Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — SUGAR AND POLITICS. [ARTICLE]

SUGAR AND POLITICS.

HOW THEY HAVE BEEN MIXED AT WASHINGTON. The Whirligig of Time Hee Gotten la Some Fine Work Since 1890—Iron end Steel Export*—A Load Warning—Tricky Tom Seed. Then and Now. Four years ago when the Republicans of the House and Senate were increasing, step by step, the duty on refined sugar, all for the exclusive benefit of the sugar trust, the Democratic party was denouncing the Republican party as the friend of trusts and the enemy of the people. The Democrats made it perfectly clear that the duty of six-tenths of a cent per pound on refined sugars would produce no revenue worth considering, but would take $15,000,000 or $20,u00,000 a year from the pockets of the people and turn it over to the trust Against the welldemonstrated fact that the total labor cost of refining sugar was less than one-seventh of a cent per pound the Republicans insisted that the duty of over one-half cent per pound was needed to cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad and to enable re-

finers to pay American wages to their employes—mostly Huns and Italians. The whirligig’ of time has got in some fine work since 1890. A few days ago thirty-five Senators—all Democrats but two or three—voted to give the trust about the same protection as MoKinley and Aldrich gave it in 1890, and twenty-eight Senators-all Republicans but one or two—voted against the measure. It is quite certain that the most of the thirtv-five who voted for this tax were personally opposed to it. It is also certain that they were insincere in 1890, or have since changed their views, which they do not pretend to have done. The exigencies of politics are responsible for the j e wonderful changes and anomalies. The majority of the Democrats have been compelled to bribe, in this way, the three or four supposed Democrats who had it in their power to defeat all tariff legislation. The hollowness and fraud of the Republican opp sition becomes clear when it is understood that if only half of them would ally themselves with the Democrats, who favor no concessions to the trust, all such concessions would be defeated. But the Republicans have made no such proposition, for the reason that they are insincere and are playing a game of bluff. If protection does not make strange bedfellows it at least offers the same bed to each of the two great parties, and they take turns in occupying it. —B. W. Holt.

83 1.030,000 of Ecpartn.

Did those Senators who are showing such a fatherly interest in the iron business go to the official returns of our foreign commerce to learn that our iron industry would bj irretrievably ruined without tariff protection? Here are the figures showing the value of exports of different varieties of iron and steel and manufactures thereof during the last fiscal year; Pig Iron $ 835,339 Band hoop and scroll 7,807. Bar 63,«56 Oar wheels 100,403 Castings, n, e a 670,841 Cutlery 148,660 Firearms 713,971 Ingots, bars and rods la, 101 Locks, hinges and other banders’ hardware 2,618.919 Maohlnery 10,467,091 Nalls and spikes, cut. 83o,03« Nails and spikes, wire, otc 108, 09> Plates and sheets, iron 65,763 Plates and sheets, steel 20,459 Printing presses... v 20\805 Pallroad bars. Iron 11,113 Bailroad bars, steel 471,230 Saws and tools 1,902,423 Boales and balances 406,430 Sewing machines 2,476,446 Fire engines 75 Locomotives ; 1,794,709 Stationary engines 264,398 Boilers and parts of engines 607,768 Stoves, ranges and parts of 216.463 Wire 1,189,219 Various other 4,896,401

When one considers the variety and amount of these products of iron and steel exported he is led to conclude that our manufacturers who can sell to such an extent in foreign markets where they have no advantage of protection laws over any competitors do not need protection to keep them out of bankruptcy as sellers in the home market, where they have the natural advantage of transportation and other charges in their favor. And when one observes that we export the most highly finished products in greatest amounts—such as firearms, builders’ hardware, machinery, printing presses and locomotives and other engines, requiring the most skilled and best paid labor for their production—one sees the manifest falsity of the pretense that the tariff ia for the protection of American labor and the maintenance of American wages. We do compete in outside markets, and still pay American wages.—Chicago Herald. Tricky Tom Bwl. Tom Reed has jumped out in the lead for the nomination of 1896. He did not watch his neighbor, tho magnetic cyclone, for nothing. He saw Blaine keep in front by constantly connecting his name with a flashy bit of political expediency. Two or three years ago Senator Vest offered for discussion a suggestion to allow a deduction of 25 per cent on tariff duties to nations consenting to a bimetallic coinage. Reed tucked that idea away for use at the right time, and he thinks this is the right time. Inconsistency is no obstacle to Reed. His plan is an admission of the fallacy of protection. In fact it is two admissions. It would remove tariff ba> riers in return for a mbnetarv reform. This admits that pauper labor is no great bugaboo. International bimetallism would facilitate trade somewhat—would stimulate import*. McKinley-

