Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1906-08-17
AN Open letter ON THE TARIFF
Plain Statement Of Facts Made by Gentleman Not in Politics and
Wanting Only Justice to All People.
every Man WITHOUT PREJUDICE WILL ENDORSE IT

in agriculture in other countries.
in the sale of his wheat, pork,
beef and cotton, all of which are
priced primarily, whether con.
sumed at home or aboard. on the
basis of worlds supply and de.
mand, determined by world crops,
and not upon American produc.
tion, only as that is part of the
universal field of production.
Conditions as they were, when
the country planted itself upon
the policy of protection, do not
now exist, while tariff schedules
not longer develop new industries.
Those that have grown to giant
proportions under the stimulus of
tariff schedules combine to pre-
vent establishment and upbuilding
of new industries, while new
industries, started with new capi.
tai, are either forced in infancy
to the wall, or if perchance they
be strong enough and withstand
the onslaught of those now es-
tablished, are soon made to sur.
render their individuality and in
dependence and to pass into the
combine and become part of the
trust. The Lawrence wire and
nail factory; the paper mill that
used to operate in this state, the
many wagon shops that used to
turn out wagons in many thrifty
county seat towns of Kansas, the
occasional wooden factory, and
other small industries of twenty
i've years ago in Kansas, have all
closed doors, their fires extin-
guisheu, and thus during a period
covering practically a quarter of
a century of the highest protective
schedules this or any other coun-
try ever maintained, observation
the fact that protective
schedules no longer result in
building up new industries, no
longer result in carrying manu-
facturies into agricultural dis
tricts; their effect and their pur-
pose being to keep out the foreign
competitor, and thus enable the
American manufacturer to or
ganlze the trust to keep down
domestic competition. The in
dustries recently planted on
Kansas soil in gas districts. are
not new enterprises, they being
no more than the trust industries
removed from sections where fuel
has become exhausted, to other
sections where new supplies have
been discovered the results being
the same whether the glass
manufactures now in Kansas be
IN this state. or in Indiana, the
price of glass remains the same to
the consumer, it is therefore i'm
insofar as the country
is concerned, whether the in
dusty be on the east or on the
west side of an imaginary lire
dividing two states.
The manufacturer protected
from foreign competition perfects
his organization, insuring protec-
ton from domestic competition,
and then his goods are priced and
sold at prices determined by the
rate in a schedule of duties. pre-.
by himself, and measured
by his avarice and greed. The
result is creation of milIionaires
and multi-millionaires by the
hundreds, and these, arrogant and
proud, dominate the party and
their gait upon the army
of productive labor of farm and
shop. In this class we have
the Canegies, the Thaws, the
Rockefellers, the Schwabs, the
Coeys, and a brood of arrogant,
immoral people grown fat upon
unearned dollars, the bounty re.
ceived in excess of the value of
their goods, and this unearned
wealth filling their Golfers is paid