Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-05-04
TARIFF REVISION
TALK OF A TARIFF Commission
IS A DELUSION.

Protected Trusts, the Sacred Tar
iff Schedule Must Not be Disturbe d
Before the November Elections.
OF Course Not.
The republicans, if they control
the next congress, will not need the
advice and assistance of tariff COM
mission; for all they need do is tc
call in the experts and attorneys of
the trusts. That is what they did
in 1897 when the present tariff law
was fixed up. What is the use of de-
celving the taxpayers, as Congress-
man Payne does, by declaring that
tariffs have always been made with
out anything like adequate informa-
ton" Mr.. Payne and the other
members of the ways and means COM
mittee were fully advised, when they
were considering the Dingley tariff
law, that the high rates demanded by
Mr.. Carnegie and the steel trust peo-
pie would breed monopoly. When
they allowed the Standard Oil trust
attorney to write the proviso to the
oil schedule they knew they were
protecting the trust and adding at
least SO per cent to the price of kerr
osene to the American people and the
poorest people at that
Whap thov aoronfa1 Tho boof
schedule on hides they pretended to
be protecting the American farmer,
but they knew they were helping the
leather and beef trusts. When they
accepted the wool schedule of the
wool growers association they knew
they were adding rs per cent. at least
to the cost of woolen goods to those
people of northern states, who from
necessity have to buy them and in
stead of helping the farmers, it was
the flockmasters of the great western
plains that were mostly benefited.
When they wrote the schedule that
protects the paper trust they must
have known the newspaper owners
would have to pay the tariff duty in
increased profit to the trust Not a
schedule, but was carefully consider
ed and all with the same intent and
purpose of adding to the burdens OF
the people for the benefit of the
trusts.
The trusts were we'll acquainted
with the facts and in return have
been most liberal contributors to the
campaign fund of not only the re-
publican national committees, but
also to the committee who manages
the election of congressman. Mil
lions have been paid by the trusts
and protected monopolists to secure
the election of presidents and con
gressmen, both of the senate an(
house, who were "sound on the tar
lff."
And now the same old show is tt
be played again with different title
and the excuse that there must bt
added maximum schedule rates tt
protect us from the pauper labor O.
England whose workingmen are now
In better circumstances than our Owr
workmen are because their cost o1
living is so much less.
The English workingman has low
er wages, but the world to draw upoT
for his necessities, for every country
including the United States, sells
him it's surplus products in compe,
tition with each other, with no tariff
duties to speak of to add to the
price. Here everything imported
that is manufactured is taxed and
the trusts profit by adding the tar
iff rate to their own natural profit
The only difference being that the
government collects the tariff tax on
the goods imported and the trusts
collect the tariff tax on their products
produced here while the tariff pro.
tects them from foreign competition
1t is now proposed to promise the
people to revise the tariff "after elec.
tion," but whether the tariff is to be
revised lower or higher Is left to the
imagination of the voter. AS the re-
publican leaders now declare they
must enact a maximum tariff as well
as minimum tariff, it is evident that
some of the trusts want still higher
rates and no doubt they will be ac-
commodated by their friends, the re-
publican politicians.