Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-10-20
PLAINLY STATED.
A Capital Argument in Favor of Tariff
Reduction.

The following editorial from the
Frankfort Capital is a good argument
in favor of tariff reduction
"Hhat man there labors industri-
ously six days in the week, and when
he receives his hard earned wages on
Saturday night, can spare only dol
lar or two for his wife to buy some
little articles of clothing for herself
and children, for which they are in
actual need. Lord knows it is little
enough, and any scheme that would
make it less would be cruelty. Yet,
there is an invisible tax-gathering
awaiting that mans wife at the store
door. This shade of extortion stands
beside the wife, and all unknown to
her bids the merchant add cents to
every 10 cents worth she buys, for
him, the taX.gatherer. She stands in
doubt as to the best means of making
her slender purse supply the things
for which she and her children are
suffering. She takes the coarsest and
cheapest of goods, thankful to get
even such, poor as they are. When
she departs with her mean and meag-
err supplies, the tax-gather receives
his half of the money and goes to seek
another victim. This invisible tax
gather is the agent of the infant in
dustries,' the protective tariff the
parent of trusts and monopolies. This
is the monster the republican party
asks that poor woman's husband tC
nurture and sustain. This is the
agent the republican party sends
about to convince the poor man that
the republican party is his friend
Wage-wOrker, how do you like the
go-between? Nice fellow, isn't he
Robs your poor wife of half her little
purse and then fawningly claims youl
vote on the score of being your friend
The democratic party asks you to per
nit it to drive this monster from the
face of the earth. The democratic
party asks you to join its ranks il
warfare against such extortion. i
asks you for aid in promoting a sys
tenn of government which will give
you the full benefit of your hard-earn
ed wages, without asking you for one
cent more of those wages than is alb
solutely necessary to give you goot
government administered economi
cally and justly. Whatever protec
ton this plan affords to infant indus
tries is all right; they are welcome
to it, but not one cent more shall b.
taken from the poor wife's slende
purse to enable Carnegie to entertain
Blain at Cluny Castle, and parade
him around in a four-in-hand through
the highlands of Scotland. This i
exactly what a protective tariff does
Robs the poor to crafty the luxuriou
lasts of the rich, and all this tall
about protective tariff increasing tn,
wages of labor, if continued from nov
until doomsday, will not Change tn
fact that every dollar unnecessaril.
collected from the people under ple'
of protecting infant industries j
plain, simple robbery, and there is n
milder name for it if properly de
scribed. 1t is time the wage-worker
of this country had come to under
stand this mattor; that protection, a
defined by the republican party
means any amount of money the me
nopolists choose to take from the poo
mans earnings. Revenue reform
means leaving in the wage-worker'
packet every cent not necessary t
support an economical government
The republican party advocates tn
first proposition, the democratic part
the other. That is all there is in tn
tariff that poor men need to consider
, and all there is in it that present.
} need be discussed"