Valentine Democrat. (Valentine, Neb.) 1900-1930, 1908-11-26
Andrew Carnegie Con-
feSSeS.
Con-

congress on the tariff question no
such blow has been struck at high
tariff robbery as is administered by
Andrew Carnegie in his notable ar
ticle in December Century.
The full significance of C%arnegie's
frank admissions can only be n
derstood when it is remembered that
he is the greatest single beneficiary
of special privilege legislation who
has appeared in history; that he is
the head of the Steel trust, the larg-
est manufacturer of iron and steel
products in the world; that the
Tteel trust has for more than a third
of a century constituted the most
powerful force to compel high tariff
laws, and that the steel schedules
are at once the foundation stone and
the keystone of the entire protective
system.
This is the tho man who speaks,
and these are his credentials to give
expert testimony.
What he now frankly admits is
ldentlealiy what the democratic par
ty has been asserting in every one
Of the last seven or eight national
campaigns. He admits that our
great trust, like steel and oil, are no
longer infant industries needing
protection. He admits that, not
withstanding the higher wages of
labor here, as compared with foreign
countries, the American manufac-
turer can produce his article cheap
er than it can be produced in any
other country. He boasts, truthfully
that we have become the greatest
OF manufacturing nations, and can
defy the competition of the world.
He admits that a tariff for protec-
ton is no longer needed. He de-
clares that what we should have,
hereafter, is a tariff for revenue
purposes only, except in occasional
instances. That tariff, he declares,
to produce the maximum of revenue
with the minimum of burden,
should be levied chiefly on articles
consumed by the wealthy.
Here is the lie, given by Andrew
Carnegie himself, the foremost be-
heticlary of the tariff, to every tariff
argument made by the republican
leaders and by the republican press
during all these recent years.
Here is the admission that the
tariff is not needed to protect Amer
lean labor; that it is not needed to
protect Jul great American indust-
rles that it is not needed to estab-
lish and maintain a home market.
What is there left? Who, and
what, does need the tariff? What
is its present purpose? What does
it actully accomplish?
1t is trusts that need the tariff
the trusts, and they alone. They
need it, not for protection in any
honest enterprise, but solely to pro-
tect them in their dishonest enter
prise, of pillaging the entire Amer
lean public. They need it to enable
them to enter every home in this
land and lay their heavy hand on
the articles that 60 into that home;
they need it to enable them to levy
a constant tax on business, on en-
terprise, on the upbuilding of the
nation. They neei 1t to enable
them to charge the extra price that
represents unearned and e~xorbitant
profit, and that is. in effect, nothing
but robbery under the forms of the
law.
Andrew Carnegie confesses. He
has SO many hundreds of millions;
his income from the steel trust and
other tariff protected investments is
SO enormous that he cannot give it
away as fast as it comes in. He is
tired, evidently, and ashamed, of be-
ing a public plunderer. Perhaps he
is conscience-smitten as we'll. So he
frankly tells the truth, takes his