Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — A HINT TO CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

A HINT TO CONGRESS.

THE PEOPLE'S WILL MUST NOT BE DEFEATED. * .National Lawmakers Should Turn a Deaf Ear to the Selfish Interests Which Are Conspiring Against the Masses About Pension Reform. Give Patriotism a Chance. There is great activity in the camps as manufacturers and Importers since President Cleveland’s call for an extra session of Congress on August 7. The trade papers are sounding bugle alarms calling their patrons to arms before their enemy—the consumers—has built fortifications around the committees of Congress which will construct a new tariff bill. The protected manufacturers want to save as much as possible of McKinleyism. They are busying themselves by holding meetings, drawing up resolutions and petitions and collecting long tables of statistics showing the rates of wages in this and other oountrles. Notwithstanding the unequivocal declaration of the Chicago platform that protection is an unconstitutional fraud and that duties Bhould be levied for revenue only, the manufacturers still imagine, or fancy that they can make others believe, that the principal duty of the Ways and Means Committee will be in this, as in many previous Congresses, to listen to the resolutions, demands and threats of the beneficiaries of protective tariffs, and that this committee must be as subservient to the wealth of manufacturers, concentrated in trusts and combines, as were Republican committees. The manufacturers forget or ignore the facts that the committees of the present Congress exist in spite of, and not because of, the moneyed interests of any one class; that these committees represent the consumers of the country, and can jserform faithful service only by levying duties which shall bear as lightly as possible on the whole people; that statistics of wages and cost of production, showing how necessary protection duties are to certain industries, are of no use to committees engaged in solving the problem of how to raise a sufficient revenue; and that it is the duty of the present Congress not to waste time listening to persons who represent only themselves or some privileged class, and do not speak in the interests of the consumers, who include all classes. The fact is that, considering the conditions imposed upon the present Congress, it would be an insult to this body for selfish interests to appear before it to ask for speoial legislation of any kind. They would not expect to get the ear of this Congress if they had not for so long been accustomed to spend several months telling each Congress, upon which they had many claims, just what legislation their interests demanded. The only persons whom Congress should consult are those who are known to be publicspirited citizens and who will speak in the interests of the people at large and not in their own selfish interests. What the country wants, and what Congress should attempt to give it, is a system of taxation which shall rest lightly upon industry and upon the people. Congress should not sit still and wait for comparatively ignorant representatives of the little industries to present long arguments; it should only permit these industries to send in their statements to be considered when necessary, and should invite well-known and able patriots, who have for years been students of social and economic conditions, to present the needs of the. people before the committees. Such a course would be ridiculed as “impractical” by the pearl-button, tinplate, jack-krpfe and piano-felt men who figured so prominently in the McKinley bill, but it is time that this country turned its back on these narrow, selfish bigots, and gave ear to the broad-minded men who are recognized as authorities on public questions. We should take advantage of the learning of this age by adopting some of the economic principles which are about as firmly established as is the fact that water always seeks a level. For example, the almost, unanimous opinion of authorities for the last fifty years has been that trade is a blessing and not a curse, and that direct is preferable to indirect taxation. Yet, here we are trying to kill trade and using an old fogy method of taxation because it is highly satisfactory to the few manufacturers who have taken the trouble to make our taxation laws for us. The present Congress should legislate for the whole people to whom it owes its existence. If it shirks its duty and legislates for any class or party, it may expect the fate of the McKinley Congress.—B. W. H.

A Waste of Breath. Senator Chandler propounds and several Republican newspapers repeat this question: “Why should not the banks, the Chamber of Commerce and the newspapers recognize and state the exact truth: That the present distressed condition of the business of the country is due to the approaching assault upon the McKinley bill in particular and upon the American protective system in general?” Because the persons referred to are not mostly fools. None but fools would imagine that a people can be thrown into panic by the prospect of securing their own demand, twice made at the polls, for a reduction of oppressive taxes. Daniel Webster, the colossal son of New Hampshire, viewing in Jove-like jocundity the local wonder of Genesee Falls, grandiloquently said that “no nation ever lost its liberties that had a waterfall ninety-six feet high. ” Can the Liliputian Senator of the Granite State point to a nation that ever lost its head over a prospect of tax-reduc-tion?

