Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1912 — SOLD OUT FORA SONG [ARTICLE]

SOLD OUT FORA SONG

PRIVILEGE OF EVERY KIND ON BARGAIN COUNTER. Cost of Living Rises but License to Prey on the People Is Becoming Dirt Cheap. In an era of high prices how dirtcheap some things are! The cost of living rises, but the price-marks ou privilege of every kind are low and the tendency is downward. We read of sums that seem large paid annually to the police system of New York for licensing and protecting vice and crime. Yet what a beggarly valuation is $2,000,000 or $10,000,000 for tSie right to prey upon a city of 5,000,000 people, containing property assessed at eight thousand millions! We read of Mark Hanna campaign funds of $6,000,000 or $8,000,000 used to cajole or corrupt voters and carry elections. Yet what bagatelles are these when compared with the things that they bought, such as the passage of laws and the suspension of laws in a nation of 90,000,000! We shall never know how cheaply we have been sold by the police system and the extortionate tariff system until we apply the rules of merchandizing and put prices and commodities into contrast. We are not only sold out and betrayed municipally and nationally, but we are also shamed in the knowledge that our liberties and estates have been bargained away for a song. »

It has recently appeared that Standard Oil contributed $125,000 to the -Republican campaign fund in 1904 on the understanding that the money would be “gratefully received” and “appreciated.” It was asked for another donation of $150,000, which was refused. Here we have Standard Oil’s idea of the market value of the favor of the United States government. When Standard Oil declined to pay more, it is now admitted that the Steel Trust made good the deficiency. Both of these great combinations owe their lawless lives and most of the hundreds of millions that they have rolled up in a tariff-cornered market to the favor of the United States government.

Daniel C. Jtoper, chief clerk of the ways and iheans committee of the house of representatives, estimates that the tariff tax averages $l2O a year for everyVamily. Of this sum only sl6 goes into the treasury. The remaining $lO4 is absorbed by the protected interests. He believes thEft an honest tariff levied only 1 for public purposes would save the people nearly $2,000,000,000 a year. With this colossal plunder in mind, what is tfc be said of Standard Oil haggling over the price that it was to pay for the lion’s share of the graft? \\ hat of Steel’s willingness to make good the deficiency? What of the contemptible $6,000,000 or $8,000,000 raised by the system to continue in power the party that gave the United States government into its control? If the privilege of taxing the people $2,000,000,000 In the interest of a class were put up at auction we believe that even Standard Oil would increase its bid. If the privilege of suspending the anti-trust law so that it might absorb its rival, Tennessee Coal and Iron, were put up at auction we believe that the Steel Trust would show even greater liberality. Thanks to the Mark Hanna system, the prices of everything that wo eat, wear and use are rising. It is only the things that should be priceless, such as light, liberty and justice, that are on the bargain counter or hawked about the streets.—St. Louis Republic.