Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1904-11-08
FACTS FOR FARMERS.
WHY THEIR VOTES SHOULD BE GIVEN
FOR ALTON B. PARKER.
What the Tariff and Trusts, on Which
Roosevelt Stands Pat, Cost the
American Agricultural.

No class of American citizens suffers
more severely from the excessive and
unjust Republican tariff system than
the farmers. 1t is q well-known fact
that the cost of all production falls ul-
timately upon the land, that whoever
dances the farmer has to pay the piper,
that when the great heads of Republic
can trusts travel over the world in
their yachts and automobiles, 1t is the
farmer planting his corn and gathering
in his crops who has to pay for their
enjoyment, while he and his help
sweat and tug in the field and the
barn. AS all wealth is really based on
land and its products the farmer, who
is nearest the land, ought to have his
fair share of it. But does he? Let us
see.
The Republican high tariff gives the
trust yacht-owning, champagneguz-
zling monopolists the power to charge
what prices they please in the United
States, where competition has been
practically destroyed hV the trusts,
while the same monopolists, when they
sell their American goods abroad, have
to meet competition there, and as a
consequence they sell to foreigners
cheaper than they sell to Americans.
The American farmer has 70 pay, for
instance. Sill for trust-made Ameri-
can cultivator, while the same Ameri-
can cultivator is sold abroad for $40.
The American farmer pays $14 for a
trust-made American plows which is
! sold abroad for $12.60.
| The American farmer pays $S.25
a dozen for trust-made American axes,
which the same trust manufacturer
a dozen.
The American farmer has to pay an
American trust So per 100 pounds for
| barbed wire, when the same American
! trust sells the same barbed wire
abroad to the foreigner for 81 per LOG
pounds.
If the American farmer wants fine
sewing machine for his wife he has to
| pay the American tariff protected sew
ing machine trust $27.50 for machine
which the same trust sells abroad for
SPOTS. And about the same difference
| in prices here and abroad applies to
American-made medium and cheap
sewing machines.
And so on through everything used
by the American farmer. 1t has been
carefully estimated that the 6,200,0O(
families in the United States engaged
in agricultural pursuits pay tribute
annually to the Republican tariff pro
tected trusts of $517, 100000. This
vast amount the Republican trust mag
mates are enabled to extort from the
farmers of the United States by means
of high tariff which prevents compe'
tition from abroad, and of unlawful
| trade combinations which the Repub'
lican Administration has done nothing
to break up, and which virtually con
troll that Administration.
Judge Parker, Democratic candidate
for the Presidency, is pledged by his
own utterances and the party platform
to bring about such revision of the
tariff as will prevent the trusts from
discriminating in favor of the foreign
err and against the American farmer
in the sale of American goods.
Judge Parker is also pledged tx
break up the unlawful conspiracies
/ called trusts, and reduce prices By re
storing competition. To this end ht
will enforce statute law. and, where
that is lacking, the common law.
/ President Roosevelt, on the othel
hand, says distinctly that he and hi!
party stand pat on the tariff and trusts
that the trusts, under protection Of
the Republican high tariff, will be per
nitted, if the Republican party is sue
cessful in November, to continue Il
| extort about $51S0o0,O 900 year In thu