The National tribune., 1889-06-20
ALE THAT is SILLY.

I $3.50
intelligence of the people than the continual
howl of the soldier-haters that the pension
roll is an intolerable burden upon the tax
payers of the country"
The poorest-informed man in the country
knows, if he stops to think for minute,
that this is glaringly untrue. He knows
| that the customs duties and the internal
revenue taxes are not maintained for the
purpose of securing money with which to
pay pensions. They would be maintained
the same, and their removal or reduction
would be resisted just as strenuously if there
was not a pensioner on the roll or dollar
paid out to veteran of the rebellion or his
widow and orphans.
A great majority of the people of the
country are strongly opposed to any reduc-
ton of the taxes on whisky and beer. They
are infexibly opposed to free liquors, and
believe that these articles should be bur-
dened more and not less heavily. To reduce
the taxes would be to increase the profits of
those engaged in their manufacture and sale,
and make stronger inducements for them to
embark in the business. This is not desired
by anyone except the manufacturers and
dealers.
In the other great branch of National rev.
enue-the customs duties-all the manu-.
facturers, growers, mechanics and working
men of the country are interested, personally
and pecuniarily. Every time that there is
a suggestion of reducing the duties on iron,
wool, calico, sugar, silk, tobacco, hemp, fax,
barley, etc, there comes an energetic pro-
test from all the men engaged in that par
ticular line of business. Reducing the
duties means the destruction of their BUSH
ness, closing of their establishments, aban-
donment of their farms or ranches, dis
charge of employees, diminution of wages or
total cessation of any payment Of them.
For example, s2O,713,234-or about one
tenth of the entire amount collected at the
| Custom Houses in 1888-came from the du-
ties on iron and steel, and their manufac-
lures. What has the collection Of this
amount to do with pensions? Nothing
whatever, except that about one-ffth of it
was used to pay pensions. Had there been
no pensions to pay there would have been
just as much collected, for upon the main
tenance of the rates of duty depends the
continuance in operation of thousands of
furnaces, rolIing-mills foundries, wire
works, cutlery establishments, etc., with
employment and good wages to millions of
men.
About 100000, or one-eighth of the
entire collection, came from the tax on wool
an its manufactures. 1t is of little matter
to the sheep-growers from Maine to Texas,
to the wooden factories scattered all over the
country, whether any portion of this sum is
needed or used to pay pensions. What the
|
collects it is of the smallest consequence to
them. but they are very resolute in their
determination that it shall be collected, so
that they have proper protection for their
sheep-cotes, their ranches, their spindles,
their looms and their employees.
The duties on sugar and molasses realized
$58OOO,OOo, or more than one-fourth the
entire amount collected. The amount
needed for pensions had not the most in
initesimal bearing upon this. 1t was i'm
posed and collected for the developmentofou our
own sugar industries, and to aid in stopping
the enormous outflow of the country
money in buying foreign sweets.
We could 90 through the entire list the
same way. Not single dollar of the $212,-
O32, 424 was collected because it was neces-
sary to pay pensions. Other ideas entirely
governed the imposition of the taxes in
every instance, and if every line of the
pension laws were repealed tomorrow the
maintenance of the duties would be as
strenuously insisted upon as ever.
Consequently, whether the annual ex-
penditures for pensions are $4,000 900 a
year OF S16O,OOOO00 will not and cannot
make the slightest difference to the men who
pay the duties and internal revenue taxes
The Government viii continue to have sub
stantialIy the same income in any event.
The more of it it expends for pensions the
less it viii expend some other way, and
vice versa.
YEARS ago-say 25O-the good people OF
Connecticut had about the same idea as to
correct Indian policy that the people Of
Colorado and Arizona do now. The Pequots
were then very troublesome, and Maj. John
Mason, the ranking officer of the Connect.
cut militia, marched against their principal
fort, situated on high hill in the Mystic
Valley. He captured the fort in good style
and proceeded to take effective measures
| a0aiusf opv further from hIa Of Fbe4 LTD T.