The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-20
Kiefer's Improved Arithmetic.


We fear that the good people Of St.
Paul have forgotten the immense serv-
ice rendered the entire country by the
Always Reaching gentleman, who is
now again reaching for the mayoralty
of this city, while he was representing
this district in congress, in the radical
change made by him in the computation
of percentages. They may have forgot
ten how the world of mathematics stood
aghast at the entrance into their midst
of this bold innovator, and how the
makers Of arithmetics gazed in despair
upon their vanishing occupation. 1t
was the sensation of the day; but, in
this rushing age, sensations tread SO
fast upon each others heels that it is
more than probable that that one is
overlaid in the memories Of most men
by the hundreds Of it's successors. We
feel that it is due to the former repre-
sentative in congress Of this great busi-
ness city that his remarkable feat
should be recalled at this juncture
when he is asking to be made it's Off
cial business head.
1t was in 1894. The Wilson bill was
pending in the house of representatives.
Among other reductions proposed to be
made by that measure was one on i'm
ports Of potatoes from the rs cents a
bushel Of the Mckinley act to Is cents
Another was reduction Of the tax on
starch made from potatoes from cents
to 1 cent a pound. When this schedule
was reached Col. Kiefer felt that the
trumpet had sounded It's battle call for
him. Doughty old warrior that he was,
he mounted the ramparts and blew a
blast of defiance upon his bugle
that should have been worth a thou
sand votes. We will not recount his
eloquent appeal for mercy for his suf-
fering potato growers and starch max
ers. The pathos of 1t starts the tears
even now of him who pores over the
pages of the Congressional Record that
mold, with difficulty, the bursting,
soaring, roaring eloquence which that
measure tapped. We pass reluctantly
that touching passage to dwell upon the
coloneps mathematical exploit.
Common, everyday arithmeticians,
set to compute the percentage of the
reduction proposed, and afterward
made, by the Wilson bill upon the tax
laid on imports Of potatoes, would have
said that the 10 cents taken off the Is
was a reduction Of two-fifths and that
two-flfths, decimally expressed, was 40
per cent. Seventh and eighth grade pu-
pills in our common schools, misinstruct-
ed as they have been since schools be-
gan, would have reached the same
erroneous conclusion. Merchants and
other business men, having to make
reductions in price Of goods, owing to
their faulty school education would
have arrived at the same mistaken re-
suit. The colonel, like another Newton,
brushed aside the web Of error and
boldly, with Napoleonic terseness, dis
daining augmentation and elucdation.
astounded the arithmeticians by declar-
ing that the proposed reduction was one
of $50 per cent. With equal positiveness
he Insisted that the reduction On starch
amounted to 100 per cent.
1t was in vain that arithmeticians
protested that 100 per cent was the
whole thing, and that it was mathe-
NAUTICAL as well as physical impos-
sibility to reduce a tax below 100 per
cent. for then nothing would remain.
To reduce it $50 per cent would wipe
the tax all out and half way out again.
AS Is cents remained of the 25 cents
tax on potatoes and 1 cent of the Q
cents on starch, they insisted that the
reduction on the one was but 40 per
cent, and on the other but so per cent.
But the colonel, serene in his conf
dence in the superiority of his mathe-
mates, was obdurate, and to this day
we believe. although an unappreciatiye
constituency dispensed with his sery-
ices as a statesman, insists that if
10 cents be taken off % the reduction is
l5o per cent, and if l cent be taken off 2
cents the reduction is 100 per cent. Now
that he is aspiring to be the business
head of business organization we feel
that justice to him requires that his
improved arithmetic be freshly put be-
fore his constituents for their approval.