Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1892-10-19
How $4,000 individuals Came to Own
Half of all the Property of the
United States.


Half of all the Property of the
United States.
How much has tariff taxation
cost this country during the last
thirty years?
An answer to this question clear
ly requires us to find out the an
swers to two other questions.
l. What amount of tariff taxes
or "customs revenue" or duties on
imported articles, which all mean
the same thing, has been collected
during those thirty years and gone
into the United States Treasury?
2. What has been the amount
of increased profits which the pro-
tected home manufacturers have
been able to collect from us on
their protected goods which they
have sold us during that time, and
which has gone into their capacious
pockets?
These two sums then added to-
gether will be the total cost of our
tariff taxation for that thirty years
The amount of tariff taxes or
"customs revenue" collected into the
United States Treasury during that
time is found in the last Statistical
Abstract of the United States, No.
Ia, prepared by the Bureau of
Statistics, page Il. BY adding up
the column back to 1892, we find
the amount to be S., ,072, 313.3S
over five billion dollars of tariff
taxes actually received into the
United States Treasury during that
period.
To find out the whole cost to this
country of that tariff taxation we
must now add to this sum the in
creased profits which our protec ted
home manufacturers have made out
of us through being thereby enabled
to sell us their protected goods at
higher prices. Let me again ex-
plain how it is that protective
tariff enables home manufacturers
to make increased profits.
BY law we make our importing
merchants, who buy their goods Of
foreign manufacturers, pay these
tariff taxes on them for the privil-
eye of bringing those goods into
this country to sell to us. When
they sell those goods to us here,
they must charge us their original
cost with this tariff tax added to it;
otherwise they will LOSE money
This enables our home manufacture
ers to sell their goods of the same
kind to us at nearly or quite an
equally high price. The tariff tax
on imported goods thus protects our
home manufacturers against our
people being permitted to buy goods
abroad cheaper than the price at
which they wish to sell us at home
their like goods, and enables them
to compel us to pay them increased
profits on their goods, just in pro-
portion to the amount of tariff on
that kind of goods.
This is just what the home man
ufacturers want this protection for.
This helps them toward monopoliz-
ing our home market. Without
this, protection is nothing to them.
How much are these increased
profits so paid by the people of this
country to monopolize home man
ufacturers by reason of this tariff
taxation? Experts and statisticians
tell us that for every dollar paid
and going into the Government
Treasury by tariff taxation we have
paid from So to SIS increased profits
to these protected home manufac-
turers.
Taking the middle estimate, 81,
as correct, and four times $5,175,-
972,313.93 equals $50, 7O3, $3.50, 255.-
80; and those two sums added to-
gether give us the stupendous
amount of $25, S70,8 ,569.15-
nearly twenty-six billion of dollars
as the total cost to the people of
this country of tariff taxation dur
ing the last thirty years.
Take the higher estimate, So, in
creased profits to the home manu-
facturers for each dollar collected
into the Treasury by the protective
tariff we have had, which estimate
many well informed people believe
is too low, and it gives us $31 ,055,-
S33, SS2.9S as the total cost of tariff
taxation to this country during the
last thirty years; an amount sur
prisingly near to one-half of the
present value of all the property in
this country which is 1858, O00, OOO,-
600, as given by Census Superin-
tendent Porter in his Philadelphia
speech, May Both, last, and one
half of which one twenty-five hun
dredth part of our population now
own.
And even this is not the whole
burden of Federal taxation which
has rested upon our people; $4,777,-
874,912.96 of internal revenue and