CHAPTER 26 Comparative Government Treatment--A Bounty for Raising "Sugar Beets," but a Tax on Inventions

Laws are framed and a great deal of money spent by our Government for the encouragement of useful production by its people. For illustration, it is considered that the best way to produce sugar, is the raising of the sugar cane which is raised in the world in sufficient quantities to meet all possible demands, and naturally enough in places where it can be raised to the best advantage. Many of those places are under the Stars and Stripes, namely, Louisiana, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. Yet if a citizen who, on his farm, could produce many diverse articles and sell the same to advantage, chooses instead to raise a vegetable (beets), from which sugar can be manufactured at a disadvantage, expects and receives from the Government not only absolute protection of his production, and also the securing of an enhanced price for the same, through a high tariff, but an actual bonus of money known as a "bounty." But the inventor who bestows great benefits on his fellow citizens and the world at large, and gives it that which can not be had at all elsewhere at the time, is evidently not deemed by our law-makers of sufficient importance to receive any encouragement or justice.

From what has been said here, it ought to be very evident that there is a wide difference in the treatment meted out by our Government to him who renders services to society by digging in the dirt, and to him who digs in the brain.