Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — CLASS LEGISLATION. [ARTICLE]

CLASS LEGISLATION.

TERM CANNOT APPLY TO THE INCOME TAX. Th« Reimpoeitloa of Thli Tax la a Step Toward Equalising the Bordens Between the Rich and the Poor—General Political Comment. Not a Class Measure. Senator Hill and the other opponents of the income tax never tire of calling it ‘class legislation. ” Inasmuch as this tax is levied upon incomes, not upon men, Qie epithet dees not fit. The in-come-tax-paying class will not be the same for any two years. Some who are fortunate enough to be eligible one year will drop out the next., much to their sorrow. Others who are too poor to be assessed this year, through greater prosperity will be liable next year. The hardship is in not having an income large enough ta tax —not in paying a trifle upon superabundance. The real victims of class legislation ever since the close of the war have been the great mass of poDr people, who are taxed in their poverty upon thrir necessaries. During the war there was created a vast and intricate system of taxation which of necessity took tribute from everybody. The banks were taxed, incomes were taxed, manufacturers were taxed, corporations were taxed, the owners of watches and carriages paid taxes on these luxuries, checks were taxed, while the poor were taxed upon nearly everything that they ate, drank or wore. When the war ended one after another of the taxes on wealth and luxury were repealed, until now only the* taxes on spirits and tobacco—the luxuries of the poor—are est. The revenue duties on tea and coffee were removed, but beyond this no relief was given to the poor. Indeed, the tariff taxes were raised repeatedly and steadily until the McKinley bill exceeded the average of the highest war tariff. The whole burden of national taxation rests upon consumption. And as the amout of neoessaries required to sustain existence is nearly the same for poor and rich, the result is a great inequality of taxation. Men pay not according to their ability to pay, or to the benefits which they* receive from the government, but by an arbitrary process that oppresses the many for the advantage of the few. The reimposition of the income tax is, as Senator Sherman said in 1870, a step towards “equalizing the burdens between the rich and the poor.” It is but a short step. It wrongs none. It will relieve many.

Why People Trade. There is another thing, which Is not so clear to me. How is it that free trade, with loreign nations that pay low prices for labor, can benefit all? How can it but reduce wages to a level with those pauper-labor countries? First—Labor does not cost more in one country than another as long as immigration is free; that i 3, wages may be higher in one place than in another, but they cannot remain so, unless the work turned out is in proportion. If high wages meant high cost of produoconverse would be true—low wages would mean low cost of production; and no wages at all—slavery—would drive out of existence any wagepaying institution. But tle reverse is our experience of the last century. The last relic of that barbaric institution—slavery—was abolished in 1888, because it did not pay—the wage system superseded it. T*he reason is that, where high wages exist, it pays to employ labor-saving machinery. Besides, the better the material condition of the workmen as a claS?, the more industrious and intelligent they are —and intelligence will defeat ignorance, in the competitive race, every time. B.ut even if the cost of production is higher in one country than it is in another it is difficult *to see how free trade can affect wages. If an article is too high-priced to be salable in another country, there is no possibility of trading; no one will buy from a foreigner if the article costs more than would a similar one at home. It is only when both parties can gain that a trade is made; and, in that event, it is impossible to show how either country could lose by Iree trade. To protect high wages by taxing immigration would be more sensible, however unjust and selfish; but to levy taxes upon them is quite as absurd as to try to increa e the sale of an article in the market by raising its price.— S. Byron Welcome, in “From Earth’s Center.” Free Tr.icle Mills. The working man may be glad that there are a few free trade manufacturers in this country who keep their mills running in all kinds of weather and under all kinds of tariff and who do not take advantage of every proposed i eduction of tariff duties to compel their employes to accept lower wages. Nearly all kinds of gla s are manufactured by tariff protected trusts. These trusts have kept about half of their mills clo ed during the past two years and for several months of each year all have been closed. Under the 100 per cent, protection of the McKinley tariff wages have been greatly reduced and many strikes are now on because of threatened reductions. But there is one important exception. The manufacturers of lamp chimneys do not depend upon a tariff for support, have no trust, have not reduced wages, and have given steady employment to labor. The following is from the National Glass Budget of June a:

“At a meeting of the lamp chimney manufacturers and a committee of the workers the wage scale for the next fire was agree 1 to. Few changes were made, there was no lriction of any kind, and the previous sca’e was practically continued. The Western as well as local factories took part in the meeting.” One of. the manufacturers is Mr. Geo. A. Macbeth, of Pittsburg, who is said to be the largest individual glass manufacturer in the world. Mr. Macbeth has for years been shipping thousands of dollars' worth of chimneys to all parts of the wor.d, including Germany, whore are his chief competitors. He says that with free raw materials he could distance all competitors. He neither believes in protection for himself nor for anybody el e. He says “Twenty-live years of tariff demoralization ha< cultivated a socialistic and paternal idea of Government.” It causes manufacturers to bend their “energies to seeing how high prices they could get instead of working put tho problem of cheaper production. ” Such manufacturers and such men will be the salvation of the nation—if it ever gets salvation. It Went on the Free List. The Senators from Maine have had much to say about the sectional character of the Wilson tariff bill while making a sectional cry against its transfer of lumber to the free list In this instance, at least, their sectional charge wholly misses its mark, as they are quite oblivious of the fact that the interest of the in the lumber trado is much greater than that of Maine. They say that the reduction

of dutlos on ramber In the MoKinle/ tariff has not been attended oy any decline is its price; and it is very likely that there will be no great reduction of prioa under the Wilson bill. At any rate, lumber ought to go on the free list As for the wages of lumbermen, they are as high in Nova Scotia ps in Maine. —Philadelphia Record.

