Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1894 — ORGANS STILL GRIND. [ARTICLE]

ORGANS STILL GRIND.

SOCRATiC ARGUMENT DEALT OUT BY M’KINLEYITES. Professor of Connndmms Hard at WorkLesson In President Cleveland's Letter —Tariff Combine Broken—A Too Previoas Croak—Why the Uecords Are SUent. Modern “Socratic Arynments." A Chicago organ of McKinleyi*m quotes from a Duquoiu organ of the same ism a ' Socratic argument” in favor of the McKinley agricultural schedule. The ‘ argument” consists in asking why since the enactment of that schedule the yearly imports from Canada have been less by so many dollars’ worth of agricultural products, so many dollars’ worth of horses, so many dol ars' worth of barley, so many dollars’ worth of eggs, etc., etc.; why these imports from Canada have been so much less if the agricultural schedule has not benefited our farmers. The argument consists further in asking why, if free trade be a good thing for our farmers, sheep pasture lands have depreciated $28,000,000 under the mere threat of free wool This argument may be answered in various wavs. It may be answered, Yankee fashion, by asking why the McKinley law quadrupled the number of noses on the man in the moon, and why the new law has decimated the population of the planet Mars, and why, under a high tariff, a tub of water will weigh no more after a live fish has been placed in it than it did .before. Assuming that certain things are true does not make them true. The statements of the Duquoic. Socrates are not substantiated. The Socratic argument may also be answered by saying that even if we have imported less produces of the farm from Canada under the McKinley law than we did befo:e, that does nut prove that the American farmer has sold any more of such products, or obtained any higher prices for them. If he has not he has not been benefited bv shutting out Canadian products. The Duquoin professor of conundrums entirely omits the essential part of the argument As to the implied assertion In regard to sheep pasture lands, the Duquoin Socrates doesn’t know whether it is true or not, because it is simply impossible for him or any one else to know whether it is true. —Chicago Herald.

A Stu?sr Catechism. Q. What is the sugar tax? .A. It is a duty of -10 per oent. upon the value of all sugar imported and one-eighth of a cent a pound additional upon refine! sugars. V. Who pays the taxes? A. All taxes are paid ultimately by the people —the consumers. When the McKinley law removed and reduced the duties on 6ugar the price by almost precisely the amount of the taxes abated. Q. How are sugar taxes collected? A. The taxes on the raw sugar imported are paid by the refineries, organized as a sugar trust The trust then adds this tax and the duty on refined sugar to the selling prioe,~and tie grocers collect it from the people. Q. What does this tax amount to? A. In 1893 the sugar trust imported 3,731,219,367 pounds of raw material, costing $114,959,870. The people paid the trust a sugar tax of $19.554,t;09. The Treasury got nothing. Under the new tariff the tax on the same importation will amount to $46,000,000 on raw sugar, which goes to the Treasury, and the trust, which has an absolute monopoly of the market, will collect $20,000,000 more for it 3 own benefit. Q. Is a tax needed to “protect” our refiners? A. It is not. Sugar refining is done more cheaply here than in any other country. In his testimony before the Ways and Means Committee in 1881, Mr. Havemeyer. President of the sugar trust, said: “I do not see why. under free trade in sugar, we could not supply a very large proportion of the world’s consumption,'’’ Q. What have been the sugar trust’s profits under the favoriag tariffs? A. In 1888 the trust paid $5,000,000 cash in dividends, equaliipg 27.5 per oent. on its certificates. In 1889 it paid the same amount and distributed 8 per cent, in stock certificates. In 1891 the profits were between $8,000,000 and $9,000,0 »0 on refining account alone. In 1893 the profits were ‘‘nearly 165 per cent, on necessary investment-” Q. And this is the concern t&at has just been licensed by Gorman* Brice, Smith & Co. to tax the people of the United States $20,009,000 and snore a year for its exclusive benefit? A. It is. Q. What do the people propose to do about it? A. They propose to smash the trust. —New \ork World. About Germanism. The Baltimore News (Dem.) says: "The chief lesson we are to leaps from the President’s letter is the supreme importance, the absolute necessity for the nomination of men for Congress by the Democratic party whose, previous and present record is assurap.ee of fidelity to honest tariff reform. The test of that fidelity must be a public repudiation of Gormanism, net only because Gormanism means the betrayal of the party and the people, but because it means Republicanism in its worst form." “The issue is plainly made up between Democracy as represented by such leaders as Cleveland and Wilson, and the false and spurious Democracy of such men as Gorman and Brice,” says the Baltimore Sun (Dem.). “There is no middle ground of compj.omise which any timid time-serving soul can hope to occupy, and yet claim to be a Democrat. ” The Chicago Herald (Dem.) counsels the administration Democrats in .Maryland to deal mercilessly with Gorman candidates at the next State election. “Their success,” it. says, "would mean the re-election of Gibson to the Sjenate in 1896 and of Gorman two years later. These men have shown themselves utterly unworthy to represent the Maryland Democracy. Their defeat should be secured at whatever cost. They are not Democrats, and if ’Democrats cannot be elected to swceed them, it would be better to mave straight Republicans in their p’.ices.”

