The Comet

REPUBLICANS' EXTRAVAGANCE
Government Cost More Than Doubled Under Roosevelt.
DEMOCRATS' GREAT RECORD
Startling Figures Which Show That the Cost of Our National Existence and the High Cost of Living Must Be Reduced.

Under a proper downward revision of the Republican tariff schedules the people of the United States would save $2,000,000,000 each year, or over $100 per family on manufactured goods alone.

President Taft's vetoes of the wool tariff bill and the steel tariff measure passed by a Democratic house COST THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES ABOUT $650,000,000 PER ANNUM.

The cost of conducting the federal government MORE THAN DOUBLED between the close of President Cleveland's second administration (Democratic) and the beginning of President Roosevelt's second administration (Republican).

As the DIRECT RESULT OF HIGH REPUBLICAN TARIFF SCHEDULES the people of the United States pay a tax FROM NINE TO SEVENTY-EIGHT PER CENT on food and ordinary household articles used in the home by every family, rich and poor.

The total cost of running the federal government in 1860 was $55,000,000.

The amount appropriated at a single session of the Sixty-first congress for the fiscal year 1911-$1,027,133,446.44- was more than double the amount- $954,496,055.13-appropriated for the fiscal years 1897 and 1898 at both sessions of the Fifty-fourth congress, the last congress of the second Cleveland administration.

Only eight years elapsed between the close of the second administration of President Cleveland and the beginning of the second administration of President Roosevelt and yet the amount appropriated during the four years of the latter- $3,842,203,577.15 -- was more than double that appropriated in the four years Mr. Cleveland was at the helm-viz, $1,871,509,857.47.

For 1910, the last fiscal year provided for in congress under President Roosevelt, the highwater mark in appropriations-$1,044,401,857.12-was reached. President Taft's estimate to the last session of congress for government support for the fiscal year was $1,050,648,026.55.

In other words, governmental expenses for the FOUR YEARS of President Cleveland's administration (Democratic) were only $830,861,551.92 more than President Taft's (Republican) estimate of the amount necessary to cover the expenses of ONE YEAR of President Taft's administration.

Congressman John J. Fitzgerald of New York, a Democrat and chairman of the committee on appropriations, in addressing the house Aug. 26, 1912, on the subject of appropriations said:

"Thoughtful men have watched with alarm the rapid increase in the cost of government in the United States." He further said that two causes seem responsible for many present evils:

"One, the UNFAIR AND UNJUST SYSTEM OF TAXATION by Which an undue share of income by those whose circumstances in life are not considered more than reasonably comfortable is taken through our customs laws for the support of our government; the other, the difficulty or inability to readjust our system of taxation and to remove many taxes from the necessaries of life, so long as the GOVERNMENT IS EXTRAVAGANTLY CONDUCTED, or the Instrumentalities provided for the conduct of the public service are either inefficient or are not utilized so as to render the most effective and comprehensive results."

Mr. Fitzgerald then called attention to the fact that the Democratic party pledged itself if intrusted with power to do two things-REDUCE TARIFF DUTIES AND RETRENCH PUBLIC EXPENDITURES by eliminating waste in administration and the abolition of useless, inexcusable offices.

The Republicans talk about tariff revision, and yet when a Democratic house in fulfilling Democratic promises to the people reduced the tariff, a Republican president vetoed the measure.

By their works shall ye know them."

Democrats in every state of the Union should organize and prepare for polling a record breaking vote Nov. 5 Be it remembered that no matter how certain victory seems, overconfidence is always dangerous.