Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1880-03-04
CHEAPER TYPE AND PAPER,
g., the Name of the Wisconsin Editors.
=. washington Peck Petitions Con.
gress 10 Abolish the Tariff ON Print.
ing Materials.

q washington Peck Petitions Con.
gress 10 Abolish the Tariff on Print.
ing Materials.
OFFICE PRESIDENT WISCONSIN EDrroRs')
AND PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION,
MILWAUKEE. February 20th. 1850.
10 Senator's and Members Of Congress:
1t becomes my painful official duty to address
YOU a few lines. and if you will pay attention
and allow the ideas herein advanced to gently
enter your several systems without the aid of
surgical operation or shot gun, it will be
cussed sight more than have a right to
expect. At the annual meeting Of the Wiscon-
sin Editors and Publishers association, held
last June at Oshkosh, after the members had
been formally admitted 10 the insane asylum,
they passed the following whereases and resoiu-
tons, between free lunches and picnics, and
made me the humble instrument Of torture to
bring the aforesaid whereases and resolutions to
your attention:
WHEREAS, The type foundries Of the United States
have formed combination for the purpose Of I'M
posing such terms and regulations as they choose
upon trade and
WHEREAS, They have been and are using their
sanizaton to the great disadvantage and injury Of
their patrons, the printers and publishers OF the ooun-
try, and
WHEREAS, The ordinary and permanent difficulties
in the way of obtaining type from foreign countries
are such to afford ample protection to American
type foundriee without the addition of the safeguard
of a tariff, therefore
Resolved That the just interests Of the printers
tariff on type metal and type be removed.
Resoipsa, That the representatives. Of Wisconain in
congress urgently requested 70 use their influence
and efforts to secure speedy Abolition OF such taTfi
Now that you have read the resolutions, it is a
supposable case that you will feel that your next
duty is TO threw them into the waste basket. In
the name of 100000 people, be the same
more or less, ask you not to lose your cud, but
rumnate, Us it were, and think over the high
way robbery that is being praetced upon your
unsophisticated constituents by the type foun-
ders who are laundering the news
papers As it is now they stand III the en-
trance of the editorial sanctum and take the
money that comes in on subscription, and only
allow the publisher the cord wood and farm
produce. by the protection your honorable
body affords them, in the way OF tariff. they
grapple the throat of every newspaper in Amer
lea, and say "keno," while the newspaper pub
Usher can only return his chips to the dealer
and say so, HE'LL Every article that is used
by a newspaper man, excepting secondhand
ulster overcotts and liver pads, is protected by
a tariff that makes the cold chills run up his
spine.
Another thing that the ASSOCIATION did not
pass any resolution about but which they prob
ably will ut the next meeting, If there are
enough of them left outside OF the poor house TO
meet. before they meet on that beautiful shore,
is the recent action of the manufacturers of
paper, who are endeayoring to scrow down the
lid of the newspaper coffin which the type foun-
ders are preparing for the grave. In the last
three months by their own sweet will, they have
run the price of paper up almost hundred per
cent. There is nothing to prevent them from
doing it, as foreign manufactured paper IL kept
out Of the country by the tariff. Every article
that goes into the construction of rag paper ex-
cept bass wood, sweat and water, has tariff on
it. The soda, the asafptida and blue mass, or
whatever is used to deodorize undershirts and
cast off drawers, so that they Will smell good In
a newspaper, has q corn on it in the shape OF
tariff, so that the paper manufacturing three
card monte chaps have an excuse to bleed news
papers to the last drop. What the newspapers want
and they believe it is not an unreasonable de-
mand, Is the removal OF the tariff on type ON
rags, on paper. and on all chemicals used i'll the
manufacture Of paper. In tariff on rags llf
there Is no tariff rags you better put one on,
unless you remove the tariff on the rest of the
stuff; if tariff is good thing you can't have
too much of it'll for instance, whom do you pro-
teot9 Nobody but guttorsnipe rag plckers, and
old maids, who save up rags to buy snuff, and
tin pedders who trade tin dippers and SWIMMERS
occasionally for q flour sack full of bad smelling
rags. Are the rag pickers and old maids your
principal constituents?
The newspapers of the country believe that
they are entitled to some consideration Mt your
hands. They are in many ins ances the Instru-
ments through which many If you have at
tanned the positions you now hold, and they
never have got much of anything from you eX-
cept patent Office reports and agricultural docu-
meuts They have set up nights for you. and
done dirty work that may bar them out OF all
participation in the chariot races in the golden
streets of the New Jerusalem, and now they de-
mand that you protect them from the ravages
of the type founding and paper making grass
hoppers before il is eyerlastingly too late.
Not being one of the I'D literary fellers
so touchingly alluded to by the great Senator
Simon Cameron, this epistle to you Corinthians
may be little raw, and not as polished AZ it
Should be, but it tlios to represent the feelings
of .he Newspaper men of Wisconsin in language
that tne wayfaring man, though diaboical
IDIOT can understand, and 1t means business.
The newspapers are desperate, and while they
don't want to go on the war path, they feel that
they have been rayished about enough by the
different tribes of benehcaries of the govern
ment. If you great men pass bill to give us
relief you will strike it rich, and don't You for
get it, Yours about mad enough.
GEn. W. PHcK,
Pres. Wis. Editors and Publishers Assn.
A FRENCH scientist has made the dis