The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-08
A LETTER TO
 THE HOUSEKEEPER
By Mabel Potter Daggett.

By MaDSI ROLLeE OdSSGCC. Dear Madam:
 Are you a. housekeeper? If you are, you have noticed the alarming in- crease in the cost of living. It is the one absorbing topic Of conversation that scarcely escapes discussion wller- ever two or three women are gathered together. Everybody is talking about it. But you most of all are feeling the effects Of it. For you, as the man ager of the housekeeping business in every home of the United States, are purchasing and the paying for what your family eats and wears.
 Year by year you have seen prices coming down? You paid SEQ th:ts spring for a suit that once you could have bought for $1O. Or if it was only gingham apron, you paid 10c a yard for what used to be 6c. Break fast bacon that once cost 10c a pound Is now 24c to 2Sc, and even soc. Beef is higher than at any other time in 45 years. Even a. kitchen broom once 25c, now costs 40c.
 And it is the housekeeper who has to stretch the weekly pay envelope or the monthly salary to cover the high price mark. The price mark goes Up out of all proportion to the pay en- yelope- Between the years 1896 and rose 61 per cent. and the average price Of wages not more than 20 per cent. President Taft's dinner table represents an increase in price over 800 Der cent. for the separate articles of food. To meet it, the President s75.Ooo a year, to say nothing of the stray $200,000 allowed for incidental White House expenses.
 But, perhaps, you are a flousekeep- CT whose husbands salary hasn't so conveniently responded to his family necessities. Or perhaps you are a business woman who earns the pay en- yelope well spends it. In either event the cost of living interests you because it touches your pocket book hard
 Do you realize that the robbers of the American home are taking your money away from you every time that you go shopping, every day as you go to market? But they do it through a that you never know what did if. It is time that every housekeeper should realize this. There are a good many causes that the economists talk about for this increased cost of uv- ing. And some of them we can't do anything about right away. But there is one fundamental cause that can be reached in November. It is the high tariff that enables the trusts to force up prices, because the tariff keeps for eign producers from bringing goods to the American market. Now you, as a housekeeper. perhaps have thought that the tariff was wholly a political cians and the government at Wash ington
 But you are mistaken. The tariff is your question more than any ones else. It is charged up in the price you pay for nearly every commodity. There is even tariff on your sugar bowl The sugar trust is enabled by reason of the high protective tariff to charge a little over two cents a pound more for sugar than if there were no tariff on it This amounts in the for each American family. Perhaps you can stand this tax. But there are workingmen's families to whom it means a weeks wages From these families and yours and everybody's family in the United States there is taken annually an average of $125 each tariff on the various commodities they purchase.
 The Democratic party wants to do something about this tariff question. They are eager and anxious to do it. And you can help them.
 During the past year when the Dem ocratic members of Congress got bills publican President, MT. Taft, vetoed the bills That is the Republican way During all the years that the Repub cost Of living has continued to in- crease. CCoI. Roosevelt did nothing to lower the tariff during his two admin istrations when he had the chance, and the cost of living continued to in- erease.) Surely no woman engaged in this business of housekeeping would De W1Illng to again Cne man WAO has already twice failed to help her re- duce the expenses that are making thestruggle for existence harder every day. No; other candidates may talk pleasantly about lowering the cost of living, but there is only one candidate who can be trusted to practice it when he gets to Washington.
 Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, is not only pledged to a reduction Of the tariff but this is q fundamental principle of the party that he represents.
 Remember that the tariff is costing you S125 a year. You. as a house keeper need to have elected the Presi- dent who will lift your burden.
 Then won't you use your influence toward his election? We want your name for enrichment with the WoTnan's National Wilson and Marshall Organ ization. Won't you send it to us? We want as long a list as possible of the women who stand for Woodrow Will son for the next President of the Unit ed States. If you do, whether you are a housekeeper Or a business wo- man, or a college girl, send your name at once to the Woman's National Will son and Marshall Organization, Room 105s, Fifth Avenue Building. New York City.
 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SEEKS