Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1888 — Page 3

DUR INDUSTRIES ARE NOT INFANT

A High Tariff an Unnecessary Burden on the Workingman. (From a speech by Senator Saulsbury of Delaware.] It is said that our industrial establishments cannot compete with manufacturers abroad. This was the plea for tariff nearly 100 years ago, wuen tariff legislation was commenced in this country. The plea at that time was doubtless a good one. We had at that time but few industries of the kind —but little capital invested therein —with no skilled labor employed in manufacturing and but little experience in the business. Becan eof this condition competition with the older and better regulated establishments of Europe was hopeless, and Congress in the early legislation to' secure revenue by impost duties wisely sought to adjust them in a manner that would aid our then infant industries in their struggle for existence so far as it could consistently with the necessity for revenue. That necessity, however, was the acknowledged limit of the taxing power, and no one thought of imposing higher taxation on importations than was necessary to raise the revenue required by the Government. Within that limit discriminations might properly be made in adjusting the details of a tariff so as to aid incidentally the few manufacturing industries then existing. That policy of incidental protection in the adjustment of duties was continued in the early legislation on the subject, and properly continued when necessary, because the average rate of duties then imposed was low and insufficient to aid some of the industries in the competitive struggle in which they were engaged. But how different are our manufacturers situated to-day. There is no lack of skilled labor, and in machinery we excel all other countries. There is no lack of capital or want of experience, as formerly, in the business, and without protection other than that afforded by a revenue tariff most of our manufacturing industries could compete at home and abroad with similar industries in any part of the world. Some of the newer industries, in which labor is the principal item of cost and in which machinery cannot be used to any considerable extent, may be an exception, and no one would hesitate to grant them necessary aid in the adjustment of the details of a tariff limited to the demands of the Treasury for revenue.

Such a tariff would require an average rate of duty of not less than 25 or 30 per cent., which would more than pay the difference between the cost of labor here and in England or any country in Europe and leave a fair margin of profits on the capital invested without lessening the wages paid to operatives.

Again, the advocates of a high tariff insist that it is necessary to insure proper wages to labor. They have become ashamed to ask longer for protection to infant industries. The most of our manufacturing establishments have grown to maturity and are no longer infants needing the paternal care of the Government on •their own account; but the plea of protection is interposed in the name of the labor employed. This is a specious plea, and if .honestly made would command respect; but everybody knows it is not honest. It is an attempt to continue unnecessary taxation under false pretenses, in order that the manufacturers may make larger profits, not that the laborers in the mills and factories may obtain higher wages. The manufacturers and all other employers obtain their labor at the lowest possible price, and this will continue to be the case whether the tariff is high or low. Has labor shared in the profits of the manufacturers, enormously increased under the present tariff? No, sir. Employes have -often b een compelled to submit to a reduction of their wages, and sometimes compelled to strike in order to maintain prices that would enable them to support their families. Labor is not too well paid in any avocation iq life, and no better paid in mills and factories than in many other pursuits, and I should be glad to see the day when it could command •constant employment and a just return for its value to employers; but high tariff will never secure this result. Its proper remuneration depends upon conditions wholly independent of tariff laws. Such laws may, however, and do affect the cost of living to the laboring man as well as everybody else, and the higher the duty which they impose on the necessaries of life, for which his wages have been expended, the more seriously do they embarrass him. He can buy more for his wages when duties are low than when they are high. If you desire to improve the condition of the laboring man of the country, whether engaged in mills and factories or on the farm or in other pursuits, make the tariff as low on the things he is compelled to buy—his food, his clothing, etc.—as the ■condition of the treasury will allow, but do not deceive him by the pretense that his earnings will be increased or his condition improved by maintaining a tariff which adds to the cost of everything he has to buy. If high tariffs increase the wages of the working people, how is it that in Germany and other European countries having such tariffs wages are lower than in England, which is practically a free-trade country? Can our Republican friends, upon their theory of high tariff's and high wages, solve that problem? Tariff laws, whether they impose high or low duties, do not affect wages, but they do increase or diminish the cost of living, and for that reason ovary workingman in the country is interested in having the tariff as low as possible.

FACTS ABOUT THE AMERICAN FARMER.

What He Does and What Is Done for Him —Overworked and Bobbed. [From Puck.] There is one man in this country who works harder than most of the men who are organized into labor unions. He gets up between four and five in the morning and looks after his live stock before breakfast. His breakfast, when it comes, consists probably of salt pork and pie or some form of hot bread. After breakfast he goes to work in the field, and there he works until the time comes for his midday dinner, which is about as nutritious and wholesome as his earlier meal. After dinner he works until supper time. His evening is likely occupied in mending harness, soaking com for sowing, or doing any one of the countless “odd jobs” which farm life calls for, according to the season. After a year of such toil this man is if he can make enough out qf his crops—and, how-

ever industrious he may be, this is a matter which depends largely upon the weather—to pay the interest on his mortgage and start fairly for the coming twelvemonth. And yet you are poor. Your profit on your sales does little more than cover your expenses. Does not this strike you as an anomalous state of things? Is it not worth your while to reason out the why and wherefore of the anomaly? You sell at a profit ou the actual cost of production, and yet your business can scarcely be called profitable. Why is this? Is it not because your expenses are greater than they should be? Is it not because you have to pay for almost everything that you buy more than any other farmer in civilized countries is obliged to pay? Make your calculations for yourself. You pay more for iron, in all its forms, than any European pays. That means you pay a premium on all agricultural implements—on plows, cultivators, spades, shovels, rakes, hoes, thrashers, corn-cutters,, pitchforks, manure forks, trowels, mowing machines, scythes, sitkies, axes, hammers, hatchets, knives, nails, tacks—and everything, big or little, into the composition of which that metal enters.

And this is not all. You are paying a premium on a great many other things—on your clothing, tor instance; on the clothing of your wife and the clothing of your children. Indirectly, you are paying the tax on the clothing of your farm-hands and the women employed in your household. In order that American manufacturers should be encouraged, you are paying a duty to all American manufacturers. You are told that a duty is levied on importations of foreign goods. But you pay this duty if you buy the foreign goods. You pay it, in part, if you buy ths American goods of the same sort; for the American manufacturer naturally puts his prices as near as possible to the mark fixed by law for the foreigner. If the European manufacturer cannot sell a yard of a certain sort of cloth in the American market for less than ten cents, why should the American who manufactures the same sort of cloth sell it for less than nine cents, to keep the market for himself ? Perhaps he could sell it for five cents and make a profit, but why should he? In the scheme of business morality there is no reason why he should. And he does not.

A tax is levied upon foreign imports. Who pays it? The foreign manufacturer? No; he gets his price from the American importer. The American manufacturer? No; he makes his price, as nearly as he can, what • the foreign manufacturer charges. Who pays the tax, then? Well, you do, for one. You pay it on almost everything you buy. You pay it on almost everything you by dollar. You pay the fraction of a cent on the tin-plated iron spoon with which you stir your corn-meal, boiled into what is called “suppawn” in New York, “hasty pudding” in New England, and “mush" in Illinois and the rest of the United States. You pay sl, perhaps, on your plow, and $5 or $lO, it may be, on your mowing-machine or your thrasher. You pay a dime on a felt hat that keeps she sun off your head all the long summer s day; you pay from $1 to $lO on the clothes you wear. Cent by cent, dime by dime, dollar by dollar this tax is collected out of your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly expenses. You will be told, we suppose, that it is your duty to pay this tax for the good of the country. J udge for yourself how far it is for the good of the country by a simple study of easily accessible figures. Of you who are engaged in agricultural operations there are in this country more than 7,000,001). Of those engaged in trades or manufactures which subject them to foreign competition, the highest official estimate is under 1)06,000. So that you 7,670,000 are taxed to support 906,000. And of those 906,000, how many receive their fair proportion of the tax you pay? We cannot tell you. But you can see for yourselves that every year thousands of workmen employed in “protected" industries are clamoring for higher wages and “striking” to get them. Don’t you think it would pay you to find out where your money goes?

Trusts and Workingmen.

