The Wahpeton times. [volume] (Wahpeton, Richland County, Dakota [N.D.]) 1879-1919, 1908-10-01

rible burden placed upon you.
You are losing this year and
every year regularly, by reason
of the tariff, CUSTOMERS to the
value of at least $4OO,OO0,OOO, Of
which sum a considerable per
cent would be profit. You are
cut off from this profit simply
because the great trusts have
imposed, through Congress,
duties running from 80 to $50
per cent on foreign articles
competing with their products.
They simply shut out their
competing products and shut
in your products. Are we not
right in saying that every one
plucks some of your wool?
Six years ago the late John
Hay, Secretary of state, speak
ing upon political issues, said:
1--WE pay the highest wages
which are paid in the world:
we sell our goods to such ad.
vantage that we are beginning
to furnish them to every quart
er of the globe. We sell IRON
ware in Birmingham, carpets
in kidderminster; we pipe sew.
ers of Scotch cities; our bicy-
cles distance all competitors
on the Continent; Ohio sends
watch cases to Geneva. All
this is to the advantage of all
parties; they buy our wares.
because we make them better
and at lower cost than other
people" Now, if we make all
of these articles at so much
lower cost than the foreigner
that we can afford to export
them to him in all parts of the
world, is there any doubt about
the fact that we do not need a
tariff to protect our manufact-
urers against the same article
imported from foreign count
ries? You have been feeding
the world for the last thirty
years by the irreparable loss of
the virgin fertility of your soil,
while the manufacturers have
been denying you the right to
obtain the best value the world
has to offer in exchange for
your food supplies. Not only
this, but when you 20 to mar
ket you have the privilege of
paying the United States Steel
Corporation about one-quarter
more for key of wire nails
than the same nails are sold
abroad. You pay at the hard
ware store at least a quarter
more for a coil of barb wire
than the foreigner does for the
same wire. You not only pay
a heavy duty on raw sugar, but
on every hundred pounds of
sugar you buy you pay 1919
cents additional price for rein
ing the sugar, this last exaction
going to the trust alone and
being more than the entire cost
of refining. You pay to the
glass trust and the pottery
trust for every piece of glass
and pottery you buy all the
way from SO to 100 per cent:
more than you would pay but
for the tariff. In short, you
have to hoe your row along
without protection or privilege
from the Government, but you
pay dear for the hoe, you pay
dear for the plough. you pay
dear for the Paris green, aud
for every chemical you need.
There is not an article of the
clothing of your family which
does not pay tribute to the
trust. There is scarcely an
item in your grocery bill that
does not include a tax. The
furnishings which make your
house q home, the windows
that give you air aud light, the
books and papers that you
read, every piece of wire and
steel and every nail you buy
are instruments Of their extor-
ton. Death itself inspires no
sanctity on the part of these
trusts. They take toll from
your coffin. tax the plumes aud
the varnish OH the hearse that
bears you to your grave, levy
tribute on the spade that digs
your grave, and then stretch
forth a greedy hand beside
your tombstone aud gather
from your estate and increased
price for it of so or 60 per cent.
Fhe beneficiaries of our pro-
tective tariff have enjoyed the,
advantage of exacting and in
creased price for the necessar-