Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-09-20
A Terrific seif-Condemnation.

~ decided to surrender to the sugar trust
and thereby accept the German Dlli Oh
''perfidy and dishonor," e~x-Speaker Reed,
Towering in righteous wrath above the
cowed and self-disgraced Democracy,
Numbered forth, out of your own mouths
has your condemnation come, ne uttered
a truth which added heavily to the shame
and humiliation of the most shameful oc-
casion the Democratic party has known
since IL passed the fugitive slave law.
But it was reserved for a Democratic
member of Congress, one In good stand
ing, to hurl scathing denunclation more
burning If that be possible, thar any yet
uttered by any Republican, at the cor
rupt and detestable measure called the re-
form tariff law. Tom l.. Johnson, repre-
senting one of the Cleveland districts IN
Congress, became so thoroughly outraged
in his feelings because OF the hypocrisy,
falsehood. cowardice and trickery OF his
party in Congress, that he made a speech
on the subject, which he caused to, be
printed in permanent form in the Con-
sressional Record. Here is a portion OF
the speech which makes very entertaining
reading:
every man, woman and child uses
sugar. 1t is one Of the prime necessaries
of life. And there is not a housewife in
the land who will not feel that she is
robbed by our Democratic tariff re-
form when she finds that where she got
three pounds Of sugar under the Nc
Kinley bill she now, under the German
bill, for the same money, gets but two:
You and j, with our official incomes OF
$4,000 a year, may not feel this tax; MIR.
Cleveland, with his official income Of
J50,0O0 a year, may not feel IL; our col
leagues of the Senate, especially those
who may have bought sugar trust stock
at the right time, may not feel it; but the
great mass of the people by whose votes
we are here--the great mass of the people
who must count every penny or incomes
not sufficient to enable them to live in
half way decent comfort, they will feel it;
they will feel IL at once and feel 1t bit
teriy.
"And when they ask you what this tax
is for what will you tell them? Will you
quote to them Mr.. Clevelands letter to
Mr.. Wilson on the propriety of taxing SUI
gar? Will you quote to them Mr.. Carlisle
statement that the needs of the treasury
require the taxation of sugar? l know,
and yon know, and the people know-l
was about to say that every dog that
barks in the streets of the capital knows
that the real purpose of imposing this
tax is not to give revenue to the govern
ment, but revenue TO the boodlers. You
cannot disguise it from the people, for the
people know il already, that the purpose
OF this sugar tax is to put millions and
millions into the pockets of men who are
already m~illionaires by robbing the people.
They know that this tax on sugar has
been bought through every step of it's
way-carried by such open. undisguised
corruption as has never been Haunted
In their faces before; they know that the
sugar trust has purchased this privilege
or taxing them, and that though the price
IL may have paid may be millions, it will
receive back millions and millions before
the treasury gets a cent.
Political decency, no less than political
prudence, ought to prevent Democrats
from trying il under the open charges that
this bonus to the sugar trust at the ex-
pense of the people is in payment of heavy
contributions made from the funds of the
trust to the Democratic national
committee In the last presidential cam
paign. And the attitude of Mr.. Cleveland
on the sugar tax, the attitude of Mr.. Car
Isle. the attitude of our own ways and
means committee in reporting a tax on
sugar, which we free trade Democrats
only beat in this House by the aid of .the
Republicans, give a color to the charge,
which the action now proposed will carry
in the public mind to certainty. that Is
the way in which the Democratic party
IS paying the monster trust for election
help,
back to our constituents with the German
bill as the approved and indorsed Demo-
cratic bill-the answer which the Demo
cratic party makes TO the demands of the
people; a bill reeking with notorious bar
gain and sale; a bill that the Republicans
Jeer at, that the Democratic press has uni
yersally denounced: a bill that the Presi-
dent himself has declared an exhibition
OF perfidy and dishonor; a bill that cannot
possibly be defended. and that as GER
tainly as election day comes in Noyem-
Der. will be Indignantly repudiated by the
people"
The Party Middle Is Complete.
The Atlanta Constitution, one of the