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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.) 9