes are going to be affected by an increase or decrease in our tariff. The one thing above all others that we wont to strive for as a nation is to help and, so far as we can, induce men to help themselves, to make an independent living and to get out of the wage service, which always has been, and still is, only one step better than slavery. To do this we should make it as easy as possible for every man to get a home for himself aud family and enough land on which to raise a living. This can best be done by taking taxes, so far as we can, off from all hemes and from all other things that are necessary for the support of the people in their homes. “The producers in the West, especially our farmers, are being gronnd to death by Eastern manufacturers aud our railroad companies, who conspire together to keep a monopoly of manufacturing in the Eastern States, and the high war tariffs that are kept up on sugar, iron, wool, lumber, and coal are simply so much subsidy money that is paid every year by our Western farmers to the very monopolists that are enslaving them.” “I am a Republican,’’ said ex-Senator J. C. Bills, of Davenport, “bat I have always favored low tariff, a tariff for revenue only, in other words.” Mr Bills is a man whose voioe in the party councils of his State is potent, a man of mature judgment, ana finally trained intellect* He is a native of New York State and has been residing in lowa for thirty-two years. He was one of the founders of the Republican party in lowa aud cast his vote for the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. He has been the Mayor of Davenport three times and fiHed a Senatorial term of four years, from 1882-86. His views on the tariff question have some weight in lowa. “I don’t see why the Government should tax the people to the extent of more than $100,006,000 a year, when they have no use for the money and when it serves the only purpose of benefiting manufacturers. The purpose of a tax should not bo to benefit any particular class or classes of people. I think the duties on the necessaries of life ought to be reduced until the income of the government is just sufficient to pay its expenses. I don’t believe the General Government has any constitutional right to tax the people for the purpose of giving away the money for school or any other charitable purposes. I don’t think the Government is organized for any such purpose. I think it is a dangerous thing for the Government to introduce any such methods. “Above all, I think the taxes on the necessaries of life, such as clothiDg, coal, lumber, salt, etc., etc., ought to be reduced or abolished. The internal revenue on liquors and tobacco, on the other hand, ought to be retained, these two things being in the nature of luxuries, although I myself use both of these things on occasion” (and indeed, that very minute the Senator blew the smoke from a pretty good sort of weed at his interviewer), and I am not ashamed to own it, even in this State. lam willing, as everybody is, to pay the tax on liquor and tobacco. When lam too poor to do so any longer I’ll quit using them.”