Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1889 — Our Modus Operand!. [ARTICLE]

Our Modus Operand!.

We are content with “Small Profits.” We believe that “Quick Sales” result therfrom and enables us to replenish stock and receive another small profit. The merchant who follows this plan cannot fail of success, and at the same time give his patrons something nearer an equivalent for their money. Re member “Nimble Sixpen e ” ‘Small Profits and Quick Returns” kept in perpetual n otion does a power of *?ood all around—it dispenses its blesbings alike upon the seller and the buyer. It is the successful plan of theQ Chicago Bargain Store.

Speaking of this schedule in mv place in the senate I said: r ‘li any one questions this statement, let the schedule in the bill answer for itself. In its very first line there is an increase from 54.78 to 60*25 ad valorem, almost 6 per cent, added to existing rates, on that class of wool which constitutes practically the entire amount imported into this country. Of this class of wool, costing 30 cents per pound and less, we imported in 1887, 22,607,856. 60 pounds and only 587,878 pounds of all other kinds, The increas e of revenue growing out of this increase ofduty, every dollar of which the con snmer pays, will amount, according to official estimates, to $239,073.89 a year. “On combing and scoured wool ol the value of 30 cents or less per pound and on wool of the value ot over 30 cents per pound, embraced in class 2 of the schedule, an increase is made in excess of existing rates of duty of a little more than 4 per cent, ad valorem, and on carpet wool in class 3 the duty is increased about 2 per cent, more than it is now. “But passing from wool in its unmanufactured condition, we find in this bill not only no system of reform, but a gross exaggeration of all the worst features of our present vicious system of overtaxed, enslaved labor,

‘ With an overflowing and almost bursting treasury, surfeited with a surplus of millions, and with an outcry on all hands for a reduction of revenue, it would be intensely gratifying to me to know from the other side of the chamber why, on the manuiactures of wool and of the hair of the alpaca, valued at not exceeding 80 cents per pound, the tariff lax has been raised from 89.84 $102.66 per cent ad valorem, an addition ot nearly 13 per cent., to an already outrageous burden imposed on the people for the benefit, growth, and power of monopoly. Also, I would ask, in view of the condition of our revenues, why the tax duty on woolen clothes, valued at above 80 cents a pound, has been increased in this bill from hearly 69 to over 75 per cent, (leaving ofi fractions for convenience), and thereby enhancing the cost of such goods $384,484 per annum to those who purchase and use them in this country. “This bill is a cheat and a fraud in every part of its detail of its frame-work. Behold that humble, hardworking woman, as s> e hurries along the street to her daily task, or on her return home, facing the keen wintery wind, and gathering tight about her shivering shoulders her plain, thick shawl, her one stanch friend, hei vital protector. Sir, bearded men and manly men in the world’s affairs, where they are free to follow their own good hearts, stand here in tnis body, coerced by the merciless, un sparing rapacity of the mono - polists in manufacture and trade, and demand that the price of that shawl shall be enhanced to the poor, struggling woman by a tariff tax increased from 89 to 102 per cent “ The rate of duty as it now exists compels the women, and those who care for them, to pay nearly double the real value of|shawls with which to wrap their persons, but the senate bill, the authorized expression of the republican party, compels them to pay 2 per cent, more than double. A five-dol-lar shawl i 6 made to cost more than $lO, a twenty-dollar shawl is made to cost more than forty, and a fifty-dollar shawl more than a hundred. Those who are willing to appear as the open, avowed oppressors of women in the matter of their clothing, and take their reward in the hideous embrace of protected avarice, may do so: ■ f will not. “What, however, shall be said as to the article of flannels? Why is it, except for the purposes of legislative plun-

der and legalized robbery, that on tne cheapest manufactures of this great want of mankind the tariff tax, in the name of impost duty, has swollen under the whip of monopoly coercion from 67 to 94 per cent, ad valorem? Over $30,000 a year, in addition to the unjust profits of the existing law, will thus inure to the greedy monopolists in the manufacture and sale of flannels. An increase of 27 per cent, over the existing rate on this one article of universal consumption is something so rank and flagrant in its wrong and oppression that it will go far to educate the people as to the true intent and meaniDg of tariff revision by the republican party. “A lesson also on the subject of blankets will greatly assist the public mind in reaching a correct conclusion in regard to what is going on here. Oil the lower priced blankets, such as cover the poor man’s bcl through the long winter, nights, valued ,at between < ) and 80 cents per pound, ti. duty is raised by this bill fa n 69.36 to 95.22 per cent in ok. I to give the American manufacturer an additional] im* .ei of nearly 16 per cent, for 1. pi er prices, richer profits, aqd more perfect protection a,.. ! nst foreign compel itio; pair of biankets ri 0 , d worth $3 are to be put upon j the marlset at $5.85 by protecting the manufacturer from t’m rivalry of imported blankets to the extent of 95 per cen t. I think it will be difficult in . the long run to convince plain laboring men and women that high lax ought to be allowed | to creep into their beds with them, and like a hideous and perpetual nightmare, rob j them of their rest, and all for the sake of furnishing soft couches, downy pillows, and sumptuous houses to a few pro tected millionaires.

“Sir, a close inspection ot this partisan measure discloses at every step its consistent and coherent character as a brutal fraud upon the tax-paying people of the United States, broughtforward at the behest of insatiate monopolies, disnonest combines, and arrogant and conspiring trusts. Let us linger a little longer on the wool schedule and point out a few more of its iniquities which are no more respectable

tl an a former! design to commitboth graues of larceny, grand and p. tit. vYiil some ii an of this bill, or substitute. or whatever it may be styled, tell me why it is that the price of woolen and worsted yarns is to be enormous!} eu I* ai ~d by an increased rate of tariff tax—on the cheaper grades over 29 per cent., and on the more valuable 4 per cent? “The duty on the cheapest grade of balm orals is raised from 67 72 to 154.05, on the next grade from 65.59 to 112.74, on the next above that from 68.15 to 100.25, and on the highest grade from 66 25 to 75,11. I assert in the hearing of the senale and of the country that there is not a single article in this entire schedule on wools and woolens which has escaped an increased tariff tax. The avaricious clutch of tfie protected monopolist is made still tighter and broader on (Continued on 4thpage.)