Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-09-07
NORTH DAKOTA INDEPENDENTS
IDLE CHATTER.

The North Dakota Independent this
week arraigns Congressman johnson
before the farmers of the state, for his
attitude on the tariff bill. It tells the
farmers that he voted against free coal,
free lumber, free barbed wire and others
of the things which farmers want. The
Independent forgets to mention that he
voted also against a gift of $~5O,0O0,000 to
the sugar trust, for which all of the
populist senators were in line. It
forgets to argue at any length upon
the subject Of free wool, against which
Congressman Johnson voted also. It
forgets that, Notwithstanding the pro-
tests of every wool grower in the
United States, the populists senators
helped to tack the free wool schedule to
the tariff bill. The populists and demo-
Gratis voted for free wool, a provision
which puts the American farmer and
the farmer of North Dakota on an equal
footing with the cheap labor of Aus
%tralia, and renders it necessary for him
to come down to that standard or go
out of the business. They voted to tax
the sugar which in an indispensable
adjunct of the larder of every farm
house in the nation. To recompense
him for this loss, the independent would
give the North Dakota farmer free coal.
If, with a supply of coal within the
borders of the state of North Dakota
which is inexhaustlble, the Independent
will explain the advantage of free coal
to the farmers OF the state, it will confer
a lasting favor on an intelligent people.
If the Independent will dilute it's in
effable bombast with a small quantity
Of common sense, 1t will cease from it's
endeavors to harm Congressman johnson,
because he voted against the most mis-
cradle excuse at tariff legislation which
ever disgraced the statute records of a
nation. The populists, of whose deep
interest in the farmers the Independent
is always ranting, aided the democrats
to inaugurate the following reductions
of tariff duties, all of which render the
farmer of North Dakota an involuntary
competitor against his Canadian neigh
Dor. The Mckinley duty on hay was 81
a ton, while the sugar trusts bill cuts it
down to So. Nor is hay all. The fol-
lowing table shows the per cent. of re-
duction on several important products
from that of the Mckinley bill:
Hay, so per cent. Potatoes, 40 per cent.
Barley. 53h per cent. Onions, 50 per cent.
Eggs, 46 per cent. Horses, So per , emit.
Poultry. so per cent. t%attle, SO per cent,
Hogs, 66 per cent.
The republican tariff legislation aim
ed to keep the products of foreign farm
ers out of American markets. The sug-
ar trusts bill aims to let them in. The
republican law aimed to give the North
Dakota farmer an exclusive privilege in
the North Dakota market. The sugar
trusts bill forces him to reduce prices
at the will of his Canadian neighbor.
There is not a single, solitary provision
in the demo-pop tariff bill which was
framed with an idea to the benefit of the
North Dakota farmer. It raises the
price of his sugar, and lowers the price
of his produce. 1t is a miserable, inef-
fectual and harmful measure, the leeiti-
mate result Of the combined imbecility
of democrats and populists.