XI.

HOW THE EMANCIPATION OF WHISKEY IS TO BE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE EFFORTS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

[From the New York Evening Post, July 5.]

The Republican party was formed to resist the aggressions of slavery, and was led to free the slaves as a war measure. In the language of the average republican stump-speaker nowadays, "its mission was to emancipate the slave." Or, as General Harrison put it in his speech accepting the nomination yesterday: "The republican party has walked in the light of the Declaration of Independence. It has lifted the shaft of patriotism upon the foundation laid at Bunker Hill. It has made the more perfect Union secure by making all men free."

For some time past the question has been discussed whether the "mission" of the Republican party wasended. The slave had been emancipated, and the party had done all which is possible, under the Constitution as interpreted by the Republican Supreme Court, to assure him the enjoyment of his new rights as a citizen. In its early history the great object of the organization had been the restriction of slavery, and later its work came to be a crusade for freedom. This old crusade had ended in triumph, and of late the party has seemed to be groping about for some new crusade against evil which would arouse the moral sense of the nation.

The Republican platform meets this "long felt want" in its demand for the emancipation of whiskey. The platform, it will be remembered, calls for "the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system," which, being interpreted, means the freeing of whiskey from the servitude in which it is now held. The odious nature of this slavery and the crying necessity for emancipation only need to be set forth to be appreciated by every candid mind. To produce a gallon of whiskey costs only about fifteen cents, and if whiskey were free from tax, it could be sold at a quarter of a dollar a gallon. But the tax of ninety cents a gallon puts the price up to $1.15 a gallon and ten and fifteen cents a drink, where under the emancipation policy it would be only two or three cents.

But this is by no means all of the injustice involved in the present servitude of whiskey. The tax enables the producers to raise the price to the poor consumer even above the higher level required at best by the interposition of the Government. The Chicago Inter-Ocean, one of the most prominent Republican newspapers in the West, thus exposes the iniquitous performances of "the Whiskey Trust," which, it says, was created and is fostered by the internal revenue system: "The Whiskey Trust is to-day the most powerful and baneful combine in the country, the Standard Oil Company alone excepted. It dictates terms to every distiller, and fixes the amount of product turned out, and the price of it, with a despotic power not surpassed in Russia."

Since human slavery was abolished in the United States there has been no such despotism as that under which whiskey now labors. The mere statement of the case must carry conviction to every candid mind. All over this great land are poor men who want whiskey and who want it cheap. But the Government steps in and claps a tax of nearly a dollar upon every gallon distilled. This carries up the price from two cents a glass to ten. The "Whiskey Trust" may exercise its power to carry the price even higher. For many years the poor drunkard has been sending up his lamentations over this worse than Russian despotism; but, like the cries of the poor slave a generation ago, they have long fallen upon dull ears. At last they have been heard, and the Republican party has declared for the emancipation of whiskey.

It is the happy fortune of "the party of moral ideas" that its new "mission" commends it alike to the drinkers and the temperance men. On the one hand, no more attractive bid for the vote of the "slums" could be made than the promise of whiskey for two cents a glass; while, on the other hand, the temperance men are bound to fight for the emancipation of whiskey because, in the words of Col. Ingersoll at the Republican ratification meeting in this city last week, "Mere liquor does not make drunkenness. The moral question of the whole thing is to have the burden of government rest as lightly as possible. Temperance walks hand in hand with liquor."

XII.

THE BLIGHT OF FREE WHISKEY.

[From the speech of Alfred H. Colquitt, of Georgia, in the Senate of the United States, March 12, 1888.] Since the conclusive showing by the President of the necessity for getting id of the immense and growing surplus, it has been discovered that the internal revenue taxes are intolerable burdens. It has also been discovered by some unknown species of political clairvoyance that Mr. Jefferson is exceedingly angry at their existence, and that all the other fathers of the Republic turn uneasily and unhappily in their graves.

