-- TJ'"' VW
$ The Commoner.
?, talnr man for 0.0 Ml .mount ho . a.parvostor WW uf
But'Morritt is far from having the $7,500 West lays down the papers in the case of the In-
in his nockot for a verdict of a jury is far from tornational Harvester Company versus Merritt,
conchisivo It is little moro than the first skir- West, counsel for the plaintiff, and takes up the
mish in tho long legal battle that will almost papers in tho matter of determining how much
cortainly bo fought. Tho harvester company taxes the International Harvester Company
may now appeal to tho appellate court, and, if should pay.
Merritt wins, another appeal may bo taken by The stock of Mr. West's client, the Interna-
tho harvester company, this time to tho supremo tional Harvester Company, is now earning over
court of the state. seven per cent, and is, therefore, worth par.
After another year of waiting, the plaintiff The Board of Review should assess Cyrus
will learn the final result of his suit. If he h. McCormick alone $15,000,000 annually on his
defeats tho great corporation in all the courts, stock in tho Harvester Trust, and the other
ho will get his money some timo in the year stockholders should bo assessed in proportion.
1910 or 19 J 1. It is assumed that tho harvester During the four years from 1903 to 1906,
company will contest this suit as it has consist- inclusive, this representative business man of
ontly done with similar suits heretofore. Chicago paid not one dollar of taxes on his great
Tho lawyers who appeared to defeat Merritt fortune, represented by stock in the Harvester
wore tho regularly retained trial attorneys for Trust.
the International Harvester company West, The small assessment made in 1907 for back
Eclchart & Taylor. The senior member of that taxes, a total of less than $1,000,000 on the stock
firm is Roy O. West. Keep that name in mind. 0f all the big stockholders of the company, has
Another lawsuit is pending in tho circuit forced Cyrus H. McCormick to pay about $500
court of Cook county that has a peculiar rola- per year for each of tho four years of delinquen-
tionship to tho suit of Walter Merritt. It is a cy, or about one-four-hundredth of his honest
mandamus suit brought by tho Illinois Tax Re- share. His associates have dodged their taxes
form Association in the name of a taxpayer in tho same ratio.
against Roy O. West (remember tho name), Why do not the proper officials of the city,
Fred W. Upham, and F. D. Meacham, constitut- county, or state collect these unpaid taxes? Why
ing the board of review of Cook county, to com- should private citizens have to do the work that
pel them to do their duty and assess the por- their public servants are paid to do?
sonal property stock holdings of Cyrus H. Mc- Because the officials are a part of the sys-
Cormick and eleven othors, who, together, own tern a combination between big business and
moro than ninety por cent of the $120,000,000 of big politics in Illinois; Roy O. West, counsel
stock In tho International Harvester company. for the International Harvester company; Roy
Tho suit names the following persons as O. West, chairman of tho republican state central
joint defendants, and sets forth tho amount of committee; Roy O. West, chairman of the board
stock at its fair cash valuo held by each: of tax review for Cook county.
Total Fair cash
Owner: i, Shares. par value. value, 1907.
Gyrus II. McCormick 150,000 $15,000,000 $11,250,000
Harold F. McCormick ,.,: 150,000 15,000,000 11,250,000
Anita McCormick Blaine 150,000 15,000,000 11,250.000
Mary V. McCormick , "......., .150,000 15,000,000 11,250,000
Nettie McCormick ,..-.. ......; 150,000 15,000,000 11,250,000
Stanley McCormick .............. '., 100,000 10,000,000 7,500,000
William Deoring . . . v ...,.,... .-...., 75,000 7,500,000 5,625,000
James Doerlng ,, ,.-,..-... 75,000 7,500,000 5,625,000
Ghales Decrlng 75,000 7,500,000 5,625,000
Richard F. Howe ,. . 25,000 2,500,000 1,875,000
John J. Glessnor 2D.O00 2,500,000 1,875,000
W. H. Jones io.OOO 1,000,000 750,000-
Total 1,135,000 $113,500,000 $84,937,500
The taxpayer sets forth in his petition that These two lawsuits will grind their way
these big stockholders in tho Harvester Trust slowly through the wheels of justice or inius
now owe to Cook County $4,500,000 of unpaid tlce, In the courts of Cook county
taxes for tho years 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906 and In tho mean time, back of the faded curtain
1907; that up to and including 1906 the net ear- that divides the small living room from the can
nings of tho company wore over $27,000,000, af- dy store in the Merritt household another babv
ter sotting aside $4,500,000 for reserve and has arrived!
that tho earnings for 1906 wore $8,6-00,000. Tho While these captains of industry stockhold-
company has laid by for a rainy day the comfor- ers of the harvester trust, are makine ahmif-
table surplus . o about $9,500,000. $10,000,000 per year profits, and while they fail
Roy O. West is chairman of tho republican to schedule for taxes a dollar's worth of thpir
state central committee of Illinois. He is also great wealth, represented in the stock of the
chairman of the Board of Review of Cook trust, the McCormick Theological Seminary of
County, for which ho receives a salary of $7,000 the Presbyterian church, founded by Cvrus H
por year, and his duty is to review the assess- McCormick, pioneer in the harvester field Mb t
nients of all real and personal property. ning out young ministers, X go for h to siVead
At some hour in the day Mr. West puts the Gospel of Christ. ead
S!n?i w 1)ersonaj1lty ns lawyer for the Interna- While all this is going on, the wheels in thn
tional Harvester Company and takes up his per- factories of tho Harvester Conn nnnvnnvL ?
