The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-03-21

tionAa republican statesman don't
have to-and If Tom did make bluff
of reading it, we all know he skipped
the Tenth amendment.
william Borah is a senator in Con-
gress from Idaho-pity it's that he has
the unspeakable Hepburn for a col
league-and here is the pass to which
Mr.. Borah says I , party has brought
| the country:
mo one ever 81 this country in just
the condition it today. Never since
this government was launched has
there been such a restless spirit among
the great mass of people, such ugly
questioning, such persistent inquiry. No
part of the government seems to escape
challenge or criticism. and it is fast be-
coming popular to scoff at the constitu-
ton itself. An unquiet. dissatisfied
suspicious public mind is the public
mind of today"
Though quite a young man-for a
senator-Mr. Borah ranks with the
leading intellects of the Senate-Bailey
Burton, Root and Lodge. What an in
dictment he draws against the effects OF
his partys rule in the passage 1 have
just quoted.
In the@last national republican plat
form 1t Is declared that 1t Is the duty OF
the government to lay It's taxes so that
the manufacturer shall have fail
profit Where did Congress get author
ity to insure fair profit? 1t has just
as much right to grant an unfair profit
and that Is what every republican Con-
gress that ever sat In this town has
striven to do. BY profits insured him
by republican tariffs, Andrew Carnegie
made fortune of $1,000 900, every
cent of 1T wrung from the American
people by law. Some fool will say that
1t is a lie, that Carnegie made millions
out of steel rails, and only the railroads
consume them. Only the hopeless foo
: Will deny that every man, woman and
child is consumer of steel rails, for in
more or less measure prices are regu-
lated by the rate of freights, and the
rates of freight depend considerably or
the cost of steel rails, and other prod
ucts of iron mills that are necessary ia
the building, equipment and operation
of railroad.
The republican tariff conferred the
power of taxation upon Mr.. Carnegie
and he soaked us for half a billion.
One of the G. o. P.'s stunts is to s'cIe.
ate an industry" not by the natural
laws of economies. decreed by cheapness
the high priest of all honest trade, but
by act of Congress, under the operation
OF which those who are engaged In q
profitable industry shall be taxed to pro.
tcct' those who would engage in a los
ing industry.
A case in point-tin plate. Every hui
man being in our country Is consumer
or tin So are some of the lower ami
mails, mayhap. And we consume more
tin per capita than any other people. A
tin dish pan will serve the average
French housewife longer than three dish
pans will an average American house
| wife. We expend millions and millions
for tin. The canning plants alone COL
sumo hundreds OF millions of pounds Of
| it.
Up to 1890 we imported our tin plates.
They were made in Europe and the
granger states of the west fed, and the
cotton states Of the south clothed the
operatives who made the tin plates. In
1890 William Mckinley was chairman OF
the ways and means committee of the
Fifty-first Congress. Mr.. Carnegie and
some other tariff-made plutocrats went to
hin and besought him to create tin in
| dustry. Old pig Iron" Kelly used To
pat Mckinley on the back and call him
disciple, and of course he was red-hot
for tin industry. created, not by the
| natural laws OF trade, but by act of
Congress.
And SO Mckinley put the tariff on tin
plates out of sight. Every man, woman
and child who ate canned fruits, or
|
other thing that was canned. was thus
taxed to make new industry to swell
the millions of Carnegie and his brother
Ilutocrats.
1t was all done in the blessed name of
American labor. that ate the canned
| goods and slept under the tin roofs and
used tin vessels in the Kitchen But
what did the plutocrats do? They en-
| gagged In the law-crcated industry, all
right; but did they employ American la
tcr? Not much, for in 1909 1t was con-
servatively estimated that 250,J00 foreign
operatives had been imported to work in
our tin plate mills. But we have some
so n'illionaires who. got their money out
of me taxes levied on the people by the
| republican tin plate tariff. Harry Thaw
is a product of the American tariff
though l believe his daddy made his
millions out of the robber tariff on glass.
Senator Borah, if you would know why
| the people are at SO much unrest at a
| time when there was never SO much
money afoat scratch the tariff. 1t viii
| supply you with more reasons than there
are fieas in Spain or plutocrats in Pitts
burg.
| There was a snug Yankee from Mas
sachusetts In this town the other day,
and he got himself interviewed in the
newspapers to this effect:
| IF no other section of the country ap-
proves of the tariff law, New Bedford,
Mass, does. Since the tariff law went
| into effect last year there has been the
greatest boom in business New Bedford
ever knew. From a population of 1900 in
1900, I am confident the city will show
Jump to 100000 when the thirteenth CEN
sus Is enumerated. There never was
bigger boom in business In any city in
the cast than there is in New Bedford at
this time, and believe that within a few
years 1t will be the second city of Mas
sachusetts.
'The best evidence of prosperity, per-
haps lies I'm the fact that the cotton
manufacturers are preparing to construct
new buildings that will cost In the neigh
borhood of s15,OOO,OO0 The new tariff law
has helped the cotton manufacturing of
New England more than any law ever
passed by the Congress of the United
States.i I presume there Is no city in
this country that is more interested In
cotton manufacture than New Bedford.
because there are located the biggest cot
ton factories in the country.
or course! The tariff was made for
New England and Pennsylvania. Aldrich
lives In New England. So do Hale and
Lodge. and they took care that the south
and west should continue to hew wood
and draw water for their people. Read
Jonathan P. Delivers speech on 'Sched-
ule K" of the Aldrich bill. Here is what
1t is: An Englishman will supply Kan
sas farmer a very good hat for two
bushels of wheat: but under operation of
the tariff, that farmer Is required to pay
a Yankee the price of four bushels OF
wheat for a hat no better than, perhaps
not as good as, the Englshman offers.