Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — WAIL OF MONOPOLY. [ARTICLE]

WAIL OF MONOPOLY.

SOME WILD AND SILLY CALAMITY SHRIEKS. tkt Charge by the Cultra-Protectloatst Mew York Pres* that the Democratic Party Is Responsible for the Recent Trouble at Chicago Is Easily Refuted. “The Bill of Anarchy. u The ultra-protectionist New York Press is improving the present occation by uttering wild and silly calamity shrieks. It caDs the half-f edged Wilson bill the “bill of anarchy,” and credits it with all of the numerous wage reductions, strikes, ana riots which have occurred under the McKinley bill rule during the pa t year. It says: “The difficulty out of which the disastrous confcict at Chicago has arisen was directly due to the war waged by Grover Cleveland and the free-trade Bourbons upon American industrial interests and the American standard of wages.” It says: “The tariff bill framed to impoverish the Northern workingman has robbed hundreds of thousands of industrious wa:e-earners of employment and forced them into the depths of destitution. It has closed a host of manufacturing estab lishments and compell.d a sweeping reduction of pay in multitudes of others like Pullman." It says “the detestable bill” contains “the seed of a hundred riots worse than that at Chicago, ” etc.

It is perhaps useless to suggest to the Press that its great and beloved McKinley bill guaranteeing high wages and steady employment to all is still in force. Is this mighty bill unable to cope with the mere shadow of the Wilson bill? That if the Wilson bill, which splits McKinley duties in two, is "framed to enrich monopolies" for what purpose was the McKinley bill framed.'' That the reduction of wages at Pullman had little or no connection with the tariff discussion. Hundreds of surplus cars having been manufactured to supply the needs of excursionists to the World’s Fair, it was to fee expected that this would be a dull year at Pullman. That it will not impoverish the Northern er any other workingman to reduce his taxes and to provide more work; for him fey giving free raw materials to his employers, That it will not impoverish the Northern farmer to give hina cheaper clothing, food, sheLter, and tools, and to open up better markets for his products both at home and abroad. That people who live in protected glass hou es should not throw atones at those who are laying the foundation for a free trade house. It may be recalled that a few strikes and riots, like those at Homestead and at Cjeur d’Alene mines occurred beiore the detestable Wilson hill cast its shadow across the McKinley bill. Also that a list of over 500 wage reductions in protected industries was published in 1892 as the result of two years of McKinleyism, and that wage advances were as scarce as hens’ teeth. In fact, it may be recalled that wage strikes and riots were unknown in this .country before the introduction of high protection about thirty years ago, which has given us monopolists, mortgages and tramps in proportions to make a most unstable mixture in a republic. That the McKinley bill was but the culminating act of Republican and protectionist atrocity, which has for thirty years been breeding anarchy and discontent by legislating wealth out of the pockets of the hard-working masses into ih~ pockets of the dishonest schemers who, by political jobbery and legislative bribery, control ana operate our railroads and protected mines, forests and factories. The Press has gotten the shoe on the wrong foot. It is a high monopoly tariff and not free trade that is largely responsible for the present anarchistic condition. —Byron W. Holt

