Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1890 — PLUNDERS THE PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

PLUNDERS THE PEOPLE.

A HICH PROTECTIVE TARIFF CRUSHES THE TOILER. Colonel Snow Shows Who Pays the Tariff Tax and Who Profits Thereby—An Iniquitous System Maintained by the Republican Tools of Monopoly. [From the Chicago Herald.] Colonel H. W. Snow, of Sheldon, IIL, addressing the Democrats, of Ford County at their convention, not long ago, thus sxposed the iniquitous nature of the tariff system and the contemptible attitude of the Republic m party in maintaining such a policy: Less than two years ago a Democratic administration, though sustained in the Presidential election by a popular vote of almost 100,000 majority, turned over the Government of the country to "the Republicans with a Treasury overflowing with millions of money. These millions, wrung from toiling masses by unequal, unjust and oppressive tariff laws, the Democratic administration had labored in vain . to have reduced by lowering taxation and not by extravagant expenditures. The Democrats had urgently recommended that these war tar.iff laws should be amended, the taxes largely reduced and the money left in the hands of the people, to whom it of right belonged. They did not want it piled up in the national Treasury, to be squandered in wasteful appropriations, wild schemes, and measures of at least doubtful utility. They had again and again called attention to these things, but in vain, because while the administration was Democratic one branch of the lawmaking power, the Senate, was in the hands of the Republicans and refused to al'ow any reductions to be made. Why? Was it oecause the money was needed? No. The national debt had been largely reduced, and all outstanding bonds that were due had been paid. The interest had also been paid as it matured, and many of the bonds not necessarily due had been called In and redeemed, and still the Treasury was overflowing. Was it because the people were so prosperous that they could afford to indulge in the luxury of taxing themselves to please their lawmakers? No. The people were not prosperous. It is true that vast fortunes were amassed by a few manufacturers, importers and railroad magnates, who had fattened on the protection afforded them by the tariff laws, but the people, the laboring masses, and especially the employes in the great factories and trades, were pressed by biting poverty. BUYING THE PRESIDENCY. Deprived of the necessaries of life, nnable to suitably clothe, house and feed their families, the poor toilers were compelled to strike for higher wages, and did so in great numbers. At this juncture came the Presidential election of 1883 The 'Democratic administration had not passed law! to relieve the people—it could not. Bill after hill had been introduced and quickly passed byifche Democratic House, only to be blocked in the Republican Senate, which was determined that the Democrats should Dot reduce the tariff, and thus relieve the people. What did the Republican leaders do? They issued a secret circular to their more prominent supporters, laying down the plau of wringing campaign funds out of the manufacturers and importers for the corruption of the voters, and determined-t© “fry the iat" out of the millionaires who Sad grown rich out of the protection r.Torded them by the war tariff laws ; and this Uiey did. If there is any doubt I can exhibit the circular. These manufacturers, lumber andiron kings, were notified that if they did mot respond in large sums (since they were the ones chiefly benefited by the war tariff), this tariff would be repealed by the Democrats, should they carry the day, which was likely, and large sums of money must be had and had at once. These manufacturers and bond-holding magnates, lrightened by. the prospect.of losing their hold upon the public teat, which they had been sucking so long, a»d on which they had fattened so exceedingly, did respond, and did suffer some of the “fat ta.pe fried out' 1 of them. This money was place®where, it “would do the most good,’’ and expended largely in purchasing floating voters. More secret .circulars were issued, put into the hands of pirn's*, gamblers, bribers, and procurers, and these floating voters were marched in “blocks of five" to the polls, and for the first time in our national history the degrading spectacle was witnessed of success attended by open bribery. The Presidency of these United States was bought with a price. What use of the Praetorian guards to sell a Roman empire; when these men could purchase the Presidency with money wrung from the people by a war tariff under the disguise of protection ?

