Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1910 — TELLS OF COST OF LIVING. [ARTICLE]

TELLS OF COST OF LIVING.

John W. Kern Shows “Mary” Paying. Tribute to Q. O. P. Trusts. I■ , ■ John W. Kern, Democratic nominee for United States Senator, is now devoting himself in his speeches to a discussion of the high cost of living—a condition which has grown up under and been fostered by the Republican party, aided by Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Beveridge. <- Mr. Kern is still making good use of Senator Beveridge’s unfortunate slip about “Mary of the Vine-Clad Cottage,” and he uses Mary as the central figure in showing that the people pay tribute to trusts and combinations almost every time they turn around. Said Mr. Kern: ‘‘ ‘Marys of the vine-clad cottages,’ are confronted every day with an economic question which will not down, and that is the high cost of living. It is a fact known and felt by all wage earners and salary earners, that the wages of the man who wins bread for ‘Mary of the vine-clad cottage’ and Mary’s children are np longer sufficient to maintain Mary and the children in the comfortable style to which they have been accustomed. « i “Under the operation of the tax on . woolen goods fixed by the woolen, schedule of the Dtngley tariff bill, which Senator Beveridge supported for ten years, and which is continued' in force by the Payne-Aldrich tariff! bill, the woolen trust has been enabled, according to Senator Beveridge’s confession, to increase the price and reduce the weight of the people’s ! clothing, and thereby add materially l to the cost of living, for every time ' Mary makes a purchase of clothing ; for her children, of blankets for their i beds, sue must dip a little deeper ' into her husband’s wages than if | this Infamous tariff tax were not levJ led for the benefit of the trust. Trusts Always Benefit. "And so of nearly everything that I Mary is compelled to buy for the comj fort and healia of her and ' the maintenance of her humble home. When she buys a dollar s worth of sugar, a part of her husband’s earn- ; ings go to the sugar trust. When she ; buys hominy, a little money is ab- ’ sorbed by the hominy trust. With a j purchase of salt, she must pay out of I her husband’s wages a little tribute ■ to the salt trust, and a very large ! part of the earnings of the patient toiler who is her helpmate is absorbed annually by the meat trust, and goes to swell the dividends on the watered stock of the great meat packing establishments. When she buys a set of tumblers or other needed glassware her little stock of money is eaten into by the glass trust, and with every purchase of crockery she makes her husband pay tribute to the pottery : trust. , Roosevelt’s Pet Trust. “But the greatest absorber; of thei people’s earnings in America is the 1 Roosevelt favorite, the great United States Steel Corporation, which draws heavily on the wages of Mary’s husband every time she buys a tin pan, or a fruit can, or a tin cup, or any other article of household necessity into the composition of which tin or 1 steel or iron enter in any form. .And Mary’s husband, if he buys a tocl to work with, must make a contribution 'to this gigantic monopoly, and whldh goes to swell the fortunes of the multimillionaires who are behind it. “And if the poor man buys lumber ‘for a henhouse he must pay something; to the lumber trust, and if he find* it necessary to use paint for any purposes, lead and oil trusts intercept part of his earnings. And So on. and on, and on, the drug trust and chemical trust levying tribute when slck,ness comes, the coffin trust when death Invades the household, and the marble trust- when a tombstone is bonght to mark the resting place of the dead. Grew Under Beveridge. “Of the hundreds of trusts now preying on the earnings of the peo- ’ pie, and holding out their greedy hands.for tribute on the occasion of almost every purchase made for household use, nine-tenths have been organized in violation of law, since the passage of the Dingley tariff bill, which raised the tax rate so high as to exclude foreign competition, and made possible this wholesale stifling of domestic competition. Nine-tenths of these lawless and law defying combinations have been organized since Senator Beveridge entered the senate. ’ ‘‘lnstead of demanding that the criminals who thus banded themselves together to rob the people be prosecuted as common criminals, and put in stripes for their gross outrages upon the public, he has contented himself with pointing out how beneficent were their operations, and how greatly they contributed to the development of the country.”