The Reciprocity Humbug. There should be no ambiguity or doubt concerning the provision in the pending tariff bill to abrogate the socalled reciprocity clause of the McKinley act. The section of the Senate bill which repeals this clause proceeds to declare that the repeal shall in no way affect existing commercial arrangements between the United States and foreign countries, “except where such arrangements are inconsistent with the provisions of this act.” No apparent necessity exists for this verbiage. Commercial arrangements that are not inconsistent w th the act would stand without excepting them in express terms. Such as are not consistent with the act should fall; but such a matter ought not to be left to official interpretation. The original Wilson bill simply proposed to repeal the reciprocity clause of the McKinley tariff, and that should have been enough. Nothing more is needed to condemn this reciprocity-retaliatory policy than the existing embargo proclaimed by President Harrison upon the trade between the United States and the sister Republics of Colombia and Venezuela. Although this embargo has been in operation for more than two years, no official statement of the reasons for its proclamation has ever been given to the country. It has never been shown in what respect, if any, these two Republics discriminate against the trade of the United States. Nor has it been shown why Venezuela and Colombia should have been singled out for discipline, when the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Mexico, and other States of South and Central America impose as high duties on imports. Mr. Blaine had a far higher and broader view of commercial reciprocity than that which is presented in the Harrison proclamation imposing on American consumers duties on the coffee and hides of Venezuela and Colombia. But whatever may have been his opinion in regard to this act, no such arbitrary power over commerce should be conferred upon the executive, least of all in a government like ours. There s not another go veinmeat on earth, except Russia, Turkey and China, that would permit its chief to declare commercial warfare upon this or that nation at his sovereign will and pleasure. The spirit of the reciproc ty clause of the McKinley act as exemplified in the Harrison proclamation against Colombia and Venezuela smacks too much of Oriental despotism to receive tne sanction of a free people. There is no doubt that immediately ppon the i epeal of the clause in question President Cleveland would cheerfully hasten to withdraw this mischievous and foolish embargo. But in regard to the repeal there should be neither obscurity nor uncertainty.— Philadelphia Record. The Protection of Richness. Says the Tribune: “In the early part of IHKi a great deal was said about the tin mines in. the Black Hills. On account of their alleged richness a duty of 4'cents a piund on tin was inserted in the tariff law. ” The Tribune further states that .Englishmen furn shed the capital to work those mines, but dees not state that the duty was inserted on that account. The duty was inserted on account of the alleged richness o' ihe mines. Substantially the same thing is true

with respect to duties generally. Wherever there is r chness. real or alleged, there a duty for protection has been “insert d into the pockets of the people by the Republican party, i As a rule, the greater the richness the 1 more the duty. It came to be a misfortune to the people to strike anything particularly rich in this coun- ! try. Coal, iron ore. copper, borax, when found in inexhaustible quantities and so easily mined that they j could be produced here at less cost j than anywhere else, had to be “protected" by Republican tariT ta.es. It was the alleged richLe.sof the alleged Amoric.n tin mines that >ecured for them a prttective duty. But in to is case, fortunately for the con sumers of tin, the ricuness turned out to be only in the pockets of toe American confidence men, who sold a gieat o uant.it'.' of stock in alleged tin mines to English capitalist-". And now that there is no monopoly to be enriched neither the Tribune nor any ct er McKiulep organ nor any McKinley stat'sman takes any further interest in the duty o; 4 cents a pound on the metal tin. But they all together raise their voices in lamentation necau o the pending tariu bill gives the men who dip imported plat's into imported tin somewhat less of the richness of protection.—Chicago Hera-d.

Protecting Übo*. The Pennsylvania Democrats displayed the courage of high principle in their resolutions on the labor question. They are worth re printing: We recognize tire right of every citizen tJ be protected in the tree enjoyment of bis property nod of the privilege to work when, tor whom and at what wages he wllL It Is the duty of the State to maintain for him that right. The highways of the commonwealth should be open to all who lawfully traverse ihem and the path to proper employrueut should not be obstructed by any unauthorized power. None the less wecondemn the Insincerity awd iaconsisiencv of those who clamor loudly for protection to American Industries. and yet seek every occasion and lose no opportunity to supplant it with cheap. Imported pauper labor. We denounce the hypocrite who pretends zeal for the Improvement of the social condition of the American workingmen, and yet displaces and evicts them for aliens Ignorant of our laws and foreign to our institutions. The “ right to labor and enjoy the fruits of his labor,” as Lincoln put it, is about the roost fundamental and essential right which a human being requires. It is aiot only necessary to existence: it is the bed-rock of personal independence, the corner-stone of a free state. At a time when this right is forcibly denied to a large number of men in Pennsylvania it is incumbent upon those who seek control of the government to reaffirm it and to declare the duty of the State to maintain it. The resolutions very properly proceed, however, to point to the main •cause of the labor troubles in Pennsylvania. That State is the chief beneficiary of the laws passed ostensibly to “protect American labor.” Its plutocratic mine-owners and manufacturers, as a Republican Senator has declared, “make large fortunes every year when the times are good’ from the bounties secured under tariff legislation procured through their campaign contributions. And yet nowhere else in this land—scarcely anywhere else in the civilized world—is labor so underpaid, opressed, swindled and degraded as in Pennsylvania. “American labor" was long sinoe supplanted there by the worst and most ignorant of “imported pauper labor.” And when even this mass revolts against starvation wages the protected plutocrats have the impudence to attribute the trouble to the Democratic attempt to reduce the taxes and enlarge the markets of the country. The Pennsylvania Democrats have done a public service in asserting the rights of labor and pointing to the real cause of its suffering.—New York World.

