The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-14
Governor Harmon of Ohio Speaks Al Jefferson Anni-
 VGrsay In New York
STRONG PROTEST MADE
 AGAINST tXTRAvAGANCE
Ohio's Executive Denounces Repub- lican Methods at Washington and the Constant Increase of Gov
 ernmental Expenses.

New York April 1S-Denunciation of { the principals of protection and of the tariff legislation now pending in Congress as a pretense and a sham formed the keynote of the addresses at the annual dinner of the National Democratic club tonight, at the Hotel Savoy, in cele- bration of the 166th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. There were present a number of democratic notables from other states, including Judson Har- mon, governor of Ohio; Thomas R. Mar shall, governor of Indiana. and George E. Chamberlain United States senator from Oregon, as well as all the local party leaders.
 Governor Harmon aroused the enthu- siasm of his hearers by declaring that every citizen of the nation was entitled to 100 cents of good government for every dollar paid by him in taxation.
 Governor Harmon Speaks. A protest against what he declared was growing encroachments of special privi- 4 lege at Washington, especially as em- bodied in tariff legislation. was the key s note of the address of Gov. Judson liar \ mon of Oho Asserting that the reduc- tions in the pending tariff would be but E a nockery of the demand for relief, Judge N Harmon declared that real relief never t would be secured except under iegisla- $ tive and executive following of J4ner- N sonian rules and treating taxation as a \ means of public revenue and not of rri- N vate gain.
 Special privilege can take no form however spacious, and assume do sarb, not even the flag of the Enion,' said Harmon. n . win favor from the political descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Nor can tolerant @ of it by them be won by a real or prom fsed advantage, public or pr,vatc. It would cost too dear in the end, as wit ness the tariff taxes and thsir brood of trusts and moropoes which have aggta vated the natural Inequalities in the d's- tribution of wealth and spread harm and discomfort among the people,
 The steady tendency since the Civil War has been to exalt the federal gov ernment at the expense of the state, said the speaker, one result being the neglect of economy, and the authorization of the government In extravagant enterprises. He instanced the action of the last Con =. gress in appropriating $2,000 GOO, 600 and Tie raising of salaries of the officials in the face of a growing shortage of revenues, and continuing:
 Moree Taxation Needed.
 
 retrenchment to meet a present con- fessed deficit of more than a hund- red millions, the President and Con- gress are devising additional taxes to exact from the diminished means of the people and proposing to issue bonds besides. State officials who would pro- pose such a course would not dare to go home to their constituents and would be forever disgraced if they
 nf fQ qa
 etenses, at last confessed, have bred and fattened countless monopolies and trusts, 1t Is proposed not to shake off their grip, but just to loosen it a trifle here and there so the people may not be utterly devoured.
 But sincere though this tardy and tender purpose doubtless was, the signs of practical denial or pretended full fllment of even this slender relief, multiply daily. Old devices are being employed and new ones invented to maintain the favor taxes undimin- ished, with or without false show of reduction; lower rate to be applied with higher modes of valuation, cum ming phrases, whose effect Is now known only to their authors or to a few experts: duties ostensibly to re- taliate on other countries, but really meant to secure monopolies of our home market. as In the case of the innocent looking clause in the present law which has made the Standard oil trust impregnable to competition.
 Wage Farmers Lei Out.
 "The wage earners for whom there is the usual show of deep interest, are not present or rcpi esented in the pull ing and hauling which Is going on so as to secure the advantages professed to be for them. The increases caused by the tariff, in prices charged the peo- ple of this country will mostly go, as 1t has always gone, to make unnatural profits for the employer whose solic- itude for his workmen does not even take the form of fair division of the spells. And the burdens are being laid, as always, chiefly on the wage earn CTS themselves and other citizens of email means Nobody who can reason effect from cause, or the future from the past, expects any real relief to the peopie who consume, and therefore have to pay no matter what the pres ent Congress may do or pretend to do. Some luckless interests whose pull has grown weaker been overcome by counter pull, like the wood pulp paper trust, may, with great ceremony, be anointed with the oil of sacrifice for tho salvation of the other, but the reductions, when real will be a mock
 
 mama, diamonds, false hair and other necessities of life will not be over- crowded with new corners on the free list. while the open increases In the charges bid fair to equal, if not to exceed the reductions
 Only Real Gain.
 s.The only real gain will be in the Sorced and belated confession that the neople ought to have relief. But real relief never will be secured save by . President and Congress who enforce Jeffersonian rules and deal with tax ation as primarily means of public revenue and not of private gain.
 'It is hardly fair for republicans at least to charge with inconsistency dem ocratic congressman who take a hand In this selfish scramble. In the last cam paisn the republican candidate for Fres- 6ent openly offered a share of tariff snoiIs for democratic votes. When special