Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1888 — Page 1

The Democratic Sentinel.

VOLUME XII

THE DEMOCRATIC SENTIHEL. DEMOCRATIC NEWSPAPER. PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY, BY ./as. W. McEwen RATES OF SUBSCRIPTION. . - .. |i.» i _*.!!:> - a 60 /. Avertising R,s/t©s. r-' friamti car, “ "'■■d column, . 30 00 r. 1 ”; 1 - 10 00 nncrOKOt. added to foregoing price if crt?B«montß arc set to occupy more than * lefioWonafnart^of 1 a year at equitable rates IuSeBS cffi not exceeding 1 inch space, $5 a year; 83 for six months; % 2 for three _ All legal notices and advertisements at espublication ,0 cuts feline; each publication thereafter a cents a advertisements may beehanged «iißrterlv (once in three months) at the opthß advertiser, free of extra charge* *l!dvMlisdnontßlb>r persons not residents ,tt B oTarTM.“?Uon! SB JSS-quitir eoltmn lnsise; and auarterl, q advance when larger.

AUiIED MCCOT, Hoi „ ! ,„„ 0 „ d T - J ' MCOOT A. MWOY & C®., bankbm, (Successors to A. McCoy & T.Thompson,) Renssbi-a.eb.lnd. r\o a ftei eral banking business. Exchange •n bought and sold. Certincates bearing indrest Collections ofldcOoy joints Office same place as old RrmofUcOoj Thompson April MORBECAI F. CHITCOTB. Attorney-at-Taw it KNBSEI-AKB, • INDIANA Prnotices lin thb Courts of Jasper and ado inlug counties. Makes colioc.ions a specialty.B Office on north side of Washington Street, opposite Court HouseBndONpTTHOMTSON, DAVID J. THOMPSON Attorney-at-Law. Kotary Public. THOMPSON & BROTHER. „ . Indiana Bknsbedaeb, Practice in all the Courts. arion l. sfittsk. Collector and AbstractorWe pay particular attention to paying taxsefling and leasiag lands. _v2n4B TJP, H. H. GRAHAM, ' * * ATTOkNEY-AT-LAW, Keesdelaxr, Indiana. Money to loan on long time at low interest. .0 Sept. IU, 00. JAMES W. DOUTHIT, ATTORNEY s AT-LAW AND NOTARY PUBLIC, OBT Office in rear room over Hemphill & Honan’s store, Rensselaer, Ind. Edwin P. Hammond. . William B. Austin HAMMOND & AUSTIN, attorney-at-law, Rensselae I ', Ind. Office on second floor of Leopold’s Block, corner of Washington and Yaußenssclaer streets. William B. Avstin purchases, sells and leases real estate, pays taxes and deals in negotiable instruments. may 37, 87. W WATSON, • ATTO JrtlsrHlY- A-T-Ih A. W Office up Stairs, in Leopold’s Bazay, RENSSELAER IND.

W.HABTSELL, M D UOMCEOPATniC PHYSICIAN & SURGEON. RENSSELAER, - - INDIANA. VChronic Diseases a Specialty..^ OFFICE, in Mnkeever’s New Block. Reeidenre at Makeever House. July 11.1864. 'J. H. lotjshkidge. yictok e. loitg bridge Ji H. TOUGH RIDGE A SON, jPhysicians and Surgeons. Office in the new Leopold B.ock, secovd floor, second door right-hand side of hall: Ten per cent, interest will be added to all Accounts running unsettled longer than jfliree months. vim DR. I. B. WASHBURN Physician A Surgeon, Rensselaer, 2nd. Calls promptly attended. Willgive special atten tion to the treatment of Chronic Diseases. jy|~ ARY E. J ACKBON, M. D., PHYSICIAN ft SURGEON Special attention given to diseases of women and children. Office on Front street, corner of Angelica. 12.. 24. Zimri Dwiggins, F. J. Sears, Val. Seib, President. Vic—President. Cashier CITIZENS’STATEBANK BENSSELAEB, ind., Does a general banking business: Certificates bearing Interest issued; Exshange bought and sold; Money loaned on farms at lowest rates and onmos favorable terms. Jan. 8,88.

