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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
*«A«A**A*A *-* - • A » M
THE DINGLEY TARIFF—IB97.
“JNo one will claim that the agri
cultural interest is protected. It is
true mere is a duty on wheat, barley,
oats, etc., but it does not afford any
protection. . . This high tariff ex
cludes our highly taxed manufac
tures, made from highly taxed mate
rial, from the markets of the world,
although we have natural advantages
possessed by no other nation.” —ben.
Win. B. Allison.
“Every advance toward a free ex
change of commodites is an advance
in civilization. Every facility to a
free exchange cheapens commodities,
increases trade and production, and
promotes civilization. ... A few
years farther experience will convince
the whole body of our people that a
system of national taxes which rests
the whole burden of taxation on con
sumption, and not entirely on prop
erty or income, is intrinsically un
just.”—John Sherman.
The longest road has a turn; the
darkest night is followed by dawn;
tides ebb and flow; spring follows
winter and periods of depression are
followed by times of revival. John
bherman was facetiously credited
with the unprecedented farm crops
of 1879 and the Dingley tariff has
been seriously credited with the time
ly showers and their products since
President McKinley’s inauguration.
Given the fertile fields of America,
her forest and mineral wealth, her
facilities for manufacture and trans
portation, the inventive genius of her
people and above all their enterprise
and industry, and permanent stagna
tion is impossible, however vicious
may be her system of taxation.
It is the tine art of the railroad
monopolist to take just “all the tar
iff will bear.” It will not do to de
populate the farms by excessive
charges but leave the northwest farm
ers just enough to keep the Russian
immigrant, his wife and his children
pushing the plows, the drills and the
reapers. Under McKinley’s tariff,
monopoly took much and stagna
tion followed. (Free trade they called
it; it was freedom to plunder without
restraint.) Under the Dingley tariff
they have learned to leave labor just
enough to continue its hopeful or
hopeless struggle.
When all else has reached the stage
of most profound slumber the cock
crows at the approach of dawn. When
our hands were empty, our farm
equipment worn out, merchants'
shelves empty and factories empty
there arose the shout, “The advance
agent of prosperity is about to take
the saddle. ’ ’ Merchants ordered
goods. Factories had to start. Men
were put to work; business revived,
and all this under the Gorman tariff.
(No thanks, however, are due to Gor
man or the tariff.) When once in
motion our long felt needs urged on
the wheels of activity, which grew by
what it fed upon. All things, except
the tariff, even greed conspired to
give us the greatest era of production
ever known in the world’s history.
During the period of stagnation
invention had not been idle. Tele
phones and typewriters, gas engines
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
• •
and electricity from water power, im
proved implements of every kind,
coupled with the farmers’ skill in im
proving breeds and seeds and meth
ods of every sort, have added untold
increments to our wealth.
Moreover, never before since rec
ords were kept has Providence poured
upon us such timely showers. Never
were the products of our farms so
great, nor even did they approach it;
and Dingleyites claim credit for it all.
Nearly half our people are still
upon farms and more than half the
remainder depend upon the prosper
ity of the farmer. When those pros
per all others must do so. Moreover,
if the farmers’ great gains are all
stolen the wicked must indeed wax
fat.
Tariffs have to do with the dis
tribution of property, not its produc
tion. By no possibility can legisla
tion produce a dollar; it may divert
industry or destroy it; it might en
courage but it cannot cause it.
Since all industries cannot be pro
tected a protection to any one sim
ply means a privilege to plunder
from others. How is it that one per
cent of the people in America now
have more than half the earnings
of the other 99 per cent? How the
Dingley tariff has served this mal
distribution of property is the sub
ject of Part V. of this work.
From 1850 to 1860 our wealth in
creased 126' per cent. Half the peo
ple were farmers and under our mild
tariff half the wealth went to them.
From 1870 to 1880 the increase was
77 per cent and the farmers received
17 per cent of it; from 1860 to 1890
wealth increased 62 per cent and the
farmers had 17 per cent of this; from
1890 to 1900, wealth inerfeased but 45
per cent and the farmers got less than
15 per cent of it. Fifteen per cent
of 45 per cent is 6 3-4 per cent, while
from 1850 to 1860 the farmers’ gains
were 47 per cent of the total wealth
of 1850.
The farmers realized the inequity
but said the railroads took it and
they assailed them and drove them
to bankruptcy. They said it was the
middle men and they fought to de
throne them. They said it was due to
the kind of money they could not get.
The qualitative theory of money has
been proved true by the progress of
events. However good or bad, wise
or otherwise, his proposed remedy
might have been, it was not applied;
it was not needed. The unexpected
and unprecedented increase in the
production of gold has given us rap
idly increasing prices which have cer
tainly proved a powerful stimulant to
trade and production.
