The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-05-12

turing in the state.
THE same thing rs true of the
statement that / am not in favor of
protection. / am thoroughly in ia
vor of protective tariff. but / am
equally opposed to the abuse of that
system for graft and privilege. The
Aldrich tariff is a fraud upon the
people because 1t uses the govern
mental function of levying customs
to maintain a citadel of monopoly
and privilege. / stand upon the Chi
cago republican platform, although
in undertaking to guarantee rea
sonable profit in any private bust
ness think that platform goes fur
ther than 1t should. The difference
in the cost of production between
this country and abroad is a fair
measure of protection.
Tells of Sugar Trust.
Zone of the tariff wrongs from
which the people demanded relief
was the sugar schedule under which
the avaricious trust has grown exor-
bitantly rich AMI powerful by collect
ing from the people much higher
price for sugar than is obtained for
it abroad; and, while thus unjustly
taxing the people for private gain
on the pretense of having paid the
tariff, confessed to having robbed
the government of at least $4,000
900 of these duties. Appeals and
demonstrations, however, were ig-
nored by Senator Aldrich, who was
the whole thing in framing this as
we'll as other schedules.
Decreases so small as to have no
effect whatever on the trust were
made in some steel and iron pro-
ducts. These schedules were prohib-
tive before and are prohibitive now
For an illustration, the rate on sheets
| of iron or steel valued at cents a
pound or less, thinner than No. 25
and not thinner than No. 80 wire
gage, was reduced from an equiva-
lent of 67.62 per cent ad valorem to
an equivalent of 5202 per cent. The
total importations into the United
| States in 1907 of this article amount
ed to only 1928. On its face this
| Sc h hf1t n
reality amounts to nothing, as mani
| testify a so per cent tariff shuts out
all competition And so it is all
through the steel and iron schedules,
except that in many instances the
| tariff was enormously increased; as
| in the case of fence wire not smaller
than No. wire gage, valued at more
than cents the pound, which was
increased from an equivalent of
11.O9 per cent to 40 per cent, being
an increase of 260.76 per cent of the
former tariff.
MANY other wires and manufac-
lures thereof were increased from an
ad valorem equivalent of 1870 per
cent, 1907 per cent and 11.56 per
cent to 40 per cent in each case. And
not content with these specific in
creases, a blanket provision was in
serted that no article made from or
composed of wire should pay a rate
of duty less than 40 per cent. And
so the farmers and other users of
wire and manufactures of wire are
mulcted to pay dividends on the mil
lions of the steel trust. Tint trust
defies competition within, the tariff
stops it from without, and the dis
honest profits thus wrung from the
| American people have made so many
sudden millionaires in Pittsburg that
the whole city reeks with scandal
and corruption both public and pri-
vate. While the inordinate riches
of these beneficiaries of tariff abuses
coupled with lack of character,
drives them to insanity and degen-
eracy, the laboring men of their
mills-the pretended beneficiaries
of the tariff-are competing with
little children and cheap imported
labor for barely decent hours, decent
conditions, and living wage for
themselves and their families"