Unjust Cutlery Schwluit. The fear of the Senate tariff revisers that they might actually reform the tariff has led them, in some cases, to outdo McKinley. Several such in-’ stances occur in the metal schedule. On some kinds of files the proposed Senate duties are higher than the odious McKinley rates. As usual, these' high rates are hidden behind specific duties. It is. in fact, about as safe to give a child powder, matches, and a hammer to play with as to put specific duties Into the hands of Congressmen who know next to nothing about the industry to be shielded by such duties. While the rates in the cutlery schedule are not usually so high, the duties are even more mixed, and the injustice and temptation to undervaluation fully as great as in the McKinley schedule. A correspondent of Bradstreot’s, in the issue of June 2, says that in the revised Wilson bill “the* worst feature of the McKinley law Is not only revived but apparently reintroduoed In more aggravated form. We apparently no longer have four divisions'with a mixed duty, but six, the duty running up and down the scale—first plain ad valorem, then mixed ad valorem and specific, then plain specific, and finally another rate of ad valorem simply. Such a hybrid was never seen before. It is not only undesirable from any reasonable point of view but it is a greater incentive to undervaluation than the McKinley provisions.” The writer gives a table contrasting the recent cutlery schedules. According to the Senate schedule, a knife which costs 291 cents abroad pays a duty of 25 per cent., while one which costs 31 cents pays a duty of 25 per cent, plus 12 cents, making the total duty 191 cents—equivalent to 63 per cent. A knife which costs $1.49 will pay a duty of 26i per cent., one that costs $1.52 will pay a duty of 49 per oent., one which costs $2.99 will pay a duty of 25 per cent., while one which costs $3.09 will pay a duty of 50 per cent. Chairman Wilson, knowing more of the dangers of specific duties, placed a 45 per cent, ad valorem duty on all knives. This was much too high, but would be preferable to the Senate conglomeration.

Poverty Breeder*. A tariff is a tariff. Imposed by a Congress or a municipal council, it is an insult to the tradinr occupation, an obstacle to progress and an impoverishment of the people. Some State tariffs have been—and are still—teaching a class of particularly quick minds what a tariff does j against the true interests of humanity, i When a drummer finds a legal coni trivancs to keep his house out of a i territory which wants his goods he 1 sees through the millstone of protection. If the United States refused to deal with Europe, if St. Louis refused to deal with New York, if Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas towns refused to deal with St. Louis, if the country stores ref ised to deal with J these towns and if the farmers refused ! to deal with the country stores, we ' would have a perfect protective system j all along the line. And in ten yoars j we would have poverty and squalor all j along the line. ! Under that perfect protective system i the trader would be squoo’/od out. ■ Every man would give up the advant- | ages of discovery and improvement. ; Tneie would not even be a book in ciri culation. What point in that protective system would be worse than any other? If one is justifiable or useful the others are. Every bigoted protective law is a sale of a public right to a sordid special interest and one such sale is as good as another. Sell one right and | there is a check to civilization. Sell ; all and the sordid interests themselves - are destroyed. We then reach the ] barren level of universal grubbing of roots and picking of wild berries. Laws to prevent New York from sollI ing in St. Louis or St. Louis from selling in Nashville are affronts to the i mercantile class. So are laws to prevent trading with Europe. All laws of that kind a"e a reaction toward the dark ages of preiudice and slavery.— St. Louis Republic. Condemned by All. Newspapers of all shades of opinion condemn unsparingly the avowal of Mr. Havemeyer that the sugar trust makes contributions to both Republican and Democratic campaign committees with the. expectation that its in- | toiests will be amply protected. The j Baltimore Sun (Dem.) says that “the ! sooner such combination is shorn of the power to pervert political parties and to degrade American politics the better it will be for the country.” The Philadelphia Telegraph (Rep.) speaks of Mr. Havemeyer’s statement as “brazen.” and adds: “This inquiry has gone far enough to reveal a state of ari airs in Washington, the contemplation of which must disgust every honest citizen, regardless of his political views.” The Pittsburg Chronicle (Rep.) i-ays: “It is now very easy to understand how the trust had the help of both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to fix the sugar schedule to its liking. Senator Quay and Senator Brice might be wide apart on politics, but when the sngar schedule came up they were cheek by jowl.” The Springfield Republican rind.) declared that “the sugar trust was not after fire and police protection in Massachusetts, of course, when it contributed to the Republican campaign fund. It plainly 1 nad in mind possible legislation by the State affecting its interests in some way, and took note of which party controls the Legislature here.”

Canadi'g Protected Cordage C<»m'>in a . “We want high duties in the interests of Canadian labor,” cry the apologists of the protective system in Parliament. But the Glass Combine, the Cordage Combine, and other monopolies sheltered by the Foster tariff have closed factories and thrown hundreds of Canadian workingmen out of employment. for the purpose of dest-dy-ing competition, restricting production, and enabling them to put up prices and r, b the people. That is on 3 way of protecting Canadian labor.— Ottawa (OnL ) Free Press. Can not people be trusted to exchange theit- products when and where it is most to their advantage? Can we always be sure that Congress knows better than the persons immediately interested, with whom it is best for them to trade? —Single Tax Courier. Ip it is well for the farmer and manufacturer to exchange their products when they are l situated on opposite sides of the same road, would it be less so if the road was the boundary between countries?-Single Tax Courier, The Morrill war tariff, which Democrats have been denouncing all these years, is less protective than the Gorman bill, and its substitution for the Gorman bill would be a great gain for reform.—New York World.