Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1893 — JUGGLED STATISTICS. [ARTICLE]

JUGGLED STATISTICS.

MANUFACTURERS GET IN FINE WORK WITH FIGURES. TkOM Favored by Protection Will Spend Millions to Prarest the Removal of the Doties—The Ohio Parmer and McKinley —The Income Tax. How and Why ’Tl* Done. When it is sought to do away with unnatural obstructions to trade opposition U at once encountered from tnose interested in maintaining the obstructions. The manufacturers specially favored by protection danu, wnich turn water away from competitors’ mills and into their own sluiceways, will spend millions to prevent the removal of the dams. Buying votes, bull-dozing employes, bribing legislators, coloring or falsifying statistics, and. tricks, jobs and chicanery of all kinds are in order. Observe for a moment the effects of protection upon statistics —official and unofficial. INo one who has heard or read the testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, given by manufacturers during the last decade, in regard to wages and labor cost, has any doubt as to the worthlessness of most of the statistics presented. If the “facts" presented are not absolutely false, it Js only the highest wages in America that are compared with the lowest in England or Europe. Who doubts but that these same manufacturers, wherever possible, have juggled their returns to the Census Bureau.' 1 Who doubts that Census Taker Porter has often shut one eye and passed such patriotic imperfections by? Even his population statistics are worthless because of his inability to see and count “free-traders." Major Brock, of the Bureau of Statistics, neglected to make corrections amounting to more than (75,000,000 in the value of our imports, but no pains were spared to present the protection and reciprocity statistics in the most favorable light. Statistician Dodge, of the Agricultural Department, always fixed up his statistics to show what protection and reciprocity had done tor the farmer. The tin-plate statistics of the Treasury and consular reports of the State Department were all edited with the one end in view and are notoriously crooked. All departments, both Federal and State, are expected to do their duty in this line. In this connection ex-Labor Commissioner Peck, of New York, is called to mind. He made figures to order for Republican manufacturers and burned the public papers that would disclose the particulars in regard to the inaccuracies. He is now under indictment for this offense, and is out on bail, awaiting-his trial. For the same reasons the statistics published in trade papers and reports are unreliable when they deal with protected industries. The public must be deceived or kept in ignorance of facts not favorable to protection. It is probable that steel rails are made as cheaply here as anywhere, but the manufacturers will not disclose the cost of production. An instance of the baneful effects upon statistics is supplied by the sugar industry. Willett & Gray’s Sugar Trade Journal is the semi-official mouthpiece of the sugar trust, and is interested in making profits appear as small as possible until the Democrats decide what they will do with the 4 cent per pound duty on refined sugar. Recently a Baltimore man, to decide a bet, wrote to Willett & Gray to find out if refiners were making more than one cent or less than 4 cent per pound on refined sugars. These supposed reliable authorities, after complaining about the “great injustice" done refiners by “absurd and misleading statements,” proceeded to juggle with facts in a most reckless manner. They told the Baltimorean about “long prices,” subj set to disoount, brokerage, cost of refining at 4 cent per pound, Tosses by “wear and tear” of machinery, taxes, interest, etc., until the inquirer might almost suppose the refiners were losing money every day. And yet in a special number issued in February, 1891, giving an “Analysis of the Sugar Refining Business forlßßß -1889-1890, ” Messrs. Willett <fc Gray themselves estimated the cost of refining in 1888 and 1889 at 4 cent, and in 1890 at 9-16 cent per pound. They then deducted nothing for brokerage on refined or for impurity on raw sugar. They knew then, as they know now that the 9-16 cent cost of refining includes both of these items and also wear and tear, storage, taxes, interest, etc. But even the 9-16 cent is probably too much. The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin expresses the opinion that the cost of refining does not exceed 4 cent per pound. Instead of estimating net profits at considerably less than 4 cent, as did Willett & Gray, the Bulletin concluded that they were fully 1 cent for Eastern apd 24 cents per pound for Western refiners, and that profits were about twice as great as the average for the last year, when it estimated “an aggregate of $28,532,000 that is clean-profit to the most arbitrary monopoly that the country ever saw or put up with.” —Byron W. Holt.

The Ohio Farmer and McKiale.r. There is not a farmer in the State cf Ohio who does not feel that in some way his interests have been sacrificed. He sees immense wealth accumulated by the manufacturing industries. He sees that the respective plants have quadrupled in value. He recognizes that those engaged in those interests have lived each year at a coat twice, thrice greater than he has expended. He then realizes that his farm has depreciated in value. That it has declined twenty, thirty and in many instances fifty per cent, within the last three decades, and he asks himself, “Why is this so? Why does not the Government devise some legislation which will at least keep my property from depreciation. I have been promised a home market for my products, but I have discovered that ’my home market is ruled and regulated by the prices obtainable in the streets of Liverpool Home market is a myth, if it is subject to the control of the Liverpool market. My farm has depreciated in value yearly, though ft is more productive than it ever has been. I have made it so by the hardest of labor, yet it is still declining in value. I pay indirect taxes which enrich the manufacturer. His goods are not controlled by a foreign market. The tariff enables him to have a home market, and he sells at a large profit. But I must part with my products at a price fixed in Liverpool. I can’t see the justice of legislation which enforces a tribute Irom me for others, and leaves me naked to contend with the cheap labor cf foreign countries.” That is a sensible argument and a sen »ible conclusion, but the farmer will continue to suffer—his lands will continue to depreciate until the protective tariff is repealedThe McKinley and kindred legislations are responsible for the present depressed conditions. The Repub icans have enacted all the laws for more than thirty years. These laws tax the multitude t»the benefit of the manufacturing interests. They have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the laborer, the mechanic, the

