The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-08-08

consuming and producing classes and retained
TO the securely protected monopolizers OF the
manufacturing business of the United States.
In other words. the working people, who are the
principal purchasers and consumers of Ameri-
can manufactured articles of all kinds, were
required to pay the manufacturers tax as well
as their own, but were promised that the meas
ures compelling them to do so were only tenn
porary and should cease when the tax on the
manufacturer ceased. Now, when it is found
that this internal factory tax was repealed in
1869, that not cent has been paid on 1t since
then by the manufacturer, and yet that the ex-
IRENE duties on imports laid in 1862 and 1864,
expressly to compensate for the payment OF
that very tax, still remain in full force and
effect, yielding as much money to the manu-
facturer as they ever did; when this fact is
certained to be true by the record you will be-
gin to comprehend what gigantic fraud on
labor has been accomplished by dishonest leg
isation. For nineteen years the republican
party has caused the people of this country TO
pay the manufacturer at least hundred mil
lions a year in consideration OF tax paid by
the manufacturer to the government, not dol
lar Of which tax during that time was paid; in
consideration OF nothing at all as a cOmpensa-
ton for moneys, not one farthing of which ever
left his hands Nearly So 600 600 600 have thus
been wrenched from the toiling masses by
plain, explicit, and basely criminal false pre-
lenses.
False Pretenses.
Such conduct on the part OF an individ-
ual. in obtaining even a small sum, would
send him most justly to the penitentiary as
INT associate for thieves and burglars. With
this vast, legalized plumber of the people, for
so many years after every vestage of excuse or
pretext for il has ceased, plainly in view, and
still in full operation grinding the faces of the
poor, il is not strange that there are deep, I'M
easy and threatening murmurs in the homes Of
labor, from one ocean to the other, against rob.
bers in ther'midst, more brutal unsparing, and
rapacious in their dishonest gains than were
the robber barons of Europe in the middle
ages. The American barons were authorized
by their fellow-consprators in congress 10 prey
upon the fruits OF labor for temporary pur-
pose, as they said, but like the tiger after
tasting blood, they refused to let go; they are
still clutching their victims by the throat
and sucking the life blood from their
veins. You are now paying the manuiac-
turing syndicates and corporations the COM
pensatory tax provided for by the acts of 1862
and 1864, a naked wicked, brazen subsidy, and
you might as well attempt TO break bulldogs
grip with lady's fan as 10 expect escape from
this accursed thraldom in any other way than
by the total overthrow of the republican party
The money kings have been made such, and
have been fastened as huge leeches on the great
body of American labor by that party, but un-
like the medicinal blood-suckers applied to the
human body, they never get so full as 10 fall of
and quit; they gorge forever, and still cry for
more. They have thus far resisted every eff
which they have drained the earnings OF the
people into their own Golfers and they still
continue their resistance. Many efforts have
been made to reduce tariff taxation, all OF
which have been resisted and defeated by the
plethoric syndicates through their agents in
congress, and yet the defenders and advocates
of this system of wholesale spoliation and pill
lage have the audacity in the present congress
TO claim credit for reduction OF taxes since the
war amounting TO $350,000,000 large part OF
II, M far IN ha mas
turer now gone forever, and for which a COM
pensatory tax was laid on the people, and
which the people continue 70 pay.
But this claim of credit FOR a reduction OF
taxes brings us to consider what reductions
have in fact been made by the republican party
and what classes and interests have been re-
lieved by its action. Has il visited the lowly
and the poor in the precincts of labor and
lightened their burdens by removing taxation
from their necessities of life? Did the leaders
of the republican party first go TO those
who most needed relief, to the farms, 70 the
workshops and TO the wage-workers, and there
begin its reduction of taxes? On the contrary,
like the priest and Levite OF old they passed by
on the other side and left the people who had
fallen among thieves TO take care OF themselves
as best they could. Their hearts were with the
rich; their concern was for the lords of mil
lions; they were distressed that the amaSsed
capital of the country should be called on to
meet any part of the expenses of the govern
monopolist, the usurer, the money-changer,
such as were scourged out of the temple by our
blessed Savior nearly 1900 years ago. On such
as these their love was lavished. In 1869, as
have already shown, they swept away the tax
on the manufactures and still left him his COM
pensatory tariff duties. During the years 1872
and 1873 that just and righteous tax, the tax on
incomes, was wiped out and am glad to re-
member that 1 voted in the house against its
repeal.
A Great Mistake.
From this source of revenue, better able to
pay than any other in the world, the govern
ment realized, in a period of ten years, over
$346, 100000 and to that extent the burdens of
labor were lightened. Such a spectacle, how
ever was CALLING to the instincts OF the repub-
lican party and at war with its purpose to eS-
tablish a moneyed oligarchy, devouring the
taxes of the people and paying none itself.
The income tax was therefore thrown over
board and all the holders OF corpulent incomes
from the dividends of banks and other power
full corporations were that much richer and you
were that much poorer. Bonds and coupons,
bank stocks, and railroad profits, in
surance companies, and express COM
panies, together with every other
great money-gathering corporation in the
United States were made exempt from the tax
gatherers' demands, while the tax your shirt
and on your wife's calico dress and flannel pet
ticoat remained the same, or were increased
Salaried government officials, receiving from
| $500 TO $4,000 a year, including the president
were released from the income tax, while you
were released from nothing at all, and were re-
quired to pay on everything. The heavy bank
accounts Of spectators, brokers, incorporated
manufactures, and of greedy, grasping syndi-
Gates, were made sacred from any contribution
to the payment OF government expenses, while
there was no remission OF tariff taxation on the
farmers horse shoes his trace chains his wag-
on tires, his farming implements, nor on his
wearing apparel and outfit for housekeeping.
But the reduction of taxes for the benefit of
the wealthy and favored classes did not stop
| even at this point. Every vestige of the once
| ton on specified articles and occupations has
long since disappeared, and nothing now re-
| mains of that system except the levy on dis
| titled spirits, fermented liquors, tobacco and
| oleomargarine. No longer government tax
| falls on brokers, billiard rooms, steamboats,,
| banks and bankers, ships, railroads, telegraph
I companies, theaters, operas circuses and mu-
! seums, lotteries and lottery dealers, bank
| checks, bank deposits. gift enterprises, dia-
! tables of luxury and self-indulgence. The
trickling streams of national revenue once
| flowing IRON these and other numerous similar
| sources are now all dried up. and the farmer,
| the mechanic and the wage-worker must
| meet the demands of the government without
| their aid. In the recent great tariff debate in
| the house of representatives the lead
| ers Of the republican party boosted that since
| the war they had abolished taxes 10 the
amount of S360,000,0OO, but not one dollar did
| they show had been removed from the neces-
saries OF life. They simply boosted of their
crime against labor, and gloried in their shame.
| As WIS said by Mr.. Mills, with greath truth
| and force, on the floor of the house,
The gentlemen who represent the minority OF the