Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1898 — THE TARIFF [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF

Democrats Would Reduce Taxj ation to the Lowest Point Practicable. They Recognise the Necessity of Levying Taxation For tl»e Simple Purpose of Raising Revenua For tho Economical Support of tha Government. In the grand march of our much vaunted civilization, a class of men, not numerically large, bnt profound thinkers upon subjects involving national prosperity, have come to the front as the advocates of free trade between the nations of the earth. The men who exploit their free trade theory would do away with customhouses, the frowning Moro castles equipped to levy tribute upon the commerce of the world, to be paid, not by the nation exporting and selling the exported merchandise, 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 paid ou each specified article, which necessarily, and inevitably is paid by the purchaser or consumer. The free trade advocates contend that if there were nojariff taxes levied the benefits that accrue to the people, the great mass of the poople 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 poteut factor in ushering in the millennial era. It would introduce harmony and good will in the counsels of nations and do away with the friction, envies and jealousies now existing, indeed, it might be said since “God hath made of one blood all nations 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 untaxed. But the most sublimated of the nations of the earth, except, possibly, England, have not reached that free trade state of perfection where tariffs and schedules, direct and ad valorem taxation can be dispensed with, and the United States, under the corrupt Ding* ley law, is in the swim up to its neck—a law never designed so much to pat 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 Hanna’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 impost taxation for the simple purpose of raising revenue fog the support of the government economically administered, believing that sneh taxation is all that any jast interpretation of the constitution 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 relation to citizens or subjects are: (1.) To deprive men of their lives. ( 'Jt .) To deprive them of their liberty. vB.) To deprive them of their property. The latter deprivation often involving conditions as lamentable as the former. In the language of Shylook: “Yon take my life, when yon take the means whereby I live,” and a tariff law soch as the Dingley abortion, is enacted for the purpose of taking the means whereby poor men live and banding the booty over to grasping shylocks, who, in the language of the play, “are wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenons.” It is one of the evils inherent in tariff taxations, that it is practically impossible to oonstrnct a tariff law, nnder the operations of which selfishness, greed, rapacity and spoliation do not find coverts nnder the protection of which these corses thrive, bnt when fpich monstrosities as the “McKinley law” and the “Dingley 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 nnder their operation to the lowest point practicable to meet the requirements of government economically administered. bnt, unavoidably, such tariffs are more or lqss protective in their operations, since, $* a rale, the tax 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, oosts 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 worthy of the name seeks to promote 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. As has been intimated it is difficult to levy tariff taxation in a way to do even and exact justioe to all who pay it. With the lowest tariff theoonntry has ever had there was incidental and unavoidably protection, hat when the Democratic party has shaped tariff legislation there has been no purpose to create a favored olass and enrioh it at the expense of the rank and file of consumers, while the Republican party pursues a diametrically opposite policy as is shown by all the tariff laws for whioh it stands responsible, the MoKinley and the Dingley laws being the two onlqipl infamies whioh stand to its credit, distinctively aud vividly indicate the pur-

pose of the party to create monopolies for the sake of monopolies and to compel the people to pay tribute money to fill their coffers. Iu so far as the Dingley law has contributed to the revenues of the government in a time when war demanded funds to meet expenditures, it has been a dismal failure; but not so vfrben the favorites of the party are considered, for whose special benefit the law was enacted, nnder the spacious plea of restoring prosperity to the country. From these pampered pets of the government no complaints are ever heard. Corruption iu legislation for their benefit inspires them to eulogize it, and prompts them to contribute liberally of spoils wrung from labor to perpetuate in power a party which has systematically utilized its opportunities and powers to increase spoliation in the interest of those who, regardless of the poverty the piratical policy entails, with the insatiable thirst of the horse-leech, forever calls for more victims aud more blood. To defeat this party of McKinley aud Dingley tariffs, and expose its schemes of rapine is the purpose of the Democratic party of Indiana iu this campaign. aud 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.