sonallty of employe of tho state with tho duty turn out cripples tc Tbecome cmTS on thf a "7
of determining how much taxes tho Intcrnatlon- munity. Co liers? Weekly Ue COm"
Washington Letter
Washington, D. C, April 27. The fight
of tho newspaper publishers of the United States
to compel tho abolition of the duty on wood pulp
and on print paper is lost. Notwithstanding the
hard work that Herman Riddor has done for tho
bill, it might just as well bo accepted as a fact
that it will never get out of committee, and
if it should got out of committee it will be beat
on. The protectionists discovered Friday a Cal
ifornia congressman who incidentally owns a
newspaper. This gentleman antagonized the
proposition to put print paper and wood pulp on
tho free list, declaring that while the price of
print paper which ho had been buying in carload
lots had gone up thirty per cent, he thought it
was due to the trust and not to the tariff. But
ho ?Ad,not discuss tllo question as to whether the
tariff helped to keep tho trust in existence. Ho
said with some oratorical emphasis that if ho as
a Congressman should vote for the abolition of
the tariff on the paper which he used, he outrht
to vote for the abolition of tho tariff on the
things that somo forty thousand people in his
district used such as woolen clothes sIiopr
lumber, steel, cotton, goods of all sorts that
enter either into the household economy or tho
charges imposed upon tho average American
citizen. And so ho declared that he ivould SS
protect himself at tho expense of the many That
Viae a logical and an honorable position for him
to take, but at tho same time it was a confeqiion
of the fact that to touch the tariff in one of its
smallest points would make it necessary to de
stroy it at all points. It was the one logical
argument, the one frank argument, made acainSt
tho repeal of the duty on wood pulnd on Srint
paper and it was based absolutely or th ? prop
osition that to repeal that section of the tariff
law would mean that the whole present tariff
should be immediately revised. That L wh?
the newspaper publishers of the United States
will get no relief this year Ui"teu states
nntinhnf rSKlt; f re?tvlctrt Republican domi
nation of the country for twelve years past and
Lnrf(R00r;elt resime whi SSl2 Srosup
posed to admire seems to be shown in tho fact
'VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1
that- while this Congress has been exceedingly
economical in appropriations for the public good '
tho end of the fiscal year will show a treasury
deficit of about $60,000,000. Some years ago
whon after a democratic administration there
was a large surplus in the treasury and men
were saying that a surplus was an invitation to
extravagance, a republican statesman said that
"it was easier to handle a surplus than a deficit."
Perhaps that may have been the republican idea
at tho time, but at the present the doficit is very
apparent, and if one-half of the appropriation
bills which President Roosevelt has urged upon
congress had been passed, the deficit would not
bo $60,000,000, but $100,000,000. Even at that
it has not been a stingy congress.
After having wcund up the almost twelve
years of republican powqr and authority, and
five years of personal domination of the United
States government, President Roosevelt faces the
electorate of the nation with a sixty million dol
lar deficit in the treasury and a commercial de
pression which has affected every industrial en
terprise in the nation. Never before have there
been more working men out of employment than
there are today under the beneficent rule of
Rooseveltism and republicanism. It is said
upon good authority that there are more than
200,000 people in Chicago who are without work
and the most cruel and most pitiful object in
the world is the man who is willing to work, who
needs work and who needs the wages that ac
company that work, and yet cannot get a job.
Mark now. When a condition not nearly as
bad as this occured in 1893 it was charged to the
democrats who have been in power scarcely one
year. This time the republican party has been
in absolutely unrestricted power since 1896, and
yet it is said that republican policies and re
publican legislation have nothing to-do with it.
This is a republican depression and yet as the
republican congress is approaching its end not
one single thing is being done to correct the
evils that have brought on the hard times from
which the people suffer.
"One story is good until another is told."
A few days ago It was asserted by all the anti
Bryan press, which means first the republican
newspapers and then the plutocratic newspapers,
that the Pennsylvania delegation will go to Den
ver uninstructed. From two able and devoted
democratic leaders in Pennsylvania, Hon. Jere
S. Black and Warrea Worth Bailey, the latter
editor of the Johnstown Democrat, I have re
ceived a letter, the substance of which should
bo widely disseminated. As it is long for the
purpose of this correspondence, it is paraphrased
here rather than quoted literally:
J'At leaf?fc two"thirds of the delegates chosen
at the recent primaries are committed to Bryan.
A majority of the delegates are under absolute
instructions The Bryan element has elected
fifty-one of the sixty-four district delegates who
go direct to the national convention and seventy
five per cent of the state delegates. That means,
of course, that the Pennsylvania democratic con
?n ' airlsburg, May 20 will select Bryan
men of tried quality for delegates-at-large and
will instruct the delegation to vote and work
for the nomination 'of the great commoner.'
"The falsehoods sent out by the foes of
S S11 ?leent In Pennsylvania were intend
SJ? Si adjace?t states and possibly to de
ceive the democrats of the Keystone state. It
can be said with absolute confidence that the
?hfiJLn that morG than two-thlrda
of the national delegates are Bryan men, that
a strong majority of the state delegates are
trustworthy Bryan supporters who can neither
tj nfr, h0?sht'4 hat Br's friends will
name the delegates-at-large and will help to
nominate Bryan and to elect him in November."
WILLIS J. ABBOT.
IS IT COINCIDENCE?
tt ,Irlt,merely a coincidence that the New
York World and Mr. Ryan, of the Metropolitan
btreet Railway company, are working together
in their effort to control the democratic conven
tion? Is one doing it for pecuniary reasons and
the other from patriotic motives or is there somo
subterranean connection between them?
. Si?ce Mr Ryan'B testimony that an editor
of the New York World attacked the Metropoli
tan for the purpose of depressing stocks with a
view to making money on the decline in stocks,
would It not be proper for Mr. Pulitzer to give
us a map of the Wqrld office showing in black
the employes who use the World as a sand-bag
and in white those who use the paper for high
moral purposes and for the protection of the
integrity of tho democratic party?