The Jersey City news., 1906-12-10
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MONDAY. DECEMBER 10, 1896.

President Havemeyer of the sugar
Trust stated to the industrial commits
sion in 1895 that the tariff is the moth
er Of trusts, but now comes the belated
opinion of Attorney General Moody
that mot the tariff, but the railroad
rebate, is the mother of trusts Which
eyer Of these important Republican
opinions is the right one is not of much
consequence, for all impartial inyesti-
gators are agreed that the tariff and
railroad rebates are both closely relat-
ed to trust plundering, and either may
well be the mother and the other the
father Of these predatory corporations.
But the chief thing is to remember
that the Republican party has been
standing pat while the trust fostering
was incubating, and now the trust in
fants have grown to the stature of
giants the Republican party is still
continuing to prevent legislation that
win take from the trusts the monopoly
they enjoy through tariff protection.
There is no escape for the Repub-
lican leaders, from president to state
legislator, from the fact that since
coming into power in 1897 and enact
ing the Dingley tariff the trust era
has accompanied that trust fostering
law. Nor can it be denied that since
the tariff was so greatly increased in
1897 1t has been accompanied by
similar advance In the price Of nearly
a fhA .0f
living, according to Dun's and Brad
streets index figures, is close upon so
per cent higher than before the Ding
ley law was passed.
AS the Republican leaders have taken
all the credit for any advantage to
business from the trust boom and have
even attempted to appropriate the
blessing from favorable seasons and
resulting good crops, they must in re-
turn be held responsible for the enor-
nous increased cost Of living and the
great loss to those whose incomes have
not kept pace with their increased out
go. The Republican leaders must also
explain to the farmers why the prices Of
wheat and other agricultural products
have fallen under the trust fostering
tariff, which they have assured the
farmers was to protect them as well as
the trusts. As long as poor crops abroad
apparently kept UP this Republican de-
ception by making demand for our sur
plus wheat and other farm products
and their price naturally was advanced
the Republican theory that the tariff
benefited the farmer appeared to the
unthinking to have good grounds for
being really responsible for prosperity.
But that Republican idol has been shat
tered by the reduced demand for wheat
and other farm products and the fall
in the price
It IS therefore incumbent on the Re
publican leaders who have been going
up and down the land claiming that
prosperity is due to the tariff to ex-
plain this breach IN the tariff walls that
has allowed the low priced farm prod
ucts toget into the tariff fortress along
side of the high priced trust products.
They must also explain why the trusts
are to continue to have a monopoly un-
der the high tariff law and the farmers
shall still be forced to sell at prices
fxed ii the free trade markets of the
world in competition with the surplus
Of other countries that have like prod
ucts to dispose Of.
A revision OF the tariff is obviously
demanded, SO that the trusts shall lose
their enormous protection and the con-
sumers-farmerg and other people alike
--will be protected from paying the
high prices that the trusts are protect
ed by the tariff In imposing on all the
Azla@ rah people.