Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1893 — GALL OF A STEEL MAN. [ARTICLE]

GALL OF A STEEL MAN.

WOULD BLUFF THE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR OWN. The Manufacturer* Are Heard From, tat. Where Do the Farmers, Laborers and Mechanics Come la?—Facts and Theories— Give Them Hope. Want Mo Revision. One of the manufacturers who applied for a hearing before the Ways and Committee when they began their hearings is James W. Swank, manager erf the American Iron and Steel Association. He protests against the material reduction of the tax on pig iron and all forms of finished iron and steel in a letter, in which he says: It there is no smrplns in the Treasury to be reduced; it pcloee of domestic products are fixed by tame competition and not by tariff duties: if they are new lower, as a rule, than they ever have been In our history; if a day's wages of an American workingman will purchase more of the neoesaaries of life under our present tariff than ever before; if the paternalism that cares for the general welfare Is sanctioned by the Constitution and by the exact terms -of onr first tariff act, what reason or show of reason remains for a revision of the tariff ct this time? We know of none. But we do know and the country knows of one overshadowing reason why it should not be revised. He then refers to the financial and industrial crisis, attributes it in part to “the apprehension of still greater disaster and stagnation which would follow a revision of the tariff,” and says: Shall this apprehension be justified and Intensified by persistence in a policy of tariff revision which rests for support solely npon the discredited theory that the tariff is a tax. and which would encourage the Importation of manufactured commodities that can be produced at home? Such cheek! Such a statement can oome only from a man inured by thirty years of protection to bluffing the people out of their own. No revision, because, forsooth, Mr. Swank’s friends, the Republicans, looted the treasury, to prevent a reduction of duties and to Oompel the country to submit to MoKinleyism for the rest of this century? No revision, because our constitution may be found to sanction paternalism —by the protected manufacturers, we suppose? No revision, because prices are lower than ever before? No revision, because wages are higher than ever before? No revision, because the theory that the tariff is a tax has been discredited? When, where, by, whom? No revision, because the present crisis is due to an apprehension of tariff reduction? Holy smoke! Mr. Swank should appear before a lunacy and not a tariff commission. Much tariff has made him mad. It is not a quostion of whether prices are lower now than formerly. It is a question of whether or not they are as low here as abroad. The wage earner is entitled to the lowest prices. He should be permitted to obtain the most possible for his wages. It is not possible to increase wages by placing duties on goods; it is possible to increase the purchasing power of wages by taking duties off the goods. This the Democratic party is pledged to do, and this it will do if it has to make good a considerable deficiency of revenue by taxing the incomes of those who have grown rich by means of protection spoils. Must the Ways and Means Committee spend its time listening to the ravings of such men as this one? Must its intelligence be insulted by such statements from supremely selfish products of our pro-* tectjve system? Where do the farmers, laborers, and mechanics come in? Will there be before this committee no representation of the 65,000,000 consumers who havfe been taxed for thirty years to produce these fine specimens of plutocrats and empty-headed autocrats?

Goods and Labor Reservoirs* The New York Press of Aug. 23 ac cidentally struck the tariff nail on the head. It said “Water in two reservoirs, connected by an unobstructed pipe, will have the same level in both reservoirs. Labor cost, in two countries trading without tariff obstruction, must be practically the same, and the level to which it will go will be the lower level.” This is true. There being no tariff on labor passing in or out of this country, labor cost is practically the same as in other countries. This was the conclusion reached by both Secretaries of State Blaine and Evarts after receiving reports from numerous foreign Consuls on the subject. We presume they were right. It also looks reasonable that the cost of goods would be practically tne same in different countries if trade were not obstructed by tariffs. Unfortunately, however, for the man who sells labor and has to buy goods, there is a heavy tariff on goods coming into this country. This tariff protects manufacturers and sellers of goods then at the expense of the laborers. There are but two ways of leveling up the goods and the labor reservoirs: (1) Put a tariff on imported labor sufficient to protect labor and to increase the cost of labor to the manufacturer equal to the protection the manufacturer now receives on his goods. This plan would probably not he practicable, because it would not please the rich manufacturers who would insist upon their inalienable right to employ whomsoever they wilL It is now morally certain that a tariff upon labor could not obstruct the passage between the European and American reservoirs sufficiently to raise the level of the American reservoir as high as the level in the American goods reservoir. Unless it could and should do so the Amerioan laborer would still be at a disadvantage compared with the American manufacturer. (2) Open the pipes between the goods reservoirs as wide as _ they are between the labor reservoirs of this and other countries. In this way, and in this way onlv, can the reservoirs be kept at a level as favorable to the poor laborer as to the rich manufacturer.

Beyond the Power of One Nation. The entire history of this monetary legislation shows that down to the passage of the Bland dollar act, in 1878, Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional power of regulating the “value” of money, constantly aimed to conform the legal ratio of gold and silver to their market relations. But, with all this conscientious care to provide an honest measure of value, bimetallism has utterly failed under every experiment. Gold and silver have refused to keep company as full legal tenders whenever the legal ratio did not harmonize with the market relations of the two metals—and this was nearly all the time. Whatever might be accomplished by international agreement, it is plain enough that no one nation can establish and maintain bimetallism at any ratio so long as supply and demand affect the market relations of gold and silver. —Philadelphia Record. Give Them Plenty of Rope, These' are happy days for Republican statesmen out ot jobs. With but few exceptions they are lending themselvs to a scheme to put the wicked Democrats in a hole. They are loudly proclaiming that the present financial panic is the result of the fear of free trade and is not due to currency tinkering. They are increasing tbe di-

mansions of the panic by telling the hosts of unemployed, “You voted for a change; and now you have got it, I suppose you are satisfied.” Let these conscienceless Republicans extract all the comfort they can out of these hard times. A day will oome, and at no very distant time either, when it will be the turn of the Democrats to laugh; Mid they will laugh at the better times which will follow the repeal of the Republican silver purchase act and at the folly of the Republicans for trying to hoodwink the people. Republicans have been tried twioe and each time found “guilty” of fraud and robbery by the highest tribunal in the country. They are how serving out their terms in exile. It is too late to raise the cry of “Stop thief.” It will deceive but few and, will not obtain any pardon or respite. They must take their full punishment unless—what now seems probable —they succeed in hanging themselves before their terms expire. Give them plenty of rope!

