Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1894-01-12
7,E,E F'RTENDLEs,s lcDNg11uER.

TIE FIIENDLEsS CONSUMER.
The consumer in this country is II friend
less sort of person. Every interest IS active
and organized in its own behalf but his.
Ana those interests make the NOS remark
able appeals to him to stand taxation that
they may prosper, and the appeal is made
with the perfect conviction that it is the
consumer S duty 10 stand it. If he is not
willing to pay that others may prosper, he
is called nBpatriotic, and il he lives in the
South he is accused Of being willing to see
his own section subordinated to the N orth.
We have been particularly struck with this
in the struggle for free coal, free iron ore,
free lumber and free wool. Men who are
making millions in coal and iron, berate the
poor consumer if he only makes an effort
to get things cheaper. The Literary
Bureau established by these gentlemen
shows him up as attempting forum bissec-
tion-thereby meaning their individl
enterpfses-ard as contributing his share
towards running the country" The poor
consumer has no literary bureau to reply
with, and has simply to stand and take it.
But he keeps up a thinking, and if all the
protected interests were wise in their day
they would endeavor to understand what
he is thinking about; for in the end what
he is struggling for will come to pass. In
the last six years, more than ever before,
the American consumer has reached the
conclusion that he is done with a partner
ship in which he pays the tax and the other
man reapS the profit. No infant industry cry
will affect him more, for he has seen from
experience that all industries asking pro-
lection are infants and will be 10 the end of
time. No "opening up' the resources OF
the country will affect him now. He has
lived long enough to see that opening up
is always going on ard that hundred years
from low coal and iron mines being opened
up, Will demand protection just as those
bsing opened to-day. The ''home market"
will no longer deceive him. He has seen
that when he counts the tax he has had to
pay on account of protecting the interests
that create home markets, the advantages
OF 4 home market are too dear and he could
have made more money by selling his pro-
duets hundreds of miles away. And hehas
found too that the price of his products is
fixed by what they can be bought for hun
dreds Of miles away. The path etic story
OF ''mines forced to close" no longer affects
him, any more than a store force5 to close
OF a farm forced to be sold, does. He has
come to the conclusion that when mai
puts his money into mine he must take
the same chances that the man does who
puts his money into any other enterprise
II the investor can make money that il
his affair solely, and he must not ask The
consumer to pay in order that the invest
ment may be made to pay. He no Longer
puts such confidence in the openers up,
Of coal mines for instance, that he would
pay IS d ton for coal rather than seen one
of them fail.
This consumer is not able to do mission
airy work at the National capitol with the
Ways and Means Committee and the men,
berS of congress, nor is he able to flood the
newspaper offices with protection litera-
ture, but he is able to talk to his congress
man when he returns home. and if he finds
that his congressman has been with Tho
protection people and against him, he vii
know very well what to Go. The consume L,
more than any other man, knows who the
people are-he is one OF them and slffels
with them-and when he is told that the
people of any State OF section are anxious
to lie taxed for the benefit of few men he
knows it is not so. The consumer may be
and is, a frendless man in this fight with
Protection, be may not he able to get ny
any organization to bring pressure on cGn-
gross, but he is the man to whom all this
work has to lie finally submitted for judg
melt. In that day he will not be So fliel:d
less.