The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-10-20

iou iutheIs huu lhUOIcrS anu common
trash don't know when you're well of
You nave got enough TO eat and drink nov
more than you or your father or grand
father had IS or 40 years ago-what ar,
you kicking about now
That Is their talk, paraphrased into com
mon, every. day English. But when the
tariff reformer applies the same srgumen,
to the manufacturer, who pays in wages
III per cent. of the value CT his product
which Is protected by AZ per cent. tariff
tax land wants morel and asks him 10 yield
not AZ per cent. of his protection but only
fire per cent Of II, the tariff reformer IL
branded as on enemy of his friend, his
neighbor and his country.
Now it doesn't make any difference
whether " people are better clad better fed
and less heavily taxed than they were 1s
years ago" That is not the question, The
question Is, does the laborer get the great
est benefit possible as the result of his la
bor' Any man but tariff crank knows
that because people are better clad and fed
is because the civilization of our time has
given those results 10 every man living In a
civilized land-thst the condition OF the
laboring man In the old world has I'm
proved as we'll as 1t has In the new by the
utilization of steam and labor saving ma
chinery-and only tariff cranks have the
impudence to attribute that improved con-
ditiOn of mankind TO operation of high
tariff tax In America!
The question is not,-Do people get
more than they used 10 get, but do they get
all they could get If nothing stepped in to
prevent? G. M. E., In the Chicago Globe,
says In this same direction;
Cotton cloth is cheap enough at 6 cents
yard" Well, that may be so, and again
II may not be so, but ths, Is not the ques
ton. 1t Is not whether 1t Is cheap, but
could 1t be cheaper? Not whether fifteen
minutes work is not much for yard of
cloth, but, could 1t be had for ten minutes
work. Not whether yard of cloth is a
good deai to receive In exchange for peck
of oats, but could you not get yard and a
half tor peck of oatsg If with the tariff
removed cotton cloth could be sold for
cents a yard, II Is outrageous at 9 and there
is nothing cheap about 1t. If the tariff
cOmpels the manufacturer to add 2 cents a
yard on account of the increased cost of
of plant, then the tariff In effect takes 2
cents from the exchange power of some
other American productions If the tariff
does this, then II robs the one for the ben
eft of the other.
1t Is not the question,-Do the people
get more than they did, but do they get all
they ought to get? If a people are unnec-
essarily taxed as they are In this country, to
the extent of $lO00O0OO0 year, they do
not get or have all they should, because
the government and Its benifcaries takes
1t away from them.
But as an amazing exhibition of the
brass of these tariff cranks we quote the
following from this same Republican,:
There is another indication of greater
general prosperity-the large amount of
benevolent contributions of the common
people. 1t is stated that more than two.
thirds OF the money given to relief funds
came from the common people. The
policy which has brought such prosperity
should not be changed. The people should
hold fast 10 that which has been blessing
to them.
1t is grand to give, 1t is awful that giv-
ing should be necessary. In the city of
New York, the place of all other where, If
a tariff should benefit laboring
men, there is an association called the
Charity Organization Society. Among
other good works il receives reports from
churches, societies and individuals of the
names of the persons to whom they give
aims and from the city of those persons
committed TO the penitentlary, One of the
recent reports of this society showed such
mum Der of cases that, allowing family of
four persons TO each case, one In eight OF
that city's population had received aims or
come in contact with the criminal lave
during the previous fifteen months, the
period which this report covered The
street residence of each case was given. If
all the houses thus reported had been ar
ranged on one street, that street would nave
been nearly thirty five miles long and into
each house on that street either aims would
have gone or persons would have come ont
to go to the penitentiary during those tif-
teen months. 1t must also be borne in
miad that not nearly all of the cases of
almsgiving in the city where reported to
that society, probably not half of them
Nov 1t is not fair to claim nor do l
claim" says Secretary Fairchid, that all
of this misery was caused by our economic
system, but 1t certainly was coincident with
1t and was not prevented by It,"
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DISGRACEFUL.Y DISHONEST.
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