The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1883-12-21
Getting Rid of the Surplus.

The many millions of surplus reve.
nue. in the Treasury, and the many
more millions Of surplus yet to come,
have fearfully perplexed politicians as
well as inventive jobbers, and they are
devising all sorts of ways to dispose of
it.
President Arthur believed in abolish
ing it last year but now he has revis-
ed his opinions, probably in view of
the necessities of Presidential cam
paigp, and he wants it devoted to the
rehabilitation of the Navy. Blaine
wants to keep up the Internal Revenue
machinery with its thousands OF office
holders and FIVE millions of annual cost,
collect taxes on whisky and distribute
back, less expense, to the States. SEN
ator Mitchell and Wharton Barker
want grand distribution scheme by
which the business of the country shall
get eighty cents or so back on every
dollar it pays in taxes.
The people don't enthuse at all over
any of the schemes of Mulberry Sellers
politics They can see that ".here's
millions in it-millions in it, but they
can see that they must first pay the
millions themselves and then get only
a percentage back Colonel Mulberry
Sellers was more tempting in his
schemes. He never required his asso-
ciates to pay down their cash first and
then get only part OF it back. He
lp,l ,,1 ~ pnrE IN tn hn
eyes of Asia, and proposed to make his
millions out OF next to nothing All
the grand distribution schemes should
revise their political prospectuses aud
get down to the marrow Of Mulberry
Sellers financial theories.
scores of millions of surplus in the
Treasury must be got rid of, and the
whole inventive genius of statesmen
and jobbers is directed to that perplex-
ing problem. But how is it to be done
Let us see Il:
/. The Treasury surplus could be
readily disposed of by re-electing
another Keifer-R -Robeson Congress and
keep ing it in power. This is proba-
bly, the surest way to get rid of the sur
plus and it has the merit of possess
ing ample ability to dispose of any in
crease of the surplus hereafter.
2. Another very certain way to get
rid of the Treasury surplus would be TO
follow President Arthur's suggestion
and appropriate it to Secretary Chan
dler to rehabilitate the Navy, nearly a
hundred millions were expended to en-
large the Navy, and the result was just
about no Navy at all. With the sur
plus now appropriated to the Chandler
Robson management of the Navy, the
outcome would be the cleanest disposal
of the Treasury overflow.
3. Another suggestion is made in the
interest of the whisky specuators.
They have over produced whisky to
the extent of many millions; they can't
sell it because they have recklessly
speculated on future consumption (;
they can't pay the tax because they
haven't both money aud whisky, and
they wantt the government to become
their banker. The surplus could be
loaned to the whisky spectators in
definitely, to give them a chance to
corner the market and crush every
thing outside the monopoly, and then
let the loan go with the tax when it
shall be the interest of the spectators
to abolish it. There is another way to
get rid of the Treasury surplus, and
that is to abolish the tax upon domes-
tic industry that creates it but that is
quite too sensible method to find fa-
vor with either politicians, jobbers or
spectators. Nevertheless, we venture
the suggestion that there must be
enough honest and sensible men in
Congress to understand that the only
honest and safe way to dispose
of Treasury surplus, is to abolish it.
Business throughout the country Is not
booming SO recklessly as to warrant
the collection of fifty Or hundred
millions annually from it merely to be-
come the plaything of politicians and
specua'ors. Business wants every
needless tax taken from our industry,
and hat is the honest, sensible method,
of getting rid of the Treasury surplus.
Phila. Times.