Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — "USAROTTEN COMBINE. [ARTICLE]

"USAROTTEN COMBINE.

THE CORDAGE TRUST AN INVETERATE CRIMINAL. A Luminous Example of tile Evils of Fostering Industries Is Here Given—How McKlnleyism Resurrected an Almost Lifeless Monopoly. Bobs the Farmer. Wall street’B recent experience with the cordage trust is, to those who have eyes to see, a luminous example of the evils of fostering industries with tariffs. It is largely due to McKinleyism that the cordage trust has, in a few years, become an inveterate criminal—robbing farmers who use binding twine, rope, eta; squeezing the heathen Chinee who raises hemp, jute, and flax in the Philippines; making tramps of the workmen locked out of the mills closed to restrict production; robbing its benefactors —the American people—by selling cordage much cheaper to foreigners; and wrecking the fortunes of Wall street’s innocent lambs that invested in stocks watered almost beyond belief. The cordage trust was leading an almost lifeless existence when McKinley, in September, 1890, held out over $1,500,000 to it, by removing the duties on its raw materials, and offered it several millions more if it would hold together and take full advantage of the duties of about 2 cents per pound which he left on cordage, cables, twine, etc. The trust saw its opportunity. In October, 1890, it secured a charter, placing its capital at $15,000,000, about four times the real value. In 1891 it owned thirty-four and controlled four more of the fortynine factories in the United States, besides having full control of the eleven factories in Canada. It cornered the manila market, and toyed

with the prices of both raw materials and the finished product. In 1891 it made a profit of $1,406,313, and promised over $2,000,000 during 1892. Besides closing over half of its factories, it paid John Goode $200,000 a year to hold his plant idle. Its common stock, which sold, in 1891, from 73| to 104, reached 138 in 1892. In December, 1892, the trust voted to increase its capital from $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 to make its stock a better subject for speculation in Wall street. The additional water was not, however, poured into the pool at once; the cordage manipulators began to hatch a scheme bigger than all others. They began systematically to soak the lambs in Wall street. Quietly the big holders let it become known that they intended to bull the stock until common was worth 150, when the $10,000,000 would be added. They never got it beyond 147; and common stock sold at only 70 in February, after the water was added. Since then there has been a decline, but it was still selling above 60 when the insiders began to udoad in heaps. In a fewdays it had declined to less than 20, and Wall street was on the verge of a panic. That the cordage industry needed no protection has become evident to all since the trust has put its product on the English market at prices far below its home figures. On May 4, the very day the break began, the Iron Age said: “The National Cordage Company are moving energetically in the direction of European trade, and it is even intimated that manila rope has been offered abroad at prices which almost permit its being reimported from Great Britain to greater advantage than it could be bought in New York.” In leaving duties on articles made by trusts we are inviting fraud, depredation, and ruin. If we sow to the wind we must expect to reap to the whirlwind.—Byron W. Holt.

Those Tell-Tale Hat Trimmings. Who pays the tariff tax? Protectionists seem to believe, and McKinley preaches, that the foreigner pays it They claim that the foreigners pay it for the privilege of entering our markets. In regard to the tariff on hat trimmings the customs officers interpreted the law as placing a duty on hat trimmings more than double what the importers claimed that it actually did, but paid what they claimed was excessive, though under protest. John Wanamaker was one of these. John is a prominent advocate of high tariff and preaches the doctrine that the foreigner pays the tax, yet he sued the Government for the excess. The court decided in his favor and it was refunded. Now, if the foreigner, as he says, pays the tax, it must have been the foreigner who paid the excess. Then what right had John Wanamaker to sue for it, or what right had the court to decide that the money must be refunded to him? If, as John says, the foreigner pays the tax, then he must have paid the excess, and he only had the right to sue, and to him only should the money have been refunded. But Brother Wanamaker knows that he himself paid the tax, and that when he sold the goods he added the tax and that the consumer refunded him. The consumer then paid the tax, and he is the only one who has the right to sue, he only has the right to receive the money refunded. Under the decision several millions of dollars have been refunded to importing merchants. In every case when they sold goods they added the tax, and the consumer refunded them. And now the court has decided that the Government shall also refund them. The Government has collected more than $12,000,000 in such excess of duty, and there are cases still pending which, without a doubt, the court will decide the same as it did the first. The Government will give certain importing merchants $12,000,000, for what? Nothing; it will give it to them because the law compels it. The merchants will get $12,000,000 for nothing, but the consumers, who actually paid the tax, will g«t nothing. Now, this instance proves several things. It proves conclusively that the foreigner does not pay the tax, though anybody who knows anything about the tariff knows that he does not. Those great advocates of protection, McKinley and Wanamaker, who say that he does, know that in saying it they utter a falsehood. It proves that the tariff gives opportunity to some to get possession of that which is not theirs, which they did not create and to which they can have no moral right, and which it is dishonorable and dishonest on their part to receive and retain. It proves

also that even the pious, oaintly, devout Christians cannot withstand the temptation to enrich themselves even though they must descend to unrighteous and dishonorable means. —Herkimer County Free, Press.

