The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-05-15
DEMOCRACY AGAINST PLUToCRACY.

80 VIC 6ASobSSb SOOO W INC BFttbtSb
special privileges to none; equality to all
Democratic Platform.
1t is common boast that the aggregate
wealth of this country is increasing at an
enormous rate. But one feature of this
increase is cause for anxiety rather than
satisfaction. The rich men Of this country
have amassed fortunes Of extraordinary
proportions The fabulous wealth of
CRoEsUs, which was the marvel of the old
Greeks, was almost nothing in comparison
with the vast fortunes OF such men as
VANDERBILT, AsToR, GOULD, ROCKEFELLER
and others. Nor was the aristocracy Of
Rome in the days of the later empire more
arrogant and powerful than this plutocracy
of America. The government is con-
trolled by the rich. Offices are bought by
them, legislators are bribed. In this coun-
try, SKEARNIAN has shown that about forty
thousand families, or less than the
one three thousandth part of the total
number of families, own half the entire
wealth. That is, the wealth of each rich
family is as great as the wealth of each
5000 families of the lower and middle
classes; and 10000 families own half the
wealth, while 100000 families own the
other half. 1t may be doubted whether
there ever existed an aristocracy with
greater power than that welded by this
triumphant plutocracy that now manages
the affairs Of this nation, and menaces it's
existence as free republic
Differences in wealth have always ex-
listed and will probably always exist but
this extraordinary condition must have
some cause other than the natural differ
ences in the capacity of men, or it could
hardly exist within SO short a time One
cause is the present system of national tax
alton, by which large percentage of the
earnings of the poor are taken, but only a
small percentage of the earnings of the
rich. 1t has been shown, with approx
mate accuracy, that the tariff taxes of the
rich class above mentioned are only
about one-ffth in amount those paid
by the other classes. The rich,
for example, use scarcely any more sugar
than the poor use, and while the tax Of
three and half cents pound remained on
sugar, the poor paid it in the proportion of
their numbers and not in proportion to the
wealth they owned. A poor man buys a
suit of clothes at $50, of which SIS is tariff.
il rich man buys suit at $50, of which $40
is tariff. 1t is clear that the poor man is
paying immensely more than his proper
proportion of tax.
But it is not what the government takes
from the people that is chief factor
in keeping the poor where they are, while
allowing the rich to accumulate wealth at
such rate that in thirty years their gains
compounded at 3 per cent. annually will
represent an amount equal to the entire
wealth of this country. 1t is what the gov
eminent enables the few to take from the
many that accounts for this The expen-
ses OF the government are but $500, 0000 600
yearly, or paltry IS for each
man, woman and child in the
United States each year. Forty dollars a
year from each family for national ex-
penses does not seem to indicate a solution
Of the question, what creates so many
millioniares in this country?
The millioniares, however, can pay this
forty dollars a year without noticing it,
while it takes away large part of the saw
ings of the poor. Yet when the sugar
trust, composed of only forty-nine re-
fineries, admits its earnings for single
year to be nearly $40, 100000 land how much
more will never be known we have at
least q partial solution of the problem. No
refined sugar is imported. The govern
ment gets no tax on that article. The peo-
pie pay the tax on refined sugar to the
sugar trust, and the same is true as to the
other trusts.
A glance at the tariff schedule and at the
list of trusts reveals that the tariff Is the
foster mother Of these gigantic schemes
Of corporate larceny" QNGALLs). The tin
trust, under the former tariff, was sup
ported by protection Of 80 per cent, and
this protection has been increased; the iron
trust has As per cent protection; the Bes-
emer steel trust, 81 per cent; the soap
trust, &c per cent; the linseed oil trust, 81
per cent; the steel trust, 45 per cent the
nail trust, 40 per cent; the glass trust, SO
per cent, and so on. The stockholders in
these trusts are the millionaires. The
money that enriches them comes from the
American people. The government, in part
nership with these favorites, permits them
to plumber the American people to the ex-
tent above indicated by the rate of protec-
ton. The trusts take this much and as
much more as they can get.
GROVER CLEVELAND said: I'VE believe
these trusts are the natural offspring of a
market artiticially restricted; that an in
ordinately high tariff, besides furnishing
the temptation for their existence, enlarges
the limit within which they may operate
against the people, and thus increases the
extent of their power for wrong doing.
With an unalterable hatred of all such
schemes, we count the checking of their
baIeful operations among the good results
promised by revenue reform"
JAMES G. BLAINE said: TRUSTS have no
place in a national campaign. They are
largely private affairs, with which neither
President CLEVELAND nor any private citi-
zen has any particular right to interfere ~
The Utah Democracy shares Mr.. CLEvE-
LANDS view of trusts. Utah Republican
ism will no doubt stand by Mr.. BLAINE.
Democracy means at the present time,
above all other issues, resistance to that
system of tariff taxation which makes the
monopolists rich at the expense of the
people, which prevents the American far
1aer from receiving payment for his ex-