Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1888 — GEN. A. E. STEVENSON. [ARTICLE]

GEN. A. E. STEVENSON.

ABLE SPEECH BY THE ASSISTANT POSTMASTER GENERAL. Grievous Bardens Laid Upon Laborers for the Benefit of Capitalists by the War Tariff—Trusts Denounced as the Fruit of High Tariff. General Stevenson, Assistant Postmaster General, and General Palmer, Democratic candidate for Governor of Illino s, recently addressed a mass meeting at Shelbyville, 111. General Steven ion began by reviewing the official acts or President Cleveland and his Cabinet. He showed that colored men “have been appointed to high places, and that the rights of the race have been carefully guarded declared that all departments of tne Government had been honestly and economically administered; that there have been no Belknap scandals, no star-route thieveries, no Secor Robeson robberies, and established the fact by figures that the old soldiers have never been more liberally treated, and prove! from the reco.’ds that, instead of handling huge slices of the public domain over to private corporations, as had been the method in vogue in the days of Republican ascendency, the administration had actually restored and opened to settlement 85,690,000 acres. “In the light of this,” he said, “do you Yonder that the land-grabbers oppose Cleveland's election, especially when it is recollected (hat tire land office had recommended a further forfeiture of 65,000,000 unearned acres now held by greedy corporations ?’ Continuing, General Stevenson said: Whoever is engaged in honest daily endeavor by the hard labor of his hands to earn bread for himself and his family has a profounl interest in the tariff. At no period in our history has it assumed the importance, or so engrossed the attention of the people as at present. Bear in mind, then, tbat tariff is but another name for taxation. * ♦ * ’ I asser;, without fear of contradiction, that from the close of the war to the last hour that the Republican party controlled both houses of Congress, all legislation reducing war taxes was in the interest of wealth, and not a finger was lifted to lessen the burdens of the people—burdens pitiently and bravely borne during the terrible ordeal of war. The tariff tax is paid by the consumer. Let us see: The American importer buys a cargo of woolen goods in Liverpool. When he reaches New York he is met by the custom-house officer, to whom he pays an average tariff tax of not less than 75 per cent. This amount the importer at once, as a matter of coarse, adds to the price of his goods. When the country merchant buys hie stock he pays the importer the original price paid in Liverpool, the cost of transportation, and profits of the importer, and to these is added the tariff duties. You, the farmer, the mechanic, the laborer—the consumer—buy these same goods from the merchant, and what do you pay? The profits of your merchant upon the goods, to which is added the cost of transportation, and the entire amount by your merchant to the importer, including the taxes paid to the collector. So that it is not difficult to see that, w'hoever may pay the tariff taxes in the first place, or whoever may pay them in the second place, they are eventually and inevitably paid by the consumer. “Well,” you may say, “the Government gets the money, so it is all right.” But remember that the Government does not want the money, as its annual revenues are now more than a hundred millions in excess of its needs. In the second place, remember that but one-fifth of t e money paid because of the tariff taxes ever reaches the Treasury ; the remaining four-fifths go into the pockets of tho manufacturers. Examine this carefully, and you will find that.under the present tariff §4 out of every ¥5 paid by the consumer goes to the protected manufacturer,, and the remaining $1 goes into the Treasury. The manufacturer protected! Protected against what? Simply protected against competition. Protected against the possibility of your buying clo hing for your family from some one else for half the price yon pay him. The tariff duties, then, as shown by Judge Thurman, collected for the fiscal year just ended, were, in round numbers, $200,000,OuO; thus adding, at the cost of the people, $1,01X1,090,0)0 to the profits of the manufacturers—the protected monopolists—the protected robbers of this country! Do you wonder, now. that the Republican advocates of a high tariff declared in the Chicago platform that, rather than have protection harmed, the entire b er and whiskv tax should be abolished? Do you wonder that the great protected iron merchant of Pittsburgh, Andrew Carnegie, with an annual income of $1,500,0J0, can entertain Mr. Blaine at Cluny Castle in royal splendor? Do you wonder that the manufacturers of New England, who have grown rich by protection, hold mortgages upon so many of the farms of Illinois and the Northwest,? Do you wonder that SO per cent, of the railroads in Illinois are owned by Eastern capitalists? Is it surprising that the manufacturers and protected capitalists are solid in their support of Harrison and hostile to Cleveland's re-election ? Do you wonder that Mr. Foster, President of the Republican League of the United States, in his appeal for money to aid in electing a Republican President, declared that the manufacturers must contribute liberally, as they were most benefited by the tariff laws? that the Republican party must have liberal contributions from the manufacturers, as the fight against tariff reform was in their interest? Is it not true, my fellowcitizens, that the Republican party is to-day the pliant instrument in the hands of the monopolists? The “protection” it gives you is the protection the wolf gives the lam 0. * # * Now, my friends, the Mills bill would greatly lessen your daily expenses. It would <nab e you day by day to add to the comfort of your families. It would enable you to give your children better facilities for education, and better to prepare them for the great struggle of life. Don’t you know that the passage of that bill would benefit you aud your children? Don’t you know that that bill, lessening the cost to you of the necessaries of life, has already passed a Democratic House, is indorsed by a Democratic President, aud but for the hostility of a Republican Senate, would to-day be the law of the land, and that you and your families would now ba reaping its blessings ? The Mills bill would reduce taxation $75,000,0)0 annually. What remedy do the Republicans propose? The Chicago platform, which the Republicans have recently adopted,, and upon wh ch they have nominated General Harrison for President, declares in effect that, rather than have protection harmed, the entire internal revenue system, meaning the taxes upon beer, upon tobacco, and upon whisky, should be repealed. Are you prepared for that? Do you fully understand the import of th at declaration ? The statement I now give you is taken from the official records, and shows that the revenue derived from tax upon tobacco for the fiscal year just closed amounted to 830 662,432, an 1 that from beer to $23,324,218, that from spirits $69,306,165, aggregating $123,292,816. Truly, the repeal of this tax would reduce the surplus in the Treasury with a vengeance. Whom, then, will you serve? Do you prefer the abolition of the tax upon whisky rather than that the cost of the necessaries of life should be lessened? If so, I pray you lose no time in giving your adhere nce to the Republican party and its candidates. Do you wonder that the Chicago Tribune., the leading Republican paper of the West, denounced the platform and demanded its modification ? Do you wonder that it declared that the American people would never consent to free whisky, in order that the taxes might be retained upon clothing and food ?