“What is a trust, anyhow?” writes a workman. “We read a good deal j ust now about tfrusts, but I would like you to explain precisely what they are and how they affect us workingmen.” Well, listen. A trust is a combination of manufacturing capitalists to check production, feed the market with only a limited supply of their goods, and thus keep prices high. Their aim is to manufacture less and charge more. But if they make less goods, that means that they will employ fearer workmen, or give those they keep on less steady work. Hence a trust is a blow at the workmen.

If there were no high protective duties trusts would be impossible, because the moment manufacturers here combine to limit production and raise prices, that moment goods would rush in from abroad to supply the market. It is the high tariff, therefore, which is the basis of trusts. The tariff shuts out foreign goods; thereupon manufacturing capitalists combine to limjt production and raise prices at borne; and in doing this they necessarily injure their own workmen, because they deprive them of full work, and injure the people at large by forcing them to pay artificially high prices for goods. One example will show how a trust injures workingmen. When the salt duty was high the Michigan and Syracuse salt monopolists hired the Great Kanawha Salt Works in West Virginia to stand idle. That is to say, the salt trust paid the owners of these works a fixed sum per year to make no salt. They did not pay the men who had found employmentin these works a cent. The workmen were turned out neck and heels to shift for themselves. But the capitalist owners of the works were paid handsomely. That is how a trust affects workingmen and protects capitalists.— New York Herald.

The “Trust” Rubbers.

Hereafter every man who shall build a house will have to piy tribute to the Sash, Door and Blind Trust, which controls about three-fourths of the production of these essential articles in New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. How contemptible must a people appear in the eyes of foreigners when they submit without a murmur to wholesale extortion through gigantic combinations in restraint of trade, without the slightest serious effort to curb or control the plunderers. * * * In New York State the trusts have discovered the meaning of proposed legislation against their interests. It means simply that the professional politicians have fqund a new set of victims to bleed. The trusts rob the people and the politicians blackmail the trusts. This is American politics.— Philadelphia Record.

THE DEAD-LOCK.

