The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-14
THE SUGAR LOBBY
tour Staff correspondent.>

Washington, June 14-If the su- gar lobbyists should succeed in having the tariff restored to sugar, the sugar trust, and the men back of the sugar Hobbies, would each year draw down dividends amount ing to millions of dollars.
 But where would this money come from? The answer to this question is the milk iii the lobby controversy cocoanut. The mill lions that would go annually to the sugar magnates would not drop from the blue sky, but would come from the consum ers-the men, women and children of the United States who use sugar.
 The lobby issue is plain. If the lobbyists win out in their fight to persuade members of Congress to forget their promises to the peo- pie and slap the tax back on su- gar, the consumers must go on contributing to the cofers of the sugar trust by paying artflc1ally high prices for sugar And if the sugar lobbyists do not succeed. these millions will be- saved to American consumers.
 Thus it will be seen that the consumers have something at stake in the framing of a tariff bill, as well as the sugar barons.
 If the sugar lobbyists should succeed, one of the principal bene- sugar trust which not so very long ago stole some 5000, 900 from the government in customs duties by deliberately placing steel springs in fourteen pairs of scales, so that their importation of sugar would be under weighed, and the gov ernment cheated Caught red T9{ 4r1oc fnFrad fO disgorge most of the plumber, and a few under1ings were sent to Jail and released after serving small portion of their sentences. But none of the millionaire sugar mag mates into whose pockets the stol- en millions would have gone had the crime been undiscovered, were even called to the bar of justice, let alone prosecuted.
 Conducting a lobby in Washing ton by the sugar interests is a busi- ness proposition strictly. The null tf-mil1tonaire sugar magnates who are every year adding to their co- 1ossal fortunes by millions through the kindness of Un1e Sam in gfv- ing them a. protective tariff which guarantees them B monopoly of American markets with power to charge consumers what they please, can we'll afford to spend few hundreds of thousands in the form of $1,0O0 a month salar- ies to slick-tongued lobbyists, if by doing so they can prevent their monopoIies and prof1ts from being interfered with.
 To hear the wall now going up from the $1 1,O0O a month men, one would imagine Congress had not given the sugar people any oppor- tunity whatever to be heard. The fact is a committee of twenty-one members of the House of Esepre- sentattves-the Ways and Means Committee-sat in session for weeks listening to the arguments of those desiring protection. The sugar eople were permitted to say any and everything they desired. The members of the Ways and Means Committee sat somewhat as a court They considered all the tes- tfmony, and then brought in their verdict in the form of the Under wood Bill After having had a fair deal in open court, the sugar trust is now trying to win as usual by the underbanded method of ap- preaching members of Congress in private, and working in the dark.
 The people are at a disadvantage in the face of this kind of warfare because they have no knowledge of the pressure and kind of argu- ments brought to bear on Con gressmen by special privilege, nor lobbyists to present the viewpoint of the consumers or to disprove the false statements which may be poured into the Congressmen's ears by the able and resourceful rep resentatives of the sugar trust.