Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1889-09-20

I'VE would advise the editor Of The
Mineral Point Democrat to read col
onial history, treating of the period
just preceding the American Rev
olution, before he again attempts to
take the editor of The Western Rural
to task for advising us to do without
sugar i'll order to break the sugar
trust. The founders of our republic
showed that they could readily get
along without articles that were eX-
cessively taxed, and thereby force
their oppressors to come TO terms, and
no valid reason can be given why we
should not be able to accomplish the
same result if we but act in unison.
The editor of The Democrat is doubt
less aware of the fact that the people
of this country had already taken the
advice of the editor of The Rural
before he had given it. There are
now stored over 100000 barrels of
sugar in Brooklyn, n. Y, as a result
of the decreased consumption of this
article Of commerce. Store three times
100000 there and the sugar trust will
have gone to its long home. The ed
itor of The Democrat does not tell us
how to get rid of trusts, but he would
doubtless destroy them by means of
trust smashing legislation. This is
well enough, and we expect to see
much legislation Of this character in
the near future. it will not, however,
accomplish the object sought, unless
we do something more than growl,
and straightway fall asleep. We must
show in deed as well as i'll word, that
we will severely punish any interior
ence with the natural laws of trade
before we can expect to make trusts
unpopular, and their existence an i'm
possibility. 1t is folly to call a man a
quack because he advises us to cease
using an article rather than be robbed.
This is not false political economy.
Restricting the consumption of com
modify is equal to increasing the sup
ply, and whenever the supply exceeds
the demand the price must 60 DOWN
Edmund correspondence of The Dodge
willie Eye and star.
There is a marked spirit of sincerity
anu tstA ilA'NAiitNS dbtuI iiit tbNNt tIll-
icism, and upon this account The
Democrat will endeavor to explain
fully its reasons for branding the
editor of The Western Rural as
quack for his manner of treating the
trust disease. The exorbitant sea
board taxes upon binding Irvine, sugar,
and other articles used extensively by
the American farmer, make it easy for
trusts TO form, and abnormally raise
the prices of these articles. The pro-
per thing, then, for the American
farmer to DO is to vote to repeal the
unnecessary taxes which make the
commodities he consumes dear i'm.
But upon this point the editor of The
Western Rural is mum rs a mouse.
While he votes for the retention of
the taxes which place consumers in
the hands of the trust robbers, he
tells his readers that the proper way
TO avoid paving eNtortionate prices
for binding Irvine is to do without
Irvine even, if by SO doing, they incur
grea, loss in harvesting their grain;
and that to reduce the price of
sugar, they must do without sugar
even If by SO doing, they let the
great bulk of the fine fruit crop of
this hounteous season go to loss and
decay. OF course, if his advice was
strictly followed, prices would be re-
duced. ut least for a time. But the
remedy is too severe for all the good
that it would accomplish; and Milton
George is indeed quack for preScrib-
ing it when much milder remedy
would effect permanent cure of the
disease. The war for independence
was in vain, if at this late day Amer
lean citizens have no other way TO
avoid unnecessary taxation than to
follow the same Spartan course pur-
sued by the Revolutionary fathers
before they revolted and threw of the
British yoke.
The supposition that The Democrat
has muca confidence in the destruction
of trusts through the enactment of
trust-smashing legislation is not well
founded. The common law against
conspiracy, if properly enforced, will
doubtless prove most efficient in this
direction. 1t is not in the passage of
new laws, but in the repeal of old
laws in which monopoly has taken
deep root, and grown to immense pro-
portions, that trusts can be destroyed.