Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1889 — THE FARMERS SEE THE CAT [ARTICLE]

THE FARMERS SEE THE CAT

The battle for tariff reform has at last found favor in a farmer’s convention. Long suffering, patient and slow to learn, the Western farmers have be n the victims of a tax which baa incre sed the loaning ability of the Eastern brokers in pi as it diminished the farnjer’s profits. Partyism has blinded them to their true interests; though repeat c dly swindled by the tariff tax, they never, as a body, made a concerted effort to relieve themselves from its blighting efect. At last ti.e spell has been broken, and now th4farmers assembled at St. Louis, and the states lying in the Mississippi and Missouri valleys and the states of California, Oregon and Washing too, h ve struck'the first blow for tariff reform. They demand reciprocity treaties with foreign gov-

rnments that the tariff tax imposed by such governments may be taken off American farm profducts. They demand that £steps be taken to des T roy t usts and monopolies. They.demand that the tariff upon farming implements or the raw material used n their manufacture be taken off, and they conclude with the declaration that they are more interested in these reforms than in the success of any political party. From this it is evident that the western farmers have caught a glimpse of a few outlines of “the cat,” and that, when they will have seen the whole feline they will strike deeper and more deadly blows at she unningly devised net work of tax shrt bbe y, rocks, bi iars and thistles which now hide while marking the outline of the animal. They will soon recognize the fact that if a tariff 4ax on farming implements is an imposition upon the farmer, that a tariff tax on clothing, lumber, nails, salt, sugar, twine, paper, and the whole list of the four thousand tariff taxed articles, is an imposition upon them and every other consumer in the land. The first victory of tariff reform is already wen by them; for in demanding the repeal of the tariff tax upon any one article of consumption they commit themselves to that principle which declares the tariff to be a tax.

So far the action has been purely selfish, it having for its basis the removal of cnly such tariff fines and penalties as affect them directly as farmers, rather than as producers and consumers whose interests are merged with those of tho whole body of the people. This, however, was to have been expected, but even upon the narrow platform of purely personal? selfishness they will be impelled to increase the number and variety of the articles from which the tariff tax fehould be taken off; for a little reflection will teach them that a taxon eoal, clothing and sugar, hits them harder than the tax on farming implements.

The whole scheme of tariff taxation having been concocted and adopted to serve personal rather thaw public ends, it is neither a sin, a vics nor a crime to oppo >e it for motives purely personal to the tax payer. It follows, then, that the farmers, who as a class are not less selfish than men in other avocations, will ere long, be in open opposition to the system itself as something which not in a single instance, nut in every instance, imposes a hardship without anv com pensating benefit. In relation to the matter of reciprocity treaties very little if any good can result to the farmers of this country by a withdrawal of tariff penalties now imposed upon the products of American farms by foreign governments England, which is the largest consumer of such products imposes no penalty upon her people for the crime of of buying somet. ing to eat whether that something be raised at home or in the United Hates.— Cur own government does, however, impose tariff fines and penalties npon such commodities as Englishmen send here in payment tor

American farm products, and it is on this and not on the foreign end of the exch ;nge counter where the farmer i* made to suffer. ****** To them as to all others who are battling against unjust tariff taxations, we bid God speed, for never yet in worldly affairs did men engage iv a cause more worthy of success.—Harrisburg (Pm) (Patriot.