Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-11-03
Record Of a Tariff for One
Hundred Years.
who Has It Benentted9 The I.abOrer,
the Farmer, or the Man with - 49,
900 Acre shooting GrOund7

MANY a case the license is double the
value of the goods; in many others it
is treble.
Whatever license the foreigner has
to pay, he of course adds to the price
of the goods, and we pay the same
back to the foreigner when we buy his
goods. This license fee is called the
tariff.
When a merchant living in your
town can prevail on the town council
to compel outsiders to pay a license
fee before they can sell inside the town
the merchant inside the town gets the
advantage of that arrangement does
he not7 1t shuts off competition, to
the extent of the license fee, does it
not? 1t gives the merchant a mono
poly inside the town, to the extent of
that license fee, does it not?
Suppose the butcher outside the town
has to pay license fee of five cents
upon every pound of beef he sells in
the town, will not the butcher inside
the town get more for his beef than
he could get if the outsider did not
have to pay the license fee?
The butcher inside the town can sell
beef at cents per pound and pocket
the whole sum as his own.
If the butcher outside the town sells
at cents he pockets only one cent,
for five cents must go to pay the Ii
cense fee.
But if the butcher outside sells beef
at all he must sell so as to make pro-
fit; hence he runs up his price to sum
that will afford him profit after pay
ing the license fee.
The butcher inside the town runs up
his price likewise; both butchers max
ing profit, and the customers being
compelled to pay to each a higher
price than they would pay to either
were it not for the license fee.
Precisely so does our tariff work.
We charge the foreigner a license fee
to sell; he adds to the price of his
goods: we pay the license fee when
we buy the goods; and the home
manufacturer of the same class of
goods gets an advantage over the for
eignor, and likewise over us, to the
extent of the license fee.
This being the case, it would seem
to be fact that these license fees, or
tariff, are exacted for the benefit of
the butcher inside the town"-for the
home manufacturer.
For one hundred years we have been
compelling the foreigners to pay high
license for the privilege of selling their
goods here. Somebody has been bene-
flied by these laws, else the privileged
classes wouldn't clamor for them so.
Who is this somebody?
Most of the politicians say it is the
laborer. They tell us that the govern.
ment has for hundred years been
shutting out foreign capital from com.
petition with home capital for the
benefit of the laborer.
1t wasn't done for the benefit of the
home capitalist at all, it seems.
And during all these hundred years
in which foreign capital has been shut
out, entirely or partially, from compe.
tition with home capital, foreign labor
has been loudly, consistently and
urgently invited to come in and com
pete with home labor.
This was for the benefit of the home
laborer, we are told.
The unemployed of all nations have
been brought here to complete against
the employed and unemployed Of our
own kith and kin.
This is done to enrich the home Ia.
borer, it seems.
And what are the fruits of this
strange tree7
Somebody has grown marvelously
rich on these laws.
Is it the laborer!
Or is it the capitalist? Look and
see.
Yonder is the capitalist with his
palace for summer and his palace for
winter; his parlor car for land travel
and his yacht for the sea; his 2S.OOC
acre shooting-ground in-Scotland, and
his $1O,OOO,OO0 bride to buy an English
lord with, as husband for his dauph.
ter.
That's one picture. The other is toe
hideous for description. Tue home.
less laborer, his wretched life, his
squalid family, his degrading sur.
roundings, his pitiless taskmasters,
his unheeded wall of despair-all
these are but too familiar to us.
While Carnegie, the capitalist, was
shooting pheasants on his Is, 900 acre
game preserve in Scotland twenty odd
Of the laborers were shot down like
dogs in the public highway by the
deputies" whom the courts and the
capitalists have put there to subdue
the laborers who dare to demand
wages on which human being NAV
decently live.
The tariff has been protecting
these laborers 100 years, and yet they
starve; the tariff has not "protected'
the capitalist, and yet he rolls luxuri
ously in millions.
Something queer about this tariff,
isn't their7
rhoae lead mas, l., tt,a ~,,,ht;o -a