Show A FREE 1t1IEMXNCPACTU11E1 Hon Tom L Johnson of Ohio the manufacturer of steel rails who has raised such a breeze by advocating free trade in Congress has been assailed as-sailed outside the House of Representatives Represent-atives as well as inside He preserves his equanimity and meets all comers with gobd nature and with telling arguments brimful of common sense Tammany Times has a fine portrait of the gentleman which shows him to be bold suave vigorous and gentlemanly and it publishes portions of a letter which he has written in reply to a number of appeals to him as a manufacturer manu-facturer to help crush the Wilson bill and which we copy below Mr Johnson being a manufacturer of steel rails certainly understands the true Inwardness of the subject He has asserted that steel rails can be manufactured manu-factured at a profit for 19 a ton The manufacturers having agreed on a price they sell for 24 a ton They have also paid two big mills to shutdown shut-down in order to ring the production within certain restricted limits When the existence of this trust was questioned ques-tioned Mr Johnson revealed the reasons rea-sons for certain heretofore unexplained fluctuations in the prices of steel rails that agitated that market a short while since and proved beyohd a doubt that the present agreement to sell steel rails at 24 per ton brought to the manufacturer aprofit of 25 per cent c There is no doubt that protection creates cre-ates monopolies and this Mr Johnson clearly proves Following are the extracts from his open letter tjn reply to his protectionist protection-ist correspondents My objection to the Wilson bill is not that Its duties are too low but that they are too high Iwill do all I canto can-to cut its duties down but I will strenuously oppose putting them tip Further on he said Would you consider con-sider me an honest Representative if I would thus consent to injure the many for the benefit of the few even though the few in this case were yourselves In another place he reminds his constituents con-stituents of his Democratic principles when he says I do not believe in taxing tax-ing one citizen for the purpose of enriching en-riching another citizen You elected me on my declaration that I was opposed op-posed to protectionbelieving it but a scheme for enabling the few to rob the many and that I was opposed even to a tariff for revenuebelieving that the only just way of raising revenues is by the single tax upon land values So long as I continue to represent you in Congress I shall act on the principle of equal rights to all and special privi leges to none and wherever I can abol ish any of the taxes that are now levied on labor or the products of la l bor I will do it and where I cannot abolish I will do my best to reduce When you get tired of that you can elect some one in my place who suits you better If you want duties kept up you may get an honest protectionist that will serve you you cannot get an honest free trader to do it |