Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1890-05-23
WILSON.
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the command of the protected steel men,
and like a dutiful servant he obeys. lie
proposes a tax of % cents pound on
tin plate, which runs the price up
To So cents to the American
consumer of tin. The result is to In
crease the tax the people pay on tin from
six or seven million dollars a year, 10
thirteen or fourteen millions. Inns Is
the first outcome OF the unjust taxation,
which is imposed upon the whole people
in order TO allow few men TO manufac-
ture tin plate at Pittsburg. Then these
manufacturers will be able to sell TIN
plate at any price less than 81 cents
pound, which they may fix. mat they
say they will give employment TO 24,Ooo
men. women and children. In other
words, $4,000 men, women and children
who are now making good livings AT
other industries are taken out OF them
and put to making tin at cost OF SIX or
seven million dollars. II that were all,
it wonld be an evil at which this whole
country might we'll be alarmed. but rs
not the worst.
RUIN THE CANNING INDUSTRY.
We are building up great indepen-
dent industry in this country, known as
the canning industry. Canning fruits,
meats. vegetables and fish has become
great business in many States. You
all know that can is practically use
less after being used once. Every can
has a tax on it. Why should this great
industry, fellow citizens, be oppressed
in order to enable few men in Pitts
burg to go into the manufacture OF tin
plate. Moreover, in the canning indus
try four or five times rs many people
find employment as in the manufac-
ture of tin. 1t is estimated that in the
State of Maryland alone $4,000 people
are supported by the canning trade.
The great corn fields and fruit orchards
and vegetable gardens of that beautiful
State are laid under tribute by the Gamer
and their products preserved and sent
TO every quarter of the globe, and yet
the Mckinley bill, which YOU gentlemen
are asked 10 endorse, deliberately
strikes disastrous blow al this great
and growing industry in order to build
up an industry which is not now and
never can be self-supporting in Amer
lea.
Moreover, fellow citizens, we are to-
day building up great export canning
trade. Fruit is cheaper in the United
States than in any other nation on the
globe: meats and vegetables are cheaper
than In any county; so America can
take the markets of the world for her
canned products, but the government
steps in. 1t imposes this iniquitous
tin plate duty and the country
is threatened with the loss, or
if not the loss with disastrous
blow at one of its greatest indus
tries. But it is said, buy the twenty
millions worth of tin plate in the United
States and keep the money at home.
The argument would be good if we paid
England for her tin in money. But
look at the balance sheet between Eng
land and America. and You will see, fell
low citizens, that we send her no money.
We send her instead the products of
our great agricultural classes: we
send her our wheat. oats, corn, our
meat and our canned goods and when
we cease to take her tin plate. when we
shut our gates against her products she
ceases to take our meat and fruit and
grain. So, farmers of Barbour county,
when you, by the interference of law,
take q, 200 people from an industry in
which they are alread profitably
employed and give them employ
mcnt i'm the manufacture of tin plate,
YOU strike blow at an industry which
is pa TT of your material prosperity,
and keep home twenty million dollars
more farm products TO drop into an al
ready glutted market. reduce your own
profits, and eventually destroy the
grand heritage OF advantages which ma
ture has given you. Applause.
COMMERCE THE FOUNDATION OF PROS
PETTY.
Alexander Hamilton, the greatest of
financiers, giant among political econ
omists, well said that prosperous COM
merce Is the foundation of national
prosperity: and so my friends when you
shut off commerce, when you put Il
guard at your gates, and locks on your
Store-houses. you shut out the men who
come to buy your goods. Your home
market is overwhelmed, stagnation is in
the channels of your trade, and the ruin
of a splendid prosperity is the result.
Applause.
Now, my friends, let us turn To an
other great Democratic principle.
Money should not be taken out of one
mans pocket to be put in another's.
Every man should contribute TO the sup
port of government according To his
means. The rich man should contri-
butte much from his abundance; the
poor man should contribute little from
his poverty. 1t is hard thing for the
people to get into their heads that this
great government of ours is after all
only a pauper. 1t has no money ex-
cept as it takes from you and me.
As that great man who occu-
pied the Presidential chair of the nation
before the present incumbent once said:
1.-The people support the government,
not the government the people" If
then the government takes its money
from the people, it should adopt some
equal rule of taxation. Fellow citizens,
are YOU aware that One-tenth part OF all
the tax paid in this country comes from
wool and wooden clothing? Forty million
dollars from the dress goods of your wives
and children! Forty million dollars
added to the burdens of the men who
work for their daily bread Is it fair
system that takes this great tax from
the poor and leaves untouched the great
incomes and corporations of the coun-
try? All but that is not all. In the
bill that was passed yesterday,
that forty million dollar tax,
great as it is. great unjust
and merciless as it is, is TO be increased
to fifty-fve millions. Fellow citizens,
this is the cure which the Republican
tariff bill offers for the burden of excess
sive taxation. What you need to-day,
farmers of Barbour county, is, first,
lower taxation, and second, better and
wider markets. You want system of
taxation that will not tax out of your
nockets your hard earned wages as fast