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PAGE TWELVE A POLITICAL PLATFORM FOR 1908. (Continued from Page Nine.) weakest link —why do we always forget that? While we shout to the ignorant or timid or sluggish citizen, “Come Forward,” let us shout to the advance-guard, “Wait!” Battles are lost by the rash, as often as by the cowards. Let us cultivate the spirit of co-operation. Excluding extremes, let us try to strike some general average upon which all reformers can harmonize for that campaign. R R R The British Tariff And Ours. In these latter days, the American Tariff is again coming under fire. Unless weather signals deceive, the stand-patters are going to get caught in a storm. The custom house, which was built with public funds for the pur pose of protecting the American manufacturer from the foreigner, is now being used by said manufacturer as a fort, with whose guns he can compel the American consumers to fall at his feet, while he lavishly betstows upon the foreigner the benefits of our Protective system. In other words, our manufacturers are sell ing goods to the outside world at a lower price than we home folks are allowed to have. You and I are compelled to purchase our supplies in a market ruled by Trusts. It is the Tariff wall, shutting out the competition of foreign capital, which enables the manfacturers to form the Trust. Therefore it is the Tariff wall which bottles us up, and which leaves us at the mercy of the Trust; whereas the Trust, itself, can go outside the wall and sell its goods to the foreign world, upon its own terms. But in the foreign-market there is no Trust. Our manufactured goods have to compete with the manufacturers of other countries. Conse quently, the foreigner who buys American goods gets them at a lower rate than is given us. Tn short, our tariff, levied for our benefit, *at a tremendous expense to us, burdens us with the yoke of Monopoly, while it carries to the foreigners the benefits of competition. The general result, the ruinous fact, is that THE TARIFF HAS BECOME A COLOS SAL TRAP, in which the Trust holds the American consumer, while it imports cheap foreign labor, uses it to combat American la bor, and thus compelling the American CON SUMER TO PAY TWO PRICES, is enabled to go abroad and undersell the European man ufacturer in his own market. THE HISTORY OF MANKIND HAS NEVER PRESENTED SUCH A FRIGHT FUL SCENE OF CAPITALISTIC EXPLOI TATION. Under our Tariff system, duties are laid upon several thousand articles of home consump tion ; these .duties are laid to increase the price, and thereby protect the Americans who manu facture those articles. Great Britain does not put one dollar of duty upon any article for the purpose of protecting the man who makes it. The two hundred and sixty million dollars which our Government collected on imports during the fiscal year of 1904 had to come out of the pockets of the American consumer, be cause the import duty was added to the price, and the consumer paid the duty when he bought the goods. But that is not all of it—not by a Jug ful. Upon the huge quantity of home-made goods sold to the home-folks, during the same year, the American manufacturer was able to in crease the price to the extent of the import du ty. Thus, at the same time that the Govern ment collected from you on foreign goods, the American manufacturer collected from you oa domestic goods. And it is estimated that the American manufacturer collects five dollars out of you on domestic goods where the Govern ment collects one dollar on foreign goods. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. Therefore, during the fiscal year, when the Government pulled you for $261,000,000, the American manufacturer pulled you for five times that amount, or $1,305,000,000! Add the two sums, and you have $1,566,000,- 000. Divide this among 80,000,000 people, and you have each man, woman, and child pay ing, annually, almost twenty dollars apiece to keep up our blessed protective system, which, as I have already shown, PROTECTS THE FOREIGN CONSUMER. Great Britain collected, in the same year, $169,000,000 at the custom houses—BUT WHAT ARTICLES PAID THESE DU TIES? About a dozen commodities pay import du ties to Great Britain, whereas more than three thousand commodities pay import duties to the United States. And of the dozen which England taxes at the port of entry not one is among the necessa ries of life. Not a shred of clothing is tariff-taxed in Great Britain. Every shred of clothing is tar iff-taxed in the United States. The same thing is true of other necessaries of life, of build ing materials, of household and kitchen furni ture, of tools to work with, and of hundreds of other articles which we are compelled to have, and which cost us two prices—and some times more—on account of the Protective Tar iff. In Great Britain, what articles bear the im port duties which aggregate the large sum of $ 169,000,000 Wines, rum, brandy, tobacco, tea and coffee, fruits and other such articles of luxury as no man