THE FAITHFUL ARE REWARDED. These faithful lieutentants were, of course, ■duly “remembered. ” Wanainaker was rewarded with a seat in the Cabinet. Dudley was given an honored chair at the White House until his shady doings Were exposed, when to save appearances he was allowed to move off a few blocks to a lucrative position as pension auctioneeer with fourteen clerks, where he now is. Quay, already in the United States Senate, by reason, as is openly charged, of a misuse of the public funds while Secretary of State and Treasurer of Pennsylvania, fearing exposure, openly boasted of having burned his campaign books, and is Btill continued as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and from this position, with a wink or a nod, rules the President, who is seeking a renomination. The President dare not ignore him; Quay knows too much! Clarkson received the appointment of first Assistant Postmaster General, and in spite of his and the President’s open indorsement of civil service reform removed 30, (WO Postmasters in eighteen months for the sole crime of being Democrats. Sitting in his purchased chair of state, the President raises his pious eyes to heaven and htimbly thanks Almighty God that he is not as other men 1 For the credit of the nation, I am glad that most- other men are not like this sham civil-servics reformer. Wanamaker, conscious of loss of character, is teaching a Sunday-school class, and trying to redeem himself by teaching Quay the commandment: •“Thou shalt not steal." But Quay insists that he does not believe the statement, either as a business proposition or as sound moral philosouhy, and wants the President and Wanainaker \4 understand that bribery and stealing do pay, and the only crime about either arises wholly from detection ; and points to them as living monuments of his assertion. Dudley smiles at splitting hairs over such little things as the ten commandments, suggests an object lesson in “blocks of five,” and offers to instruct and furnish the blocks. REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION AND ROBBERY. Corruption, unabashed, sits in a high place, and injustice and robbery stalk unrebuked through our legislative halls. Members duly elected to Congress are turned out because they are Democrats and favor reducing the war tariff, and senatorships are stolen with a boldness not •even displayed by Quay. Let the Montana outrage bear witness. In vain have the people •cried “Halt 1" and “Aboutface!” to their leaders. The stomachs of Quay, Dudley, Clarkson & Co. have been surfeited with the delicacies of foreign countries beyond waters once whitened with the sails of our American commerce—now, alas! covered with English vessels—but the dinner-pails of the miners at Streator and other places have been empty; their wives cowering in rags, and their children crying for bread. The doors of the Pension Office, once open only to the brave and unfortunate soldier, are now open to the skulker, the coward and the deserter. The farmer, the mechanic, the laborer, at once the muscle, lung and blood of the land, are covered with taxes from the soles of their feet to the crowns of their heads, and on these taxes the iron, the lumber and the coal kings have grown rich; and it is to the prosperity of this class that the high-tariff Congressman points you when he speaks of the wealth of our nation. These are the men who have built the railroads, watered the -stock, plundered the farmer, the widow and orphan who subscribed stock along their lines, and they are the ones who are protected Mid who profit by the, tax on poor man’s.lumber and iron; his salt and sugar and coal; .his shoes rand stocking and pantaloons ; his shirtand vieafc and coat; his, cravat and collar and hat; that they may rollin wealth and luxury. ' WANTS ,BQNEST LAWMAKERS. Our Congressman for this district has said he wanted the • Kepublfeamfr to make the laws tor this land, raomot do so were La Republican, ! am a jD6mbcrat, but 1 do not wish the Democrats exclusively to make the laws of my country. It would not be lor the interests of the people that any ofae party should ’Of our laWs, Laws of tha£!■£ll arjifili r gtwsabsT/degenerate into laws made -be, -peEpetus/te pentyeostwil, rather than to preserve tne’ffljerty and welfare

