The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-06-24

tions of those immense fortunes as
danger to our Republican institu-
tons. To-day we find him hand in
glove With the Republican protection
lists, a declared advocate of this per-
nicious system Of plumber and op-
preston.
Senator McEnery said he favored
protective duty on wool and did not
believe it would materially increase
the price of clothing. Suppose we
concede that such a duty will not
materially increase the price of cloth
ing. Still it will increase it little
bit, and though the rich and well-to-
do may not feel or care for that little
bit, the very poor do feel it and mind
it keenly. The sewing girls, the shop
girls, the widow with little pittance
to live Oh, the toiling masses who earn
from 81 to 81 SO a day, feel as
crushing weight every cent that is
added to the price of their clothing
or other necessary expenses, and this
is the class of miserable and helpless
beings that the Senator from Louisi-
ana proposes to tax lust little Bit
for the benefit of the rich wool-grow
ers and manufacturers.
But Mr.. McEnery labors under a
great error. He has not boen an OBJ
server Of the clothing market Under
the Mckinley bill, Mr.. McMillin, of
Tennessee, tariff expert, showed
that under the Mckinley bill the tax
on wool increased the price of wooden
goods, shirts, pants, clothing, hats
and blankets to the amount of 80 per
capita for every man, woman and
child in the Union, or a gross tax
upon the toilers of the land for the
benefit of the classes of $40, 100000
per annum on the clothing of the poor.
This is proved by the fact that suits
OF WOO len clothing that sold in the
market under the Mckinley bill for
from $22 to 1926 fell under the Wilson
bill to SIS and SlS. And right here,
let US not overlook the fact that the
tariff on wooden goods, especially
those of the cheaper grades, used by
the poor, is increased in the Dingley
bill fully ten per cent over those of
the Mckinley bill.
For fully twenty years or more we
have been the ardent personal and
political friend of S. D. McEnery.-
In all that time there was never day
that we were not ready to follow his
banner to victory or defeat. 1t moves
US now with profound sorrow to write
these words. But the theory of pro-
lection, in our opinion, is the most
oppressive and Infamous scheme of
robbery that the ingenuity of the
people and free institutions have ever
invented. It is the most insidious
enemy of the great and benignant
Democratic principle of equal rights
to all, special privileges to none, ever
devised, and we part company wit b
our almost life time friend and will
follow him not one step further.
We are not of those who envy and
cry out against the rich. Ill betide
the country that is not blessed with |
rich men. If it were not for aggre-
gated wealth we should have no
schools or universities, no free hos
pitfalls and asylums, no galleries of art;
no statutes of the dead patriots and
heroes; no discoveries in science. But
we despise the wealth that is accumu-
lated through protection, in other
words by the government oppression
OF the poor for the benefit of the
classes.
The creation of every such fortune
is blow at the liberties of the people
and threat to free government
We love our old friends and have ever
been true to our political connections.
But we would sever the dearest ties
that ever bound us to friend, and
would crush, if we had the power,
that friend were he to become the ad.
vocate OF a system designed to enrich
the Plutocrat, to enable the robber
rich to put their feet on the neck of
the poor man and rifle his pocket of
his hard earnings; and that is just
what the Dingley bill means.