The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-04-07
Tariff Does Not Affect the Price
of Grain.
SITUATION is NORMAL.
Enormous Increase in the Sup
ply of Gold.
Advanced Cost of Distribution
Cited.


of Kansas, will never be any cheaper
Profits, easily gained in the country
will check the growth of cities. He
believes the United States is to be a
nation of small farms and happy land
owners. Furthermore, in his opinion,
gambling in futures is a crime against
safety, morality and common sense.
Mr.. Scott was asked if the tariff
duty on wheat, meat, eggs and other
agricultural PRODUCTS help to make
living dear in the country. He said:
You have asked a question that l
have tried to answer within my own
mind on good many occasions. I
thought during the wheat corner in
Chicago last year thai If we were to
admitz Canadian grain duty free, so
much would come across the border
that the spectators would be driven
out of business. But = found that the
price of wheat is world price. Freight
added, it is ABOUT the same in Liver
pool and London as in New York, Chi
cago and st. Louis. In American and
Canadian cities of relative location
winnipeg and Duluth, for instance, or
Buffalo and Toronto-the prices of
wheat at a given time have practically
no variation.
eff we fixed the price in this country
and for this country continued Mr..
Scott, "the tariff of % cents a bushel
would make Il costly difference to the
American consumer. But we do not
establish the price; we only help to
establish it, together with Russia,
Canada, Argentina, and other large
wheat growing countries. Neverthe-
less, along the Canadian border, espe-
cially from the region of the great
lakes toward the east, there are times
when flour might be cheaper, locally,
II wheat were free and not taxed. The
same would be true, probably with po-
ratoeS, If our crop were short. and
with eggs when there were a large de-
mand and a small supply.
Prices of food products are up, and
in my opinion they will go higher in
the future. There is no mystery in
the upward movement of values In
the first place, there has been an enor-
nous increase in the worlds stock of
gold. Money becomes cheap, like oats
and pork. as the volume increases. A
cheap dollar will not buy so much of
anything as dollar that is dear. An
other cause fer the high prices of food
and household necessities is the in
creased cost of distribution.
when 1 was a boy said the Sec
ond district congressman, merchants
bought their goods by correspondence.
Then came the commercial traveller,
who was paid a salary and his daily
expenses. He called on his customers
once month. Now, if he is a grocery
drummer. he visits them every week
Multiply all the hundreds of thousands
of commercial travellers by their sal
aries and expenses, and the figures
thus obtained will show what has been
ness, and the cost of business comes
out of the pockets of the consumers.
IL my mother sent me to the store
Tor dozen of eggs, 1 carried them
nome in basket: if 1 went for flour.
L took it away on my back Today.
one will see fifty automobiles drawn
up before a big city store each TO he
loaded with merchandise for custom
ers, single spool of thread for a
woman in the suburbs, a yard of cot
ton for some one else, and so on.
truck after truck, day after day.
We used to say that eggs were too
costly to eat unless we could buy
three dozen for a quarter. Some times
we could get four dozen. Farmers
wives traded them for coffee sugar
and other merchandise. Last sum
dozen, cash. and women from the
country, SO I was told. often confess
ed that they were almost ashamed to
take the money. Cold storage estab-
lishments equalize the supply and dis
trfbution of certain kinds of food, so
that there are as many eggs in zero
weather, when hens don't lay, as in
the heat of summer, when hens do
lay. And for the luxury of modern
distribution and equalization the man
who eats must pay.
Persons who think the American
farmer is getting an undue share of
the profits of industry should remem-
Der the lean years through which he
has struggled to his present state of
prosperity, the grasshoppers and hot
winds that destroyed his crops, and
the epidemics that annihilated his
herds. Even then, with. all of his
trouble, the farmer has sold his crops
for a pittance. Corn was burned as
fuel. Sometimes wheat scarcely paid
for thrashing. Yet all the time rates
on money were high, frequently 10
per cent
MANY battling man, broken by
hard labor. dead at heart, has been
f1rF 10d int "a hi 10 r
breasting the elements and fighting
fate, because the interests on his
mortgage could not be met
Members of the presidents cabinet
are preparing to give striking answer
to the charge made in published in
tervfews by Governor Harmon of Ohio
that the present extravaganza in the
use of the. governments money is a |
reflection on this administration In 1
speeches which will be made by mem
bers of the cabinet and other support
ers Of the administration in the near
future, 1t will be charged that the
prospective Democratic candidate for
the presidency is stealing some of the
Taft thunder. and that he is ignoring
the rapid strides which they claim
have been made toward government
econ my by President Taft and his ad- |
vfsers.
The Harmon interviews. which have
been welcomed in many Democratic
quarters as striking the Democratic |
campaign keynote, will receive atten- |
ton in all their details. Already the F!
campaigners have framed up in the |
Republican ranks their defense of the |
tariff and their proposed refutation of
the charge that the nelF tariff law is
the cause of the high cost of living |
But it is thought the extravaganza |
charge will be accorded special atteH- |
ton Members of the cabinet claim |
that the Taft administration. in the |
executive departments, has effected a |
saving of $40, 5000 a year.
In the postoff1ce department. the de- |
felt OF the postal service for the first |