The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-10-06
A FEW STARTLING FIGURRs.


Fellow citizens, Ihad occasion at the be-
ginning of the legislative session last win
ter to state to the legislative bodies and to
the people that the taxes for the ten years
following the war had been $1,000, 900, 900, |
$700,000,0O0 year on the average for |
each of the ten years. Now | submit to
you whether this is not too large proper
ton of all you can earn to be appropriated
to such purposes. Think of it'll Your
national debt is but the amount of three
years taxation. Think Of it! You have
built in the last 40 years 10000 miles OF
railroads. The nominal amount OF their
stock and bonds might be something near
81, 900, 100000 and in actual cost about
So, 500, 100000. Fellow-citizens,t the whole
of this vast sum expended for these pur-
poses, is less than 81 years of taxes. Trv
another illustration. You are very proud
that you are the greatest gold and silver
producing nation of the world. You boast
that on your broad areas and fertile soil,
you raise crops to send abroad, to exc out
the supply necessary to feed the popula,,
ton of the Old World. You send forward
your grain, gathered from every part Of
the United States. You send meat, you
send cheese, you send other products OF
the farm. You send vast quantities of
petroleum, and then you have one crop the
most of which is exported, the largest that
any nation in the world contributes to the
exchanges of mankind. | mean the cot
ton crop, which yields from $200,0O0,0 900
to $3.50, 100000 year to foreign exports.
WHAT A BURDEN TAXATION IS.
| Now, my fellow citizens, what is the re-
suit? When you have sent forward your
gold and your silver, when you have sent
forward your petroleum, when you have
sent forward your wheat, and your corn,
and your cheese, and your meat, and your
products of every kind when you have
sent forward your cotton; when you have
raked and scraped this continent from the
lakes to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the
remote interior, what have you done
When you have gathered together all
these products, and paid the cost of carry
ing them to the seaboard-a cost often
larger than the original cost of raising the
products-what have you done? Why,
with every exportable commodity of this
continent arrived at our Atlantic ports anC
delivered into the vessels of foreigners, you
have paid ten months of one years taxes
INROADs OF THE TIMES ON CAPITAL.
use the illustrations to present in al
clear manner as possible to your minC
the burden of the system to which you arr
subjected. In a speech which l made
seven years ago, pointed out this condi
ton of things, and | said that while yol
could pay what you do pay during thu
swelling of values, out Of the froth of APP
parent and iilusory wealth, when price
, should come to settle to their ordinary con
dition, as they were sure to do, and no
thing could prevent them from doing, tina
then it would take not merely your earn
. ings,it would take not merely your income
: but it would trench upon your capital it
self to pay such taxation. And now
s gentlemen, while at that time it was diff
e cult to get an audience, or find ears willin
I to listen, that change has come. 1t is up
! on you. No human continuance, no act c
government, can prevent the reaction tina
e has grown out of fictitious condition c
values. When it disappears aud price
II recede, then there settles around you, lik
q a dark cloud, this weight of taxation, whic
Iyou should have fOreseen and avoide
3 years ago. Applause.
WHAT is TO BE DONE.
W Fellow citizens, l appeal to you, will
l out reference to your party character (
y. party affiliations, to join, each man fl
y himself, in the great object of repressir
y and retrenching these evils. If you are
l Republican, see to it that no Republica
~ Continued on third page.)