The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-09-23

1t Is the staple argument of the re-
publican party just now that our
country is afflicted not so much with
the high cost of living as II is with
the cost Of high living. 1t is an un-
doubted fact that we are all living
higher now than ever before, and that
we can't live high without paying for
it. But this Is not the entire expla-
nation. Our natural resources are
more fully developed now than ever
before, we have more skilled work
men and more efficient machinery and
the natural result should be that ev-
erything should not only be better but
easier to obtain.
The only reasonable explanation for
unreasonable prices is the special priv
ileges granted by the tariff to the fav-
ored few. enabling them to put their
own prices on the necessaries of life,
while whatever moderation is shown is
in the matter of Injuries. which the
rich don't have to have, and needn't
pay for IL they don't want to.
A score of years ago, the slogan Of
the republican party was the protec-
ton of the American workingman
from the pauper labor of Europe, and
this argument was so firmly impressed
on the farmer and mechanic that it is
difficult for -rnany~~~Ss-~-tbam-t n--ffd
to the fetish today, even
tho they can't help seeing that the
price of food and clothing has far out
stripped the Increase in their incomes.
The best way of impressing on the
American citizen how the tariff rObs
under the pretense of protecting him
is to show him how the very articles
raised or manufactured by his skill
and labor, and for which he must
nevertheless pay a high price at home
are sold abroad at a much lower price.
The following from the Atlanta Jour-
nal is a very good instance in point.
why the Price of American Beef IL so
High at Home
The manager OF an Atlanta hotel
points out the interesting fact that in
London the highest quotations for
dressed beef are thirty per cent cheap
err than in our home markets. This
circumstance becomes doubly surpris-
ing when 1t is remembered that Eng
land produces little or no beef, but i'm
ports the bulk of it's supply from the
United States and the Argentine Re-
public. And so we have the anomal-
Gus situations: The London consumer
gets a steak, cut from a cow raised
in this country. far more cheaply than
can the man who breakfasts or dimes
in America.
The hotel men have rightly conclud-
ed that in such a state of affairs there
is something radically unjust and they
have hit upon the one practical means
of relief by urging that the high
tariff on beef be removed
The International Stewards Asso-
10
clares that the present high prices of
beef are due, not to any natural laws
of supply and demand, but chiefly to a
manipulation of the market by special
interests. More cattle were raised in
the United States last year than ever
before The farmers and stockmen
made -ne-more- profit. than in seasons
gone by If, then, there is more beef
available and IL the producers prices
are practically unchanged, how does 1t
happen that the cost to the consumer
is so exorbitantly high?
An answer is found in the fact that
the packing combines are today SELL
ing American beef in London in COM
petition with the comparatively low
prices which there prevail. If they
can pay the ocean freights and even
then compete with the English dealer
what logical excuse remains for the
excess of thirty per cent which the
American buyer must pay?
England gets cheap beef, despite the
fact that 1t does not produce its own
supply simply because it is free from
the tariff wall that hens in the Unit
ed States.
If our own ports were open, as Eng
lands are, to. the producers of the
4
vantage with our British cousins.
II the unfair protection" which the
government now throws around the
beef trusts were abolished, this one
item in the high cost of living would
certainly be reduced.
IL the interests that now sell their
products in London at London prices.
were taken from under the govern
ment's patronage and placed upon the
square basis of competition in this
country as they are abroad, they could
no longer juggle our markets to suit
themselves.
The effects OF the tariff on beef are
typical of the high tariff as a whole.
The average family and the average
individual are taxed upon hundreds of
articles of daily use for the benefit of
giant combinations. This is a matter
that comes home to mems business
, and bosoms. 1t is this that render it
harder and harder for the people as a
whole to make their earnings and their
common necessities meet. And it is a
nationwide recognition of this evil
that Is turning the American public
to the democratic party the one
hope of relief from excessive tariff
burdens.
The republican party stands where
1t has always stood on this dominant
issue: II would continue it's policy of
protecting special interests so that
they may go on manipulating prices as
they choose.
The third party would go further
still and legalize the monopolies that
already exist.
The democratic party stands square
ly for a tariff revision that shall be-
as Woodrow Wilson expressed it.
steadily and unhesitatingly down
ward"
AN AUSPICIOUS OUTLOOK