qf the whole psople. I wi sh the laws of my country made by the best and wisest men of alt parties, and while carrying out the demands of the majority as far as possible, yet so limited as to preserve the rights of the minority, and thus command the respect of ail good men of all parties, which alone will insure a faithful execution of the laws. I do not wish the laws made by any man who votes tc reimburse himself out of the public treasury for his private losses, as the Congressman from this district is reported in the press to have done. If Congressmen let Biledtt draw their salaries out of the Treasury, I think it a public scandal that they should vote themselves a second salary out of the people’s money for services already paid for. It is due to the people to vacate any Congressman's seat who is guilty of such a crime. THE TOILER IS AT FAULT. You farmers, you laborers, you miners and workingmen, you are the ones who vote to continue these things. A blind adherence to party behests leads your officers to the belief that they own the offices and to forget that they are the servants of the people and that a public office is a public trust. lour late President told the people that the Treasury was overflowing, that he had too much money to run the nation, and asked you to send men to Congress who would vote to reduce the tariff and leave the money in the hands of the people—in yonr own pockets. Why should the wives of our protected manufactures and millionaires dress in silks and satins whose sheeny luster rivals that of the midday sun ? Because you vote it to them. Why should thev wear diamonds and jewels that outflash the lightnings of heaven? Because you vote that way. Why should their children speak French at foreign courts, dance the german in gilded halls, and drink wine, play whist and sing Italian at European watering places ? Because you vote the money out of your pockets into theirs to enable them to do it. In the meantime the present spring has seen the farmer selling his corn at 20 cents a bushel, his oats at 10 cents, and his live cattle at 2 cents a pound in the splendid home market that these tariff sharks have made for him. His wife, worn and weary, in the midnight hours with tottering limbs walks her baby screaming with colic, or doses it with castor oil that pays a tariff of 104 per cent. I run no tilt, I urge no crusade against the wealthy. They do as you would do under similar circumstances. They simply avail themselves, as they have a right to do, of the laws which your Congressmen have made. They reap the profits and you pay the bills. The fault is yours, not theirs. Do not for a moment, my friends, imagine that I think the mass of the Republicans guilty of the things of which I complain. Ido not. I only hold them responsible for a too blind belief in their leaders after it is plain that they have betrayed the people’s interests by their lying assertions that the consumers do not pay the tariff. The discussion of this question has at last aroused the people as never before to the importance of this question. They ar6 getting the cobwebs out of their eyes. They now know that their leaders have deceived them, and that the Democrats were right when they told the people that thev thetnselvest, the consumers, paid the tariff. To the people I say: If you again suffer yourselves to be deceived by the shallow trick of inducing you to pay no attention to your personal interests; if instead of voting for yourselves and your families you vote on theold dead issues of a quarter of a century ago and thus divert your attention (as was don© two years ago) and induce yourselves to leave the tariff laws as they now are, you will deserve, as you will receive, the lash of poverty applied to your hacks by your masters, the men protected by the war tariff, and each of you should at once have a collar made with your name on it, and wear it the rest of your natural lives, teliing us who Be dog you are. GROSS DECEPTION PRACTICED. I have repeatedly warned the people, in thp press and on the stump, of the gross deception practiced upon them. I have urged and besought them to look at the folly of attempting to tax themselves rich. The Republican leaders say you can, and as a proof, point to the increased miles of railroad, and the increased wealth of your white masters and trust bosses. They might as well point to the mighty trees of Calaveras County, California, ot to the increased number of our babies, and say we owe it all to the war tariff. The Democrats say no, we owe our big trees and babies to natural causes. We owe our increased schools aDd colleges and churches to the intelligence, morality and energy of our people. W e want a tariff for revenue only. We do not want, and will not have a pro • tected class of millionaires to fatten on our scanty crops and scantier wages, under the thin guise of a “home market. ” We do not want to have the whole land plastered with mortgages that the protected nabobs may oat turtle soup, sail in yachts, and buy up Congressmen to stiii further rivet the chains upon our necks. THE POOR MAN PAYS THE TAX.

