Connecticut western news., 1880-03-10
The Paper. Question.
A WESTERN EDITOR TAKES THE MATTER IN HAND AND DISCUSSES IT WITH CONGRESS.


 WESTERN EDITOR TAKES THE MATTEL
 IN HAND AND DISCUSSES IT WITT CONGRESS.
 A petition has been received b, Congress from the Wisconsin Editors and Publishers Association praying fo
 the removal of duties on chemicals ant such other dutiable articles as enter intt
 the manufacture of paper. Anticipating
 for it the usual fate of such documents
 Mr. George W. Peck, President of the
 association, appended over his owr
 signature postscript, the evident
 purpose of which is to get satisfaction
 out of Congress in advance. The post
 script accompanies the formal memorial
 and is as follows:
 Now that you have read the
 resolutions it is 8 supposable case that
 you will feel that your next duty is tc
 throw them into the waste basket. In
 the name of 4O,0OO,0OO people, be the
 same more or less, I ask you not to
 lose your cud, but ruminate, as it were.
 and think over the highway robbery
 that is being practiced upon your un.
 sophisticated constituents by the type.
 founders, who are laundering the news
 papers. As it is now they stand in the
 entrance of the editorial sanctum and
 take the money that comes in on sub-
 scription, and only allow the publisher
 the cord wood and farm produce. By
 the protection your alleged honorable
 body affords them, in the way of tariff.
 they grapple the throat of every news paper in America and say 'Keno, l" while the newspaper publisher can only return his chips to the dealer and say, "Oh, thunder r Every article that is used by newspaper man, except secondhand ulster overcoats and liver pads, is protected by tariff that makes the cold chills run up his spine.
 !, Another thing that the association did not pass any resolution about, but which they probably will at the next meeting, if there are enough of them left outside of the poorhouse to meet before they meet on that beautiful shore, is the recent action of the manu- lecturers of paper, who are endeavoring to screw down the lid of the newspaper coffin which the type-founders are pre- pairing for the grave. In the last three months, by their own sweet will, they have run the price of paper up almost 100 per cent. There is nothing to pre- vent them from doing it, as foreign man. ufactured paper is kept out of the country by the tariff. Every article that goes into the construction of rag paper, except basswood and water, has tariff | on it. What the newspapers want, and they believe it is not an unreasonable demand, is the removal of the tariff on type, on rags, on paper, and on all chemicals used in the manufacture of paper. In tariff on rags if there is no tariff on rags you better put one on. unless you remove the tariff on the rest of the stuff if g tariff is 8 good thing you can't have too much of it] for in- stance, whom do you protect? Nobody put guttersnipe rag-pickers and old maids who save up rags to buy snuff, md tin peddlers who trade tin dippers md skimmers occasionally for a flour ack iull of bad-smelling rags. Are the az -pickers and old maids your princi- ,al constituents
 "Ihe newspapers of the country be- ieve that they are entitled to some con- ideration at your hands. They are Tn many instances the instruments through 7hich many of you have attained the 'ositions you now hold, and they never ] ave got much of anything from you { xcept Patent Office reports and agri- ! ulturai documents. They have set ID ' tights for you and done dirty work that i nay bar them out of all parhcipations i D the chariot races in the golden streets l f the New Jerusalem, and now they ( emand that you protect them from the l avages of the type-founding and paper making grasshoppers before it is ever- l asting 600 late. f S"Not being one of the blamed literary ( oilers, so touchingly alluded to by the ( reat Senator Simon Cameron, this pistle toyou Corinthians may be little l aw and not as polished as it should be, ut it tries to represent the feelings of f he news paper men of Wisconsin in l anguage that the wayfaring man, though diabolical idiot, can understand, and ] means business. The newspapers are { desperate and while they don't want to 70 on the warpath, they feel that they lave been ravished about enough by the liferent tribes of benefciaries of the Government. If you great men will 'ass a bill to give us relief, you will trike it rich, and don't you forget it."