The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-01-22

State or Government, and / quote so
eminent authority as the great and
good Benjamin Franklin, who states
that I'VE are more heavily taxed by
our fdleness, pride and folly, than we
are taxed by government The
farmer who undertakes to buy every
thing that is necessary to make a cot
ION crop upon voluntarily imposes an
over-powering tax upon himself.
When he buys a pound OF meat or
peek of corn, he pays the merchants
he gets them from a tax. Ilcpays the
wholesale man a tax. He pays the
drayman a tax who transfers it. lie
paws the railroad Il tax that hauls IT..
If meat he pays man Il tax that
butchers it, and he pays the original
farmer who raises it n tax, for it is
likely he is not raising it for his health,
but for his profit.
\ farmer always pays toll when he
"oes to town, whether he rides upon
macadamizcd road or not. | have
known Il farmer to ride nine miles to
town on tired mule, when his crop
was in the grass, to pay twenty-five
cents for shuck collar, when there
were shucks wasting at home. / nave
known them to do the same, who had
sold cotton for 4 and 49, cents, and
pay 20 cents Il pound for cotton ploW
lines
knew of farmer. who while ploW-
inc his new ground field, one Satur-
day morning in July, suddenly re-
membered that he had broken his axe
helye. and would have to go to town
TO pet another. Now, this fellow
lived in the mountains of North Ala
bama. where live, and where we have
second growth hickory, that is the
best AK handle timber on earth ana
a profusion Of it. Now. instead OF
going back of his cabin, on the noun
tain side. and cutting his straight
strong, sinewy. young mountain hick-
orv. while with his wife by his side
and his children playing around HIM,
with the butt end Of the hickory
tightly locked between the logs of his
humble cabin, he drew it down to the
symmetry of n strong. straight-grain-
ed aN-handle. he quits his field of labor,
throws a guano sack upon the back
of his mortgaged mule, and as he rides
out of the gate, replies to the anxious
inquiry of his wife, that he is obliged
10 90 to town to get an AK handle.
The tax begins when he rides through
that broken-down gate. First and
foremost. he is taxing the anxiety of
that poor pale-faced woman, that
knows too well Of the himsiness of this
excuse; she knows too we'll that
though he is generous, brave and true,
that under certain influences, the
recklessness Of his nature leads him
to imposing taxes upon himself and
family that human nature can i'll al
ford 10 bear. and that God Almighty
Himself will not hold him guiltless of.
Upon his return, after an absence OF
Il dav and night. ITO the cabin on the
mountain side and its defenselcss in
mates. who had spent a lonesome
night indeed in the absence g. their
ONLY protector, save the faithful coon
dog, after emptying his meal sack at
their feet Of its contents OF highpliced
cotton prints and little shoes that he
had paid country merchant 100 per
cent. ad yalorem tax upon, thus under
taking to alleviate his own feelings by
paing them for the wrong he had done
Them, he was again called back TO the
error Of his way when his wife re
proachfully asks for the axe handle
that "neyer came"
In conclusion, i VIII say 10 you, my
fellow farmers and co-laboreTs of the
American Cotton Growers Protective
Association, that my advice to you is
to raise your home supplies, thus
avoiding these scIf-imposed taxes that
are more burdensome than you can
bear, Decrease your cotton acreage
and thus destroy this annual surplus,
or in other words. adjust the supply
to the dpmaDd: then the laws Of com
mertr aft CO.'S. ~t.toa atll prevail
and price wilt regna1c themselves
equitably between the producer and
the consumer.