Some Amusing Scenes and Incidents in the National House of Representatives. The Wheels of Legislation Were Blocked, but the Wags Had Plenty of , Pun. (Special Cor. Chicago Times.] The bright morning of the eighth calendar day of the deadlock upon the directtax bill dawned upon weary and forlornlooking groups of Representatives, who stood guardto watch each other. The extraordinary number of roll-calls and the length of the session has badly demoralized the reading clerks, and various employes of the House have been tried as substitutes, with indifferent success. As one clerk with insufficient vocal ability was struggling along with the roll-call on the Weaver motion, Mr. Dockery, of Missouri, generously stepped forward amid the applause of the House and took up the call in a sonorous voioe. During the small hours the snores of ebony occupants of the public gallery mingled with the sounds of campaign songs and laughter emanating from the coat-rooms, the confused rumble of hoarse breathing of sleepers, and the subdued applause of good story-tellers like Mason of Chicago and Allen of Mississippi. Every place available for a man to stretch himself upon was occupied, except the broad marble mantelpieces over the open grate-fires in the corners of the hall; and some of the relays on guard even sought repose by sitting upon the small of their backs with their legs thrown over a desk and heads resting upon the desk behind them. The more wakeful spirits amused themselves by playing jokes upon these. Among the most laughable incidents were the tricks played upon Brumm of Pennsylvania, Taulbee of Kentucky, and Long of Massachusetts. While Taulbee, one of the most officiously active and least influential of the minority, was snoozing in the amen corner, some wag hid his brogans, and when the lank Kentuckian was awakened by the fall of a bundle of Congressional records upon his stomach, he could not find his shoes, though he goodnaturedly hunted under the sofas, and behind the doors. Finally he found one shoe, and amid hilarious merriment and appeals of jesting members to put on his shoes, he came down the aisle, and, rising to a question of privilege, asked time he had left. “The gentleman is out of order,” said the Speaker, and Taulbee retired amid jeering laughter to appear a little later with odd shoes on his feet. Mr. Brumm of Pennsylvania was the butt of a joke that closed his gaping mouth with a snap and dropped his long legs from the desk to the floor with undignified haste, and of course everybody roared at his sudden waking in a fright. Somebody had pasted a placard upon the sole of his boot and another had touched a match to the paper. Ex-Gov. Long waked from a brief but sound slumber to find some difficulty in gaining an upright position, his legs having been tied to the top of the desk and a shower of paper balls rained upon him. The jolly and venerable Wade of Missouri fell asleep on the back row and attracted the attention of the fun-levera by loud snoring. They disengaged the green baize curtain from the brass railing behind him and wrapped the old man in it so that only his bald pate was exposed to view. His make-up was completed with a tall paper fool's-cap drawn down over one eye and one ear, and the lawmakers looked on and laughed as the tip of the cap swayed back and forth, keeping time with his heavy breathing. Mason, of Chicago, with his inexhaustible fund of good-humor, and overflowing with good stories, was a god-send to his fellowmembers on such an occasion. At almost any time he could be seen in some part of the chamber or through the open doors of the cloak-room with a crowd of laughing men around him. He would tell a yarn, and when the laughter was at its height, quietly walk away with his own fat sides shaking. In a few minutes a crowd would gather about him and make another draft upon ths resources of the genial Illinois member for merry-making. Toward morning the frolicksome members had quieted down, and the dnll monotony of carrying on the fiction of waiting for twelve hours for the Sergeant-at-arms to bring in absentees was seldom broken, even by the fellows who at all times obtrude themselves and their lame wit upon the attention of the House. When daylight began to creep through the glass panels overhead not more than fifty members were in their seats, the galleries were vacated, and the one-legged keepers of the upper tiers of doors hobbled to the windows for a breath of fresh air. The outer doors of the chamber bad been closed all night, and the hall was filled with a poisonous atmosphere. Still the majority stubbornly refused to suspend proceeding's under the call so that the doors might be opened. The Boston papers will suppress the fact, and papers elsewhere will announce it with pain and regret, that the most undignified attitude assumed by any member of the House this afternoon was that which Henry Cabot Lodge, the literary statesman from Massachusetts, assumed for an hour. He placed the small of his back on his chair, laid his legs on his desk, and confronted the presiding officer with the soles of his boots. He was reading a book with morocco cover and gilt edges, and as well as the title could be deciphered from the gallery it was Browning’s poems. Gen. Weaver sat in his proper place with qne leg thrown over the other in a firm but easy attitude, but deeply absorbed in a newspaper, and looking able to sit there as long as necessary. The flower in Mr. Springer’s button-hole was faded, and he looked depressed. A fresh flower and a shave restored to him all his native buoyancy. Mr. Johnson, of Indiana, lay with his head hanging over the back of his chair and his eyes closed in slumber. Mr. Burrows reclined with his feet on one chair and the heavier part of his anatomy in another, while he read the morning papers. The amiable and affectionate Gov. McCreary presented a pretty picture, 7 with a wee little girl on his knee. The gentlemen sleeping on the eight sofas in the comer of the hall generally had their faces covered with newspapers or handkerchiefs and they could not be iden-, tified at a distance. _ .

HORSE THIEVES LYNCHED.

