Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1883-01-10

tTnntnU lhAs III VI eh"N 49, 49,
act was passed extending to three years
the period before the payment OF the tax
Under the one year period the necessity
for the measurably prompt payment OF
ninety cents on each gallon manufactured
operated to keep the production within rea-
sonable limits. When the time for the
payment Of the tax was extended to three
years whskey began to accumulate. The
production was very largely in advance of
the demand, The annual consumption is
about fifteen million gallons. In the face
of this fact the distillers have run their
whiskey mills so that they now have in
bond more than eighty million gallons
enough to supply the demand for five or six
years If not another gallon should be made
during that time The taxes on this vast
accumulation within the next thirty months
will amount to nearly sSO,OOO,OO0. About
a million dollars a month of this sum will
fall due during the current year, and three
or four million dollars monthly for the
next year. When the tax on this whiskey
becomes due by the expiration of the period
of three years from the time il was entered
it must be taken out and sold. Sixty mil
lion gallons of this whiskey are stored in
Kentucky. With this as collateral secur-
ity the banks in Louisville, Cincinnati and
other places have loaned distillers and deal
ers large sums of money to enable them to
hold their merchandise. The payment of the
maturing taxes and the consequent Cutting
of the market threatens, with ruin, it is
claimed, all parties engaged in the business
and endangers the prosperity of other in
dustries. In this emergency Senator Sher-
man comes forward with bill extending
two years the bonded period of whiskey
now in the warehouses.
The government practically gave the dis
tillers the use without interest of three
years taxes on all whiskey in the bonded
warehouses. They have to-day about $780,
100000 of money which belongs to the
United States treasury upon which they do
not pay cent of interest. With their eyes
wide open, enjoying immunities which are
granted to no other class, they have delib-
erately placed themselves for speculative
purposes in position where, they allege,
they and with them many other men and
many branches of business are confronted
with bankruptcy. The whiskey interest
has been continually before congress with
this same specious plea. 1t availed to Sc.
cure the postponement Of its taxes three
years. Then the interest on the taxes was
thrown off and the bonds reduced one-half,
but the over-production increased from a
legitimate amount under the one year pc.
riod to nearly twenty million gallons soon
after the adoption of the three years bonded
period, to nearly sixty.fve millions in the
year after the last demand was granted, and
to nearly ninety millions at the present time.
Every privilege granted on the score of
overproduction and consequent impending
ruin has been followed by an immense in
crease in the production. A year ago bill
extending the bonded period to five years was
whipped through the house but was de-
feated in the senate. This winter the ring
began with the senate, and the fact that the
Sherman bill passed that body last week
by vote of twenty-three to twenty is sug.
gestive commentary upon the potency Of a
ring that owes the government $S0,000.000.
Senator Edmunds thoroughly exposed the
iniquitous nature of the measure and fore
Swallowed the next move by the query
"Where are we going to end, Mr.. President,
with this kind of legislation Now, we ex-
tend this for another year or two, whatever
the bill is, and when the time comes on,
what are you going to do then Are you
going to stop, or are you going on indef-
nitely providing that this one class of tax
payers of the United States shall have a
favor that is extended TO nobody else
Win the senator from Ohio please tell
me and the other senators who are inter
ested in this bill, how he proposes to wind
up this abnormal and exceptional state of
things; or does he mean to make gen.
eral system that there shall be an indefinite
extension from time to time 2"
Statistics show that the production of
whiskey goes on undated in spite of the
alarm the producers profess to feel and the
lesson they have learned. If this bill be-
comes law and the production continues
as at present, the whiskey interest will be.
fore long owe the government one hundred
million dollars in taxes. A stout effort is
being made to secure the abolition of all in.
ternal revenue taxes. The whiskey interest
would have a strong interest in such a
measure and would be in possession of a
dangerous stimulus to favorable legislation
The measure once passed, the next move
would be relief from its unpaid taxes, and
with Sl00,000,000 at stake, the ring would
hardly scruple to win, if possible, by its old
familiar methods. A debt of 80 large an
amount as the liquor interest already owes
this government is a standing menace to the
purity of legislation, and if the Sherman
bill passes the house it is to be hoped the
president will put his executive heel upon it