The Income Tax In Main?. It is observed that Thomas B. Reed has thus far nad nothing to say «4bout the income tax in ail his speeches down in Maine. This recalls the fact that during the discussion of this feature of the tariff bill one of the United States Senators from Maine was reported as being of the opinion that this of tax was popular in that State, aad if the measure weie to be submitted ,to the voters of Maine as a separate and distinct issue, it would command a majority of the votes. We do not Jinow whether Mr. Reed would indorse, that proposition, but we do notice he isn’t saying much on the subject one way or the other.—Boston Herald. 1 l A Fair Rale for Wagts. A number of the protected manufacturers Who combine politics and business for their own profit are threatening to reduce wages, giving the new

tariff law as the reaeoii. It is pep. fectly well known that tariffs have i very little effect on wages. There is | more variation in wages in the same industries in different States of our L'nion by reason of these facts than there is between the average of wages here and in England. Wages did not fall here after the tariff reductions of 1846 and 1857. There is a fair rule in this matter which, workingmen would probably accept. Let all manufacturers who voluntarily incr.-ased wages after the passage of the McKin'ey bill be entitled to reduce them now. This rule would put an end to wjge reductions very quickly. Setter than Was Promised. While the Democrats have failed, at j least temporarily, to fully redeem all of their pledges to the people, they have in some other ways done better by the people than was actually promised in their piattorm. They nave in part substituted' honest direct taxation for dishonest and delusive indirect taxation. While the income tax may not be 4 and probably is not, the best possible direct tax, it is a long way ahead of the accursed system which has for thirty years been robbing the masses for the benefit of the classes in the name of revenue taxation. The income tax will be paid entirely by the classes. It will not rob anybody for the benefit of anybody else. Every cent collected will be collected by and for the government. The objections to it spring mainly from the dishonesty of the rich who will shirk and evade it as they do all other taxes. It is already so popular that the Republicans, if they should regain power, would not dare to repeal it. In only one of the twelve or fifteen States in which the Republicans have held conventions this year have they dared to say a word in their platforms against the tax. It is expected that the present income tax will raise nearly one-tenth of our revenue. If so, it is probable that we will in future never raise less than one-tenth of our revenues by direct taxation. It is not improbable that all of our taxes will be direct before the beginning of the next century. The people are studying economic questions as never before and many have already discovered that indirect taxes are what make millionaires and paupers.

He Can “Beat All Creation.*' An American manufacturer in straits has rushed madly off to Washington to get his duties doubled; the German has put a dozen more skilled chemists and Chemnitz graduates.on his pay-roll, dispatched polyglot drummers to all parts of the world to get orders, and thus been able to snap his fingers at our tariff. That is the kind of thing that the American manufacturer will not have to do. He will have to conduct his business without the expense of a branch office in the Ways and Means Committee rodm. Instead of mortgaging his mill to defeat a tariff-re-form Congressman, he will mortgage it, if necessary, to buy the newest machinery and latest patented devices and to employ superintendents who know their business. With free raw material he will not need to ask favors of anybody, or dread competition ol any sort except the competition of superior skilL If the Yankee cannot hold his own in that paiticular, then all his boasting is in vain. Thare is no doubt that he can, or that Mr. Gladstone is right in predicting the transference to this country of the industrial supremacy of the world, when once American inventiveness and practical skill and business talent are given a fair field and no favors.—New York PostWhy the Records Are Silent. “There is no record,” says the Cleveland Leader, “that any representatives of the sugar trust ever interfered with the tariff legislation of the Republican party. No Senator from a State not interested in sugar refining evei threatened tq prevent the Republican Congress which framed the McKinley law from passing any tar.lT bill unless the interests of a big monopoly were well taken care of.” There was no need of such a threat, for the representatives of the Republican party were of one mind on the subject. Thej were all in favor of giving the trust that enormous bonus, out of which il has taken at least $40,000,000 in profil since the McKinley tariff was enacted. In the present Congress a small minority of the Democrats was at work for the trust against a very large majority that was opposed to it In 1890 the trust controlled the entire Republican party in Congress; there was not even a small Republican minority to protest against the legislation that enriched the combination. Under such conditions it was not a difficult matter tc conceal “the record” of the secret bargains.—New York Times.

■Free Wool. What, ho! Free wool was to destroy the American sheep, and yet the price of wool is already stiffening and the woolen mills are "getting ready for g largely increased business.—Louisvilft Cour ie r- .Journal. Wool has no right to behave as it is behaving. Free trade in any commodity ought to ruin every factory in the land. Instead of making manufacturers lively, it ought, according to the reputed rules of the game, to put out the fires of industry, spread idleness, destruction, hunger, small-pox and hay fever broadcast. But instead of that free wool goes right along doing just what its enemies said it would not do. and all the pretty theories are knocked out in the first round. What is the matter, anyhow?—Baltimore Sun. “It (progressive tariff reform) means cheaper clothing, cheaper tools, cheaper pottery, and many other necessaries for the people. It means freer and larger commerce with those nations that buy our farm products, and consequent larger and better markets for our farmers. It means a transfer o some of the burdens of Government from what goes out for the daily purchase of the necessaries of life to that which comes in over and above the amount needed for such purchase,”— William L. Wilson's speech at Martinsburg, W. Va., Aug. 29. The More Wool the Legs Shoddy. One of the conspicuous benefits of the new tariff bill is going to be to make-all-wool clothing cheaper. Some varieties of clothing are cheap enough already, but it has generally been made so by introducing shoddy and other substitutes for wool into its manufacture. Under the free-wool tariff we ought to be able to get all-wool cloths almost as cheap as we now get an inferior article. Lucky Appraisers. Under the tariff law the duty upon the bottles containing champaign is assessable according to the weight of the glass in them, and appraisers have the right to empty sample bottles in order to ascertain the exact amount of duty to which they are liable. Who wouldn't be an appraiser. “The overwhelming mass of the Democrats in the country are subject to no just criticism. They have kept the faith. They have been true tc their principles. "—William L. Wilson's speech at Martinsburg, West Va., Aug