Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1910 — THE CUSTOMS FRAUDS. [ARTICLE]

THE CUSTOMS FRAUDS.

Natural Outcoma sf a Protective Tariff. Have Existed For Years. The whole country has been on the alert over the exposure of frauds In the New York customs house. But New York is not the sole offender. Similar conditions are believed to exist or to have existed at Boston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, New Orleans and San Francisco. Goods have been undervalued. False scales have been used for weighing goods which were the property of persons who used.flnanclal or political Inducements to secure favorable treatment Seventy-three employees of the New York customs house have been removed, and the press has expressed its pleasure at the wholesale decapitation of the men who were victims as much as the causes of a vile system. “Sunset” Cox, once a New York congressman and a master of epithet said, “It is as easy to run a powder mill in hell as an honest government with a treasury surplus.” Much more difficult is it to honestly administer a system which, like our tariff system, is based on force and fraud. Of course the exposures have shown such a condition of demoralization as almost to justify Secretary MacVeagh’s description of the place as a “nest of rattlesnakes,” but if It be completely cleaned out it will be as bad in a few years again. An honest customs house is a contradiction in terms. It puts the largest premium known on perjury and collusion. It offers the Inducement of Independent fortunes to pliant men. No system has ever been devised capable of resisting such Influences permanently. The developments In New York came to a head in the case of A. Muslca & Son, importers of foreign cheeses. These people were gradually capturing the entire market, because, with the collusion of government employees, they were able to get their goods in at a price which enabled them to sell at less than cost if the full duty was paid. The flrm sold cheese, which cost In New York 32 1-10 cents a pound with the duty paid, for 26 2-5 cents a pound. Under such circumstances weighers could grow rich in a very short time. A payment of SSOO on a single shipment of cheese was not unusual. One of the weighers, Hutchinson, was asked on cross examination what he expected to get for turning state’s evidence. He said, “Nothing but immunlty from prosecution. Asked wheth-

er he was to retain his position, he said: "No, and I don’t care a snap for my position. My family is self supporting.” It does not take much discernment to read between the lines that this reply meant that he had made enough to retire. If it be true, as our protectionist friends contend, that the tariff is necessary to the existence and prosperity of the United States, then we must face the fact that our existence and prosperity depend upon a system which is the prolific mother of confidence men, thieves and grafters. This statement is no mere expression of opinion. Even after some of the worst exposures had been made Collector Loeb expressed his intention of retaining in the public service men who had confessed their guilt on the ground that only in this way had he been able to get the evidence. Judge Holt very properly condemned this policy, but that the collector of the port should have suggested it shows how the virus of the whole miserable fraud may infect even a man who had so recently graduated from the service of the Immaculate Roosevelt