Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1907 — GET IN LINE. [ARTICLE]

GET IN LINE.

One of the beat ways to smash the trusts is to smash the Dingley tariff, which gives the trusts a license to steal from the American people. The Pennsylvania Republicans have endorsed one Philander C. Knox as their" candidate for the presidency. Juat now, however, Pennsylvania is chiefly famous as the state where there was a $12,000,000 graft in the construction of a $4,000,000 state house. Some of the Indianapolis meat dealers are quoted by the News, of that city, as saying that the “best cuts” of beef have not been advanced in price. So, then, it is the man of small means and large family who is the special victim of tfie beef trust. And we do not see how this helps the trust. During these vacation days the parents of the state are not likely to forget that the sohool book trust is not resting from it labors. On the contrary, it is. preparing to bob up Serenely in the fall with a ohoioe collection of new books and countless odds and ends sufficient to take a large part of the spare cash of the heads of families. Among .the men selected by the Republican press as a suitable Democratic candidate for the presidency is General Luke E. Wright of Tennessee, a man who has held office under the Roosevelt administration for six years and is now drawing a Balary of $17,500 a year as ambassador to Japan. They (the Republican editors) say that General Wright “is a Democrat in essentials.” But after all, perhaps we bad better nominate a man who is Democrat enough to vote the Democratic ticket. That is a prime essential. A great chance for destruction has arisen for Ship Subsidy Watson and ail the other ship subsidy congressmen. James J. Hill, who has managed to accumulate a measley little fortune of $100,000,000 or so in the railroad business, declares that the government will soon have to come to the financial assistance of the railroads. If this is not a chance for voting more subsidies, what is it? The ship subsidyites can also become railroad-subsidyites. Taxes can be made still higher and the next congress instead of spending a paltry billion of- dollars a year, can spend two billion a year. Hill says the railroads need just an extra billion a year for five years to put them in proper shape. If the subsidyites have the courage of their votes they will get busy.

If William J, Bryan or any otb«r Democratic leader had declared that the national government could exercise exclusive control over the railroads, whether state or interstate, under the power “to establish poetofficee and post roads,” he would have been denounoed as either an “imbecile” or an “anarchist.” * But Mr. Roosevelt so declares and the Republican press hardly utters a cheep of surprise or protest.

The last congress spent nearly a thousand millions of dollars a year. This is nearly doable the sum spent per year during the last Democratic administration. Bat notwithstanding the wasteful expenditure of such a stupendous sum, it is announced that the Dingley tariff will produoe a surplus of $70,000,000 for the fiscal year ending Jane 30. The tariff is a tax. It is paid by the common people. The tax collected by the general government each year and .spent by the Republican congresses amounts to sl2 a head for every man, woman and child in the United States. The rich do not feel it. They do not pay in proportion to their incomes. The laborer with a large family pays as much as the average of millionaires and more than many of them. Is tariff reform — tax reform—needed? It is, and the only way to get it is to pat the Democratic party in power.

All earnest and sincere Democrats will agree with Mr. Bryan that the Democratic party is the medium through which needed reforms must be sought. The real Democratic party, if you please—represents neither unsafe radicalism, nor dry-rot conversation. It stands for progress where progress is needed, but it also Btands by the constitution. -Its principles are sound and according to them it proposes to test and settle pass* ing questions and issues as they arise. v , All Democrats should get in line and toe up to the chalk mark. It will soon be time for the forward march. The 1908 campaign promises to be one of the most interesting and important in the history of the country. It is too soon to get excited, but it is not too soon to begin to think and to form conclusions. As in previous campaigns, tta voters will have to make a choice between the two great parties. Either a Democrat or a Republican will be elected president in 1908, and one or the other of thd big parties will elect a majority in the lower house of congress. In Indiana a Democrat or a Republican will be chosen governor and one or the other of the big parties will control the legislature and manage the state offices. The country is dissatisfied with the Republican party. It should be turned out of power in nation and state. And it can be turned out of power if the voters who are opposed to its policies and its tendencies vote against it. The Democratic party is strong and it is clean. It has no entangling al liances. It stands for the things that the people are demanding. Its success will mean better conditions in Indiana and in the United States, and it deserves the earnest support of every Democrat and of every other man who feels that the government should be controlled by and for the people and not by and for the trusts and other special interests.