The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1897-04-24
THE DONKEY TOzERS.
Daily States.
The Boston Post thus puts the case:


The Boston Post thus puts the case:
..Suppose the value of the cloth in a suit
of clothes is SO. Under the present tariff
raises the cost to $l4. The new Mckinley
or Dingley tariff imposes a tax of three and
one-half to four times the duty on wool of
the first classes, 8 to IS cents a pound, and
price. This would raise the cost of the
clothes from $40 to $23 or $40:
Thus the consumer will be forced to pay
under the Dingley bill at the very least SO
clothes than he is now paying under the
Wilson bill. Let us make little estimate
which must of necessity be in the nature of
an approximate one.
numbers about I,7oo,ooo-the census of
1890 gives 55s.3es whites and ss9,193
blacks. OF the former there are say 200, 600
males, all of whom. though not adults, are
old enough to wear coats and breeches. 1t
is within bounds that each of these will re-
quire no suits of clothes year. or we can
fling in the wooden undertaking and hats
to make up for the any deficiency 70! on the
little sun, of 100000 extorted from the
white males of this State alone simply for
clothing. To this let Us add 100000
for wooden goods for the women, girls and
babies, and like amount for the entire
negro population. and we have yearly tax
of Sc, 100000 for the sole benefit of the
handful of wool growers of the country.
But, it may be incidentally remarked that
enormously increased taxation consumers
will be forced to pay for other products un-
der the operation of the Dingley bill:
The estimated population of the Union is
are colored. Their consumption of wooden
goods will be in the same ratio as that OF the
people of Louisiana-greater in fact-$5,-
100000 for every 100000 whites and ST.
the 50, ooo. 600 will be annually robbed of
$685. 900, 900, and the 10000 of $4,000
900, all for the benefit of the sheeP-rasers.
And it must be remembered that these fl
wooden products, but only their enhance
ment through the instrumentality of the rob-
Der bill which was passed through RePub-
lican House by an over whelming majority,
the Senate if it is possible to be done.
But the Providence Journal, strictly IN
dependent S, far as political parties are con-
cerned, yves some figures on the subject
which dwarf our rough ones into absolute
insignifcance. 1t says that on a moderate
estimate the $500, 600, 900 which the Dingley
tariff IS expected to raise for the government
will cost the people 1900, 600, 900 in adj
vanced prices, which will of course go into
the pockets of the protected classes-the
share of the farmer and the laborer and the
professional man and the merchant, as we'll,
will be nix.
1t is one of the unsolved problems how
man, not a manufacturer, claiming the pos
session of even a modicum of brains, can
get his consent to connive at the robbery of
himself and the great mass of his fellow
citizens by giving support to the Republican
party. On the other hand, it is very easy TO
understand why the manufacturing barons
and proprietors of other protected industries
not only vote that ticket themselves, but are
prompt to contribute largely of their spoils
to the purchase of the votes of donkeys who
really should be deprived of the right OF
franchise on the score of mental inlbecility.