is necessarily to buy. When the Government collects the du ties on these luxuries, there’s the end of it. No British manufacturer comes along and lev ies a tribute five times greater than that of the Government. No “Infant” wine industry is fostered at the expense of the tax-payer. No British rum maker is pampered at the public cost. The hundreds of articles made of iron and steel are not “protected” in Egland from for eign competition in order that a Steel Trust shall earn $119,000,000 net profit per year. There are no Sugar Trust incubated by the British Tariff, no Lumber Trust, no Standard Oil monopoly, no Paper Trust to trample on the laws, rob the people, and defy the Chief Executive. In short, the British tariff is laid for revenue only; and it is laid, not upon the necessaries of life, which the common people must have in order to live, but upon luxuries, which it is optional with every citizen whether he buys or not. In England no citizen needs pay one dollar of the import duties if he feels unwilling to do so; IN THE UNITED STATES THERE IS NO POSSIBLE ESCAPE FOR HIM UN LESS HE IS ABLE TO LIVE ON BRANCH-WATER, GO NAKED, AND ROOST IN A TREE. R R R Not to Speak at Dalton During Tair. Publication has been made, far and wide, of an announcement that I had promised to ad dress the people in Dalton during the prog ress of the Fair. No promise to that effect has been made. Don’t pay the slightest attention to announce ments of that kind UNLESS YOU SEE IT IN THE JEFFERSONIAN. R R R 'Editorial TNotes. We are glad to see Capt. R. H. Milledge in the race for Prison Commissioner. A golden hearted gentleman he is; and he comes as near to being an ideal man for the place as any bodv that we know. R Brother Tibbles of The Investigator has the, eye of a lynx and nothing escapes his vigil ance. Listen to this: “The Burlington road has just declared an extra 6 per cent dividend after paying the regular 8 per cent one. The Burlington is still before the'courts declaring that the 2-cent passenger fare is confiscatory.” A suggestion to the Attorneys-General who have to struggle against “Confiscatory” pleas: Gentlemen, why don’t you institute criminal prosecutions for False Swearing, against these railroad officials? They swear to one statement of facts in those absurd “Confiscatory” pleas, and they swear to a different statement of facts when they make their Tax Returns; why then don’t you nab these shifty criminals with a warrant? Are we never to have enough pluck to go after the big rascals ? Are we forever going to be content with taking up all the time of the court trying niggers for selling liquor and throwing craps? Why not go after these high-handed rail road men who swear two different ways on the question of valuation? In one case or the other, they swear falsely; why don’t you test the matter with a criminal prosecution, and find out which time they were guilty of False Swearing? » “It turns out that the recent prohibitory law. passed by Georgia will send every bishop, min ister, deacon or elder to jail who hands out wine at sacramental services. That fact has created a sensation in the state and no one knows what to do about it.” Sshhh!—Brother Tibbles. The brethren are going to sip sacramental wine, just the same as ever. No jury would convict a good Christian for a sip-—you know. Besides there’s that old rule of construction, laid down in Blackstone. The legislative intent must be regarded, and not even a state Legis lature is supposed to be capable of enacting a law which is ridiculous. For instance, saith Blackstone, the law which in Italy severely punished all “blood-letting in the street.” was held not to apply to the surgeon and his lancet. I have, myself, grave doubts whether those medical surgeons should have been held ex empt from the penalties of the law. They were so fond of bleeding people that they keep the undertakers busy. The Press Agent of the Standard Oil band of free-booters is going at a lively gait these days. He has all the newspapers publishing accounts of the terrible losses of poor H. H. Rogers. “Lost $40,000,000 in the Tidewater Railroads, and is in bed, worse off every day,” and so forth. This is published for effect. The people are expected to “let up” on a man who is in such a bad way as poor Rogers is. Now the actual fact is that H. H. Rogers has not lost a. dollar on the Tidewater Rail road, and is not sick, excepting on the days when the old rascal is wanted in court. The Tidewater Railroad is still on the earth, and it belongs to Rogers, and it is a good piece of property. How did he lose any $40,- 000,000 on it? Nonsense. As to his health he sailed out in his auto mobile with Mark Twain, as soon as the fool Judge continued the case against him; and he was doubtless laughing at the court as inso lently as when, in New York, he told Attorney- General Hadley that it didn’t matteri to him what the Supreme Court of Missouri decided. He, the great Rogers, didn’t care for so trifling a concern as the highest court of a state.