Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-05-22


If lions are indirectly tortured, ii
I rich few are made the beneficiari,
= of all the products of the labor
/ the masses.
n AS the public debt diminishes tn
J. necessity for public expenditure bt
It comes less, and we find the inc0ln
d tax, which at one time amounted
q many millions of dollars annually
i repealed. Wefind the tax on mar
a ufactured articles and on sales rt
S pealed; the tax on transfers mad
Il by brokers repealed; in short, ever
Y tax that the necessities of war dc
e manded against the rich and pros
: porous repealed, and every tax tina
went to the homes of the laborin
f masses retained on the estatute-books
t thus carrying out the policy that
: announced in the outset of my re
marks that the effort of legislator
/ from the close of the war to tn
; present time seems to have been t.
| exempt the rich and the powerful
!, from the exactions of government
: and cast its burdens upon the shoul
, ders of the poor. The theory tina
lies at the foundation of our revenue
system is by indirect means tt
reach every hovel and subtract &
tithe from the hard earnings of it
inhabitants, and to relieve from
taxation the great accumuiations o.
capital in the hands of manufactur'
ers and monopolists.
One of the expedients resOrted to
is the revenue derived from customs
/ dues. The duties on salt, on sugar,
on woolens, on paper, on type, on
agricultural implements, trace and
other chains, hoes, plows, axes,
saws, files, anyils, and almost every
thing that enters into the everyday
life, use and consumption of the
six millions of people who till the
soil and perform the ordinary me-
chanical labor of the country for a
livelihood, are by operation of law
made to assist in supporting the
burdens of the government, while
the large accumulation of capital in
the hands of bankers, brokers, rail-
road magnates, and monopotfsts is
exempted from all of such burdens.
IreaIize, Mr.. Chairman, that it is
necessary so long as our public
debt. remains at its present volume
to resort to this means to produce a
portion of our revenue. But l be-
iieve the true principle upon which
all governmental affairs should be
conducted is the principle of taxa
tiOn based upon valuation. In this
connection / desire to ask if it
would not have been better for the
genera1-tnass and more in harmony
with Justice and the spirit of our
institutions. to have restored the in-
come and all other taxes to which |
have adverted and thus have sub
tracted from the necessary volume
to be raised by the system of GUS
toms dues, Which, however framed,
must of necessity be odiOus and un-
equal in its exactiOns.
A tariff for revenue only is the
nearest approximation to justice
that can ever be obtained by it.
Had we established this as the basis
it could be defended, but the policy
that constructed the system made
the doctrine of revenue recovery
a subordinate condition, and intro
duced new phase in financial phil
osophy. They made duties on inn
ports so high on many articles of
manufactures at home that import
ing them became impossible, and
therefore no revenue was derived
from them, thus enabling the home
manufacturers in numerous in
stances to more than double the
price at which they sell their pro-
ducts to the consumers, and follow
ing out this policy of protection,
which has always had as its base
and substructure the the theory of
making the rich richer aud the
Door poorer, there has been foisted
upon the American people system
of eXactiOnS more OnerOuS1 to the
laboring classes than exists in any
other country on earth.
What the laboring masses of this
country want is a system by which
they can buy such articles as they
need without paying, in the form Of
tribute to the manufacturer, one |
half their value as a bonus. 1t can |
be shown .conciusiveiy by official |
facts and figures that a suit ofcloth-
ing, including coats, pants, vest, |
hat, boots, etc, should cost without |
the present onerous custom duties
the SUM of Sill 80, whereas by the |
additional burdens imposed under
our system of protection the amount |
paid in custom dues alone is $40 "a.
Almost twice the entire cost of the
suit of clothes goes into the pockets
of the manufacturer, and not one /
cent into the treasury of the United
States.
Protective duties, by which /
mean such protection as will secure
lis a permanent feature of
our tariff system. Investigation Of
the results of the imposition of these
duties will demonstrate, however,
that for every dollar paid into the
treasury the consumer is compelled
to pay 43 per cent, to the home
manufacturer; and if this be true, is
it not our duty to resort to every
consistent with justice to
lessen the volume to be derived
through such a source? While the
realizes less than two
millions of dollars from
the customs revenues, it costs the
people more than six hundred mil
lions annually by reason of the en-
hanced prices of the protected arti-
cles. Why abolish the income tax,
which was a Just eXaction for the
which the government
gives to property and business, and
destroy all confidence by the impo-
sition of onerous and oppressive
customs dues on such articles of
prime necessity as salt, sugar, agri-
cultural implements, medicines,
ETC., and compel the consuming
millions to pay nine-tenths of it to
the home manufacturer in the shape
of protection rather than to the
in the form of revenue?
Protection is bad enough, in heav-
EMS name, but prohibition is crime
that disgraces the age in which we
live. ''It is the synonym of aristoc-
racy, monopoly and debt"
The fact that this philosophy of
protection of the rich and robbery
of the poor lies at the very founda-
tion of our revenue system is DEM
onstrated when we consider that the
whole bonded debt Of the United
States is exempted from taxation,
which in the annals of legislative
enormity is without any sort of peer
or parallel. Two thousand mill
ions of the available wealth of this
country is directly Withdrawn from
state and national taxation, there
by imposing additional burdens on
the remaining values, and the con-
suIners and producers of wealth be-
ing without that great credit. haV-