The Dispatch. [volume] (Provo City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1891-06-20
A HOME LESSON.

When Prof. J. II. PAUL, Of Salt Lake
City, was in Manti last week, he made
some sparkling propositions to the peo-
pie there propositions that they could
readily understand. Among other
things he said:
The last congress spent over billion
dollars. Few people realize how much
billion dollars is. There is in circu-
lation in the United states one and a
half billion dollars. The last congress
spent two-thirds of all the money in
the United States. All the wheat and
corn raised in the United States last
year was worth just billion dollars
All the gold mined in the world for
four years; all the wages paid in the
protected industries for three years :;
all the wages paid operatives in cotton
in twenty years, are each billion
dollars and to obtain the amount of
money squandered, every man, woman
and child has been taxed. The price
realized by government by this tax
amounted last year to $23O,000, but it
was nothing in comparison to the
amount levied by the manufacturers
on the consumers of protected articles.
You may ask, How is this tax col
lected ?" No collector comes annually,
like the city and county collectors and
collect the taxes from US. 1t is done
indirectly, and therefore the more dan
gerous because unnoticed.
Let us see how a farmer pays his
tax, and we will then be prepared to
judge how it is with the rest of the
people. A farmer rises from his bed
in the morning and steps on a carpet,
if he has one, taxed 60 per cent; sits
down on chair taxed 60 per cent. and
pulls on pair of socks taxed IS per
cent, jeans taxed 100 per cent, rawhide
boots 100 per cent, hat So per cent and
coat 80 per cent? His flannel shirt is
taxed 100 per cent, the buttons $50 and
the thread a. He walks across a floor,
the lumber taxed 20 per cent, to a door
taxed 20 per cent, with locks and
hinges taxed 50 and As per cent, and
reaches the open air not yet taxed.
His pitchfork with which he throws
the hay to his horse is taxed As per
cent. and he pumps water with pump
taxed 45 per cent. There are two
things still untaxed by government,
air and water. Retiring to the house
be finds his wife cooking breakfast
with coai taxed seyenty-fiye cents per
ton, on stove taxed As per cent. The
table, spoons, knives, forks, are all
taxed. The glass from which he
drinks is taxed $50 per cent, the coffee
pot 55, the table cloth 40. After break
fast he bitches his horse to plow
taxed 45 per cent, his shovel, hoe, etc.,
are taxed the same amount. After
supper he picks up bis Bible taxed only
25 per cent, thank heavenly and seeks
consolation by the light of a lamp
taxed $50 per cent, and afterwards
goes to sleep on ii bedstead taxed 50
per cent, and pulls over his head
blanket taxed so per cent, feeling
thankful that he lives in country that
believes in protecting the workingman.
Everything that he uses from paregoric
to coffee, is taxed. Is it any wonder
that the farmer is no longer the robust
man of former years Today our farm
ers are bent double with toll before
they have reached old age. The aver
age duration of their life is less tL.an
that of the mechanic. Fifty years ago
novelist wrote of the farmer as strong,
robust and healthy, his sons were
heroes and his daughters heroines, but
alasl to-day things are changed. The
farmer grows old before his time and
IS buried in coffin taxed so per cent, |
and at last reaches the great demo-
cratic country where there are no fav-
ored ones. When his family raise a
over his grave, we read be-
5ween the lines marble taxed S5 per
'ent. :" Heaven may forgive him for
'otlng for party to tax him thus, but
t is doubtful if his children ever will.