Prosperity Stirs the Conscience.
The sincerity displayed in all the letters is unmistakable. A few years ago many of the communications revealed a strong religious feeling. During the present period of prosperity contributions have been increasing, and it is now the opinion of some officials that many of these penitents have long been anxious to restore "to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," but that they waited until they were better able to do so.
A few weeks ago a man wrote from Kansas, stating that thirty-six years before he bought a horse from army deserters, who had stolen it from Fort Leavenworth. He paid them forty dollars for the animal, and not long afterward sold it for the same sum. He therefore made nothing out of the transaction, but the fact that he had dealt in a contraband horse had preyed steadily, he said, upon his conscience, and after the lapse of a generation he sent forty dollars to the Conscience Fund.
Just how much smuggling is carried on is a matter of interesting speculation. Last year our registered imports amounted in value to over one billion dollars. The dutiable goods amounted to considerably more than half this sum, and the duties collected aggregated no less than two hundred and seventy-seven million dollars.
In the latter part of 1905 a farmer in Michigan sent in thirty dollars as the duty which he should have paid on a horse driven across the Canadian border from Manitoba a number of years ago. This was duly credited to the Conscience Fund, and nearly a month later a second letter was received from the same penitent farmer, saying that he had decided also to pay duty on the harness (valued at seven dollars) which the horse wore and the buggy (valued at ten dollars) it hauled on the occasion of its journey across the border from Manitoba. In the second letter he enclosed six dollars and sixty-five cents for the Conscience Fund.
When John G. Carlisle was Secretary of the Treasury he received the following letter with forty dollars enclosed:
Dear Sir:
Though I disapprove as heartily as you of the recent tariff laws, I think it the duty of every honest man to declare fully the value of articles subject to the same, as he can only avoid doing so by perjuring himself. I did so when I returned from Europe, with the exception of a few trifles, which, if examined, would have involved the putting about the contents of my trunk to the injury of my property. I hope that you will use your influence to have the present tariff laws changed. I hope this less on account of economic ignorance which they display than because of the terrible demoralizations which they have powerfully aided to bring about.