Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1886-07-17

still greater proportion than unemplOy-
ed labor lies dead OF unprOductive.
Our hills and mountains are full of
mineral wealth, millions of acres of
productive land wait for the plough,
homes for nameless millions are to be
had for the taking. Favored with plen-
tiful harvests, blest with health, the
only plague which affects us is idle
ness. What we need is profitable em-
ployment. There is al apparent puny
effort in the bill, through an increase
of taxation, to shut out goods from
abroad, that they may be made at
home. If this effort was SO successful
as to prevent the importation of all
manufactures We would have direct
taxation upon three-fourths of a million
men yet unemployed. Their profitable
employment amounts to merely the
difference between what is popularity
known as good and hard times. The
removal of the tobacco tax will furnish
no new employment, nor its smoke or
its juices will turn a wheel, shaft or
spindle. Wool, wood, salt, hemp, cheap
food for toiling men, lie at the tOunda-
ton of great and successful industries.
To free these from taxes will cheaper
production without lowering the price
of labor, and our idle men may thus
be enabled to make something which
may be sold p%rofitably abroad, and
with which we are overstocked at home.
INCREASED NATIONAL WEALTH.
"The last census estimates show an
increased national wealth of $3.50, 000,-
DOC, 900 for the previous twenty years.
Marvellous as this growth from 1860 to
1880 may appeor, it shows a yearly
saving of only $37 so to every person
our then average of 10000, 900.
Whatever number of persons saved
the average yearly saving, or
S75, an equal number saved nothing;
as many as acquired SIP so, three
the annual saving, that many fell
below the average yearly saving of
5O-short OF the necessities of com
Portable existence. Facts plain as these
show how dangerously near the great
mass of men always are to want and
suffering. To those not blind to the
of their less fortunate fellow
men, facts like these show why all men
have a right to work and enjoy
he fruits of their earnings, burdened
with such taxes only as are indispensa-
Nv y iiO PuoIiC SdlCty. IL may Uc odlu +,
hat any real reduction in the rate of
will cripple or destroy our
manufacturing industries, all of which
a come to rely on taxation for their
support. This assumption is made with
very attempt to relieve the people
rom unnecessary taxes. 1t is some
lines made with the assurance of ap-
belief in the truth of what al
ways and still is untrue, the Morrill,
ariff, approved by Mr.. Buchanan, did
lot exceed 60 per cent. of the present
ate, and was declared by its author, ,
a prOtectionist, to be fully up K:
o the level of fair competition. We
annot reach that now comparatively
level. The financial needs of the
forbid it, and will long {
ontinue to forbid it. Next before its /
doption we had a still lower tariff, l
nd yet the period of its existence was 6
most prosperous period of like |
uration in our history. s
LoW-TARIFF PERIOD. |
"Of the growth and progress of q
manufactures in that lower tariff period
Ir. Morrill,, of Vermont, when a men,
er of the house, said: The census in
800 of manufactures was imperfect
nd understated, and that of 1860 will
how a p%rodigious increase, true now,
ut not comparatively true. In this
rosperity the rebel states have shared
} some extent. The whole amount Of
oolen goods produced in 1850 was y
1884,, 299. The increase has been SIS
er cent. in the loyal states alone, or g
le amount now for these states is
s., 92S,4S6, and New England pro-
almost as much as the whole C,
'untry did ten years ago, or $3S 500 -
80. The increase in cotton goods in Z
lie eastern states has been 80 per cent. c.
h middle states, 55 per cent. in the ~
states over 63 per cent. The
tai amount of agricultural imple-
ents produced in the whole Union in r,
$50 was Sc ,S42,611; in twenty of the
yal states it is now $l5,975. 1888. The
hole value of boots aud Shoes made
the United States in 1850 was $685. !,
'7,4OS, and the aggregate in nine u
ates is now Stages ,557. The whole G
mount OF manufactures in 1850. was :,
.O13 1886 ,463, and is now in the loyal
ates alone 81, 761 900 900. Such facts
Iould make every man with all Amer
heart i'll his bosom, glow with =,
Congressional Globe, March
;, 1921
''The growth of agriculture was still Ct
ore prodlgious than the increase of
anufactures and those who refuse to
encouraged by prosperity not built p,
taxation may still take comfort in
at public necessity which requires a n,
venue of at least $160, 900 900 to be
rived from custom.house tolls" AZ