farmer, and they will continue to take millions more if they are not replaced with wholesmoe laws which tax only for the support of the government.— Pomeroy (Ohio) Democrat. A Just Income Tax. Why is it that the average legislator appears to be determined to make the poorer classes pay in proportion to their ability higher taxes than the rich? One can understand why it should be so in a Government where great power is lodged in a privileged aristocracy. But why is it so in a republic? It is a notorious feature of the McKinley law that the highest percentage of extortion is laid upon those, kinds and qualities of goods which are the necessities or the commonest comforts of the masses of the people. The luxuries of the rich are taxed lightly in comparison. This is one of the outrageous wrongs of that iniquitous statute. No sooner is an income tax proposed than forthwith schemers are prolific of projects for such an income tax as will cause certain hardship to the great body of persons of small incomes, wageea ners, salaried men and small traders, but may be borne by capitalists easily or with comparative ease. The purpose of such schemes appears to be to make an income tax unpopular, and so to defeat it in the interest of plutocrats who now contrive to escape all taxation on a large share of their invested wealth. These are the persons whom an income tax ought to catch and compel to do their proper duty towards the Government that protects them Incomes under $5,000 ought to be exempt from tax or subject to only a nominal rate. As a rule the receivers of such incomes are persons who pay their full share of taxes in indirect but not less certain ways. They are ; not the ones who do or can shirk their proper share of the expenses of government. They are not the ones who indulge in luxurious living. They are not the ones who pile up vast fortunes by adding interest they cannot spend to capital that is more than sufficient for comfort and for self-indulgence. The proper object of an income tax is not to oppress the industrious and the struggling and to prevent them from acquiring a modest competence. Its object is to compel those who have incomes in excess of the moderate requirements of living and of rearing a family and of saving against the years of weakness, to do their full share in supporting the Government under which they prosper in an extraordinary degree. 1 The difference between what the very I rich man pays and what is paid by the man who nas no capital but his hands and his health, under the indirect system of tariff taxation, is a difference that is relatively oppressive to the great majority of the people and partial to the few. A properly graduated income tax, with sharply increasing rates for incomes above $5,C00, would correct this injustice and oppress nobody. With a Treasury deficit of $50,000.000 in sight it would be strange if such a tax were not growing in favor.—New York World.

Too Good to Be True. It is reported from Washington on the authority of Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee that a tariff bill will probably be ready to lay before the full committee on or before the 10th of November. It is further reported that these members agree that the bill will be reported to the House and placed on the calendar by the 20th of next month. “If this program is carried out,” says a Washington dispatch to the Herald, “it will be possible for the House to conclude consideration of the bill and send it over for the concurrence of the Senate before the Christmas holidays. The probabilities, therefore, are that the measure will become a law during the latter part of February or early in March.” To this it is added that the Democrats of the committee are now working every day from early morn to dewy eve upon the various schedules. All this is encouraging, so lar as the committee is concerned. It means that the Democrats of the committee now understand that it is important to respond within a reasonable time to the popular decision at the polls last November. It means, or seems to mean, that the policy of procrastination is no longer regarded with favor by those who are charged with the duty of redeeming the party pledge and the decision of the people to the form of law. It seems to mean that these gentlemen intend to do what they can to get the revised tariff in operation long enough before the next Congressional election to give the people some chance to judge as to its merits. It seems to mean that they are disposed to reject the cowardly counsels of mere politicians, to assume that the people meant what they said at the polls and to rely upon the popular approval.—

Giving Consumer, a Chance. By the grace of the McKinley tariff, which imposes an average duty of 24 cents a pound on various sizes of window glass, the American Window Glass Trust is enabled to maintain an absolute monopoly of the domestic market. The advantage of the trust seems to have been pressed too far, for at a meeting held in Chicago on Wednesday last it was agreed that the market —that is, the home market —should remain open for an indefinite period. The explanation offered by the President of the combination was simple enough: “There is no demand for glass; we cannot create trade, and in the face of the light demand there is no necessity to maintain prices.” In other words, the prices of the trust, under changed industrial and commercial conditions, have become practically prohibitory, and a new and lower level is to be sought in unlimited com* Setition. When this shall have been etermined with reasonable accuracy, to the last penny which consumers can afford to pay, the trust will again step in to “maintain prices” under the she ter of a tariff ranging from 100 to 130 per cent.—Philadelphia Record.

We Will Try Them. A Yonkers (N. Y.) firm of carpet manufacturers confirm the published report that they are making carpets for export to the English market in order to fill English orders. They are enabled to successfully compete in the English market by reason of improved machinery. There can be no reasonable doubt that aftf r the tariff duty shall have been removed from parpet wools the carpets made in Kensington will find ready sale in every neutral market of the world.—Philadelphia Record. McKinley Protection Did It. Wheat sold in New York on Monday at 68 cents per bushel for December options. This is the lowest price ever recorded in the dealings of thePrcduce Exchange. Such prices do not cover the average cost of production. The only gleam of comfort to be derived from such transactions is the incidental promise of cheap bread to the millions who find their daily bread hard to earn.—Philadelphia Record. Remember that what your children hear at home takes wings and flies abroad.