Approved by the Mar sat. A small class in this city denounces I the income tax. The great mass ap- ; plauds it, as was shown in the Cooper ! Union meeting a- few weeks ago and | again on Weunesday in Tammany Hall, j No sentiment that wai uttered by the Fourth of Juiy orators was more | cheered by the auditors than the defense of the income tax by Senator Walsh and Representative Williams. The speech of the new Senator lrom Georgia was a very compact and strong presentation of the arguments in favor of this tax. He showed it to be necessary. With sugar made free, as it ought to be, there will be need of the revenue from the income tax to prevent a deficit in the Treasury. He showed it t > be just. It “places the bur„en on those best able to bear it,” and who require and receive the most protection from the [ Government. He showed it to be Dem- | ocratic. It conserves the greatest j good of the greatest number. A tax upon consumption favors a class at the expense of the mass. Said Senator Walsh: “Of the $200,000,000 collected by the - tariff duties last year t>o per cent, was collected from the prime necessities of life, and about i 0 per cent, from the luxu' ies. Of the $837,000.00) collected in Great Britain 40 per cent, was from wealth and indu-.try, 51 per cent, .lrom luxuries, and only t> per cent, from the necessaries of life, including tea and coffee. ” A tax upon large incomes, logically applied—that is, exempting an amount Oi-sential to comfortable living even in la ge cities, and making a irogressive rate upon swollen superfluity is indeed “eternally right and should become a permanent fixture of our Federal i-vstem of taxation.’’--New York World. In Pennsylvania. Of course, every Democrat in Pennsylvania is fully aware tnat the stand-ard-bearers of the party there are leading a forlorn hope. For this very reason their platform declarations express more fully the real sentiment of the party, since there is no temptation to suppress their views or to straddle troublesome issues in order to catch votes. Though in ade spondent minority, there are -.50,000 Democrats in Pennsylvania, and their opinions are entitled to respect. Tt is sijnific nt therefore, that the Democrats of Pennsylvania not cnly | give the usual forum indorsement of the national platform of 1892, but they specifically demand that the tariff laws I “be levised in accordance with that : authoritative declaration of party principles.” There are those who affirm , that the tariff plank o, that platform did not express the real lentiments of 1 tho Democrats of the United States. | Now, if this were true, we should expect to find dissent from it in Pennsy--1 vania, if anywhere. So la:' from dis- | sent, we have from the 1 emocrats of the Keystone State the heartiest concurrence in the doc l ine of a tariff for revenue only. Louisville CourierJournal. “The fight fo.’tariff i efurm wpl go ! on.” says the Indianapolis Sen inel I (Dem.), “and the Democratic party ! will make the fight. It will have to bury a few men whom it once trusted, hut it will not change front because a few mercenaries do so.” —Evening Post. German courts have been asked to decide whether a tooth after being drawn'is the property of the dentist or I his ’victims