But what is there in all this? Nothing but a subtle and inexcusable purpose to retard, if not altogether to prevent, a reduction of the tariff taxes on the necessaries of life. This is the purpose and the end, with few exceptions, of all the wild assertion and cunning pretense with which the taxes on whiskey and tobacco are arraigned before the bar of public opinion.

Aroused by the dangers to which a reduction of the surplus may expose monopolies and trusts, the partisans of high tariff spoliation have suddenly waked up to the fact that the internal revenue taxes are war taxes in a sense which does not apply to contemporaneous tariff taxes on the necessaries of life.

At the bare mention of taxes on whiskey and tobacco the cry of "war taxes" is raised, and night and day are made hideous with visions and howls of war, of bloodshed, of barbarism, of vandalism. But when you speak to them of other war taxes of taxes on salt, on sugar, on rice, on coal, on iron, on clothing, on wool, on blankets, on farm tools-they are as gentle as sucking doves.

No respectable statesman of the country, of any party whatsoever, denies the advisability of excise taxes for meeting the emergencies which spring out of war. Does any such emergency now exist? The expenditures for the tiscal year on account of war pensions and interest on the war debt are estimated at $120,000,000. This would seem to constitute a full-grown emergency. The expenditures on account of pensions and interest on the war debt are obligations growing out of the war, and it would be manifestly inappropriate to meet them by tariff taxes on the necessaries of life, which we are taught to believe are peace taxes, pure and simple.

The internal tax upon spirits in 1865 was $2 per gallon. It has been reduced to 90 cents. When the war taxes upon the necessaries of life have been reduced a proportionate mount it will be time enough to commence the further reduction or repeal of the whiskey tax.

MR. JEFFERSON'S OPINION ON THE QUESTION.

Mr. Jefferson, it has been said, was opposed from principle to an excise tax on whiskey. Whatever at one time or another may have been his views on that subject, at the ripe age of eighty years, in a letter to General Samuel Smith, be declared himself in favor of an increase in the whiskey tax. Said he:

"I shall be glad, too, if an additional tax of one-fourth of a dollar a gallon on whisk y shall enable us to meet all our engagements with punctuality. Viewing that tax as an article in a system of excise, I was once glad to see it fall with the rest of the system, which I considered as prematurely and unnecessarily introduced. It was evident that our existing taxes were then equal to our existing debts. It was clearly foreseen also that the surplus from excise would only become ailment for useless officers, and would be swallowed in idleness by those whom it would withdraw from useful industry. Considering it only as a fiscal measure, this was right. But the prostration of body and mind which the cheapness of this liquor is spreading through the mass of our citizens now calls the attention of the legislator on a very different principle.

"One of his important duties is as a guardian of those who, from causes susceptible of precise definition, cannot take care of themselves. Such are infants, maniacs, gamblers, drunkards. The last, as much as the maniac, requires restrictive measures to save him from the fatal infatuation under which he is destroying his health, his morals, his family, and his usefulness to society. One powerful obstacle to his ruinous self-indulgence would be a price beyond his competence. As a sanitary measure, therefore, it becomes one of duty in the public guardians."

These are Mr. Jefferson's views. He did not think they were undemocratic. He would not advocate a policy that would abolish the tax on whiskey, dot the country all over with distilleries, reduce the price to a mere trifle, and fill the land with drunkenness, crime and vagabondage.

WHAT FREE WHISKEY WILL DO FOR THE SOUTH.

In the light of the wise and sober utterances of the sage of Monticello, I declare that no greater wrong could be perpetrated on my section than to abolish the whisky tax. It would flood our States with cheap whiskey, demoralize and brutalize our laboring class, and render worse than nugatory the labors of a quarter of a century in the interest of their advancement. It would be an outrage on all our people, but against the negro race it would rise to the proportions of a hideous and appalling crime.

A distillery upon every spring branch, a peck of corn bartered for a quart of whiskey, a jug of the devil's swill in every cabin will convert every neighborhood into a pandemonium, and expose to danger the purity of every Christian household. Families would fly into the towns and cities and abandon the country to the orgies of sensual drunken debauched wretches.