lam proclaim? every Importation a robbery of American labor. But Reed knows, as Blaine did. that the masses of Western Republican voters mu3t be tickled somehow. Thev naturally dislike a high tariff which provides no market for a sing e bushel of wheat or a single barrel of pork. Free silver is also popular with them. Reed guesses that the man who holds out a premise to work for trade and silver, whether the promise will stand examination or not, will just about suit the Northwest Repub leans who are not willing to change parties, but are opposed to McKinley ism and the gold standard. If he can get the solid New England delegation and can jump into Blaine's plaoe in the Northwest, he will be in good shape to capture the nomination. And if he does, a good Western Demoorat will have fun with him. The next President cannot be from an Eastern State. —St. Louis Republic. Protection Philosophy. Eight years ago the Italian Government started out to increase the sum total of national prosperity by extracting money from one set of its subjects and paying it over to another set. The theory on which this was attempted was one with which we are very familiar , namely, that the amounts taken were so small that nobody would mind paying them, while the amounts paid over, being paid to a very few persona,

were so large that no one could fail to observe them with admiration. There are sixty-five million people In this country, and it is obvious to the simplest comprehension that to take one cent from each would be burdensome to no one, while the, aggregate, $650,000, would be a very handsome sum to give to any one or even any dozen persons. Because the cent apiece would matter to no one it is treated as nonexistent; the collection of these cents, therefore, into a pile easily seen by the naked eye is, according to a certain school of political economy, all the samp as the creation of wealth: the production of $650,000 out of nothing, and the production of the same number of millions of invisible particles is practically tbe same thing to Borne of our philosophers, and therefore the aggregate wealth of the nation may be regarded as increased by tbe sum of $650,000 every time a cent is abstracted from each inan, woman and child and bestowed upon some person or class with influence at the capital. Mr. Havemeyer put the thing in its concrete form when he said, in a celebrated contribution of his to the newspapers, that the profits of the Sugar Trust were large, but no one felt tho burden when be dropped his single lump of sugar into his morning coffee. The Italian peasantry are on the verge of starvation: the recent brief but bloody uprising in Sicily was due exclusively to the effort to collect taxes from people who do not have enough to eat. The Government is bankrupt; the common people are fleeing the country or shaking their shriveled fists at the beneficent Government that is trying to make them prosperous by taxing them for money with which to hire some one else to carry on a business.

Start the Revenue! Among the strongest reasons for the early passage of a tariff bill is the condition of the treasury. While the bill is under consideration it cannot be expected that any but the most necessary imports will be brought in. The consequence is a continuing diminution of the customs revenue. Last January Secretary Carlisle estimated that the deficit at the end of the year would be *2*, 000, <•00. It is now certain to be much more than that. The stock of gold has fallen to $79,000,000. It is estimated that it will fall to $65,000,ojo by the end of the fiscal year. The one thing needful to turn the scale toward prosperity and a full treasury is the passage of the tariff bill. If this is not accomplished soon the necessity of another issue of bonds- will be imminent. But the suggestion of such issue is sure to start an agitation in Congress most injurious to business interests and to threaten a reopening of the silver question.—New York World. A Loud Warning;. There was an election down in an Illinois judicial district, in which a plurality of 7,000 for Cleveland wa9 turned into a Republican majority of 4,0 X). We cannot imagine a finer comment on the vote of Democratic Senators on tne sugar schedule than this vote. It followed it as fitly and quickly as thunder follows the lightning’* Bash. If the House doesn’t want the dose repeated in every Congressional district north of the Ohio River this fall the members will have to e£ow the Senate's overdose of protection out of their mouths when it is passed up to them, and if they should go further and cut out a lot of the protection thus weakly put in their own bill, it will insure the return of every Democratic Congressman now holding a seat—SL Paul Globe (Dem.). Afraid to Attack ItA monopoly organ attributes the Democratic defeat in the judicial election in Dlinois to the proposed income tax. Considering that this most just and least burdensome of taxes is so popular in the East as well as in the West that even the Republican conventions have not dared to denounce if, the explanation is absurdly lame. The inoome tax is coming and coming to stay. The late Bishop Reichel, although a prelate of the Irish Protestant Church, was a native of Yorkshire, England. He was a man of great learning, and remarkable for his strong common sense, and he exercised much influence in Ireland; Tell me no more of your unbeliefs. I have enough of my own. But if you know any thing, if you have discovered any truth, let me snare it with you.