Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1870-06-25

Who Pays Interest to Bondholders?


Farmer, mechanic, workingman, do you
ever wear a coat!
DO you ever wear a business coat, suita.
bic for all work, or do you dress in broad.
cloth, drink costly wines aud fare sumptu.
ously every day?
Is your money invested in lands, in
tools, in machine shops, in farms and
farming implements
Are you miner working in the coal.
beds !; in the lead regions; away up in
the Superior copper country, or among
the ravines, gulchcs and auritcrous mines
of California
you arc workingman you arc very
foolish man.
If you are a bondholdcr-on of those
protected individuals who draws all his
money from industrial cntcrpriscs.-a man
who gives no employment to others-a
man who lays not one brick above another
then the Government, which, you know,
Is the. best government the world ever
saw, will pay you interest on the bonds
you hold, taxing you nothing. If your
money is invested in that which produces
something, which gives employment to
others, which enables men to earn somc-
thing for the support of their families and
the Identifying of their homes, you will
be taxed directly and indirectly.
Some people say the rich men alone pay
the interest to the bohdholdcrs, and are
interested in tho national debt If you
use tobacco, remember that for every
pound You use, if the tobacco is of good
quality, you pay thirty.two cents tax per
pound, which money goes into the Treas
ury, to be drawn out by those holding
bonds exempt from taxation. If you use
tobacco you are one Of that class which
pays Il tax Of thirty million dollars per
year on this article alone.
And you wear u coat--such as we wear
when engaged in labor. Let us see what
that coat costs.
This afternoon we were in one of the
largest wholesale concerns in New York
City, looking at goods of various kinds,
inquiriny the prices thereof, cost of manu-
tacturc and import, revenue paid thereon,
&c. We found that the article of goods
known as pilot cloth, made in England,
costs there two shillings per yard, in gold.
Sufficient cloth to make an ordinary bust
ness coat, of the kind of goods above
named, costs, delivered in New York for
goods and freight, fifty ythrc, cents in gold.
Our government has placed a tax on this
article of wearing apparel, in demand for
workingmen's wear, at fifty cents per
pound, and thirty-ivc per cent, nd raIo-
rem.
TO make business coat, two and a half
pounds of this cloth is required. The
cost of the article, delivered at the wharf,
is fifty three cents. The tax paid thereon
by the wcarer is one dollar and forty-two
cents. And this tax the poor man, who
wears coat of the above material, has to
pay for the benefit of bondholders. Now
let us see how the Government serves the
rich man who wears u better quality of
goods.
Material for coat of the same pattern,
made from what is known in the trade us
Carr's Elysian, or beaver goods, costs for
the material three dollars aud sixty cents.
The tax thereon is two dollars and twenty
six ccnts-thc tax being but very little
more than that paid by the poor man, al
though tho quality of goods is lighter,
finer, and five hundred per cent, more du-
rablc.
The poor man, on his working coat pays
three hundred per cent. educational
revenue tax for the support of those who
are themselves untaxed.
The man who has money, and is able to
dress we'll, pays duty of sixty-three per
cent-a discrimination in favor of the
rich and against the poor of two hundred
aud thirty-sevcn per cent. ,.
And yet people say wo must say moth
ing against United States bonds. They
say we must not ask the Government to
call them in and give out an uniform cur
rency therefor, as It clearly has the right
to do without any violation of the original
contract. Because We stand by the men
who wear poor clothes-the ones who pay
three hundred per cent. duty as tax to
Government that is continually robbing
them, we are announced as an enemy to
the Government. But thank God, we are
not an enemy to the people, to those who
labor; to those who are pushing forward
the nation who are working in the forests,
on the rivers, in the fields, work. shops and
mines-who are by honest labor emitting
themselves to more pay and greater pro.
lection than they have.
Workingmen, when you put on your
coat, or when you take it off, think Of the
duty and the tax you pay thereon. And
when you see man with a better article
of goods on his back than you wear, think
how much more you pay to the Govern.
ment than he does, and tell us, if you can,
that you arc not entitled to more voice
and more of say concerning matters af-
fecting the people, especially yourselves,
than the one who dresses elegantly, and
pays not quarter of the tax you do.
And then tell us if this is the correct
way for the Government to encourage la