The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-08
SPIRIT or TIE PRESS.
up,roRIAL oPIFioEs on THB LEADING JouRRAIs
uPoE oURRKHT roPICe-coMPILED KvBRT
DAY FOB TIE svKr1ra rELEGBAPH.
Taxing the Poor.

Eyorn ots NJ y. Tribune. a- 30. --r ...
We do not defend any resolution merely
because some knot or convention OF Republi-
cans may have passed 1t, nor condemn any
he oause passed by Democrats. For instance,
we like the clause in the last national Demo
cratic platform demanding such an adjustment
of our tariff on imports to our internal revenue
Iaxatiop as shall protect American manufao-
4ures batter than we like the last resolutions
of the Republicans of the State OF Indiana,
which at least squint toward partial repudia-
tion, 1t is not, therefore, because kepuoli-
cans adopt it, but because 1t Is sound, that we
endorse the following plank of the recent Con-
necticut Convention, into which the New YORK
Times and Eveninq Post are trying by high
pressure to force the virus OF free trade, out
which we do not take to be sufficiently porous
TO admit their injection. The resolution calls
npon Congress to-
"First formally affirm that when the ma
tionsI debt is paid IL must be paid in gold; ex.
cept where IL Is otherwise distinctly provided
in the original contract; second, introduce the
strictest economy into every branch OF tne
Government; third, refuse all subsidies and
appropriations TO railroads and other enter
prfses outside of the Indispensable machinery
Of the Government; fourth see TO it that the
taxes are impartialy levied and energetically
and honestly collected, and surplus revenues
applied to the reduction of the debt; fifth,
make 1t q constant aim to resume specie pay
mont and give the people uniform and steady
currency, as soon as may be without a violent
disturbance of business; and sixth, to remove
taxation from labor and necesssries OF life, and
TO impose IL as far as possible upon articlesof
luxury"
Now this is so distinctly Tribune platform
as we'll as Republican one, that we pity the
mental weakness of the dolt that can bother
his brain by looking for any Endorsement of
foreign free trade in 1t. We ask that taxa
4ion shall be removed from labor and the
neoessaries of life first, and imposed 80 far as
possible on articles of luxury. Now what are
the taxes that rest most heavily on labor and
7he neoessaries of lifeY First and heaviest
come the duties "for revenue only" levied
on the leading articles of food which every
laborer uses three times day, every day in
the year, viz, tea, coffee, and sugar. At least
one-third of our entire gold revenue is levied
on these three articles alone.
We have been among the miners Of Penn
sylvania, the frontiersmen, wo0dsmen, and
hunters of the West, as well as among the
laborers of cities and the soldiers of our
armies, and we have observed that at the
average the first thing working man or
woman demands, when exhausted by expo
sure or toll, is tea or coffee. The last articles
OF food the working masses will part with,
and almost the only ones on which the tariff
re- IS, are these. The tariff on these articles
is for revenue only, as We do not produce
1b' m (exoept sugar to the amount of one
telth of our consumption), and the principle
OF protection would demand that they be free.
A ,mily will use as much in value of tea,
coffee, and sugar in a week as they will of
salt, lumber, and iron in a year. A poor
fanily will use as much OF either as rich
one. These are the classes of tariff taxes that
rest heavily upon labor, and the moment we
can affsrd to lessen our taxation these are the
taxes that we and every protectionist will de-
mand the repeal of. Will free traders like the
Times, World, and Pest, unite with us in re-
moving these free trade taxes from laborY On
the other hand, we regard the importation of
French and Prussian beaver cloths cassi-
Ineres, and doeskins, to take the place of
American cloths Of equal fneness, texture,
and durability, as something that would be
luxury If 1t were not nuisance. We regard
the importation Of sixth-rat English rails, as
shown in Mr.. Hewetts "Report on Iron,"
of such wretched quality that they have to be
taken up and re-rOlled after six months use,
at the average, and of such sbominable repu-
tation that they find no sale in European
markets, and their substitution in place of
american iron and steel rails, than which no
better or really cheaper are produced in the
world, as something that would be a luxury,
a. waste of wealth, if it were not some
thing far worse. We will 60 to any extent
with all who really want to tighten the taxes
on labor. But what the Post and World want
is to flood British goods into our markets, so
that their advertisers, the importers and
auetioneers, can have good time in selling
them. Meanwhile, the country would come
to grief in trying to export gold and bonds
enough to pay for them.