A Deputy Marshal’s Poms Has a Severe Battle with Outlaws in No , . I Man’s Land. Kansas Vigilantes Pursue the Desperadoes in Force and Hang Four of Them. [Oklahoma (Ind. Ter.) special.] A courier from Shawneetown, forty miles from here, in “No Man's Land,” on the North Fork of the Canadian, brings the ; report of a terrible battle between outlaws and a posse of the United States Marshal which was followed by an uprising of the farmers on the border of Kansas, who meted out summary justice to four horsethieves and have the rest of the band besieged in the hills. Three colored horse-thieves stole a ! bunch of horses from Long Tom, a Shawnee Indian. When the theft was dlscov- ! ered, a Deputy United States Marshal, 1 with a party of Sac and Fox Indian police, | gave pursuit and came up with the negro thieves, who at once opened fire upon the officers with Winchesters, unhorsing one policeman at the first round. A regular pitched battle then followed, in which two of the negroes were killed, and one policeman mortally wounded, dying soon after. I The Marshal was also badly wounded. The horses were recovered. When this affair became known a party of fifty ranchmen started for the haunts of the outlaws. They had hardly crossed the line before they were met by a band of the thieves and succeeded in capturing four of them. They were immediately strung up to the nearest tree. The remainder of the band were then so hotly pressed by the avengers that they were compelled to run to earth in a dugout, ; where they were held at bay when the ! courier left. It was the intention of the farmers to compel them to surrender by starving them out. There are thought to be six in the dugout, and when captured they will undoubtedly be hanged. To increase the excitement there are flocking into the Territory quite a number of Oklahoma boomers who firmly believe that this portion of the Territory will soon be open for settlement, and the soldiers are kept continually escorting them back to the State line. There is now being prepared a military map of the Territory to be used by the commanding officers in their scouting in search of the boomers as well as fugitives from justice. Further actions and developments are anxiously awaited. [Woodward (Ind. Tor.) special., A large band of horse-thieves have lately made their headquarters in the neutral strip generally known as “No Man’s Land” and have been making frequent raids on the border towns of Southern Kansas, driving off both the cattle and the horses of the farmers. This has so incensed the farmers that they have organized themselves into vigilance committees, determined to rid themselves of this pest. About twenty-five men from the vicinity of Coldwater, Kansas, overtook one of the band named Gill about fifteen miles from this point and shot him. Gill had in his possession at the time he was captured six horses belonging to the members of the vigilance party. Armed parties are continually passing and repassing this point on the lookout for horse-thieves, and If any are caught they will enforce the death penalty without tnal.

THE SNELL MURDER.

The Chicago Police Think Tascott Is Safe in China or Australia. [Chicago special.] Sergeant Charles E. Aldrich, of the city detective department, has returned from a six weeks’ chase after the elusive William B. Tascott, who in February last murdered millionaire Snell. Detective Haines, who went with Aldrich, is also on his way back. Both men return under orders, and when Haines shall have added his report to that : which Aldrich gave Inspector Bonfield ■ terday, the police department will have dropped the case. There are other city officers working on it now, and Inspector Bonfield, who has hod charge of the case, is satisfied that it is useless to try further, i unless a fortunate accident turns up some new clew. Aldrich has traveled over7,oUo miles during Che six weeks, and chased down everything tangible. “Where do you think Tascott is now?” was asked of Sergt. Aldrich. “The most probable theory is that he went direct from St. Paul to Vancouver, and then by steamerto China or Australia.” “He was in St. Paul, then?” “Not a shadow of a doubt about that But there the trail ends. Haines and I bad plenty of steers to work on, but they developed nothing. I don’t see how Tascott could have remained in the Northwest and not been caught, for the whole country was alive over it and looking out for him and the SIO,OOO. He's out of the country, I “How far West did you go?” “Clear to the coast. We went carefully over both the Canadian Pacific and the Northern Pacific. I was in Portland, Vancouver, and Tacoma, and many other places along the coast. So was Haines. The greater part of the time we traveled separately. “We are practically no further along.” said Lieut. Henshaw, “than when the search began. There is hardly a clew as to which point of the compass is the proper direction to look.” A. J. Stone, a son-in-law of the murdered man, says he has organized a private detective agency of his own, and will continue the hunt for Tascott until he succeeds in arresting him, if it takes twenty years./ Judge Lacomb, in the United States Circuit Court at New York, decided that George Benson, who swindled the Mexicans out of $20,000 on bogus tickets for Patti concerts, must be surrendered to the Mexican authorities. A stay was granted pending an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Heavy rains Tuesday all over Illinois will prove very beneficial to spring farming operations, says the Chicago Times. The rain stopped seeding for a day or two, but will settle the ground, start pastures, and greatly revive winter wheat. Tlffi prospect for the winter wheat crop in Illinois ia very good.

INDIANA NEWS.

