Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1908 — A FEW MEN CONTROL [ARTICLE]

A FEW MEN CONTROL

Protection, Honestly Begun, Has Become Plunder. NK .*» 411 TS SMALL MANUFACTURERS Well Known Member of Now York Bar Bhows How a High Tariff Promotes Extravagance and Despotism In Government —A Burden on the Poor. Our protective policy un wise, was houestly commenced and continued by congress for the first seventy years of our national life. Now it has become not protection, but plunder. It has resulted in a close alliance between corrupt politicians aud manufacturers to procure favorable legislation by any means. We have permitted a force outside of government to be created that is powerful enough to control government in spite of the people. The men in coritrol of the trusts have corfie to regard themselves as privileged persons, above and beyond restraint from any source. This confidence comes from the fact that they alone know how thoroughly a few qien holding uo public office actually direct every department of the government. This force outside of government, yet still commanding government, Is becoming in the United States so powerful and corrupt that It aims to control the editor in his sanctum, the professor In his lecture room and the Judges In the seats of justice. Such extravagant expenditures of public money as we have had In recent years would be absolutely Impossible If the revenue of government were raised by direct taxation. Our representatives in congress would never dare to multiply offices, approve thousands of unmerltorlous private claims, enact wasteful river and harbor bills and squander the public money If the national expenses bod to be defrayed by an overt, irritating tax dragging the money directly from the citizens’ pockets. Every revolution in English .and American history has come out of determined opposition to an unjust direct tax. Direct taxation Is almost necessary to the existence of free government Take the people’s money from them without their knowing It and by and by yon can take their liberties.

Humbug is necessary to maintain the tariff and fool the people, and humbug Is political Immorality. "In all tariff legislation,” says the national Republican platform adopted at Chicago, "the true principle of protection la beat maintained by the Imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the coat of production at home and abroad.” Before the war the slave owners of the tenth contend ed that slavery was for the protection of the slave. So now UnltedL States Steel corporation, the sugar trust, the meet trust and the hundreds of other monopolies tbst are plundering our laboring men through the increased cost of living are so Interested In them that for their protection alone they sustain the beneficent tariff. They actually give millions to campaign committees that voters may be bought, that a lobby may be maintained, that congressmen may be interested, that the right men may be made judges, that newspapers may be subsidised, and they do all this to keep the laboring people from falling Into pauperism. In every market In our country today the wlvea of workingmen, grip ping in their hands the price of their husbands’ labor, are paying to the greet trusts for the necessaries of life at least 00 per cent more than they paid even ten yean ago. Our laboring man does not need charity, but he does need Justice. If congress should attempt directly to fix the prices at which our domestic manufacturers could sell their prodnets, the United States supreme court would declare the act unconstitutional, lbt congress indirectly by means of <Ms feeling power and its right to regulate foreign commerce has maintained statutes for fifty years permitting the domestic manufacturer to enhance the fries of The necessaries of life to every man and woman in oar land. The source of the trusts coald be easily destroyed by removing the tariff, hut that w*qld contributions to campaign disbursements, so out politician* continue the tariff and than «i i.ynm*dy prescribe penal statute*, att jnterriate commerce commission, administrative

trtam&la and other similar bmnhh■Jßbe trust ma|n»t« . mlppa minerals. tbeyown a oonctdaraMe part at the rassslning forest lauds, tkv wn thegrsat railway systems, they control the majority of tmaaafaetortee and hold the franchises of the cWes. Through these acquisitions they hsve become the rulers Of our npabklc ,-without holding any office whatever. Bat the people - are star to see the danger of such vast and Irresponsible power exercised by at few meA because they plot in secret ana mine and countermine our public life. Eventually If they are not stopped they will reduce the American people to servitude. Our smaller manufacturers are beginning to realise what this means. They are caning to understand that they receive little benefits from a protective tariff and that the great combinations which sell them their raw material are the only recipients of Its benefits. Sixtytwo per cent of all Importation* Into our country today are for use In our manufactures, and more than one-third of tbla 62 per cent Is subject to duty. A large proportion of our manufacture a«i Will by and by appreciate this truth, and when they do appreciate It their financial interests will make them a fighting force against protection. FRANKLIN PIBRCR.