RENSSELAER. JASPER COUNTY. INDIANA. FRIDAY; JULY 20. 1888

Does the Present Tariff Protect

AMERICANLABOR? Speech of Hon. David Turpie, of Indiana, in the U. S. Senate, Jm/Y 2, 1883. Mr. Prfsident: The Federal Constitution forbids the States to levy taxes upon imports. Congress alone is authorized “'to lay and collect” such duties. Our earliest statesmen, illustrious by their labors in the camp and in the Cabinet, worthy to l e not only the founders of a nation, but the authors of its form of Government, devised a fiscal policy of characteristic sim - plicity. Itis|thatof absolute free trade between the States, fair trade with all the world besides.

To direct a levy of ta .es without collection would seem an idle ordinance in so grave an instrument. In their regulation of foreign commerce our fathers avoided both free trade and prohibition. They wisely chose the middle ground of safety. Their method so established is like the Union they made, in contemplation of law perpetual. The first acts of Congress on this subject show no trace of mere inhibition. That io’ea, the growth of d, later _ period, appears most distinctly in 1861. The overwhelming exigencies of the civil war may have excused or justified a departure so radical, but the legislators of 1883, in virtually re-enacting the rates of the war tariff, designed, not a temporary use of this novel expedient; rather a permanent change of policy. There is some what, very mueb, in our present condition which may give us pause, may induce us to retrace our steps, to stand once more within constitutional bounds and limitations.

Congress some years ago provided what was deemed to be, if not a generous, at least a reasonable supply of money for the use of the people. The volume or quantity of currency thus furnished was carefully guarded against diminution —so much in Treasury notes, fixed at an amount not to be lessened; so much in coined silver to be regularly enlarged by a monthly increment; so much ;n other forms, that the country might not again be embarrassed for want of a circulating medium. Sorely vexed by this, the influential and therefore governing classes who had profited so largely by a different policy, cast about for means to thwart this legislation and to defeat its purpose. Beaten in the open contest for monetary freedom, they yet sought by indiiection to deprive the people of the use of tba+ currency so provided for them. They cast about for some such means; they found it 1 close at hand, They fourd thw leaders of the party then in power with full knowledge of their ulterior design, ready to aid them therein; they found all parties at that time willing and ready to help them in their apparent purpose. The revision of the tariff had become a part of the text of all political platforms and associations —a household word, expressive of a household want in every section of the country. This they eagerly seized upon, not with a view of correcting the injustice of the existing law, but with an elaborate pretension of so doing, to effect the contrary. The numerous sections, clauses, and lines of the tariff act of 1883, the tediously hypocritical parentheses of pseudoreduction and revision held in solution a single design, the forced accumulation of a surplus—a dead surplus —buried in the vaults of the Treasury, which should drive the c ountry once more to the verge f a money famine. The whole of the effective operative provisions of that law of 1883 are subordinated to a paragraph of a few lines obscurely placed in the section of an appropriation act concerning the surplus. By textual arrangement

this paragraph is remote, distant from the statute to which it relates; it might have actually served asa preamble to their bill. But this would have been a dangerous juxtaposition. The terms of this paragraph are not subjunctive nor conditional; they contemplate no contingency. Expenditure of the surplus is spoken of as an assured and certain requirement, well known and foreseen. That this accumulation was deliberately prepared and intended is evident from tho language of the clause author izingnot only the redemption but the purchase of United States bonds; the perfected plan and completed project being to tax the products of laud and labor in such degree as without doubt to induce m the volume of the currency a scarcity only to be relieved by paying large premiums to the public credtor, offering him such a generous and liberal largess as might tempt him to transmute his bonds into mouey.

