Newspaper Page Text
0l)e Jeffersonian
Vol. 8, Number 3
M WORD TO YOU, CHAMP CLARK!
i
F YOU don't want to catch the very
devil, when you return to Missouri,
you'd better mind what you are doing.
Last year, you butted in on the
Georgia campaign; and you did your
level best to save those infamous De-
serters who richly deserved to have had their
infernal heads blown off. They had gone
over to the stand-pat Republicans; and had
given old Joe Cannon the aid which made it
possible for him to retain the power to pack
committees, and thus jam the damnable new
tariff through the House.
By reason of this base desertion and be
trayal of their constituents, these black
hearted scoundrels made it easy for the Trusts
to add enormously to the cost of living. Just
how many good citizens have been ruined by
the new law—just how many have been
driven to crime or suicide by it—God alone
knows. But the daily record of suffering and
of starvation and of deaths from despair, is
enough to sadden the heart of Satan, him
self.
But you, Champ Clark, had no indigna
tion, divine or otherwise, against those De
serters. After your first explosion of anger,
you allowed them to rest in peace.
You set party above principle, and set a
The Tariff Again And the People Should Bring
ET us now examine the statement made
by President Taft in his last message
to Congress. By profession he was a
lawyer, and he served many years on
the Bench as a Federal Judge; con
sequently he is one of the compara-
_L
tively few men who MUST be presumed to
have read the Constitution. There can be no
doubt that he has listened, time and again,,
to arguments involving constitutional ques
tions, yet if you have to judge him by his
official utterances as Chief Magistrate of the
Confederacy, you would say he was utterly
ignorant of the Supreme Law of the land.
Do you remember his language? It was, in
substance, that the Tariff should be so made
as to equalize the cost of production in this
country and abroad; and admit of such
wages as to maintain what he CLAIMED to
be the higher standard of living of American
workmen; and then, finally, to allow the
manufacturers a reasonable profit on their in
vestment.
To put this in different language, which
will explain his meaning more clearly, it is
claimed that manufactured articles can be
produced more cheaply in foreign countries
than in our own, therefore, the American
manufacturer, keenly alive to the welfare of
his workmen, and eager to pay him the best of
wages in order that he may live in that per
fect comfort which is so universal with our
working .classes, must be permitted to pay
higher wages than prevail in other coun
tries. After having provided first, for
the absolute comfort of the wage-earner,
the American manufacturer should be al
lowed a reasonable profit, of which he, of
Thomson, Ga., Thursday, January 19, 1911
greater price on HARMONY than on
DUTY. You not only forgave those scoun
drels, but you virtually asked their constitu
ents to do the same thing. You made a gen
eral effort to save them all; and you made a
special effort to save Pussy-foot Howard.
Tn spite of you, Old Mister Peepul and I
“got"’ your pet, Howard: and, also, the lech
erous old political prostitute, Lon Livingston.
But your support enabled Gordon Lee,
Calico Charley, and Pompous Bill Brantley
to escape, for the time. (We'll get them, be
fore we quit.)
Xow, Sir. you are going from bad. to
worse. Since the election, you've changed
your tune.
The Powers-that-be have summoned you to
Xew York, and have feasted you sumptu
ously. You have been wined and dined by
the representatives of the Trusts and other
Wall-streeters. You have been led up on the
mountain, as it were. Consequently, you are
not the same Champ Clark who bellowed so
virtuously for lower tariffs. You no longer
roar over the wrongs inflicted upon (). M.
Peepul, Esq.
You are now a conservative of the most
pacific sort. Your once raucous bruit against
Special Privilege, is become a haut-boy
a Test Case
course, is the best judge. Now, in order to
carry out this lovely program, which prom
ises such felicity to the comparatively small
number of workmen engaged in the protected
industries, and to guarantee “reasonable/' pro
fits to the comparatively few capitalists, who
enjoy the vast advantages of the proposed leg
islation, the foreigner must be charged, at
the Custom-house, a license fee before he can
enter our market, which license fee he, of
course, adds to the price of his goods.
As you have already learned, the fact
that the foreigner has to mark up HIS
goods, gives the American a chance
to mark IIIS up, too, and inasmuch
as he sells at least five times as great a
quantity of his own goods as the foreigner
can dispose of, under Tariff disadvantages,
the American manufacturer gets five times as
much out of the law-made situation as the
Government gets at the Custom-houses.
It has already been explained to you, how
that addition to the price which the Custom
house duty caused to bo made, follows the
goods to the last purchaser: therefore you
will see that the cool proposition is to take
from the great mass of unprotected laborers,
farmers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, preach
ers—in fact, the great unprivileged masses—
THAT EXTRA MONEY *ehich is to pay
those alleged extra wages and those alleged
reasonable profits.
Now, let us go back a bit: from what
source does Congress derive the power for
enacting any such legislation as that? From
melody for go-slowing. Your battle-cry has
sunk into the courtier purr.
And you have deserted—just as the 23
scoundrels did. on March 15. 1009!
You have gone over to old Joe Cannon,
just as Lon Livingston did. In fact, you
have done more for that old Hessian of the
Interests than Living-ton was able to do.
Old Lon could only get one traitor at a
time. Lon's help came in driblets.
"I've got you another Georgia vote. Joe."
“That's good. Lon."
That was how it was in 1909: but in 1911.
after the elections, you. Champ Clark, led
nearly ALL the Democrats over to Cannon!
You threw the mantle of approval over the
23 deserters, by following their example.
You, the official Democratic leader, ordered
the entire Democratic force to the support
of the str nd pat Republicans, and all but a
handful obeyed you.
Have you no fear that the common people
may resort to some of THE METHODS
THAT WERE EMPLOYED AGAINST
TORIES, by. our Revolutionary ancestors?
The same hot blood is in our veins, Old
Hoss; and we are rapidly reaching the con
clusion that we have been throwing tufts of
grass, long enough.
what line of the Constitution does President
Taft draw his authority for signing bills for
“extra wages and reasonable profits,” for J AT
line of business?
The only purpose for which duties can be
collected at the Custom-house is that of rais
ing revenues to pay the expenses of the
Government. The Protective principle is
utterly abhorrent to our fundamental law,
yet Mr. Taft serenely assumes that the Con
stitution empowers the Government to legis
late “extra wages” into the hands of certain
bread-winners, and “reasonable profits’’ into
the pockets of certain capitalists. The very
fact that he does this, in an official message,
is the best evidence of how far he is from
base.
The Supreme Court of the United States
claims and exercises, the right to set aside
acts of Congress that are unconstitutional; I
have always wondered why no one has ever
brought a test ease against the abominable
protective tariffs. I am told that the reason
is that the preamble carried in such bills in
variably designates them as “bills to raise
revenue.” The name given to a bill in the
preamble is no estoppel to a legal investiga
tion of the character of the bill itself. If
Congress should appropriate forty million
dollars for rivers and harbors, and should call
it a revenue bill, would that fix the legal na
ture of the bill? Obviously not.
The court would have a perfect right to
examine the Payne-Aldrich bill to determine
whether it is intended to raise revenue or
was meant to protect American industry. The
character of the schedules, the manipulation
(concluded on page nine.)
Price, Five Cents