When the war tariff was needed we cheerfully submitted to it. When it was not needed, and our national Treasury was overflowing, we asked our Congressmen to reduce the tariff, as they agreed to do time and again. Did they do it ? No. They took the income tax off the rich man’s income and lelt the tariff on the poor man’s salt and sugar. They took the tax off of bank deposits and left the tariff on lumber, lime and coal. They reduced the tax on whisky, wine and liquors, but left, the tariff on woolen shirts, coats and vests. They have legislated for the rioh man and against the poor man. Let me call your attention to some of the present tariff absurdities and monstrosities. Attar of roses for the rich lady’s handkerchief is imported free. Soap for workman’s hands pays a tariff of 20 per cent. Agates for the rich child are imported free; dolls for the poor child pay a tariff of 35 per cent. Feathers and down for the rich man’s bed are tree • blankets for the poor man’s bed pay a tax of 10 cents a pound and 33 per cent, aa valorem. Undressed furs for the rich man’s wife are free; woolen cloaks for the poor man’s wife are taxed 45 per cent, aud in addition thereto 40 per cent, ad valorem. Meerschaum for the rich man’s pipe is free; clay for the poor man’s pipe pays a tax of 35 per cent. Mineral water, ivory, gold and silver medals for the rich are free; but salt, sugar, wool, lime, lumber, hair and eament are all heavily taxed. Here are a few of the more common articles out of the more than 4,000 articles on which the American is taxed, ail taken from the tariff act: Per cent tax paid. Castor oil 194 Woolen blankets 79 Combs 39 Ready-made clothing .. 54 Cotton cloth, bl ached 7-5 Household furniture 35 Handsaws 40 Hollow ware. . 47 Bolts aud rivets go Files g 5 Wire cloth Ix 4 Lead 99 Rice 113 Salt go Cutlery 43 Nails ; 43 Copper.. 41 Carpets >. 48 to 59 Woolen dress goods for women.. 82 Woolen shawls 88 Window glass 93 Iron and steel wire [. g 6 Woolen cloth for men 90 Zinc 70 Razors 50 Pins 3# THIRTY-SIX PER CENT. FOR THE MILLIONAIRE. Farmers, consider these things j Tho manufacturers of the whole United States made over and above expenses on their invested capital for the year 1879 an average ot 30per cent, net. How many farm- r., nave made on their invested capital a net 3 per cent ? Now, where do you find your millionaires? Among the manufacturers and protected industries, of course, and not among the unprotected ones, like the farmers and common people. Is it not stupendous folly for men making less than 3 , per cent, to vote money out of their own pockets to add to the wealth of those who make over 36 per cent. ? You do this very thing every rime yon vote for Congressmen who refuse to reduce the tariff. Their promises to the people in the past have not beer kept. Will you trust them lor the future? Yes; with onr Treasury overflowing, and the Democratic party crying “Halt,” FRecbwe taxation,” and President Cleveland (urging you to keep this money in yonr own poofcats, you keep on voting for high-tariff Congressmen ! Surely the fool-killer is asleep! TJiqi ip|riff protects the farmer exactly as the s wolf .protects the lamb. It protects the poor ijjfian as the vulture protects the dove. Jdf ~, THE DEMOCRATS CRT “HALT.” ‘The Democrats want the excess of the war talliiyfemitted—left in the hands of the people, by rechicing the tariff. We want to raise enough tariff taxeß to pay the expenses of the Government, Economically administered, and no mpre. ,so» more Is robbery. We want a faithful watchdog at the national Treasury, a reformed ballot, Mud a lair count. We want the greatest amount

! of personal freedom left to the individual coni sistent with public safety. We want a faithful | execution of good laws and a repeal of bad ones, i We want the tariff left on the luxuries of life | and taken off the necessaries ot life. We think the property and not the poverty of the country should pay the taxes, and our country enjoy a front rank among the nations of the earth, as it once did, when every sea was burdened with j our oommeroe, and every American could point I to his flag with honest pride and satisfaction, | and on this platform the people will sustain us. CLAMORING FOR GREATER ROBBERY. The Republican leaders insist on a high tariff, but they want it low on the robes of the rich and high on the rags of the poor. They want to further overflow the national Treasury to enable them to corrupt Congress, to build postoffioes and public buildings in Republican dries, to bribe voters, and undermine public morals. They insist on cutting off competition when the farmer’s wife wants a woolen blanket or a cheap cloak, but they open wide the ports of the United States to the serf and Chinaman to come here with their cheap labor to compete with our free American labor. HE NEEDS NO PROTECTION. It won’t do for the high tariff Congressman this year to tell the farmer he 1b protected on his oorn and