The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1893-10-27
A MISTAKE.
Delegates Before the Ways and Means
Committee Talk for the Manufacturers,
Not the IseopIe.

Delegates Before the Ways and Means
Committee Talk for the Manufacturers.
Not the People
H. appears that members of the ways
and means committee are beginning to
think that they made a mistake when
hey announced that they would hear
the people who have tariff axes to
grind. They find that requests for
hearings are pouring in from all parts
Of the country. and that there is no
telling when there will be an end Of
the talk IL they allow IL to go on
They also find that people who want
the same tariff or more tariff are the
ones who want to be heard These
people do not 60 To- Washington to talk
about thr best way to raise needed
revenue. Revenue does not enter into
their thoughts at all. They do not
conceive Of the committee as "a body
created TO consider how best to raise
the means" required for public pur-
poses. but only us body created To
consider how best to raise means for
the benefit OF this. that and the
other manufacturer by shielding
him against competition They have
already been more or less smirched by
congressional favcritism. and they can
afford to go TO Washington and plead
for more favors The masses of the
people, who are blcd for their benefit.
are too poor or TOO busy earning money
for the favorites 10 spend to go to
Washington and plead their own cause.
Resides. they are not orga nized. They
are the many. and in their case the rule
applies that what is rybody's busi-
ness is nobodys business.
Members of the ways and means COM
mittee have been there before. and
have had plenty of experience. They
ought to have known just how il would
be before they opened their doors to
the tariff beggars. They ought to have
known that they would have to listen
to a repetition of all the old and flimsy
sophisms upon which the privileged
classes have relied in applying for and
defending their license to prey upon
the masses. But il seems they hoped
for something different and better.
Now that they have been disappoint-
ed il is said that they find it difficult to
draw the line after hearing some. and
shut out Others. The result we are
told. is likely TO be long -ics OF
hearings of the old and weary sort-a
prolonged ''threshing over of old straw
and the beating of the air with the
well-worn fails of selfishness and
cupidity." But there is TO necessity
for any such result. SO far as time is
concerned. the committee drew a line
ut the outset All il has to do Is 70
shut the doors when the line is reached.
In the meantime they must endure the
infiiction. lie, the rule be first come
first heard. or whatever else they
please, but shut and bar the doors tho
moment time is up.
And while the committee is hearing
it can be striking. And il the demo-
cratic mem bers know what is for their
own and the country's good they will
lay on and spare not They will give
the country such genuine and thorough
reform that every body can see and fee
the difference between the Mckinley
tariff for spoliation mostly and a dem
ocratic tariff for revenue mostly. And
the sooner they do their work the bet
ter they will be prepared for theil
reckoning with the people year from
next November Herald.