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Yet Senator Aldrich has reported from the
Finance Committee of the Senate a resolution
which proposes to have the National Banks
take charge of our Custom House Receipts,
and use these public funds, free of interest,
in their private business 1
The Government is to throw off pre
tense of disguise, and to admit the bald fact
that it is taxing the money out of the pock
ets of the people into the coffers of a few Pet
Banks!
In effect, the Secretary of the Treasury has
long been acting upon that principle. To the
extent of $150,000,000 a few National Banks
have been keeping for a year, our public
funds, free of interest.
But the Aldrich plan goes a long step fur
ther.
The Custom Houses take in about one mil
lion per day, and the proposition is to have
the Collector pour this vast sum into the Na
tional Banks!
One would have supposed that such an in
fan. «is proposition would have raised a storm
in the Senate—but it didn’t.
It was taken as quite an ordinary proposi
tion.
Again, consider that matter of paying the
Bailroads $48,000,000 for carrying the mails.
All the world knows that this sum is exor
bitant pay for the service. For thirty years
attempts have been made to stop the robbery.
This year, the Senate Committee cut out
$12,000,000 of appropriation and thus brought
the sum down that much nearer to what is
But the Railroads united against the reduc
tion, put lobbyists to work and in due time
a little amendment was slipped in which gave
the railroads just what they wanted.
Consider also Senator LaFollette’s bill to
prevent the railroads from working engineers
and other employes more than 16 hours con
secutively.
Surely, if ever there was cause for such a
law we can produce it. Almost every week
we are horrified by some railroad tragedy,
traceable, in part, to overworked men.
But the railroads don’t want to be hindered
in their use of an engineer for 42 hours on a
stretch and the word was quietly passed along
to the Senators who serve the corporations.
These dutiful gentlemen did what was want
ed, and LaFollette’s bill has been amended
out of its purpose.
So, you see, you elect vour man to Congress,
and you shout exultantly over your glorious
victory—but when the pinch comes the Pro
tected Interests capture this man of yours and
persuade him to do what they want done.
Congress is never quite able to see things
your way. Congress would really like to help
you—but the Constitution!
Yes, it’s the Constitution that prevents the
otherwise willing Congress from giving you a
square deal.
You would like to be relieved of some of
the awful burdens of Class Legislatioa, of the
grinding tyranny of Special Privileges, of the
frightful wrong of having almost every other
industry Protected at your expense.
But poor Congress!—it can not relieve you.
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
Every member of the House and Senate
would gladly do something for you if
he could. I know this is so because he says
so himself.
Perhaps you will some day catch on to the
way in which you have been humbugged, and
will send no man back to Congress who can
not prove that he did something for you or
made a manful effort so to do.
* n *
"Uncle Heeslvax Can 9 t Afford It. 99
So you can’t afford to pay a dollar or so per
year as dues to the Farmers’ Union, eh?
Poor old Uncle Beeswax! I’m sorry for
you.
Yet when I see the lavish hand with which
you have been throwing your cash around, I
marvel at your impudence in saying that you
don’t join the Farmers’ Union “becaze I can’t
afford it.”
Why, Uncle Beeswax, what do you mean,
anyhow? Are you joking, or are you just in
fun ?
Why, man alive, I never saw anybody so
free with his money as you are!
The world never saw such a reckless spend
er of money as you are. Who pays our Nation
al Taxes?
You do, Uncle Beeswax. The manufactur
ers pay none, the billion-dollar Insurance com
panies pay none, the National Banks pay
practically none, the Express Companies pay
none, the Railway corporations pay none, the
colossal industrial Trusts pay none.
Who then pays our National taxes?
The bulk of them are paid by your Uncle
Beeswax!
The Protected Interests have unloaded their
taxes and troubles upon you, Uncle Beeswax.
Yours is about the only industry not specially
favored by law, old man.
The army, the navy, the Internal Improve
ments, the Pension Roll, the Salary Account,
the Postal Deficit—it all rests ftpon your
broad, unprotected shoulders, old hoss.
The Billion Dollar Congress of McKinley
got its billion mostly from you, Uncle Bees
wax.
The Two Billion Dollar Congress of Roose
velt will get its two billions mostly from you.
Don’t squirm, Uncle Beeswax! Face the mu
sic—the facts.
You are the patient pack mule of the Amer
ican Government, and everybody knows it but
you*
Not able to afford to join the Farmers’ Un
ion?
Why, you’re laughing at me, Uncle Bees
wax. You can afford anything.
You funny old creature! Didn’t you give
twenty million dollars to Spain for the Philip
pines and haven’t you spent a thousand
million dollars there since? Don’t you pro
pose to spend many another thousand million
dollars hi those pestilential holes?
Are you not going to give Tom Ryan six
million dollars for every one hundred million
which that eminently respectable Wall Street
plunderer can spend in digging the Panama
ditch ?
Are you not going to vote a Ship Subsidy
which will take about six million dollars out
of your pocket every year and pour them into
the coffers of such railroad kings as J. J. Hill,
E. H. Harriman and T. F. Ryan?
Not afford to join the Farmers’ Union?
Why, Uncle Beeswax, you tickle me almost
to death. If you can afford to be robbed of
$45 every year to maintain national extrava
gance, can’t you afford to spend $1 per year
in the effort to save the $45?
Think it over, Uncle Beeswax, and get into
line with your class.
A great struggle for justice, for Right, is
ahead of us, old man! Don’t shirk or skulk
or run. Toe the mark like a man and help us
redeem you as well as ourselves.
'Editorial Notes.
If the members of Congress from the South
and West can not head off those ship subsidy
thieves who are trying to steal from the Treas
ury nearly six million dollars per year, they
ought to be ashamed to come home.
The ships which will get the subsidy be
long to the railroad kings—J. J. Hill, E. H.
Harriman and T. F. Ryan.
Why should Congress rob the Treasury in
the interest of such men as these?
If our Representatives can not block a bare
faced steal like that, they are not worth their
salt. (Later —The Democrats blocked it, all
right.)
•e
A New York law put a tax of two cents a
share on stocks.
The stock gamblers objected to the tax—
of course. And they found a judge who de
cided that the tax law was illegal.
Os course.
It seems that you can find pretty much any
sort of a judge that you want in New York.
In arriving at the amount of compensation
payable to railroads for carrying the mails,
the Post Office authorities weigh the mails for
a full week of seven days, and then divide by
a workday week of six days.
In other words, to get at the average mail
carried per day for seven days, the govern
ment divides the whole amount of the seven
days’ mail by six.
Why not by seven?
Because that would lessen the pay of the
railroads.
•6
Suppose a railroad to carry seven thousand
pounds of mail matter during one week of sev
en days.
The government wants to know how much
that is per day on an average.
Looks simple, doesn’t it?
You would say, “Divide the 7,000 pounds
by 7 days, and you get the average daily mail
of 1,000 pounds.”
But that isn’t the way it is done at all. They
divide the 7-°°o by six, and thus you get an
average daily mail, for the seven days, of
1,166 2-3 lbs. Now this difference of more than
166 pounds in favor of the railroads does not
look like a very big thing, but when you re
member how many hundreds of thousands of
pounds of mail matter are affected by it, every
week in the year, you can begin to realize
what an imposition upon the tax payers it is.
(Continued on Page 12.)
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