This is unquestionably a potent
cause of our prosperity despite the
Dingley tariff. But,where, oh where,
has gone our portion of this prosper
ity? We now know it is monopoly
that robs us of our earnings. Will we
try to pursue and punish each sepa
rate thieving, slinking, foxy, deceit
ful trust or shall we attack and maim
the “mother of trusts” that she may
produce never another pestiferous
brood ? —Exeract from ‘ ‘ The Farmer’s
Tariff Manual,” by Daniel Strange.
STATE COMMITTEE PEOPLE’S
INDEPENDENT PARTY.
August 22, 1907.
Deal- Sir: •
The meeting of the People’s Inde
pendent State Committee, which was
held in the parlors of the Koehler Ho
tel, at Grand Island, on July 30, was
one which was very largely attended
considering the very budy season of
the year. At the meeting definite ac
tion was had upon three important
matters. These were:
1. That the People’s Independent
party had not performed all the good
that it should, and that a complete
state and county organization must be
maintained. That the party of the
common people has a work of educa
tion which demands the best of heart
and mind, for our own and posterity’s
welfare.
2. That the People’s Independent
party should be always ready to join
hands with organizations whose aims,
efforts and beliefs are similar to our
own. We therefore consider it wise
and in the interest of good govern
ment to co-operate at this time with
Nebraska democrats, supporting such
candidates as are pledged to our
cause.
3. That a vigorous campaign
should be waged all along the line,
and with that idea in mind, every pos
sible effort should be made to have a
large representation at the next meet
ing of the State Committee, to be held
in Lincoln, Tuesday, September 24,
at 12 m.
In order to fulfill these instructions
it is necessary that your officers have
the hearty support of all and finances
with which to wage the battle. Right
now we want you to do two things,
viz.:
1. Get together all leading popu
lists of your county —if you have not
a regular county organization—and
after a thorough discussion of the
needs and desires for the perpetua
tion of our organization, let us know
what action you take and in w'hat way
you need assistance.
2. Collect what funds you can for
the carrying out of the work as out
lined by the State Committee. It is
useless to try to carry on an organi
zation without finances. In past
years we have all contributed liberal
ly for the support of our convictions
and there is still need for sacrifices
in order that the work may go foi
ward. If every populist in the state
will be earnest, enthusiastic and will
ing to work, much good can be ac
complished. Prestige that has been
lost will soon be recovered and new’
converts made to our cause.
We are pleased to note that from
the White House, at Washington,
and the Executive Mansions of nu
merous states, come declarations with
populist ring. And it is indeed grat
ifying to note that populist ideas are
no longer derided, nor are we longer
looked upon as a wild-eyed, long
haired, rattle-brained crowd of non
descripts. Populist ideas are being
clothed in republican and democratic
garments and all over this land men
are adopting the principles taught by
the economics of populism.
This is no time to falter. Let us
hear from you as soon as possible.
Send communications and remittances
to either of your officers.
E. A. WALRATH,
Secretary, Osceola, Nebraska.
C. B. MANUEL,
Chairman, St. Paul, Nebraska.
MORE ABOUT THE PARCELS
POST.
By those who are opposed to the
establishment of the parcels post the
principal objection advanced is that
it would multiply the business of the
mail-order houses in the great cities,
to .the detriment of the local trade
in the smaller towns. This is an as
sumption not likely to be verified by
the facts.
Were it practicable to send a five
or ten pound package through the
mails for a nominal sum, would all
such packages be ordered from New
York or Chicago by an Orangeburg
purchaser? asks the Charleston News
and Courier, or would the result of
the new system be greater efforts on
the part of merchants in Charleston
and Columbia to meet the demands
of mail customers? If the latter
would be the event, it seems equally
probable that merchants in Orange
burg would adapt themselves to the
new conditions by making special ef
fort to sell goods by mail within a
radius of thirty or forty miles, as
would the merchants of every town
from which rural delivery routes radi
ate.
The expansion of the rural delivery
system completely changes the aspect
that the parcels post scheme wore a
few years ago. Then the average ru
ral community in the South received
its mail not more than three times
the week, but now there are compara
tively few communities that have not
at least one daily mail. Were the de
livery of larger parcels by these car
riers cheap it would be natural to
expect that thousands of country peo
ple would do much of their shopping e
by mail and not take a day from their
farm work to visit the court-house
town.
A mail order business to be suc
cessful does not require to be domes
ticated in a large city. Any reader
of the advertising pages of the maga
tines will observe that hundreds of
articles are manufactured in and dis
tributed from towns in the North and
Central West that one rarely hears
of in any other way. The parcels
post system might result in the es
tablishment by enterprising merchants
of mail-order houses in the little
towns and to the rural inhabitants
there would be a saving of time as
well as of money by means of them.—
Augusta Herald.
The Louisville Courier-Journal says
“the devil often baits his hook with
a joke.” But his catch is not con
fined to suckers.
A writer of verses in the ew York
Sun declares: “I am a poor poet.”
Some announcements only serve to
fill up space.