Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1888 — WORKINGMEN, READ! [ARTICLE]

WORKINGMEN, READ!

Do You Prefer Cheap Whisky to Cheap Necessities? -Mr. Cox Pictures a Republican Campaigner on the Stump for the Chicago Platform. How can you go out and answer the questions, peitinent to this campaign, without entangling .allianxs and confused ideas? Some taxpayer, tired ot your protective exactions, asks : ‘Way should cnly ‘”,7-8,891 people, the pets of prote.tion, be favored at the expanse of ov r : -seventy par cent, of thair 60,000,00 J fellow-citi-zens ?” What for? The voice from the still—warm with the tears of widows and orphans—huskily answers, “Kor free whisky!" “Wfiy should we not chea tn clothes, blankets, and carpets by admitting wool f ei, since the woolen mills have a capacity for 610,0X1,00) j pounds, and only 24J,030,000 pounds are raised at home ?” The answer comes like the bleat of a thousand I flocks, “Before clothes, or blankets, or carpets, take free whisky!’’ But says an honorable recusant Republican from Minnesota: “Worthier, batter, and juster, it seems to my ! mind, would it be to give our people, the toiling ■ masses, cheaper food, cheaper fuel, < heaper I clothing, and cheaper shelter, cheaper b cause ' released from the Heavy and unnecessary burden of hig.i-t xrift taxes.” “Pshaw!" says the hide-bound protectionist, “these artie'es must remain taxed to vindicate the American system." That system has as its genius free whisky. A taxpayer inquires of you ; “Have not the American people paid in sixty years over $23,00'3,000.000 in the hope of getting goods cheaper by and by, after the infants have attained their majority? What, my Republican ■brother, will you do n >w?” The brother answers, “Free whisky." “Has invention dona nothing for us?" asks ths impoverished mechanic. “What do you show us as the result of our American genius for a century in mechanics?” The answer ermes: “We tender you the worm in the still, the finest invention ofihs devil. It m y take away your brains and improv sh ycur families; but protection must stand! We offer you untaxed, cheap, free whisky?" Another in~ u'rer asks : “Why do you not take the tax off my co tof ‘reversible nap?’ ” dhe answer comes: “Protec.ion first, but always free whisky.” An old lady of West Virginia asks with anxie.y: “Why must I lay sixty cents in addition to every dollar for the ciockery from which 1 dr nk my sassafras ter?” “Ah!”sa/sthe protectionist, “is not whisky better than tea?" A series of question! and answers might be fire I off in the following oidsr: “Are you con; to adow that reluct ion proposed by ths Mils bill from loroy-sevon per cent, duty to forty on carpets?’ "No, but wo will repeal the tax on cigarettes for our young boys, and add free whisky.” “Wen t you support that reduction of ten per cent, on cotton goods?” "No, but 1 would love to lower the whisky tax. ” “Won’t you reduce the tax on castor oil below 194 per cent., its present rate?" "ixo; I won’t condescend to help anybody but these who want the cost of whisky reduced." “Please help us reduce the tax o.r cheap woolen cloth from righty-nine per cent, to forty per cent., as Mills proposes. Will you not?” “No; Ido not want to engage” in anything else till I have taken the tax of ninety cents a gallon from whisky.” "We are making a last effort to reduce the duty on w’col hats from fifty-four per cent. Cheap hats. Won t you h Ip us?" “No, sir; the Republican platform does not -says unyt ing about, cheap hats. It does advocate taking tax from whisky, and 1 stand by t e platform.? "The worsted goods for my family is taxed 68 per cent. He p me pull that down to 40 per ■cent., will you not?” "No, sir; let your worsted goods go to grass! Whisky is more than a dollar a j.alien. 1 want to take the niuety-cent-gallon tax oft' of it.” “Now, my friend, the Mills bill proposes to take eleven and one-half millions tax oft sugar; won’t you help pass it?" “No, fcr it don't propose to cheapen whisky one cent.” “It makes salt free. Won’t you f.vorttat?” “Is salt whisky? Salt ain't in our platform.” “It makes the tin, of which our tin stove vessels, and cans, and roofs are made, free; won't you give us that?" “Tin is not in the platform ; whisky is.” “It makes lumber for our houses to keep us warm, free. Won’t you favor that?” “No. I want to legislate to warm the inner man, not toe outer one. Give us free whisky. ” When these questions are answered, let me read as a summing up to the gentleman what was said by an old farmer friend of mine in lowa. He had evidently been perusing Sidney Smith on taxation: “I never wore any clothes that were not increased in price by this policy of making an almshouse of every possible factory. I used to rise on Sunday morning from my humble cot in a log farm house, throwing oft the bedclothes taxed 40 to 100 per cent., and donning my clothing taxed 35 to 100 per cent., eat my taxed breakfast from dishes taxed 45 per cent, on a table cloth taxed 40 per cent., and when the Sabbath bell, taxed 35 pel- cent., sounded its inviting notes, I took my Bible, taxed 25 per cent., and went to the church built of lumber taxed 20 per cent., and there, in a Sunday-school song book taxed 25 per cent, (and all these taxes paid to the obj' cts of my charity, not to the government), I read: “Far out upon the prairie How many children dwell Who never re id the Bible Nor hear the Sabbath bell!” [Great laughter and applause. 1 What is the relief my farmer friend receives from you and your platform ? “Free whisky.” Does this give comfort to his family, his purse or his soul ? Now, you gentlemen want to go among the men, womsn and children of this country and say: "We will not take the tax oft of cheap clothing, cheap lumber, cheap food, but we will take the tax oft whisky, to make it cheap and common, and more hurtful to soul and body.” Is not that an inspiring issue for a party of moral elevation ? O, gentlemen, it is the eld, old story. You gentlemen must have often heard it sung: “O, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive."