Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1902 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

High-Tariff Prosperity. The United States and Canada are two great countries with a border line 3,000 miles long. Naturally It might be supposed that an economic system that would benefit one would also benefit the other. Such, however, does not appear to be the case, If the statesmen ,in charge are to be believed. The Republicans who are “it” In the management of our trust ridden government are perfectly certain that the prosperity which they talk so much about (to make sure that we have It) Is due to our high protection policy, Inaugurated five years ago. Canada lowered her tariff duties about the time we raised ours, and the statesmen there are now crediting their prosperity to these lower duties. The Toronto Globe says:

“If under any scale of duties the Industries of a country are prospering, higher duties cannot be justified even on grounds of expediency. The country has now been for five years under r tariff very considerably lower than that which prevailed in the previous seventeen years, a period amply sufficient to test the efficacy of high protection. The prosperity of our industries under the low tariff has far exceeded that enjoyed under the high tariff. That result Is that the extreme protectionists are forced back upon the Idea of retaliation pure and simple. The United States will not buy our goods as freely as we buy theirs. Therefore we must cut down our American Imports until something like equality is established. Germany has made some foolish discriminations against Canadian wheat; we must, therefore, aim to strike a blow at Germany. In this way the word protection loses its meaning. What is sought is not the protection of our own industries, but the injury of somebody elsefs. This high tariff produces prosperity in the United States and l<Jw tariff produces prosperity in Canada. “Let well enough alone and don’t touch the high tariff,” say our Republican statesmen. "Let well enough alone and don’t touch the low tariff,” say the Canadian statesmen. Verily this is a queer world and the tariff Is a perplexing question! Is It possible that five years of good crops In both these countries and poor crops in Europe have anything to do with our prosperity? Is It certain that we are ptosperous at all, outside of the protected trusts and the farming sections of the West? Will not the trusts soon have gobbled up all of the surplus prosperity even of these Western farmers? Pennsylvania. The State of Pennsylvania is at present controlled by the associated Iron,, steel and coal bandits, and the State of Pennsylvania Is therefor# but another name for the criminals who manage the coal roads and the coal mines. The governor of Pennsylvania Is a wretched creature of Matthew S. Quay and hls lawless associates. The Legislature of Pennsylvania is an aggregation of corruptionists representing both political parties, who are In the pay of the predatory scoundrels wsio control the State. Many of the courts of Pennsylvania are corrupt or cowardly, some of them making no attempt to conceal the fact that they get their orders from the men who are masters of the Industry and the politics of the State. Elections in Pennsylvania are conspicuous mockeries of a free and enlightened suffrage. Intimidation, bribery and false returns are habitual. Labor In Pennsylvania Is the most impoverished, degraded and brutalized to be found anywhere on this hemisphere. Nothing that America has ever known equals the hopelessness and the misery of a large percentage of the labor of Pennsylvania. The slavery of the coal mines has had no counterpart In the United States since the days of negro bondage, and even that Infamy did not anywhere reduce so many people lu one congested district to such abject penury and woe. Pennsylvania began Its career as a State as one of the most moral, enlightened, just and democratic political societies In the world. As the chief seat of the protective tariff Moloch, the principal altar of the high priests of favoritism, privilege, monopoly and plunder, it has become politically, Industrially and socially the rottenest Commonwealth on earth. People who would understand the anthracite coal problem and people who would attempt to settle It must comprehend these facts. Many years of legalised crime and Injustice are bearing their legitimate fruits.—Chicago Chronicle. Work of the New Congress. The realization of the Democratic platform depends absolutely upon the election of Democratic members of Congress. Only through Democratic Congressmen can the anthracite coal question be permanently settled. On the United HLates Representatives, to be elected this fall, depends the real work of the Democratic party. The coal trust, the beef trust and every trust which abuses the power of organization with the aid of tariff or through railroad monopoly can be attacked successfully only through the Congress of the United States. It Is wtth Congress that the trusts Must reckon. It Is the flectWn of Con

grossmen that most Interests the trusts at this moment It Is In hope of electing Republican Congressmen to perpetuate the present trust paradise that the President has been stumping the country. It Is to the defeat of Democratic Congressmen that the trusts will most willingly devote their resources in this coming campaign. The election of Democratic Congressmen tills year can alone give reality to the Ideas which the Democratic platform expresses—and the election of Democratic Congressmen can alone disturb the tariff-fortified serenity of the trusts. Congress alone can- make effective the demands of the Democrats. It Is the duty of those who feel thaa the people should govern the country to vote for Democratic members of Congress and bring the coal trust, the beef trust aud the other pirate trusts within reach of the people.—Chicago American. Shaw and Subtreasuries. Secretary Shaw, in an authorized interview, denies that he is making an attempt to abolish subtreasuries. This is unquestionably true. The Secretary of the Treasury cannot abolish them—that Is the work of Congress. But the action of the Secretary virtually renders the subtreasury system a nullity. He is conducting the public finances In a manner that reduces the subtreasuries to a minimum of importance. All, public funds paid Into the subtreasuries are checked out for current government expenses as rapidly as possible. A large share, If not all, of the public funds not paid to the government through subtreasuries are deposited In the national banks and left there. Only the smallest amount of money possible would seem to be placed in the subtreasuries, and in this manner the Secretary Is enabled to ignore them and favor the banks. It is a compliance with the letter of the law and an evasion of its spirit. While Secretary Shaw does not seem to have openly expressed himself as to the advisability of abolishing the subtreasury system, his predecessors in the Treasury Department have, and bankers all over the country favor the scheme. That an attempt to pass a bill to this effect at the coming session will be made admits scarcely of any doubt. The subtreasuries are about all that Is left of the system that Jackson and Van Buren favored after the destruction of the old United States bank. If the banking trust can accomplish their destruction they will have made another forward step In securing absolute control of the national finances.— Denver News. Theory vs. Practice. A rather curious phrase In Mr. Roosevelt’s speech at Logansport was the following: “Our tariff policy is designed to favor the interests of the nation as a whole, and not those of any particular set of Individuals save ns an Incident to their building up of national well-being.” Theoretically that may have been the purpose of the tariff, but in practical working It has been “designed to favor the interests of a particular set of individuals, and not those of the nation as a whole except as an Incident to the building up of individual fortunes.” One of the sections of the tariff which promises to build up the fortunes of a great mass of farmers, and thus of the nation as a whole, is that which protects the sugar growers from the competition of the great trust-own-ed plantations of Cuba and the Philippines, which are operated by a few individuals. Yet that Identical section of the tariff is the one which Mr. Roosevelt has singled out as the subject of an urgent message to Congress urging Its emasculation. As Mr. Roosevelt said on another occasion, and as many others said before him, “Actions speak louder than words.” The part of the tariff which helps the farmer and which the sugar trust would like to have removed, is made the object of attack, while the parts of It which fatten trust profits at the expense of the people are to be guarded, “so that business-interests shall not be disturbed.” Taking a Brutal Advantage. There is no more reason why the price of soft coal should be $8.50 a ton to-day than there was before the anthracite strike began, when It was $2.50 a ton. Wages of soft coal miners have not been Increased. Transportation to tidewater or to the West costs no more. More soft coal is being mined than before, and there Is practically no limit to the amount that con be mined or to the amount that can be transported. The simple truth Is that a base advantage is being taken by the soft coal trust to swindle the people by extorting over three times the ordinary price from them.—Brooklyn Citizen. Willing to Pay the Coet. The only Inference to be drawn from the attitude of the coal operators Is that they weighed the cost of defeating the, miners and were willing to pay It. Willing to pay It because the coat doesn't come out of their pockets, for the cost will be In blood, In health, In human misery, In life Itself. And the responsible authors won’t have to compensate for all that In this world even If they do In the nevt.—Toledo Hen.