—New Harmony, eighteen miles from Evansville, was the scene of a distressing accident recently. Mr. John W. Miller, a wealthy merchant, was cleaning out a breech-loading gun, when a cartridge fastened in it suddenly exploded, literally blowing off the head of the unfortunate man. His wife rushed into the apartment, only to find the entire room spattered with the blood and brains of her husband. The shock was so sudden and unexpected that she fell into a dead faint, and did not revive for on hour. The gun containing the cartridge had not been used for some time, and when the barrel was taken from the stock the cup no doubt came in contact with the floor as it was set down. Mr. Miller was one of the representative men of Posy County, well known in business throughout that section. —Miss Emma C. White, of Crawfordsville, has already prepared her last resting place at Oak Hill Cemetery. She has long been a sufferer from consumption, and knowing that her days on earth were numbered, she decided to make her own arrangements for her grave. She accordingly purchased a lot in the above cemetery, and, having money of her own, tad a tomb or vault lorse enough to hold a coffin, built above the ground out of white rough-hewed limestone. It is to be covered with a large stone cap, which will have to be put in place with a derrick erected for the purpose. Miss White visited the cemetery after the vault was completed, expressed herself as pleased with the job and paid for the same. She then returned home to await the approach of death, which is not far distant. —More ground has been bought by the State Board of Agriculture, and extensive improvements will be made before the next fair. A splendid new amphitheater, four hundred feet long, by forty feet wide and two stories, will be built, costing $lO,QOO. It will be as good as anything of the kind in the country, and the board says it will not stand back in expense to make it modern and first-class in every particular. A new race track will be built at once, under the immediated direction of Superintendent Lockhart, who was given the contract and who is pronounced by horsemen to be an expert in the business. The track will be completed by the first of June and the amphitheater by July I—so that Marion County horsemen will have a chance to try ft during the summer. —Patents have been granted Indiana inventors as follows: George Ford, New Harmony, gate; Enoch Harris, Evansville, saw tooth; Nicholas Henizer, Randolph, assignor of one-half to H. Reitenour, Union City, end-gate; Samuel E. Johns, assignor of one-third to A. R. Monroe. Indianapolis, machine for gathering and collating book signatures; Samuel A. Payne, assignor of two-thirds to J. L. Fisher, and J. M. Stout, Scottsburg, hand planter; James J. Turner, assignor to himself and J. F. Miller, Richmond, switch and signal interlocking; Frank D. Walden, Jeffersonville, shoe-upper turning machine.

—Dumont Post, No. 18, G. A. R., Shelbyville, through James B. Wilson, a member, 1188 brought a novel proceeding in the Circuit Court in the shape of petitions to have guardians appointed for Thomas Thompson, John Berry, Solomon Swan go, William Spencer, Charles Marietta, Gideon Palmer, Sam Fike, and Henry Phillips, members of the post The petitions allege that they are habitual drunkards, and squander the pension money they receive each quarter from the Government, instead of devoting it to the support of their families.

—An explosion of natural-gas occurred at the pulp-works, at Muncie. The gas had escaped between two walls, and was accidently ignited. The force of the explosion tore down the two walls and fatally injured one of the workmen. . The man had one side of his head crushed and was badly bruised. —The infant child of Joseph Hunter, a farmer living near Green Oak, Fulton County, was fatally scalded by falling into a tub of hot water. The screams of the child were heard by its mother, who res. cued the little one from the deadly t>ath, but too late.

—Charles Butler, who was hung for the murder of his wife at Columbia City some years ago, left an only child named Harry, A recent dispatch from Coronado, Kan., says -that Harry has fallen heir to $40,000, left by his grandmother. —Eastern oil men are flocking to Portland, and will open up the oil field there at once. One local company has been offered $7,000 for their leases in Jay County.* The Indiana oil field is now definitely located in that county. —William Fewell was crushed by a large block of wood falling on him at Schroeder’s saddle-tree factory, Madison. One leg was broken and he suffered internal injuries. He will not live. He has a wife, but no children. —Many farmers in Cass County, and also observing men who have been over that section of the State, report that they never saw the wheat looking worse than it does now. The late rains may bring some of it out —The State Normal School building at Terre Haute, was totally destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated at $240,000, and no insurance. Eight hundred pupils escaped from the burning building without injury. —A 2 per cent, tax has been voted in Ripley Township, Montgomery County, aa a donation to the Atlantic and Mississippi Railway. The proposition was carried by 110 majority. —Phillip Krackman, a prominent citizen of Corydon, was caught in the ma* ehinery of a xftill find killed. j