No!—this is a financial, not a commercial disturbance. The primary trouble is with the currency, not with credits. It is the nation’s money that is menaced, not its manufactures. The collapse of swindling trusts has added to the lack of confidence, but these trusts were another outcome of the policy which Mr. Chandler has supported. The question of tariff reform is closed for four years at least. The beneficiaries and the political agents of the system of a tariff for bounties —of public taxes for private tribute—may as well understand this. The people have ordered a reduction of the worse-than-war tariff, and it is to be reduced. The Democratic Congress and President may be divided on some questions, but thev are united on this. The country looks for this reduction in relief, not in fear. The time has gone by when it can be either bamboozled or frightened by the free-trade bugbear. Mr. Chandler and the Republican organs that echo him are wasting their breath.—New York World. * Silver for Sale. The silver party of Nevada has called on all silver clubs of that mining camp to pass resolutions denouncing the “conflict on silver.” This is better and more seemlv than the call of Judge Belford. of Colorado, to assassinate the

President. The silver miners ought toi calm down. Resolutions of excited mobs are of little account.in a business transaction, and they will assuredly not find a market for their product by armed revolution. The manner in which rebellion is met in the United States, as their history shows, is not to surrender to threats. Sensible silver men should suppress the lunatics.—N. Y. World. All Protection a Fraud. “Republican protection is a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few,” says the National Democratic Platform. This is undoubtedly true, as it has received the official stamp of the people. But we will go the platform makers one better ana say that all protection is a fraud, etc.—Democratic, Prohibition, Populist, or Republican protection. The Samuel J. Randall protection to the iron and steel industries of Pennsylvania; the New England protection to its woolen and cotton mills; the New York protection to its barley and potatoes; the South’s protection to its sugar and rice; Miohigan’s protection to its lumber and copper; Ohio’s attempted protection to its wool; Colorado’s protection to its silver; all protection under whatever name or guise, by whatever party or class, is a fraud and a robbery. Why? Because no one industry can be protected except at the expense of other, industries, and if all industries oould be equally protected none would receive any protection. But as only a few industries can be protected all “protection is a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of a few.”

Such being the case, what are people going to do about it? There is but one sensible and patriotic bourse —deny to eaoh claimant what cannot possibly be granted to all, and notify the privileged classes—the iron, copper and silver mine owners and the proprietors of woolen mills and protected industries of all kinds, that hereafter each tub must stand on its own bottom. This will hurt the feelings of some of the big tubs that have been utilizing the bottoms of other tubs, but it is the only just solution. Until Senators and Congressmen can broaden their sentiments to include the whole oountry and the whole people, and are willing, when they meet at Washington, to sink, for the general good, the narrow, selfish interests of their own particular districts or localities, we cannot expect the stoppage of this fraud and robbery. The main trouble, however, lies with the people themselves, and can be cured only by a more liberal eduoation on economic and social questions. If the great masses of voters understood their needs as well as the few protected manufacturers understood theirs, and if the masses would work and vote, even on the low, selfish grounds of the few who are protected, every politician who serves only the rich of his districts would soon be retired in favor of one who should represent the interests of a majority of voters in the district, and soon protection would be to an end, Let our next Democratic convention make a note of the fact that all protection is a fraud and a robbery, and that there is no need for the word “Republican” in the next platform. Pension Reform. The action of the Pension Bureau in temporarily suspending payment of pensions in certain cases where the official documents do not show such total incapacity for manual labor as is contemplated by the law is right. If the pensioner is lawfully entitled to his pension he will get it. If he has obtained it by false representations he will lose it, and deserves to lose it. There is an honest soldier and a sound lawyer at the head of the Pension Bureau now, and the business of swindling the people under false pretenses of duty done or suffering incurred in the public service or present incapacity to earn a living is interrupted. If the Grand Army protests against just and honest administration of the Pension Bureau it will be bad for the Grand Army. It will be split in two, and that wing of it which appears to be organized chiefly for politics and boodle will forfeit the respect and sympathy in which the organization has been held heretofore. —New YOrk World.

Trusts are often victims of their own greed. Secure in the legalized spoliation afforded them by the tariff, but unsatisfied with their assured profits, they undertake to further victimize the public bv over capitalization and the sale of snares on whioh it is impossible to earn dividends. The crash among these overdone speculations, following a tight money market, has had very much to do in limiting bank credits and in adding to the doubt and distress of the lastßixty days. A high-tariff organ mocks at the farmers who voted last year for “a change” and are now offered lower prices for their wool. But there have been no changes in the tariff. The same high old McKinley duty that was voted to advance the price of wool is still in force, and wool is declining as it has been doing under a high tariff for several years.