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Show i SOLD OUT FOR A SONG PRIVILEGE OF EVERY KIND 01 BARGAIN COUNTER. Cost of Living Rises but License to Prey on the People Is Becoming Becom-ing Dirt Cheap. j In an era of high prices how dirt cheap aotne thing are! The com of living rlKi's, hut the price-marks on privilege of every kind are low and Uie tendency la downward. We read of minis that seem large paid annually to the police system of New York for licensing and protecting vie and crime. Yet what a beggarly valuation is $2,000,000 or $10,000,000 for the right to prey upon a city of 5,000,000 people, containing property anseHsed at eight thoubatid millions! We read of Mark llanna campaign funds of $0,000,000 or $8,000,000 used I to cujolo or corrupt voters nnd carry electlona. Yet what bagatelles are these when compared with the things that they bought, such as the prtHHugo of laws and the suspension of laws In a nation of 9i.000,000! We shall never know how cheaply f we have been told by the police ays- tern and the extortionate tariff system until we apply the rulea of merchandising merchan-dising and put prices and commodltlea Into contrast. We are not only sold out and betruyed municipally and nationally, na-tionally, but we are also shamed In the knowledge that our liberties and estates have been bargained away for a song. It has recently appeared that Standard Stand-ard Oil contributed $125,000 to the Republican campaign fund In 1904 on the understanding that the money would 1 "gratefully received" and "appreciated. M It wan aeked for another an-other donation of $150,000, which wus refused. Here we have Standard Oil's Idea of the market value of the favor of the United Mates government. When Standard OH declined to pay moro. It Is now admitted that the Steel Trust made good the deficiency. lioth of these great combinations owe their lawlesa lives anil most of the hundred hun-dred a of millions that they have rolled up In a tariff cornered market to the favor of the United States government govern-ment Daniel C.N Roper, chief clerk of the wnys and means committee of the bourn) of representatives, estimates that the tariff tax averages $120 a year for every family. Of this sum only $16 goes Into the treasury. The remaining $104 Is absorbed by the protected Interests. He believes thil? an lionent tariff levied only fur public purposes would save the people ueurly $2,000,000,000 a year. With this eolonanI plunder In mind, what la to be aald of Standard Oil haggling over the price that It was to pay for the Hon a share of the graft? , What of Steel's w IlllngneHs to make good the deficiency? What of the contemptible $r,. ono, 000 or $S.(mo,noo raised by the system to continue in liower the party that gave the I'nlted States government Into Its ccrtrol? If the privilege of taxing the people $2,000,0(10,000 In the Interest of a class were put up at auction we believe that even Standard Oil would Increase Its bid. If the privilege of suspending the anti trust law no that It might absorb Its rival, Tentiesnee Coal and Iron, were put up at auction we believe that ' the 8tel Trust would nhow even greater great-er liberality. ThnnkH to the Mark Hanna sstem. j the prices or everything that we eat. j wear ami use are rlslntj. It Is only ! the things tlmt whoiild he priceless, ' such as right, llerty and Justice, that ar on the bargain counter or hawked bout, the streets St l-oiil Republic, j |
