Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-11-18
THE TARIFF INJUSTICE.
How the Poor Are Robbed For
the Benefit of the Rich.
A REFORM THAT is. NECESSARY.

Every Man should BE Taxed Accord
ing to HIS Means and No More Than
the Government, Honestly Admin
istered, Requires Vast Surplus
Used to Aid Banks aud Trusts.
If the federal customs duties collect
ed at the ports of entry were the only
taxes on the goods the people consume
and the government needed the $254,-
444, 7OS collected in 1902, the largest
sum ever before received, they would
still be a great burden. But the re-
ceipts from all sources in that year ex-
ceeded the expenditures by $91, 2S7,-
1851 and will probably be $50,000,00O
for the present year. The cash bal
ance now in the treasury is 1925, 49,
705, so there is no present reason to
continue this excessive taxation
through high tariff, for it is criminal
to tax the public more than the needs
of the government demand, especially
when this surplus is loaned to favored
banks without any return in interest
or otherwise. The Wall street bank
ers to whom a great portion of this
surplus is loaned and the other banks
that are similarly favored throughout
the country loan this money TO their
customers at the going rate of interest,
so that the taxpayers of the country
are furnishing the capital to the banks
and paying the interest that the banks
demand on it, or if they are not Dor
rowing, but have money of their own
10 fhnv flrniGh fhn FREQ n
the banks to compete with their own
capital. This tax collected through the
custom houses is only Il small part of
the tax that the Dingley tariff imposes.
Indirectly there is a much greater i'm
post demanded by the monopolists,
combines and trusts that were called
into council by the Republican lead
ers when the Dingley bill was being
secretly incubated at the Arlington hO
tel i'll the city of Washington in 1897.
No Democratic member of the ways
and means committee was permitted to
join in the creation of the Dingley bill,
and Senator DOlliver in a speech i'll the
senate, which is reported in the Con-
gresSional Record, acknowledged that
the tariff rate was purposely placed
much higher than waS-necesSary to al
low margin for reduction under the
treaties for reciprocity with other coun-
tries that the bill also provided for. but
which have never been ratified. AS
Senator Deliver was a member of the
ways and means committee at the time
the DingIey bill was created this inside
history of the enormity of that bill is
therefore at first hand by Republican
who was present at its preparation.
BY virtue of the extremely high tar
iff the protected trusts and combines
are more eXtortionate than the Ding
ley bill. Where that law provides for
the collection of over 30 per cent on
the average value of most of the ne
cessities of life the trust tax gatherer
demands in many cases over 100 per
cent, of which the government receives
nothing.
The statisticians of the bureau of Ia
Dor of Massachusetts have figured that
In the boot and shoe industry the aver
age wages are $491.49 for workers per
year, and, allowing that two of each
family are employed, the amount that
each family earns would be 1888. T..
tariff tax on the expenditures of sue!
a household is $13.75, and the tax that
the trusts and combines extort is
$95.25. Think of it, nearly seven times
more to the trusts under the Repub-
lican protective system than the Unit
ed States government receives.
Congressman LittIefield, a Republic
an, gave list of 800 trusts, with a
capitalization of nearly $14,000,000 !
which was printed in the Congressional
Record of Feb. 26, to which aggrega- |
ton each family in the United States |
contributed nearly 500, so that the |
trusts can get richer and the poor |
poorer.
It matters not how poor or wretched |
u man may be, the protective tariff de- |
mands and obtains a tax from him. |
The ways of the protectionists are |
peculiar. They pass laws to keep out |
foreign goods and then pass another |
law appropriating $5,000,0O0 for an ex-
position at St Louis and invite for |
eigners to exhibit their productions |
side by side in competition with our
domestic products. They have estab-
lished a system of taxation so remark |
able that tramp chewing his quid of |
tobacco pays his taxes with the rest |
Of us and the poor man and the labor |
er pays in far greater proportion than
the millionaire. And yet we are being |
told by the Republican leaders that no |
steps must be taken by the coming |
congress to reform or revise this un-
equal tax; that the prosperity of the |
is bound up with the protective
tariff and we must "let well enough
alone
If the Republican leaders were not |
in league with the trusts, combines and
would they be continually |
advising the voters of the United |
States to stand pat ON such an in
iquitous and unjust system that makes
the farmer, the worllingman and the
people with small means pay enor-