﻿TAXES 
 
If American labor produces three times as much as English labor, and gets paid two times as much, English labor can reverse the standing by producing three times the amount American labor is now producing—and get paid twice as much. 
Simple, isn’t it? 
And after everything is produced, put it in Inner-Seal packages and stow it away for future generations to look at . . . 
No, sir—no, sir!—I didn’t say no such a thing! I didn’t say that American labor is scabbing on the English by producing three times as much for two times the money. What I said was IF . . . etc. 
I have no access to figures, so I will yield to Mr. Forbes or Mr. Hinman! 
Before introducing such figures as I have, I wish to point out that all wealth is the product of labor applied to natural resources of the earth, and that labor is entitled to its product—but doesn’t get it. 
Labor cultivates the corn, builds the railroads, digs and transports the coal (or ore), builds and operates the smelters, invents and constructs every machine small or big. 
Labor plans and erects the factories, constructs and paints the ships, fires the boilers, operates every machine—repairs eyery machine. 
All this, and then some, is the result of human effort—and, if you want to know human effort is labor. A busy man is he—not getting what he produces. 
How come he don’t get it? 
How come that OTHERS get it. 
Get this: Our civilisation, so-called, out of ribaldry, is operated under an industrial system, and swings a wicked collection box thusly: 
It has in connection an unjust and indirect “tax” us one of its chief subsidiaries, i.e., more than one way of skinning a cat twice. For instance: Wheat, the base of our food products, sells for two bucks a bushel. It can be produced, on a large scale, by up-to-date machinery for less than six cents per bushel. Therefore, the system robs you of more than 3,000 per cent over and above the cost of its production. 
Stock markets (another subsidiary) serve to “agitate” the kettle so that the contents won’t scorch. 
A loaf of bread-for which we pay a dime costs 2½ mills, or one-quarter of a cent. Here the system takes another small profit—a measly 800 per cent! 
Spuds can be produced for three cents per bushel, which at Duluth prices exploits us right close to 10,000 per cent. This system robs you 1,000 per cent on shoes and nearly 2,000 per cent on clothes—shoddy quality noted. 
Such is the sad tale about “our system”—and we could recite such facts and figures indefinitely—sufficient to show that under that system, with its many subsidiary “influences,” labor cannot expect to go ahead—wage earners cannot succeed so long as that haywire system remains. Above figures are very conservative—I haven’t exaggerated a penny. 
Ordinarily we do not pay much attention to such figures—no matter how exact and true that phase of robbery is. We realize that to start attempting to control “the price we have to pay” we are turning our hand against too many (the smaller thieves) and that means war—with the big thieves looking on as interested spectators — applauding the efforts of cither side qquite impartially. 
We realize, further, that just now financial control (an IMPORTANT detail) is rapidly slipping from the hands of bankers and “cashiers” two ways: Into the hands of “speculators,” in a small way and into the hands of Industrial Kings in the larger way. Visible signs of this latter trend can be seen in the numbers of “State and National Banks” that now carry the names—Industrial Security, Industrial Savings,, Industrial “this” and Industrial “that,” etc. 
That is the trend, no matter how insignificant the actual “Industrialist” control may be—yea, the names of the banks may be inspired by fear of such an actuality—(That it doesn’t exist but is coming). Be that as it may, and an opinion of many—I will say that control by the Industrial Kings is now an established fact. 
I will say further, the lending of money at 20, 10, 6, 4 or 1 per cent wont buy our “Present” or Half-Past FINANCIERS a nuddle-jumper—not so much as a roller-skate for a Buzzmobile . . . 
They’ll either starve or turn Industrialist. 
Now, since the INDUSTRIAL “Kings” have such wonderful power that they can compel the erstwhile Financial “Kings” to haul down their “signs” I think the working class can save time by directing their attention strictly to the Industrial Field; meet the Industrial Rulers directly and “deal” with them to the end that they, the powerful Industrial Potentates, will be compelled to declare “war” on the small thieves, call a halt on high-cost-of-living, etc. 
The principle of it is: Let the master dirty his hands on the small thieves—Keep ours pure and “white.”