It is a universally recognized principle in all civilized governments that luxuries and articles promotive of vice are especially fitting subjects of taxation. This principle is of wise and just application in all governments, but peculiarly so in those which depend for their glory, their greatness and their perpetuity on the virtue and intelligence of their people.

It is impossible to deny honestly and logically the justness of the principle, or the fairness and propriety of its application to the taxes in question. Burdens upon vice are incentives to virtue. It is right to make vice and vicious tendencies pay dear for the privilege of existence. I am not for giving to whiskey, so far as the permit of government can give it, the unrestrained freedom of the country. Untaxed whiskey will be cheap whiskey. Cheap whiskey will necessarily result in increased consumption. Increased consumption will be followed by increase in lawlessness and crime and degradation.

All parties profess to admit that the government must cease to collect an immense surplus to be hoarded in the Treasury in defiance of the property rights of the people and at the risk of financial wreck and ruin; but there are men in both parties who seek to accomplish that end in s ich a way as to give the people no deliverance from the dominion of monopoly, no relief from the cumulative tyranny of trusts. They will remove the surplus willingly, even cheerfully, by drying up the fountains of the excise system; but they will not consent to remove a feather's weight of the burdens of taxation on the comforts and the necessaries of life.

WHAT THE REPUBLICANS SAY TO WORKINGMEN.

They are willing to relieve the distresses of the suffering, monopoly-ridden miners of Pennsylvania by furnishing them abundance of cheap whiskey, but deny them cheap food and clothing. To the demand for cheap cool, lumber, nails and blankets for the shivering men and women who dwell in the land of the blizzard, they graciously offer the comfort and protection that may be found in untaxed whiskey. To the Western farmer, who finds all the proceeds of his toil eaten up by outrageous taxes on all he buys, with no compensating benefits by reason of protection in anything which he sells, they offer a deluge of cheap whiskey. To the entreaty of the Southern farmer-for cheap iron, cheap farm tools, cheap bagging and ties, cheap salt, in mockery of the hardships under which he struggles, comes the ready offer, in bland benevolence, of untaxed whiskey for whites, untaxel whiskey for blacks.

To the struggling needle-women, who demand cheap thread, cheap needles, cheap buttons, cheap scissors, cheap thimbles; to the toiling workingman, who asks a cheapening of the few articles that are necessary to the comfort of his humble home; to the freedmen, who ask cheap food, cheap clothing, cheap books, cheap agencies in their progress and elevation; to the manufacturer, who demands cheap raw materials as the sole condition to his successful competition with the whole world; to the shipping interests, which plead for free ships as a means of restoring the commerce of the country to its pristine glory and greatness-to each of all these worthy representatives of outraged and failing interests comes the cruel, the impious, the shameless offer of free whiskey. It is the sum of all good. It is the cure of every ill. It is the inspiration of despairing hope. "Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."

XIII.

ABOLITION OF THE WHISKEY TAX-WHY THIS SHOULD NOT BE DONE SO LONG AS OTHER HEAVY TAXES REMAIN.

The argument against the repeal of this tax, on the ground that it was imposed during the war, cannot be better stated than has been done by Mr. Fairchild, the Secretary of the Treasury, in his report to the present Congress, wherein he says:

The chief cause for the prejudice against this tax seems to be that as there was no such tax before the war for the Union, it is looked upon as a remainder of the measures adopted to raise money to carry on the war, and which ought not to be continued in time of peace, and as interfering in some way with the natural rights. of mankind to grow grain and tobacco and manufacture therefrom spirits, cigars, snuff, and the various forms of merchantable tobacco. Of course, taxation of whiskey and tobacco trespass no more upon the natural rights of man than does the taxation of his clothing, of his bedding, of every implement which he uses in the cultivation of his grain and tobacco, and in the distillation or manufacture of the same. The burden of the one tax is direct, known, fixed; the whole of it goes into the Government's treasury; the burden of the other is indirect and unknown, and only a portion of it comes into the treasury. It reaches the farmer or distiller increased by the profit upon itself, which every merchant must take as the clothing or tools pass through his hands on their journey to them from the foreign or domestic manufacturer.

