Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-22
A TARIFF POLL TAX.

And now the makers of silk hats have
come forward and asked to be relieved from
the oppression imposed upon them by the
tariff. 1t appears that the black silk plush,
and the silk bands and lining and binding
used in making hats, are nearly all import
ed, and the duty upon all this material is
sixty per cent. The black silk plush can
only be made in France at least all efforts
to make it in other countries have thus far
failed, and an attempt to establish manu-
factory in the United States resulted in the
almost total loss of the capital invested.
Thus there are no home industries to be
protected by the tariff on silk-hat ma
terial, but on the contrary the only home
industry that is concerned is being crushed
out by the heavy hand of the Government.
The hat-makers put the case as follows
=" Here, then, we have strange anomaly,
GO of a once furnishing manufacturing inter-
'est almost crushed out by Government
tax intended to foster home industry.
90 Hundreds of skilled artisans, men who
have spent years in acquiring the prof.
cheney required by their delicate trade,
g deprived of a livelihood, and the
g Government itself, by the oppressive
'' ness of the tax, deprived Of the
g revenue that formerly accrued to it
''when the rate of duty was Gghter-in
90 word, a home industry destroyed, no
home industry promoted, and the Gov
eminent revenue cut off" This is GER
tainly satisfactory outcome of an attempt
to protect home industry, but it is not one
whit more absurd and mischievous than
three-fourths of the workings of the tariff
The tax upon the material of silk hats re-
suits in imposing poll-tax of one dollar
upon every American citizen who wears a
silk hat. That is one aspect Of the case,
but it has another, which is the one calling
out the appeal of the hat-makers. Govern
Inent has put an embargo on their industry
by compelling them to charge prices which
drive the public to buy cheaper kinds of
udbS IhcJ nave 1HtHsSLNeS 70
make silk hats, and the Government now
prohibits them from earning their living
by making these hats. 1t Will be seen at
once that in this case the tariff operates
as an invidious discrimination against
a particular industry, and that it is
in fact equivalent to law regulating :"
the prices of hats. In other cases this
kind of robbery and confscation is
usually justified on the ground that it is
for the protection of some home industry !;
the said industry being one which either
could not stand upon its own bottom, and
therefore ought never to have been estab-
hshed, or which can support itself, but
prefers, naturally enough, to be enriched
by tax levied on the general public. The
matters, however, represent a home indus
try which is being destroyed by protection,
not only without any compensating benefit
to the revenues, but to its positive injury.
Nor is this unique case, but only one out
of many in which the tariff produces
equally mischievous and inequitab!e effects.
The iron and sugar and paper makers, how
ever, will of course resist the removal of
even such abuses, lest they should open
the door to general tariff reform.