oats, his rye and barley, hfß eggs and oabbages. He knows that he lives in an agricultural country, and that no nation on tie globe can compete with him in those articles, with or without a tariff. He kuows they need no protection at home, and if he ships them abroad that he is compelled to sell them in the open markets of the world, where American tariff laws cannot offset him. Now, if he knows, as he does, that these tariff laws are a sham, and fail to protect him on what he has to sell, is he not justified in thinking the war tariff on what he has to buy is also a sham ? That it is only made to allay his distrust and soothe his suspicions? Would not common sense dictate that he should look info the effect of the war tariff on some of the 4,000 articles he is compelled to buy, and consider whether it would be better to vote for a Congressman pledged to reduce the tariff and absolutely cut it off on all the common necessaries of life, and leave it mainly on the luxuries of life; raising our revenue from the silken robes of the rich and not from the tattered rags of the poor? Since the rich are the ones mainly benefited by thei tariff dollars plucked from the pocksts of the poor, it would be a righteous restitution to raise the revenue largely from them in return. I refer, of COUFS6, to tho millionaire lumber aud iron robbers who have profited by this national swindle. The farmer is beginning to look iuto the workings of this gigantic anaconda that is squeezing the life blood out of the nation to enrich a few. To exathlne is to understand, and to understand is to oorrfot the evil. THE PEOPLE PAY THE BOUNTIES. No free people, once seeing how they are swindled under this tariff, would for a moment tolerate it in its present state, nor tolerate its voters in Congress. Are the Republican leaders trying to reduce taxation ? No. They have introduced a bill kiiovn as the McKinley bill placing certain sugars on the free list, which the Chicago Tritime, a Republican paper, Says will reduce the revenue on that article *OO 000 - 000, and 810,000,000 more on tobacco, making a reduction of *70,000,000. But the same bill it says, will increase the tariff on other goods to tha amounts of ■•5233,000,000, leaving as the net result a tax of 8103,000,000 more than they now have to pay. This is a reduction wii ha vengeance ! It further admits that while it reduces the tariff on sugar the same bill gives a bounty out of the National Treasury of 2 cents a pound on all the sugar raised by the producer in this country. Who pays this bounty? The Government, of course. Where does it get the money? From the tariff it levies on the articles used by the common people. Thtn the people have to pay this bounty, after all? Yes, that is it exactly. Did the McKinley bill, while giving the sugar producer a bounty on his sugar, also give the corn grower a bounty on his corn or other productions? Oh, no! Thus the farmer and laborer are swindled on every side. THE TARIFF IS A TAX. In conclusion, gentlemen, this war tariff is a taxgatherer that stands ever at your side demanding his share of the proceeds of the farmer’s labor, of the miner s toil, of the sailors danger. You cannot avoid him. Closer than a shauow he follows you, your wife, or child to the merchant’s counter. The shadow may leave you as you enter the door. But this silent, grasping, terrible tax thug is ever with you holding out his itching palm, and never failing to collect. You may reap or sow, sit down or rise up, groan or laugh, cry or pray, but he is there, silent but inexorable. You may wander on the plains, delve in the bowels of the earth, climb the snowy mountains or search the frozen north as far as the limits of your country extend, but he is still there, still silent, still inexorable. Weary of being forever haunted, you may seek the friendly quietude of the grave, but he is still there, perched upon your coffin, demanding ids tax upon the pick and mattock of the grave-dig-ger, the rope and gloves and hearse of the undertaker and the paper upon which your last will and testament is written, of vour administrator, and always getting it. He stands beside the robed priest and taxes his vesture, his prayer-book and Bible. He stand# like a doubly damned shadow of hell, beside the agonized widow and taxes her very weeds 6f woo, tho veil of sorrow over her swimming eyes, the bonnet upon her bowed head, the shoes on her loot, and the tear-stained handkerchief in her trembling hand.- He lays his sacrilegious hand upon the sobbing child, hisses his Hot breath into her startled ear, and says : “A tax of thirtyfive per cent, on the doll that comforts your podr, broken heart for papa's daatb, and twenty-five per cent on the black bordered letter to your absent brother; but tears, groans aud angutih are on the free list.” The Republican leaders have said that high tariff shall stand, and the McKiDloy bill increasing it shall pass. What have the people to say?