Catting and Slashing. The Reform Club’s proposed tariff bill has started discussion anew on the tariff question in all of the protected factories, villages and cities in this country. The interviews with protected manufacturers upon the proposed bill printed in the American Economist have called forth replies by Democratic papers acquainted with the facts in regard to each industry. As a sample of these replies we quote the following from the Middletown Argus, printed not very far from Walden, N. Y.: « “Col. Tom Bradley, of the New York Knife Works, Walden, has written to the American Economist that a revision of the tariff on the lines proposed by the Reform Club would cause the prosperity of the United States to be affected with dry rot; would paralyze the pocket cutlery business, electrocute the wages of those employed in cutlery works, and strike with apoplexy the purchasing power of the people. Stripped of the fanciful form of expression in which Col. Bradley indulges his prediction is that everything will go to eternal smash unless the prohibitory tariff imposed on pocket cutlery by the McKinley tariff is continued, and every man and boy who buys a jackknife is compelled to pay twice its value for the benefit of himself and other American manufacturers. It’s the old shiiek of the calamity howlers, shriekier than ever before and with more agony in it But Col. Bradley’s shrieks frighten no one hereabouts. We all remember the prospectus of the knife trust, which it was proposed to form last year, and in which the profits of knife-making were declared to be so great that it would be possible to pay enormous dividends on a capitalization that took in the knife works at about twice their actual value. No one proposes to ruin Col. Bradley’s business, but when the tariff is revised he and other knife manufacturers will have to get along like farmers, merchants, and the rest of the world on a fair and reasonable profit. The Democratic scheme of tariff reform does not propose taxing every man who buys a knife that the New York Knife Works may enrich their owners in a single year.”

Stabbing the Democratic) Party. Several well-meaning Democratic papers continue to advocate the reimposition of duties on sugar, coffee and tea. While it may be true that such duties would be as just and fall as lightly on the people as is possible under any tariff, or indirect tax, yet the masses of the people do not want these articles taxed. They have learned but the primer lessons in taxation and their first great object lesson was that a duty on sugar is a tax. They, therefore, are strongly opposed to duties on sugar and other articles not produced in this country, to any considerable extent. Do these papers think that the Democratic or any other party can ride rough-shod over the wishes of the people? It is less and fewer taxes on the necessaries of life that will please the people and ingratiate into their hearts the party that grants these boons. The masses are now studying their First Reader on taxation. When they have finished it they may understand that protective duties on woolens, cottons, glass, and other articles made largely in this country are the worst of all tariff duties, because more than four-fifths of all such taxes lodge in the pockets of the protected manufacturers, and only a small fraction filters through into Uncle Sam’s pockets. But it is not at all likely that the masses will be any more reconciled to sugar and coffee duties, for by the time they are ready to begin their Second Reader they will be sick and tired of all tariff and other indirect taxes which always abstract money from the masses to give bounties and subsidies to the classes. Newspapers that understand the wishes and needs of the people will not advocate duties on sugar, tea, and coffee, unless they think that some other party can better serve the interests of ail and want to kill the Democratic party. The people will tolerate neither a sugar duty nor the party that forces them to pay it

What Judge Lawrence la Doing. We have leceived a welcome letter from Hon. William Lawrence, of Ohio, in which he states that Columbus Delano and himself are arranging to import a few Scotch black-face sheep—“the best mutton sheep in the world. ” If they can introduce them into Michigan and the best regions west, and in sections like Maine, Minnesota, etc., with the proper crosses on the sheep of this country, they argue that they can produce all the carpet wool needed, and give cheap mutton to all our cities—that is to say, they argue that they can do this “if the New England manufacturers will aid them in securing what the Republican platform of 1888 promised—full and adequate protection for the wool industry.” Without this, they argue that the wool manufacturing industry will be irn periled, its growth retarded, and existing enterprises destroyed. Judge Lawrence adds that these Scotch sheep are the proper sheep for the Reporter’s Maine farm. It is understood that on Sept. 28 and 29 there will be a national mass meeting of wool growers at Assembly Hall, Exposition grounds, Chicago, and, on Oct. 5, in the same place, the National Wool Growers’ Association will meet, and it is asserted that they propose “to tear up the ground” and bury free wool theories very deep. Judge Lawrence advises us to come into the protection fold before the earthquake overtakes us. The genial Judge’s letters are always as welcome as the flowers that bloom in the spring, but, in struggling against the rising tide of public sentiment in favor of free raw materials, our genial Ohio friend will make as littler headway as did Dame Partington in sweeping away the Atlantic Ocean with a mop.— Wool and Cotton Reporter.