Prospects for Sugar Tariff. There has been a good deal said about the sugar duty; and, as in every tariff measure, there are two ways to look at it. from the tariff reform and from the protectionist sides, respectively; As long as so large a proportion of all sugar used in Ibis oountry was grown outside of it, the sugar tariff might be considered a revenue duty, and thus not to be especially criticised as an essentially protective measure; though the policy of so heavy a tax-ation-amounting to nearly 100 per cent. —upon what has become, the necessary of life, next to the breadstuffs, might be questioned. With the development, however, of our Florida plantations and of the beet sugar industry of the West, there seems to be for the first time some prospect that we may yet produce a large proportion, of the sugar we consume. Meanwhile, we admit raw sugar free, we pay a bounty of 2 cents per pound on its equivalent produced here, and we impose a duty of i cent per pound on re-, fined sugar—thus giving that much bonus to the American sugar refiner, who gets his raw materials upon the same terms as the foreigner and his labor cheaper per ton of product than any competitor in the world. I have no special prejudice against trusts. I have never been able to understand the casuistry that defends a man for getting the tariff to put the money into his pocket and then condemns him for taking every precaution to see that the money results do get into these pockets. Indeed, if anyone is fool enough to work for a protective tariff and then consciously lets its proceeds slip through his fingers, he strikes me as an Esau who, having sold his birthright of principle for a mess of greens, is so superfluously foolish as to forget to carry off the pottage. At the same time it seems to me that the sugar trust ought to be made an example of, to the extent at least of depriving it of special privileges, after it has had the effrontery to use them as it has done. To impose a tax of sevensixteenths of a cent per pound upon raw sugars imported would compel the sugar trust to pay a trifle less extra for its raw materials than the extra bonus secured it by the tariff on refined sugar —the product of refined sugar being somewhat more than seven-eighths of the raw material. The result, therefore, would be a gain of $15,0CX),000 a year to our Treasury without the addition of a mill to the cost of sugar to any inhabitant of our oountry; while the sugar trust would still be enabled, and interested, to control the market of this country qs now, but would be confined to the legitimate profits of enterprise and economy. More than this, tne bounty now paid by our Government could lie reduced by nearly, if not quite, the amount of the duty imposed upon raw sugar and thus, 6ay, one-fifth of the total expenditure for sugar bounties saved without decreasing In the least the effective bonus now secured to the domestic sugar producer. lam aware of the tremendous opposition that there would be to such a measure. The resources of the sugar trust are practically boundless; and unless this matter is thoroughly agitated, the attempt to get its profits would be more strenuously ■ resented than would the attempt to wipe out every cent of protection, by bounty or otherwise, that any sugar planter receives. If, however, the matter is once understood by our peopje, I believe that this addition to our revenue, this saving in expenses, this cutting off the sugar trust from extraordlnary profits levied upon our people by Government for its benefit, can be enacted into law.—John DeWitt Warner.

The Tribune Is Rattled. We observe that the Tribune omitted its “tariff cut” this morning, though the editorial disquisition on “Reaping the Whirlwind,” which had been prepared to accompany it, was permitted to slip in. Excellent reason for omitting the cut is to be found on the third page of the paper, where the news of the reopening of several large manufactories is chronicled under the following head-lines: “Cheering News for Workmen—Big Mills and Factories in Many Places Resuming Operations.” If it was dread of tariff reduction which caused these mills to shut down, why are they resuming while that dread is hanging over them? The editor remarks in his whirlwind article: “When the voters decided to have a change, many employers • knew that they must get ready to close their woras, or else must take the risk of running them at a loss. The closing of mill gates and factory doors is only the echo of the shouts for Cleveland.” This being so, what does the reopening of the same mill gates and factory doors signify? What is that action the echo of? Ha 3 the danger of ruin by tariff revision been removed, and if so, when? —New York Evening Post.

Fact* and Theories. Republicans tell us that “the trouble with the finances is due solely to tariff reform,” and “nothing can restore prosperity except a proclamation on the part of the President, and his party that attack will not be made upon the tariff system." Such being the case, the appointment of a radical tariff reformer, like William L. Wilson, to the Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, with the declaration that he will proceed at onoe to draft a bill in accordance with the Chicago platform, should immediately close up what mills still remain open. Strange to say on the very day on which Wilson’s appointment was announced we began to read of “clearing skies," and “prospects brightening,” and the lists of mills reopening ” soon became longer than of “mills closing.” The week following this terrifying announcement was the best one m two months. It showed fewer failures and a more prosperous condition of business. How can Republicans fit these facts to their theories? Words of Sherman. “There has never been a time since the law of 1890, kiiown as the Sherman law, was passed that I would not have voted for its repeal.”—Senator John Sherman. Whoso loves law dies either mad or poor.—Middleton.