Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-07-23
The Tariff and the Farmers Alliance.
Belford's Magazine, July, 1891.

The people of this country have been
taught by EXAMPLE, now for many
years, that it is legitimate province Of
government to tax the masses for the
interests of private individuals.
The individuals thus favored have
been sometimes wool-growers, some.
times owners of copper mines. some-
times prospective developers cf hy-
pothetical tin deposits, etc., ETC., but in
cases they have been, SO far as their
business was concerned, simply private
individuals, with no more apparent
claim to special consideration than any
one else engaged in any other honor
able business calling.
So far as anyone can see, the only
basis for the consideration which they
have received is to be found in the votes
which they are supposed to cast or con-
troll, and the campaign contributions
which they are known to supply. If
the legislation by which all this has
been accomplished had been originally
advocated under Its true colors, of
course no item Of it would ever have
stained the pages of our statute. books.
No Congressman, however dishonest,
would care to vote for IA Bill to Tax
the People of the United States to Raise
Funds.for the Reimbursement of GER
tain Manufacturers who have made
large Campaign Contributions to the
Party, aud to enable said Manu-
facturers to grow Rich more rapidly
than their Neighbors;" and yet under
various euphemistic titles, vast
amount of legislation answering to this
decription has been enacted.
The farmer has been outrageously
taxed for almost a generation, and the
money has chiefly gone, as economists
have known and proclaimed all along
not into the government Golfers, but in
to the pockets of private individuals
There is small cause for wonder, then
that, having made the tardy discovery
that his pockets have been drained by
law for the gain of others, he should
make desperate effort to drain the
pockets of others for his own advan-
tage.
Let us not blame him severely for his
failure to see the moral turpitude anG
economic absurdity of some measures
which he advocates; for have not the
measures by which he himself has beer
urged upon him from his very cradle
in the name of humanity, religion
patriotism, economy, and every othel
virtue known to the vocabulary of the
English tongue?
1t is impossible that his demands
should be granted, not because they
are any more dishonest or any more
contrary to the laws of economics thar
the demads which have been granted
to various other applicants, but merely
because the class to which he belongs
10 so numerous. We have always sue
ceeded in wringing enough money out
of the many to enrich the few, but the
ability to do SO decreases very rapidly
as the number of the favored few in
creases, and the point of inevitable dis
aster must soon be reached.
Let the present riot of tariff robbery
90 on unchecked and the agitation
among the farmers will go on gaining
heat and wisdom until our whole in
dustrial system shall be a mass of In
discriminate ruin. Give the farme
ordinary justice, and he will constitut,
the most steady and conservative eIe
ment in our whole political system;, bu
continue to rob him under the forms O.
law and in the name of patriotism, an(
the longer the inevitable reaction is re
strained the more violent it will be.