The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-22
srxRxr OF TEE PRESS.
EDITORIAL Opinions of the Leading Journals
UpOm Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the EyenInR Telegraph.
THE. JOBBERY OF DEMAGOGUES THE
ROBBERY OF THE POOR.

THE JOBBERY OF DEMAGOGUES THE
ROBBERY OF THE POOR.
From the N. Y. Times.
If the labor conventions or the various
organs of the laboring classes were worth
anything as means of instruction, they would
seek to convince their followers of the fall
lacv of one statement at least which has done
more damage to American interests than al
most any other single idea prevalent with
working people, and that is, that the laboring
class derive benefit from the peculations of
their leaders. These instructors of working
men ought to make it an axiom in all their
teachings that the iobbery of demagogues is
the robbery of the poor
The laboring man is influenced by what
seems an immediate gain from a corrupt pro-
ceeding of one of his leaders Thus, if O
Court House is built for five millions which
ought to have cost two and half Millions
the workmen of the city see the profits of
the undertaking to their class ia supplying
work. but do not see that this additional ex
pense, pocketed by jobbers and raised from
taxation, is at once charged to them by capl-
tai in the shape of an advance in rents. And
what is worse, capital must charge more than
the extra taxation, because OF the FISK OF
similar future Jobs. 1t is not the wealthy
who pay for such plundering contracts and
useless expenditures, but the poor and middle
classes.
Some kinds of corrupt administration the
laboring class know and feel at once. Thus,
if the streets are to be paved at q certain ex-
pense, and the contractor only half does his
work and pockets half the cost, all the cart
men and drivers of the city suffer the loss to
their daily business in damage to teams and
wear and tear of horses. Mr.. Peter Cooper
in a recent address to workingmen, said that
the loss to cartmen alone for this city from
this source is equal to thousand dollars a
day. Most of the losses, however, to the
laboring class from the jobbery of our city
governors is indirect. 1t appears in increased
rent of tenements and shops, in the conse-
quent higher price of commodities, and also
in the withdrawal of capital from the city.
If any intelligent laborer desires to see
what effect unequal taxation can have on an
important branch of business, let him go
around our docks, and shipyards, and iron
works at the present time. He will not find
in all New York, with its immense wealth and
boundless commerce, more than one ship in
process of building to-day. He will see mel
ancholy lines of abandoned shipyards, iron
works without business, docks that are empty;
and if he will go to the tenement-house near
by he will meet with the more melancholy
sight of room after room inhabited by strong
men, caullzers, shipwrights, dockyard-laborers
and ironworkers, who are sitting idle, eating
the bread of poverty, and fastening towards
terrible future of want and suffering.
The causes of this calamity, as any one
will inform him, are not alone the heavy
national taxes on the raw material entering
into the structure of ships, but also the heavy
local taxation of New York, as compared with
European cities. This taxation weighs upon
every part of shipbuilders work. 1t adds
to his rent, to the wages he must pay, and to
the cost of all his material as compared with
foreign rival He must pay for all the job
or Eo+b oil IA
If he should undertake to run a line of Anne
rican steamships to Liverpool he would start
with a local tax of nearly three per cent. to
compete with an English company, who barely
pay one per cent All his labor on board
ship his provisions and material would, in one
shape or another, be paying proportions of
this tax. The result of this complication of
taxes, local and national, on branch of bust
ness which must compete with foreign
branches, comparatively unburdened, has
been to drive capital away from it, and
almost to bring it to an end.
This is only one instance. If our intelli-
gent laborer could take an excursion of q
hundred miles around New York, he would
see everywhere springing up in the compare
lively untaxed rural districts, huge factories,
sugar refneries, breweries, sewing machine
factories, and hundreds of similar establish
ments. The cause of this exodus of capital
he would discover to be the desire to escape
the local taxation of New York city. Again,
if he would inquire further, he would discover
that great deal of the printing and book
making of New York is done in distant dis
tricts, even in Massachusetts,, on account OF
the cheaper labor there; the cause of this
greater cheapness being the lower rents and
less personal expenses of the operative, these
again being reduced by an honest local ad
ministration. He would find also that hume
rous branches of other manufacturing
whose products are sold here, are carried on
in New England, though this city has more
facilities for them, because of the heavy taxa
ton and higher price of labor here.
The working class should understand tha
the result of this increasing plunder and enor
NOUS taxation by our city authorities is sure
to be most disastrous to themselves There
will be hosts of unemployed men in this cit.
this winter. Many branches of production
will be closed. The masses of poor will suf
fer with want, but the leaders they havt
chosen and the demagogues who represen
them will be reveling in wealth, wrung from
them.