The power to buy bonds was doubtless intended to create a sort of waste-weir for the overflow or or excess of moneys taken from the people by taxation; yet even this may not return to the regular course and channel of circulation without being tolled by the holder of our public securities. A \ :e----cise analysis of the whole system is this: to tax all the people for the benefit of a few protected classes up to the danger-line of monetary restriction; then to tax all again for the sake of another class still less numerous and highly favored. It might indeed have been said, “The public creditor can wait until his debt is due—he has his interest, and is satisfied; his bond, and he is content.” But such a course would have afforded no excuse for this needless accumulation The excess must in some way be disposed of; it would be dangerously in the way; it would create a lernand for less taxation. Let the bon holders have it —it will thus disappear. Then it is asked, “Bo you not wish to pay off the national debt?” Certainly, but we did not expect to pay for the privilege of paying it; to pay larg • amounts above the principal and interest — premiums unearned, for which there is no return. The exorbitant tariff now laid upon imports thus subserves the double purpose, first, of releasing our protected classes from their just share of the public burdens, then of depriving the people of the money pr by law for circulation.

The supply of currency to-day —upon what does it depend ? Upon the action or inaction of a single person, the Secretary of the Treasury; or upon the whim, caprice, or rapacity of the holder of national bonds. Is that a wise, efficient, or patriotic financial policy which has reduced the country to the very narrow straits of such a monetary dilemma? Then we have manifold schemes for expending the surplus, endloss diatribes against an invisible phantom, as if the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Carlisle, or any other charged with the duties of administration of affairs had proposed free trade —mere pretexts prevent the reduction of taxes. We hear criticisms of the President and of the p rty which supports him concerning the power to buy bonds and the use of it as if either the President, or the Democratic party had enacted the giving that power, or had imposed the necessity of its exercise. These things have come down to us as legislative heirlooms from a former regime. It is true the President was chosen by the people to administer upon the estate of that famous partisan called Republican, lately deceased. He is as yet, much embarrassed by the will, codicils, eontracts, and especially by the profuse bequests and legacies left by the decedent in) his li etime to his various f iends and allies, by statute or strict entail, yet in force. These pressing necessities, originating from former evils, will be removed.

LABOR.

It has been written there is a perennial sacreduess about work. The Lord of all the harvests has said, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” it is not so said of others, as some may receive hire not deserving it. The system of tariff laws now in force imposes a most unjust and needless assessment u'oon the wages of ia v, or. We know in part, in part wo do not know the amount of this exaction. The known amount of this tax laid and collected per day, as shown by the receipt of customs duties for the year 1887, was, fin round numbers, $600,000. It is now no less. For the seventeen millions of workers in all branoliesjof'industry in the United States the rate per capita amounts 30 per of average daily earnings. With the other expenses of living, for these the wages of the day pay, and do hardly pay, the taxes for the day. Ti e tide of tax and time keep equal pace, save that on the seventh day, the day of rest, when wages are not paid, taxes are.

When such a contribution is levied, as it is, upon the kitchen and the cupboard, upon bed and board, upon hanger, thirst, and nakedness vhen evbry living soul within our borders becomes a tax-paver, enormous receipts accrue and the surplus gathers like the snowball in a thaw. In the ordinary household of five persons where there is one wage-earner and five tax-payers they are not encumbered with unused deposits. The collector of this tax keeps no delinquent list; there is no delay, and there can be no default.

If a man eat, drink, or wear, he must pay; if he move, breathe, or live, he must pay; death scarcely brings relief. The tax-gatherer clips wages, be they ever so -mill; no pittance escapes. The amount of this collection is a direct daily charge upon wages fund —that portion of the wealth of the country which is in transit day by day trom those who employ to those who are employed. The moneys due to labor are thus seized m passing. Any reduction of the amount thus exacted, and especially any readjustment thereof as to the list of taxed articles, would shift the burden from this wages fund in transit to wealth in situ, to wealth accumulated—mainly to the wealth accumulated by the beneficiaries of the ptesent law. There is the rub; there is the hitch and hurt; this is where and how the shoe of reform pinches the foot of monopoly. Now, it is not intended to be said hereby that there may be any thing wrong in the general policy of requiring all those who live in United States to contribute somewhat to the support of the Government.

