The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-04-16
EVILS OF BoUNTIES.
LIVE ISSUE DISCUSSED BY ROBERT
w. SLOAN.
Bounties Are Not Only Against JUS
tice, But 1T is Crime to Vote
Public Money to Any Such Uses.

Public Money to Any Such Uses.
The right to grant bounty by the state
! involves the right to take the money
of the people collected as taxes and to
pay it to individuals or private corpora
tons for private benefit That it may
ultimately be expected to do some public
good, does not change the proposition.
1t is hardly wise to quote the views OF
constitutional interpreters to those who
feel qualified to make constitutions, but
there is commonsense side to the
bounty question, and that the people
should be made to understand. On what
ground does a corporation, or an indi-
vidual ask for bounty which is COL
lected by taxation? The only reason can
| be that the business will not pay, and
because it will not pay. money shall be
/ taken from the earnings OF the people and
put into an enterprise which, as the ask
ing of the bounty SHOWS beyond Questlofs,
cannot be made to pay on its merits; in
other words, it means that a certain
amount of money shall be lost every
! year in order that the business may be
run.
Every business man with sense enough
/ to keep outside an asylum and to go in if
an institution which he knows win not
pay would mean ruin to him as an In
dividual, and that is why men refuse to
! give nnanclaI support 10 enterprises
which do not promise a profit. Now, if
a business which of itself will not pay
/ when one man goes into it, viii II pay
| if two men put money into 1t? II two
! men cannot make a business Fay which
will not pay, how could four men make
it pay? And if four men cannot make a
business pay. which will not pay, how can
four hundred men make q business pay,
that will not pay? And if four hundred
men cannot make it pay, what right have
men to ask the state as a whole to put
. s.t< 6rro cln .r
bounty, which, by the very asking of
the bounty, they admit cannot pay?
This proposition would be very clear'to
would tell him to take the bran and
slops from the COW which is giving the
milk and feed It to the old steer which
that he will obtain more milk by feeding
it to the steer. No farmer could be in
duced to- do thing of this kind; yet it
more in taxes that some Industry may be
started which will not pay in the ex-
pectation that by a great many people
contributing to make good its losses, It
II is said that It would give employ
Tlent to men. That IS true; but is not
the money, already giving employment to
factory. Every dollar of money nut into
the sugar factory Is money which was
already at work in some direction The
territory has not increased in wealth
by reason of the sugar factory, because
the wealth was already here. Neither is
the money giving EMPLOYMENT to more
men because ii is invested in the sugar
ia Glory than It did before. For every
additional dollar there Is I'm Lehi and
Utah county, there is a dollar short some
where else. IL Cache county contributed
s2ooOn towards the sugar factory, Cache
county IS short s20000 and Utah county
Is ahead $4,000 but the territory IS no
Cache county would hire just as many
men IN Cache county as 1t would in
Utah county. There IS no increase in the
employn,ent Of the people IN the terri
has been nut into the tngar factory at
Lehi there is ?. CORRESPONDING amount lost
somewhere else in the territory For
every additional man engaged by reason
If the presence of the sugar factory. at
] chi. there is an idle man somewhere
else in the territory. so that there Is. no
torv. taking the territory as whole,
although there is more. work at T.ehi
Put The areument Is that the irs+i-
tuition will nay in time II temporarily
supported by bounty. But why should
- he mode tn nav in time? It is against
the nuhlic interest 70 nut money into .
lew IF money is lilrA the ratural Iaw
If animal life. that II shall bring forth
after ire own kind: ard that wealth which
does not create wealth Is entitled to as
life which refuses to Derpetuate its own
kind. Rut supposing II does pay IN time.
I1dL Will not nelD the matter. Why
should the money be taken from channels
which are now paying and put into chan
nelS which will not paw for some time
and which NAV or may not ever pay2
Why not let II rauain where 1t Is at
present? 1t certainly is making money
now or you could not get It, In other
words, when you take money from toe
people to put into a business which will
not paw land that IS what bounty nneans)
you are taking money from an industrv
which does nay and is creating wealth
f,,N-
does not paw. and which therefore IS de-
strovine wealth. Instead Of being states
Jnanship a. course of this kind is almost
Sinfu1 The fact that the money is being
talon from industries which DO nav is
evidenced by the payment Of the money
Supnose that we had nothing In this
would not nay. how much SUPPORT could
they give to anv kind of industry? We
would All starve and go bankrupt. Bv
taking the money from Industries which
do nay and putting Il into Industries
which do not pay. you are destroying the
power of raonev TO give labor to those
who need labor: because where money
Increases it increases the power IF those
who possess Ii to give labor, and where
money does not increase or decrease. It
simply enables the possessor of it to
men. But when money is put into an in
Stitution where 1t decreases, II is placed
so that its power to give employment
to men grows less and less every year
and is a positive injury to the community.
That is what a bounty means. and it
means it because it takes money from
industries which do pay. and puts it into
industries which do not nay under the
plea that it gives labor. Could anything
be more absurd?
1t is contended. however. that 1t keeps
money in circulation. Well, that is no
argument in favor of it, because the
money is already in circulation.
The owners of capital cannot get
fuse at the same time to loan it.
1t is not like grain. 1t will not grow bur
led in the ground; and the capitalist who
boards his money is miser and must
live Oft his substance instead of his in
crease, or starve Every dollar of money
bounty is money that was already in cir
culation, already giving employment to
men, and giving it in directions where it /
was blessing to mankind, because 1t
was realizing profit and increasing the
power to hire more men. Taking the |
money from paying institutions and put
ting it into ones which confessedly will |
not pay. is against human interest. is /
decrease in the wealth of the world, and |
is deliberate destruction of the work of |
the human race.
A man builds house which costs him |
$4,000, and 1t is destroyed by fire. The |
money is in circulation, but $1,000 has |
been lost to the world. Men start an in |
stitution which requires a bounty and 1t
receives in bounties money to the extent |
of $4,000, because that is the amount it
has gone behind. The money is in circu-
lation. but the $1,000 is destroyed and lost
to the world just as effectively as if it |
had been burned UP. The argument that |
1t keeps money in circulation is no argu-
ment at all. AS a matter of fact, 1t takes
money from circulation because it is
placed in business which does not pay,
in a business which DESTROYS ito I1eefrI-