Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1910 — HOODWINK THE PUBLIC. [ARTICLE]

HOODWINK THE PUBLIC.

Newspaper That 3lr.tr.es the Shadow While Ignoring the Substance. The New York Press is a stand patter on the tariff question. It sees no harm at all in high protection, but it sees, or professes to see. a lot of harm in the combinations and monopolies which restrain domestic trade. The Press says: ' “If the industrious free traders who are attacking the American protective tariff were half as zealous in their demand for the application of the laws against restraint of domestic trade as they are In behalf of their hobby there would bp a stronger public sentiment for the removal or reduction of the internal tariffs that swell the cost of liv-. Ing. These tariffs that the railroads and the express companies charge, this tribute that combinations of manufacturers and wholesalers exact from the people, are the big items in the sum of the increased cost of living.” Granted that these combinations and coercive organizations of producers do force up prices, what are they but the effects of the high tariff? It is the tariff that gives them a - foothold. When a valuable special privilege is to be given out by congress, what is more natural than that those who are to share that special privilege should form a solid ring so as to keep it to themselves and work it for all it is worth? That is what the trusts have done. The tariff enables them to control the markets It is absurd, then, to talk about “trust busting” or destroying those mischievous combinations which conspire to restrain trade when all the time the law is affording them, the power and the encouragement to combine for that very purpose. The fact Is that pleas of this nature are seldom seriously meant by those who advocate them. Their game is to hocpwink the consumer. ; Read The Democrat for news