Taxation there must be. The choice is between kinds of taxation; each man can decide for himself, if he will examine the subject free from prejudice, which is the least burdensome for him, for his family, and for his neighbors, and which is in the end better for his whole country. That internal taxation of spirits and tobacco began during the war is not a reason why it should be done away with now, if it be in itself wise. So the fact that the rates of customs taxation were raised during the same war far higher than ever before in our history, and have been continued until now, ought not to determine the manner of their treatment; this should rather depend upon what is just and expedient at the present time. Neither passion, prejudice, nor sentimentality should have place in the consideration of questions of taxation.

As to the expense of collecting the internal revenue, I suggest that an amalgamation of the customs and internal revenue systems is entirely feasible, and that thereby a large number of offices might be abolished, and that the expense of the whole system might be made not to exceed that of an efficient enforcement of the customs laws. I earnestly commend this suggestion to the careful consideration of the Congress. Is it the part of statesmanship to give up a machinery for its collection when, unless we are more favored than the other nations of the world, there will come a day when it will all be needed? If the law for the collection of this tax is unnecessarily oppressive, amend the law, To do away with the whole revenue from internal taxes at present would so diminish the revenues that it would be necessary either to lay duties on articles of importation now free, such as tea and coffee, or to suspend the sinking fund requirements, and also materially diminish other expenses of government.

But it is not well either to abolish or reduce internal revenue taxation; it is a tax upon whiskey, beer and tobacco, things which are in very small measure necessary to the health or happiness of mankind; if they are necessary to any unfortunate man they are far less neceseary even to him than are a thousand other articles which the Government taxes. This tax is the least burdensome, the least unjust of all the taxes which Government lays or can lay upon the people; it should not be abolished, nor should it be reduced if, with due regard to the existing conditions of labor and capital, sufficient reduction can be made in the taxation of necessary articles which are in the daily use of all the people.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE RELIGIOUS REVOLT.

UNIVERSAL CONDEMNATION OF THE FREE-WHISKEY PLANK IN THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

Journals of All Denominations Express the Utmost Abhorrence of the Whole Scheme.

The response to the declaration of the Republican platform in favor of repealing the tax on whiskey rather than to surrender any of the taxes on the necessaries of life, was almost instantaneous on the part of the religious newspapers of every denomination, and of the leading clergymen everywhere, as is shown by the following extracts from editorials and letters:

I.

HOW THE CHALLENGE WAS MET BY THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION.
From the Christian Union.

The Republican party has taken up the challenge of the Democratic party, and a clear and definite issue is presented to the American voter by the contrasted platforms. Let us state this issue in our own words. There is a surplus in the Treas ury of $125,000,000, and an annual increase threatened of $60,000,000. If this accumulation goes on, the country will be soon involved in hopeless bankruptcy, because in that case the money which commerce needs will be locked up in the Treasury vaults. To protect the nation from this serious menace, two policies are proposed. The Democratic party proposes to confine appropriations of public money to such sums as are necessary for an economical administration of the Government; to retain the tax on alcohol; to modify the tax on tobacco; and to reduce the tax on imports by admitting raw materials free of duty, and by reducing taxes on all articles of necessity. If this involves some manufacturers in commercial distress, the party will regard the individual injury as counterbalanced by the general good. The Republican party proposes to abolish the tax on tobacco; to abolish also the tax on alcohol used in the arts and manufactures; if necessary, to do away with the national tax on alcohol altogether; to retain the present tax on imports substantially unchanged; to retain it, not because it is necessary for revenue, but because it will foster and promote American manufactures and keep up wages; and it proposes to accompany this policy of taxation with one of liberal appropriations, not only for immediate governmental necessities, but for the construction of a navy and of coast fortifications, for river and harbor improvements, for national aid to public education, and for pensions. With this explanation we put the policies of the two