Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — THE TARIFF [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF

(Democrats Would Reduce Taxation to the Lowest Point Practicable. feboy Reoofnkre the Necessity of Levying I Taxation Far the Simple Parpose of Raising Revenue For the Economical Support of the Government. ■ In the grai'd march of our much daunted civilL rtion, a class of men, not Numerically large, but profound thiukiers upon subjects involving national (prosperity, have come to the front as She advocates of free trade between the ®ationn of the earth. The men who exploit their free trade Bheory would do away with customhouses, the frowning Moro castles •quipped to levy tribute upon the commerce of the world, to be paid, not by 'the nation exporting and selling the'exported jtferohandise, but upon the citizens or subjects of the country who purchase it. The law under which this tax is levied and collected is called a tariff, or the 'tariff under which schedules are prepared and the amounts of money to be pal l on each specified article, which necessarily, and inevitably is paid by the purchaser or consumer. The free ■trade advocates contend that if there wee no tai iff taxes levied the benefits that would accrue to the people, the gn at mass of the people in all of the commercial nations of the earth, would exceed the imagination of philanthropists. Free trade between nations, it is held, would be a potent factor in ushering in the millennial era. It would inti luce harmony and good will in the counsels of nations and do away with the friction, envies and jealousies now exi ting, indeed, it might be said since ‘•God bath made of. one blood all natic .is of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” it might be well enough to recognize the “fatherhood of God” to the extent of permitting his civilized children to trade together free and untßXed.

' lut the most sublimated of the nations of the earth, except, possibly, En gland, have not reached that free tee de state of perfection where tariffs and schedules, direct and ad valorem taxation oan be dispensed with, and the United States, under the corrupt Dingley law, is in the swim up to its neck—a law never designed so much to put money in the treasury to sustain the government, as to tax the great body of American consumers for the benefit of a comparative small class of corporation patriots, who subscribed liberally to Mark Hano i’s corruption fund, which debauched the nation and elected Major McKinley. The Democratic party is not a free trade party. It recognizes the necessity of levying im ost taxation for the simple purpose of raising revenue for the Gapport of ihe government economically Administered, believing that such taxation is all that any just interpretation of the cons iiution warrants, and that beyond that limit, tariff taxation is (spoliation, direct robbery protected by law, which adds to its infamy, and which no amount of word jugglery can obscure. The high prerogatives of government [in their rela; ion to citizens or subjects are: (1.) T< deprive men of their lives. (•8.) To di; i .ve them of their liberty. i 3,) To deprive them of their property. The latter ‘deprivation often involving conditions as lamentable as the former. In the language of Shylock: “You take n»y life, when you take the means whereby I live,” and a tariff law such as the Dingley abortion, is enacted for the purpose of taking the moans whereby poor men live and handing, the booty over’ to grasping shylocks, who, in the language of the play, “are wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenous.” It is one of the evils inherent in tariff taxations, that it is practically impossible to construct a tariff law, under the ' operations of which selfishness, greed, rapacity and spoliation do not find coverts under the protection of which these curses thrive, but when such monstrosities as the “McKinley law” and the “Dingloy law” are warmed into life in the womb of Republicanism, as prolific of infamies as the ovum of snapping turtles, their number and enormity tasks investigation and defies the capabilities of statisticians. The Democratic idea of tariffs is to reduce taxation under their operation to the lowest point practicable to meet the requirements of government economically administered. But, unavoidably, such tariffs are more or less protective in their operations, since, as a rule, the tux on the imported article advances its price, and if it comes in competition with a home manufactured article, that, as certainly as the imported article, costs the consumer more than otherwise would be charged. Democrats do not deny this postulate. They admit it in all its force, and to the extent practicable would shape tariff laws in the interest of the great body of consumers, because statesmanship wortny of the name seeks to promore the general welfare of the people, which cannot be done if legislation is so shaped as to benefit the few at the expense of the many. Ab has been intimated it is difficult to levy tariff taxation in a way to do even and exact justice to all who pay it. With the lowest tariff the country has ever had there was incidental and unavoidably protection, but when the Democratic party has shaped tariff legislation there has been no purpose to create a favored class and enrich it at the expense of the rank and file of eonsumers, while the Republican party pursues a diametrically opposite policy as is shown by ail the tariff laws for which it stands responsible, the McKinley and the Dingloy laws being the two colossal iafamies which stand to its credit, disteacttvely, and vividly indioate the purpose of the party to create monopolies for the sake of monopolies and to compel the people to pay tribute money to fin their coffers. la so far as thb Dingley law has contributed to the revenues of the government in & time when war demanded funds to meet expenditures, it has been > dismal failure; but not so when the favorttefl of the party are considered, for whose special benefit the law was enacted, under the spacious plea of restoring prosperity to the country. Vrom these pampered pets of the governmeirt no complaints are ever heJrd. in legislation for their benefit inspires them to eulogize it, and prompts them to coutnbuTe liberally of tegoils wrung from labor to perpetuate ■tetrora party wl-.ich. has systemati-

terest of those who, regardless of the poverty the piratical policy entails, with the insatiable thirst of the horse-leech, forever calls for more victims and more blood. To defeat this party of McKinley and Dingley tariffs, and expose its schemes of rapine is the purpose of the Democratic party of Indiana in this campaign, and as the days go by, facts will be piled upon facts until the people, amazed at Republican perfidy, will rally to the standard of Democracy and again give it control of state and national affairs.