Co-operative Legislation

During the consideration of the Wilson tariff bill by the democratie caucus recently, Senator Brice, of Ohio, is said to have used the following significant language: "If you are going to ignore the revenue, only principie of the national platform and admit into the making of this tariff act the principie of class discrimination, I shall claim for my particular locality what other senators are claiming for theirs." In this single sentence, he lays bare the whole scheme upon which every tariff act of the past thirty years has been formulated. In every one of these acts, the revenue principie which is the only legitímate use of the taxing power, is made secondary to the principie of class discrimination. When such an unjust and selfish policy is made the warp and woof of a system of taxation, it cannot fail to contamínate and debauch public sentiment. One interest in order to secure desired favors pledges its support to other interests in their efforts to secure hke discrimination, and the result is a system of log rolling and jobbing that scandalizes halls of legislation and befouls our statute books with unjust laws. Under this method of legislating, the interest which can send the strongest lobby to Washington receives the greatest amount of favors from the government. This system of taxing the masses to enrich the classes, of using the revenue raising power of the government to take money out of the pockets of those who earned it and placing it in the pockets of those who have engaged in favored industries, has, however, never gone unchallenged by the people, and during the past ten years the democratie party has carried on an incessant agitation against it. This agitation has been an educational one, and as a result there is a better understanding of the tariff question among the people at the present tirne than at any previous period of our history. The growth of sentiment in opposition to protection is shown in the fact that the democratie campaign of 1892 was conducted squarely and unequivocally on a platform repudiating the whole system, and on that platform they swept the country. That there should be any hesitancy about carrying out the mandate of the people now is a surprise. The responsibility for [this tion of the letter and the spirit of the democratie platform must, however, be placed where it belongs. It is due to the presence in the undemocratic senate, of a few supposed democrats whose guiding principie seems to have been the use of the party organization for the securing of the offices for themselves and republican discrimination for their herring interests. These sordid and selfish politicians, unmindful of the fate of Randallism have ranged themselves on the side of protection and become false to the party pledges. Owing to the small majority in the senate these time servers may be able for the presenc to defeat the expressed will of the people, but.it will not be for [ong, for nothing is more certain than the fact that the people of this country will govern and that the principie of public taxation for the maintenance of special privileges for the few must go. The present congress may fail to make satisfactory progress in the direction of a tariff for revenue only, but the enactment of such legislation is sure to come, and the democratie allies of protection in the senate-will be compelled to carry out party pledges or give place to others who will.