Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1912 — END TARIFF PLUNDER [ARTICLE]

END TARIFF PLUNDER

PLAIN DUTY THAT IS BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Foundation Stone of the Predatory Trusts Must Be Removed—Republicans Are Sponsors for Present Iniquitous Laws.

Mr. Bryan says, fn effect, thatothe issue is the people against the organised forces of plunder. So it is. but the fact does not take us far. How are these forces organized, and how must they be met ? The citadel of plunder is legislation for the benefit of special interests. Behind the trusts, the money power, the buyers of legislatures and the corrupters of government are bad laws. The forces of or ganized plunder will continue organized and keep on plundering until driven from the strongholds which the laws have reared for them. The chief of these bad laws is the protective tariff, making it possible to tax .everybody for the sake of somebody

The tariff Is the mother of the trusts, Its exactions are the foundation of those great fortunes which, through groups of federated banks and under our imperfect currency laws, hold the credit of the country by the throat —the money power. The connection between the tariff and the purchase of senatorial seats by millionaires is as clear as the relation of the commodity and the price. And ft is the tariff which has so swollen the revenues of government as to breed a thousand extravagances. It makes no difference whp is president of the United States unless the legal standing-room of organized plunder is destroyed. The tariff magnates will snap their fingers in the face of the best of presidents so long as the protective tariff stands.

The Republican party stansd sponsor for the present tariff. The Roosevelt party, according to one of Roosevelt’s 'closest advisers, will likewise be a party of protection. The Democracy is the party of tariff reduction. The greatest chapter in the recent history of political progressiveness contains the text of the tariff bills passed by the present congress and vetoed by a Republican president. This is no time for Democracy to go to war with itself or to look for foes within its own household. Let the fearful Democrat hunt up the roll calls on the tariff bills passed at Washington since Champ Clark lifted tile gavel and scrutinize them. They give us the measure of present-day Democracy, for they show how Democracy’s representatives bore themselves when th" Democracy charged the citadel of organized plunder.—St. Louis Republic.