Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1888 — A STUDY FOR TAXPAYERS. [ARTICLE]

A STUDY FOR TAXPAYERS.

Interesting; Facts for Consideration in the Quiet of Home. [Manchester (N. H.) Unibn.j Starting with the admitted fact that the average tariff tax on imports is not less than 41 per cent., and that the list, according to the report of the Secretary of tho Treasury in 1885, comprises 4,182 articles, let the intelligent voter consider, as he looks around his home, what part of the list interests him. He can sit by his kitchen fire and find the following articles which have drawn money from his pocket and the tax on each: The iron in the stove4s Pots and kettles 53 Copper and brass utensils 45 Crockery, commonest kindss Glassware, chsapest kind 45 Table cutlery and spoons 45 Pickled or salted fish 25 Salt 83 Saltpeterlll Sugar 48 Vinegar ’36 Picklesy 35 Bicell2 Foreign fruit2o Carpet, if made of druggets 74 Carpet, if made of tape stry 68 Furniture 35 Wall paper 25 Window curtains4s Looking-glass6o Men’s clothing of wool 55 Woolen hosiery and undershirts7s Cotton ditto 45 Woolen hats and caps 75 Woolen shawls. 58 Wife’s black silk dressso ~ Gloves6o Blankets 70 Alpaca dresses 63 Any other woolen dresses 70 Brass pins.. ” 30 Scissors, razors, hairpins, steel i>ins'. .45 Penknives 50 Needles, ink, paper2s Castile scap... 50 Epsom salts3o Insect powder2o Salad oil 34 Window-glass, commonest kind../ ’Bl Paint, white lead 54 Bricks 35 Spool thread 60 Bags and bagging for grain‘ 40 Cembs and brushes3o Alpaca umbrellasso Any iron or steel, average of." 45 All tinware 42

The list might be extended, but enough are given to furnish food for thought. If this heavy burden were necessary to support the Goverhment, no patriotic citizen would object to the tax thus imposed; but the truth is it is not necessary. By the maintenance of this tariff, money is being drawn from the people that is not needed and cannot be used. The injustice of such a system is too evident to need discussion, and the suggestion that the injustice be done away with and the taxes reduced to the actual needs of the Government is the cause of all the howling about free trade and dangers to American industries. There is still a greater injustice in that the tariff does not bear equally upon the people.