But it is asked, nevertheless, why should a penny be taken from any one beyond what is needed for that support, and why, as to the sum needed,should it be levied so large - ly and exclusively upon those classes of our fellow citizens least able to spare acd pav it? At such tin. e as the Government takes from +he laborer by taxation upon his food and raiment, upon the ordinary comforts and conveniences of life, more than is necessary for the public use, then we say, “The laborer is not worthy of his hire”—we have found those more worthy thereof. Who are* these? The law-made rich, the most worthless and grasping of all Mammon’s sons, misers of that unblessed lucre unjustly wrung from the sweat of other men’s faces.

It would be impossible for these favored classes,although they have succeeded in controlling the policy and organization of a certain political pariy, although they have procured the Government of the United Btetes to aid as salesman in their marts and stores, to stand behind their counters, and fix prices upon their wares—it would be impossible for them to make an open avowal of their purposes. They could not say to labor: “Go

to; let us take for the nonce a portion of your wages without return —without recompense.” They have a saving amount of caution, of complaisance or of cowardice. But they cry, “Pay us this tribute, as for some time past you have been. It will enable us to make our profits large, stiil larger, wherewith we will certainly in some way requite you.” Is it a thing taught or shown by human experience that those classes of men who have, by the mere operation of statute, heaped up for themselves riohes which moth and rust may corrupt, but which the tax-gatherer leaves untouched, have shared such gains with the victims of their injustice? Til's feeble pretense is founded upon the manifest fallacy that such men will, against their own interest, do that they ought or should because they can. |They might afford to pay better and higher wages, because their law has imposed taxes which enable them to fix their own pricos upon their goods. Have they ever done so? Whence comes the shike, that most remarkable social phonome non of tho century? It originates from the circumstance tha. those who might pay fair wuges will not do so; will resorc to any means to avoid doing so. It springs from tiie fact that the incorporated and tariff-clad shareholder refuses to divide his profits current or long since ac rued with his workmen.

Before the passage of the law forbidding the importation of workmen under passage contracts, and even since, in violation thereof, these classes brought the low prieed laborers of Europo, of Asia, hither to take the plnoes of their own countrymen, Americans whom they had discharged. Foiled in this, they have invented and or ganized the J'trust,” a syndicate of coruorations, which, like the Hix Companies of China, checks pro duction, foreshortens tho wagetime of labor, by this means do stroying both external and internal competition and securing the un limited and absolute control of tho prices of both labor and commodities. Such is their aim and end. The Dynasty of Pelf, a costly rub founued upon craft, cant, and cunning. An impartial htstory of this highly privileged order will show their course and conduct to have been uniformly the Srtme —to reduce wages to the lowest figure, to maintain taxes at the highest to retain their employes as dependants, upon the line of bare subsistence. I do very well recollect how last April when the honorable Senattr from Texas was speaking upon this subject he caused to be read at tho Secretary’s desk, in this presence, the testimony of one Thomas O’Donnell, from evidence taken by the Senate Comm’ ttu; upon Labor, as to the condition of the operatives in the factories at Fall liiver, Mass., in the year 18*’5. Mr. O’Donnell was a skilled, laborer, in an establishment whose wares have been protected for many years up to the point of the prohibitory line. His case is in no wise peculiar; ke testifies that one thousand of his fellow workmen live as he does, not any better. He was a cotton-spin-ner—a very good one, a peac able man, had no trouble with the company or their men. There had been a strke three years before; he had no been in it. He was healthy, industrious, temperate, frugal to the last degree. Here, then, is an American laborer, pro tected, secured, guarded, and inclosed by the plenary providence of the prohibitory tariff. His gross earnings were 8133 per year. With this he must pay rents and procure the daily necessaries of life for himself, his vise, two children—a family of four He could not get worn: more than half the time. The company, with fear of glut of goods in the markets, laid its hand upon the wheel and piston. They stopped from time to time; with them wages ceased.

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