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VOLUME 9, NUMBER 49
4
H
The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY.'
Emercd at tho Postofflco r.t Lincoln, Nebraska.
B.B BCCOIJU-uiudo """
WlMJAM J. IJRVAN
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men Aim I Mktcamtk
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Editorials from Commoner
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Readers
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THE WORST YET
Clarence B. TIgner, Cambridge, Ohio. The
other day, President Taft said in his address at
one of the stops made on his trip down the
Mississippi, "You ought to he thankful that I
have no greater power." This was spoken in ref
erence to the disappointment of the people at
his position in regard to tho deep waterway
proposition. Yes, you poor little insignificant
American citizens, you ought to be doubly
thankful that Mr. Tatt has not greater power.
If he had, heaven help us. He has already
bluntly told the people of United States that
ho will use all his influence to prevent the bring
ing about of anything that will prevent the rail
road trust from taxing the "dear people" to
death in order that it may pay dividends on its
millions and millions of watered stock and that
the aforesaid "dear people" may be squeezed a
little harder. If he had any more power, he
would likely fill up the Mississippi so that what
little competition there is would cease, and the
poor little railroad trust would- not have to sit
up nights worrying its head about how it is go
ing to get along on the beggarly pittance of a
few score per cent of profit. It is bad enough to
be robbed and beaten, and to have the man who
posed as the undying friend of tho people (when
he wanted their votes), stand up and tell you
that the legal permit for so doing, in the shape
of the tariff bill is a fine piece of legislation and
that the man who wrote it is the "leader of his
party" and that "he has the interests of the
people at heart," but to go so far as to tell you
that "you ought to be glad he hasn't greater
power," is past the limit of human endurance.
The American people should rise in a body at
the next election and throw the republican party
down.
The Commoner.
quoto the question put to the British nation by
Lloyd-George in his great speech at Manches
ter "Why make ten thousand people owners of
the soil and all the rest trespassers in the land
of their birth?" When you say "in every country
the same issue presents itself," you state a
solemn, momentous truth a truth that inti
mately concerns every man, woman and child
in this republic, and the generations yet -unborn.
The fundamental wrong in the world
today is the monopolization of the soil the in
alienable birthright of the Creator to all His
children. The existence of this monstrous
wrong in the old world, has been brought to
the attention of the American people by the
centuries-old struggle of the Irish people to
emancipate themselves from tho oppressive con
ditions forced on them by the landlords of Eng
land. We are wont to deplore and denounce the
British system of land tenure under which only
one person in every thirty-six owns land; under
which 10,911 persons own two-thirds of all the
land in the United Kingdom, while thirty-six
millions of people do not own enough land in
which to bury a little dead baby two hours old.
For a half century our sympathies and money
have gone out to aid the struggling, starving
Irish peasantry. All this time we have been
unmindful of the fact that we have transplanted
to the shores of free America, the Bohun Upas
tree of land monopoly which has darkened and
blighted the homes of millions of God's creat
ures in Europe. In truth, the monopolization
of the soil in Great Britain, colossal as it seems,
is comparatively insignificant when we come to
consider the extent to which the lands in this
vast, new country of ours, have been monopol
ized by favored corporations and greedy capi
talists. In a period of twenty-years from 1850
to 1870 inclusive the congress of the United
States bestowed upon railroad corporations an
absolute gratuity of nearly two hundred mil
lions of acres of the people's patrimony, or an
amount of land equal-to one-twelfth of the total
area of the United States. Fifty-five alien indi
viduals and corpprations own 26,816,390 acres
of American soil or 1,678,08.0 acres more than
is contained in the states of New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts Connecticut, Rhode
Island, New Jersey and Delaware with their esti
mated population of 8,359,000. Sixty-three
American corporations and individuals own
174,485,966 acres, or one-thirteenth of all the
land in the United States. Thirty-five persons
and corporations own one-seventh of the state
of California, or 181,325,055 acres. Here we
have a few railroad companies, fifty-five foreign
corporations and persons, and ninety-eight
American citizens and corporations owning
419,034,899 acres, an amount equal to almost
one-sixth of the total area of the United States,
or as much land as there is in the thirteen origi
nal states, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Illinois,' Indiana and one-third of
Michigan, or five and one-half times more land
than there Is in England, Wales, Scotland and
Ireland combined. As startling and almost un
believable as these figures are, they do not be
gin to show the amount of land in the United
States, owned by forestallers, speculators arid
monopolists. Well may Mr. Bryan, in view of
these facts, urge his countrymen to give heed
to the question which is soon to become the
overshadowing issue in this and every other
civilized country on the globe. "Why make ten
thousand people owners of the soil and all the
rest trespassers in the land of their birth?"
