The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-24
1.-THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TARIFF" TOLD
 BY CONG. SULzER
Speech of New York Repre-. sentative Attracts Wide
 spread Attention

1 ger delivered in the House of Repre- sentatives recently on the tariff ques- tion, in which the gentleman from 1 New York declared that the ultimate consumer is a reality, not a myth, and that he is tired of being hum- bugged;
 The tariff issue will be live dues- l ton in this campaign It will not down. The more the Republicans in | Congress explain and apologize for their protection legislation the more apparent the hypocrisy of the propo- sltion becomes. The Democrats must keep the tariff to the front | It will never be settled until it is l settled right--and it never will be settled right until it is settled by the
 friends of the consumers. If the I Republican Party, for political exig-
 encies, must stand for the protected 1 industries of the country, then the
 Democratic Party, for patriotic pur- poses, should stand for the rights of
 the plain people of the land. The
 know: and the political result of the
 coming contest must be Democratic victory.
 The Republicans promised that l they would revise the tariff down.
 ward; they told us that. they would ! = Payne-Aldrich law does not do it. On 1 the contrary, it increases taxation and is a revision upward That. act convicts the Republican Party of it's
 plutocratic copartnership with the I criminal trusts and the tyrannical ] loWness of Republican promises when l it comes to tariff reductions on the
 necessaries of life in the interest of the plain people of the country. The Republicans gave the people solemn l pledge that if they were kept in con- 1 trol of the Government they would reduce these taxes in order to tighten | the burdens of the consumers and cheapen the cost of living; but the Republicans have not done so. On the contrary, the Payne-Aldrich Act increases the taxes on the necessaries of life. and is worse in many respects than the old Dingley law. The Payne-Aldrich tariff is so bad, in fact that it is repudiated everywhere by conscientious Republicans who have a decent regard for justice and the opinions of mankind.
 We know to-day beyond all con- tention that the tariff is a tax, and beyond all dispute that the consum- CTS pay the taxes. The most hide bound standpatter can not success fully dispute this proposition. Ulti- mately all the burdens of protective
 
 the country. Protection for protec- tiops sake is a system of indirect taxation, which robs the many for the benefit of the few-a policy which levies tribute on the masses for the classes, and does it all under the cloak of discriminating and inde- fensible law.
 Let the wage earnerS think; let those living on fixed incomes consid- CT; and the toilers of the land who earn their bread in the sweat of their face ponder on these facts. They can not be successfully controverted. They are as true as the polar star and as fixed as the granite hills. The Re- publican doctrine that protection to American industries benefits the toil- CTS is all moonshine. If that were it's object, the selfish. beneficiaries of protection would whistle it down the wind, and as a political policy 1t would soon be abandoned and disap- pear forever. Protection for the sake of protection is robbery-undem- ocratic, .un-American, and absolutely indefensible. No party that stands for the best interests of all the people can support it, especially where it fosters trusts, shelters monopolies. and saddles the great burdens of govern ment on the farmer and the wage earner of the country.
 The tax duties levied on the con-
 
 Aldrich tariff law are in the nature of a surrender of the taxing power of the people to favored special in- terests which the Government clothes with power to levy tribute on the great body of our consumers. To il- lustrate: We import annually under the Payne-Aldrich tax law probably about 50o,000.000 worth of highly protected products which will pay an average rate of duty of at least 50 per cent. while the domestic produ- cer, by reason of the restrictive du- ties of the law, raises to the duty line the selling price of more than $10.- 000,000 worth of like domestic pro- ducts yearly to the consumers of this country In other words, the Payne Aldrich tax law not only imposes high duties upon $500. 100000 of im- a few thousand protected manufac- turers in the United States to make 95,000 900 consumers pay them tri~ bute every year of $5.000, 100000 in the enhanced price of their goods. France hastened the Revolution by eenth century from taxation. while the peasants and the middle classes defrayed the expenses of government. The Republicans go further. and del- egate to few thousand favored manufacturers the exclusive privilege Ol tdAAAS -AOA LACI OWt benefit every consumer in our land, What an injustice!
 The Payne-Aldrich law is unjust in its determinations against the toil- CTS; it is unfair in it's impositions on the producers; and 1t is unconscion- able in it's tyrannical exactions on the consumers of the country. The Dem- ocratic Party ia opposed to the Payne-Aldrich tariff law. It is an imposition on the people. It is mockery and sham. It is the highest protection measure ever plac- ed on our statute books It increas- es the taxes on almost every necessary of life. It saddles additional bur dens on the oppressed taxpayers of the land beyond the calculation of the human intellect. It is against the people and for the monopolies. It protects idle wealth and heaps high the burdens of government on the poor mans breakfast table.
 The Payne-Aldrich tax law dis eliminates against the many for the benefit of the few and violates every principle of equality and of justice and of Democracy. It is revision of the tariff upward and not downward. It repudiates the platform of the Re- publican Party refutes the promises of the Republican leaders, and laughs at the professions of President Taft in the last campaign. 1t is a pro- lection measure from end to end. No monopoly in the country opposed t. No standpatter repudiated it. The measure was quite satisfactory to ev- cry interest but the interest of the plain people, who must pay all the