The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-06-04
A SOCKDOLOGER.

We are in receipt of a communication,
written on hotel paper and dated Du-
buque, Ia, whose stalwart Republican
quality is evidenced by the lewd pro-
family of its language, it's objection to
the G O e's structures upon protection
and the final fact that the writer was
very properly ashamed to sign his
name. The letter, even though anony-
nous, is worthy of notice, because it
points a moral and adorns a tale. No
one has better reason to hide in the
dark and to write the sort of communi-
cations that these towards always do
than he who is espousing the cause of
the trustfostering bill that the Repub-
lican party is endeavoring to push
through for the burdening and impov-
erishment of our people. We are in
debted to this person, however, for one
vast and luminous argument, which,
We confess, never occurred to us before
He objects to the G l o e's statement
that a protective tariff favors some
persons and Expresses others, and casts
upon the situation the searchlight of
his mighty intellect in the following
words:
Who is favored? Who is oppressed? If
you don't buy the goods taxed, you don't
have to pay the tax.
1t is actually true, and it never oc-
CURED to us before. With shame and
humiliation we confess that, in all this
vast volume of discussion on the tariff
that has flooded the country for half a
century, nobody has ever grasped this
plain, simple proposition that taxation
on commodities is wholly voluntary
because, if you don't buy the stuff, they
cannot make you pay the tax
Here is a way open plainly for the
American people to defeat the machina-
lions Of Dingley and Aldrich, and even
to bring the existing German act to
grief. All that they have to do is to
quit buying. Let them go without their
tea and their sugar, their medicines
and all of their food except what is
produced upon the farm. Taxes being
imposed heavily upon all articles of
clothing of whatever material made. it
will be necessary only for the American
people to go without clothes in order
to escape tariff oppression. They will
need to discard all implements of labor
that are made of any kind of metal, to
live in sod shacks, as soon as the 50
md Tow t. l.
to swear off on every kind of kitchen
| and table furniture, cutlery and hard
ware and eat with their fingers food
cooked in the primitive pot Of glazed
earthenware. Doing this, emulating the
example Of the noble red man in modes
Of life, they may attain to the calm and
philosophic Indifference to taxation
which he displays.
In all the Republican arguments that
have been adduced in favor of high
tariffs, and to prove that they do no
injustice to any one, but that a man
is really happier and weather. the
more heavily he is taxed for others
benefit, we have found nothing so com
prehensive and convincing, no real
sockdologer like the stroke of genius
delivered by this anonymous gentle
man, profane in his language and Re-
publican in his proclivities. Stop buy
ing the taxed articles and you cease to
pay the tax. We commend this as the
most adequate, as, indeed, it is about
the only possible defense of the new
Republicans who are just now finding
| their task so difficult