E. S. Gilbert is close to ninety years old but uncommonly
well preserved, having been interested in every Presidential
campaign since he was a boy of sixteen, and has acquired a
vast fund of political knowledge, of which he still has a firm
grasp. He has seen and remembers nearly every President from
Andy Jackson down—nineteen of them—and talks interestingly.
He says as he sees things now the political situation is
just as it was in the early fifties. Then two minor parties
were dying, and the leading party—the Democratic—was
undergoing disintegration. Today, as he sees it, Democracy and
Populism are dying, and the Republican party is undergoing
disintegration. The Republican Party sprang up in the fifties,
and he looks for a new, strong party to come out of the present
chaos in a few years. Following is a thoughtful article, from
Mr. Gilbert’s pen, which recently appeared in the _Lincoln
Independent_:
Editor Independent: Here are a few figures for men who think.
In the year 1901 there was manufactured in the United States thirteen
billions of dollars’ worth of goods. Authority, Secretary Shaw.
The average rate of duties upon imported merchandise is 52 per cent.
Authority, Walter Wellman.
Now, fifty-two per cent of thirteen billions of dollars is
$6,770,000,000, which the present tariff of duties authorizes the
manufacturers to collect of the American people each year, if they can.
It actually enables them to collect a large portion of it—but not all.
The probabilities are they collect about two-thirds. They collect nothing
for goods exported.
There is honest competition on some classes of goods, such as flour and
the cheaper cotton fabrics, and perhaps some others, that prevents them
from collecting it of the people. So, in order to be fair, we will cut
this sum in halves.
We then have the sum of $3,385,000,000, which is considerably less
than is probably collected. In order not only to be fair, but to be
absolutely safe, we will cut off the $385,000,000, and we have the sum
of three billions of dollars—three thousand millions—collected by the
manufacturers and paid by the people as the result of the Dingley tariff
bill.
Bear in mind, that this is over and above what is collected in duties
for the support of government. Bear in mind, this money is paid to the
manufacturers, the capitalist and not to the laborers. Bear in mind that
if this three billions of dollars were divided among the employees of the
manufacturers, it would give to them something less than six millions of
laborers a little over $500 apiece. Bear in mind, that this would pay the
entire labor bill of all the manufacturers of the United States.
Then ask yourselves: Is this state of things the result of the
intelligence or genius of the people? Or is it the result of
misinformation or stultification?