,. THE ITONTDAMENTAL WRONG
H. Martin Williams,' Woodlawn, Illinois.
'In common with thousands of. readers of The
Commoner, I was extremely glad to note your
approval of the splendid fight now being waged
for democracy and popular rights in Great Brit
ain by the liberal ministry under the magnifi
cent leadership of the chancellor of the ex
chequer, David Lloyd-George. In an editorial
in The Commoner of October 22, under the
heading "An Epoch-Making Sentence," you
Practical Tariff Talks
those who buy from them' must ,ask their per
mission to purchase analogous goods.
The effect of this control of..prices is shown
by the fact that whereas before its formation
starch sold at fr.om $1 to $1.50 a hundred
pounds, the price now is $2.65. A portion of
this is due to the increased price of corn, but
the fact that tho trust is able to maintain its
prices at whatever the traffic will bear, indi
cates that this is not tho whole factor. In re
cent years only, too, has thero been found pro
cesses by which by-products are made and
marketed. The trust sells a' portion of its out
put one-fourth abroad, for $2.15 a hundred,
50 cents -less than it gets in the American mar
ket. Mr. .Walden testified that for tho past
year tho company had been selling at a loss
in the English market, owing to abnormal con
ditions. , He admitted, however, that under nor
mal conditions the trust made a profit on its
foreign trade. -
Corn starch is one of the necessaries of life.
It is used for the table, for the laundry and for
sizing in mills. After the starch proper has
been extracted there remains a sirup sold for
table purposes, and a compressed cake sold for
feeding, called gluten. It carries a tariff in the
Payne law of 1 cents a pound. The industry
In this country is dominated by what is popular
ly known as a trust. This trust does business
under the name of the Corn Products Refining
company, and its offices are located at 26 Broad
way, the home of the Standard Oil. Its sales
manager, Mr. E. B. Walden, admitted before
the finance, ways and means committee of the
house that it controls 75 per cent of the pro
duct in this country. Testimony from other
sources was to the effect that it dictated the
price at which staTch shall bo sold. One of
its practices is to have retailers sign what is
called a "profit-sharing contract," which makes
competition next to impossible, and under which
Asked why the trust stayed in that market
if it was selling at a loss, he replied that it
was because they had been exporting for fifteen
years and were in the market, and because ho
expected a return to normal conditions, when tho
business could be done on a profitable basis.
He acknowledged that in the foreign market
he was competing on a free trade basis and had
to pay 10 cents a hundred freight on his pro
duct. Asked by Congressman Underwood why
it was that the company could go into a foreign
market in normal times and meet the competi
tion there, and yet could not meet it here, where
it had the advantage of 10 cents a hundred
which the foreign manufacturer would have to
pay for carrying his starch here, if the tariff
were removed, he would not answer directly.
To the direct inquiry whether the present tariff
rate is necessary for the maintenance of his in
dustry, he said that it was on one article, sage
flour which has not and does not now carry any
duty at all.
It was placed in evidence before the commit
tee that when the price of corn in this country
does not suit the trust;it imports what it wants
from Argentine. The tariff law permits a re
bate of 15 cents a bushel less 1 per cent on all
corn imported, the products of which aro ex
ported. The tariff on corn is 16 cents a bushel,
which means that it practically comes in free of
charge. Thus the tariff is employed for the
purpose of keeping all foreign competition out 1
the imports are not large enough to keep tho
trust mills running five days in a year and by
this means raising the price to the home con
sumer, and It is also employed to enable him
to sell cheaper to the foreign consumer.
The potato starch Industry, also protected by
the tariff, is another source of big profit to man
ufacturers, who make money running, like the
beet sugar factory, two months in a year.
Potato starch sells abroad for 2 cents, while
it averages about a third to a half more in this
country. Last year there was a shortage in
production, due to the fact that the manufac
turers, who make their contracts before tho
potatoes are planted, found they could make
more money selling the potatoes in the eastern
markets for food purposes than they could iu
running their factories. The farmer got no
more for his product, the labor of the mills was
left unemployed, and the starch men sold their
potatoes at prices greatly increased over what
they contracted them Jor. Labor forms but a
small part of the cost of starch-making, being
about 16 per cent, a little more than abroad,
, while tho tariff is 31 per cent. C. Q. D.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S SOCIALISM
Puck's Magazine prints the following: "The
devoted advocates of a ship subsidy are now in
cluding President Taft among their number.
The president says in effect that we look oufl
for our manufacturers, our mine owners, ana
our farmers by means of a tariff, so why,
shouldn't we do something for the ship owners
by means or a government grant of cash?
Thus the government enters practically into a
commercial partnership, considerately relieving
tho manufacturer and perhaps the ship ownGJ
of all cause for worry or fear of want. It m,SaJ
be called a refined application of the socialise
Idea of socialism de luxe. The socialists, unless
we are misinformed, would remove as far as
possible the fear of want from the minds of tna
poor. The republican party, however, knows
trick worth two of that. It would dispel au
fear of want from the mlnda of the rich.
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