The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-06-20
THE ARGUMENT OF FACTS.

CrdIS ever uOpe 10 carry tue St2Ce.
THE ARGUMENT OF FACTS.
A Provo Republican paper makes dis
play Of itself in regard to this showing OF
facts, which recently appeared in The
HERALD:
1.-THE United States tried free trade for
ten years and protection for ten years.
Free trade, that is, tariff for revenue, was
tried from 1850 to 1860. Protection, tnat is,
war taxes, was tried from 1870 to 1880. The
decade from 1850 to 1870 was the period Of
transition from free trade to protection.
1.-The Tenth Census Of the Uuited States,
Vol. VII, page s, show the results as be-
tween these two periods. Take first the
free trade period:
Total wealth. s7.is5. $50 s8 slsl5soie-oss
Wealth per capita. 30S 5l4
Increase per capita
during decade 26
Now take the protection period:
1870 1880
Total wealth.. ssooes5ls.2o7 1855. 10000
Wealth per capita $50 so
Increase per capita
during decade W
'sThat is while the total wealth of the
United States more than doubled under q
tariff fer revenue, an increase Of over 100
per cent. under protection the total wealth
increased only 43 per cent. The compare
tive growth was thus more than twice as
fast under the revenue tariff.
at may be necessary to state that the
estimates for the total wealth Of 1870 and
1850 include all property, taxed and un-
taxed. The tables of total wealth given for
1850 and 1860 include only taxed property.
This explains the apparent increase in ma
tional wealth during the war period from
1860 to 1870. Actually, there was Q decrease
during this decade. Only about one-balf
the wealth Of the United States Is taxed;
the other half escaped the enumeratore of
1850 and 1860. But in 1870 and 1880 the
other taxed half was estina ted from the
returned value Of the taxed property"
AS might have been expected, these CEN
sus facts stir up the Republican editors,
who are weakly laboring to break their
force. The Provo paper, for example, finds
from the census a statement in one place
that In comparing the values of 1870 with
those Of any other year, a deduction Of
about one-fifth must be made from the
values given for 1870 because gold was at q
premium Of 25 per cent, at that time.
1t seems strange that the profound
Provoite did not see in the census, vol. vii.
page S, as above mentioned, the express
declaration of HENRI GANNETT, the census
that allowance had been made
n these tables for the losses of the civil
war and the premium on gold of % per
cent.
II the Provo editor will look once again
INTO the census, he will find that the as
'essed value OF the property in the United
States for 1870 was H. LIS millions of dol
ars, and in 1880 it was 1902 millions of
dollars. That is, the value of the assessed
in 1870 was 1868 per capita and in
$50 1887 per capita-a loss in per capita
wealth of s31 in ten years Of protection.
1t is only the assessed value Of taxed |
property that Is returned by the census |
from which the true value of |
he taxed property is then estimated by |
he census statisticians, and after that the |
otal value Of all property taxed and IN
axed is estimated.
The problem to which the protectionist
in charge of the census of 1880
hen addressed themselves was, to show
n increase of wealth per capita from 1870
D 1880, while the assessed wealth showed
n actual decrease. This apparently i'm
ossible feat was performed by the census
eturning board as follows: They assumed
hat the returns of the assessed value Of
roperty made by the census marshsls for
$40 were in currency, and required de-
uction Of about one-fifth on account of the
remium on gold. This deduction was made,
nd the corrected assessed valuation" was
hanged so as to figure out an increase of
20 per capita in the value OF all property,
lough the assessed value showed a de-
reese of 81 per capita
In spite of this, however, the returns for
$40, as first reported by the census
larshals, were given by them as the
true'' value of taxed property, and repre-
suted, in all probability, the actual gold
aluation for that year. 1t was SO accepted
nd worked upon by all the census stats
clans of 1870. Nevertheless. the Repub-
can census officials of 1850, upon their
WI assumption that the figures of 1870,
'hich reported the true valuation" were
ot the true" but the currency value
roceeded to change them so as to figure
1t fair increase per capita under pro-
ction 600, so that the contrast per capita
18th the per capita increase under a low
riff 1905 would not be so apparent
And now comes this Provo editor de- {
anding that this same deduction be made
ice more in the interest of the protection :
vaddle he is gravely teaching
He is the same editor that short time ago
rote divers articles against a protective 6
riff He has certainly the right to change
S opinions as often as he chooses, but we
g to assure him that this deduction of )
le- fifth" from the reported "true" vslua-
On Of 1870 cannot, like TENNYsoN's brook,
on forever.
The GERMAN Emperor has ordered the
'urt preachers under no circumstances to s
low their sermons to exceed q quarter Of Z