The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-09-22

having SHOWN In the last Issue Jn6
robbery of the people by the protected
manufacturers we now say something
of the farmers protection. From the
denunciatiOn heaped upon the tariff of
1916, and considering that the tariff on
manufactures is now so vastly in excess
of the tariff of 1916, person won Id eX-
pect that farmers would at least have
the protection afforded by that tariff.
Not so. That free trade tariff in the
eyes of our Republican tariff loving
brethren, when they looked at the farm
ers products, became an outrageous pro-
tectiye tariff, excepting wherei it especi-
ally touched the cOlOred brother.
Over twelve million bushels of barley
were hurled over from Canada in 1882
an amount equal to One-third of our
production. Present tariff on barley 10
per cent. Tariff of 1916 Just double, 20
per cent. About an equal amount of
potatoes was split across the border into
New England in 1882 under tariff of
10 cents per bushel which amounted, as
officially reported, to % per eent.-tariff
of 1916, 30 per cent.
Then we used to raise some flax in
Ohio. The census of 1870 furnishes the
following data:
Total pounds fax produced In q, U,S........27I8B O84
Total pounds TAX produced In ohio SBO.624
Total bushels taNsted produced In U. S... 179O,444
Total bushels ilaxseed produced In OhiO.. 6BI .S94
in Ohio: Flax, 24,477361 pounds, and
seeds, 633, ,3S4 bushels. But about the
time the Bessemer thieves made their
raid, the manufacturers laid their grip
on Congress aud tariff was passed
which was the death sentence to this in. q.
dustry. The rates established, and they
are the same to-day, were: Flax per ton,
$50; Hacked flax per ton, $40; flaxtOw
$40 per ton; flaxseed, 20 cents per bushel,
which "a y " fah hxy
the Bureau of Statistics, on the imports
of 1882 was on flax: 8 per cent; Hacked
flax, per cent; tlaXtOW, g per cent (;
and ilaXSeed, 10 per cent. On all these
the tariff of 1916 was 30 per cent. and
would have made the tariff in 1882 on
flax, S75 per ton; Hacked flax, $l7l.42
per ton; tow, 500 per ton; and flaxseed,
40 cents per bushel.
Then our farmers raised hemp especi-
ally on the borders of the Ohio river.
That same act made the tariff on hemp
$50 per ton, which rate on the imports
of 1882 as officially reported, was II per
cent, and that is the rate to-day. Whilst
the tariff of 1916 was 80 per cent. and
would be S4 per ton.
Even the little duty of per cent. pro-
vided by the tariff of 1916 on hides, the
imports of which amount now to $780,
100000 was five times too high in the
eyes of our tariff loving Republicans,
and so they made hides free.
No doubt our Republican friends have
shed a Niagara of tears over this injus-
tice to farmers, but for fear of the manu-
facturers wrath, did it in their most
private chamber.
But way down in South Carolina and
louisiana tuere is a class of farmers be-
tween whom and our protected manu-
factuTers there is fellow feeling-the
aristOeratic fellows who disdaining the
word farmer" call themselves rice
"planterS" who "tOil not" but
strut about in kid gloves and patent
feathers and talk big about the high
price of American labor, which they pay
with starvation wages. They have a
close resemblance to our Bessemer
thieves; they regard with the same con-
tempt the northern "hayseed" and
"mudsill" who conquered them in the
late npleaSantness. They want TO make
a fortune without capital and out of
nothing. With nothing but swamps in
trinsically worth less than nothing, and
fit only for the dOmicile of alligatOrs
and surfeit of cheek and assurance for
capital, they conceived the design of
making regular bonanza of the worth
less swamps-One that would yield a
fortune both for themselves and the
money lender, at the expense of the
northern "hayseed" and "mudsill" in
revenge for the late unpleasantness, we
suppose.
Well, they outdid the Bessemer thieves
themselves, for while the BeSSemer steel
is at $2S per ton, is only 82111 per cent,
the tariff on rice 219 cents per pound,
actually amounts, Ill 1882, as officially
r, ported by the Bureau of Statistics, to
I'LL. per cent. Several Of these bonanza
fellows appeared in last September be-
fore that caravan of political hacks
called tariff commission, and one of
them pleading for protection" said:
MY plantation Che meant his worth
less swamp is worth $50, 900; If the tariff
on rice is repealed it will not be worth
$500" Another one, in answer to a
question of j. A. Amber, said as a reason
for requiring protection, that the plan
tatiOns (sWamps) were run with borrow
ed money at 10 per cent. interest, with
81 per cent. commission added, making
it 1879 per cent. Probably this way of
making money without work and out of
nothing recalled the days of salary grabs
and credit mObiIier. At any rate, Am
bier did not Indignantly tell the swamp
aristoerat TO go take off his kid gloves
and go to work and earn his capital like
the wool grower of his native hills as
he ought to have done, nor as he ought
TO have done. That any farmer up here
with nothing but a worthless swamp
who would put on kid gloves and under
take to make fortune with borrowed
money at 1879 per cent. would be sent to
an asylum as quick as steam could take
him there.
Then there is the lOrdly sugar planter
of Louisiana, for whose style Of living
the profits of cotton raising or the ordi-
nary agricultural pursuits are wholly
inadequate. Who, though he has the
richest soil the sun ever shOne on, and
the best climate in the world, disdains
to raise his own corn. oats, hay, pork,
beef, butter, horses or mules, and there
fore wants to levy a tribute on the north
to enable him to buy them. With non
chalance and effrOntery equalled only
by his self-impOrtanee, he on the 18th
day of October, 1882, goes before that
travelling mensgerie the tariff commits
sion and coolly tells them that the tribute
he has been receiving for years Is abso-
Iutely necessary to enable him to buy
these products from the northern hay
seedl Yes, the northern mudsill and
hayseed can raise the horses, mules,
corn, oats, hay, meat and butter, and
then give the sugar prince the money to