Let me call your attention to an evil which is thedlrect result of the tariff—“trusts,” or rather, in old-fashioned parlance, "conspiracies." What are these so-called “trusts?" Simply combination entered inti between manufacturers for the purpose of increasing the cost of an article to the consumer by limiting the supply. How are they enabled to do this? A high protective tariff cuts off competition from abroad, and thus enables the home manufacturer to absolutely control the market. But for a high tariff, these trusts, combinations, conspiracies against the people would be impossible. These hateful monopolies are the legitimate offspring of a system of legislation which, under the name of “protection,” enriches the few at the expense of the many. Let me give you an illustration. The sugar trust has lately advanced the price to the consumer from Ito 2 cents per pound. One cent per pound upon the sugar consumed in the United States gives $30,000,0<)0 additional profit's to the monopoly “trusts." This trust is made possible only by the high tariff on sugar. The lumber trust, by which every man’s shingles and boards are arbitrarily taxed, is made possible only by the high tariff tax on lumber. The salt trust, by which the price of this necessity is taxed, is made possible only by the high tariff tax on salt. You naturally inquire: “Is it not possible to protect the people against such conspiracies?" The Democratic party, in its last national platform, says : "Judged by Democratic principles, the interests of all the people are betrayed when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and com-

binations are promoted and fostered, which, while unduly enriching the few, combine to rob the boiy of our citizens by depriving them, as purchasers, of the benefits of natural com petition.” President Cleveland in his letter of acceptance says: “Such combinations have always been condemned by the Democratic party. The declaration of its national convention is sincerely made, and no member of our party will be found excusing the existence or belittling the pernicious results of these devices to wrong the people. Under different names they have been punished by the common law for hundreds of years, and they have lost none of their hateful features because they have assumed the name of trusts instead of conspiracies. We believe that these trusts are the natural offspring of a market artificially restricted; that the inordinately high tariff, besides furnishing a temptation for their existence, enlarges the limits within which they may operate against the people, and thus increase the extent of their power for wrong-doing. With an unalterable hatred of ali such schemes, we count the checking of their baneful operations among the good results promised by revenue reform.” Reneat your question : “Is it not possible to protect the people against such c mspiracies ?" Mr. Blaine, answering for the Republican party, in a recent speech, after waiving a discussion of the question of trusts, as to whether they were either good things or bad, added that “they are largely private affairs, with which neither President Cleveland nor any private citizen has any right to interfere.” From the Republican standpoint, then, the law is powerless to protect you against this robbery. Do you wonder, now, that the advocates of a high tariff, the champions of “protection," the Carnegies and others, who have grown enormously rich by “trusts," are hostile to Cleveland and his party? The question of tariff reform is now before you. It will down at no man’s bidding. The issues are made up. We stand for the removal of all unjust taxe«.