Willmar tribune., 1909-08-11
EXTRAVAGANCE AND TARIFF
ROBBERY.

WIdlS I1uS OVcI a IdI I'LL U4ll "uiCll
proposes to tax US for three hun
dred million dollars; and when we
allow for the fact that the Ameri-
can manufacturers will plug us for
five dollars every time the Govern
ment hits us for one, you will see
that our tribute to the blessed Pro-
tective System will be raised to at
least eighteen hundred million dol
lars per year.
In 1845 the population of the
United States was about "a mil
lions. Today it is supposed to be
100000 Look back at the fig
ures and you will be startled to
notice that your national taxes have
been keyed up from less than dol
lar and half per head to more
than ten dollars per head-for the
regular annual expenditures of the
Federal Government have reached
the billion dollar mark.
It has been little more than two
generations since our expenses were
only $29, 100000 per year, and to.
day we expend five times that much
ON THE NAVY ALONE.
Congress is the confscatory agent
through which the producers Of
wealth are deprived Of their sur
plus. AS Senator Bacon of Georgia
said in the course of a speech ir
the Senate during the extra session
''In the former day of arbitrary
rule. some centuries ago, the mer
in authority then undisguisedly de-
spoiled the people Of their property
and gave it to a few favorites. II
this day the protective system
through the thinly veiled forms Of
the law, does the same thing. : IL
that day, and at a still later period
one of the most odious forms of op
preston. through which the people
were plundered, was in granting
to a few favorites monopolies il
the necessaries of life, thus giving
to those favorites the opportunity
and the power to wiring from the
people the payment of extortionatt
prices for those things withou
which they could not exist. In oul
boasted free government, with oul
much vaunted equality of right
our protective tariff law in greater
or less degree, practically place.
within the power Of comparativel!
a few men, so far as condition.
make it possible, the monopolisti'
control of all the things required
for the business, the comfort, ant
the sustenance of the people, thu
enabling them to exact and collec
extortionate prices for those neces
sary articles.''
That is the case. in a nutshell
Senator Bacon proceeded to show
that the loot divided among th'
government favorites IS 5000, 900,
900 yearly, and asked, 'Who pay
this enormous tribute to the pet!
of the Federal Government?' Th'
answer is that we, the people, pa!
it.
With the expenses of the Govern
ment climbing upward all the time
and with the tribute levied by thu
, pets growing more stupendous a
every change of the tariff law. wha
sort of future are we preparing fol
our children?
Already they have promised the
Unsuitable national bankers another
bait of bonds. Already it is prac
tically conceded that nobody car
expect the Panama Canal to cos
less than a billion dollars. Alread,
they are squandering as much money
in the Philippines as the whole gov
ernment expended in the time o1
your grandfather.
Where is the end? Unless YOU
the men of the rank and file, rous,
yourselves, emancipate yourselves
inform yourselves, our republic i
doomed.
Arouse yourselves, from what
From your guilty, disgraceful in
difference to your civic duties.
Inform Yourselves. Of what? O.