Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1910 — MISUSE OF PUBLIC MONEY [ARTICLE]

MISUSE OF PUBLIC MONEY

Senator Shively has demanded the appropriation of $250,000 to pay the expenses of President Taft’s tariff board—the board which Senator Beveridge approves and which Senator Aldrich says will be able, by the use of the $250,000 to justify the passage of the Payne-Aldricff tariff law. Mr. Shively said: “From the Democratic standpoint it is irrelevent, immaterial and inconsiauential to the exercise of the federal taxing power. “Tariffs, like (Other taxes, transfer property; they do not produce it. The difference between the cost of the article.!©- the buyer in the market and -what it would cost him to produce or fabricate it himself is consideration that makes trade.

It is what makes commerce a timesaving, labor-saving, capital-saving institution. “The theory on which congress is aske to vote this appropriation is that the wider the difference of cost in a given case, the heavier must be the draft aon the profits and earnings of the nonprotected, nonprotectable, self-helping, self-sustaining industries, occupations and professions of the country to. makeprofltable the otherwise unprofitable venture against which such difference should appear. Moreover, it is advanced only on the notion of the weakness feebleness and helplessness of the American people, and their inability to successfully compete with the outside world. I only add that this is a total misinterpretation of the economic history of the country from the early colonial days to the present hour.” '