Daily Story
Ginger Snaps and the Tariff
“When I was a clerk in a grocery store in New Salem, down in Menard County, a man came in and said to the storekeeper: ‘I want a nickel’s worth of ginger snaps.’ When they were laid out on the counter, the customer changed his mind and said, ‘I’ll have a glass of cider instead.’ He drank the cider and turned toward the door, his bill unpaid. ‘Here, Bill,’ said the storekeeper, ‘ain’t you goin’ to pay me for that cider?’ The reply came back, ‘Didn’t I give you the ginger snaps for it?’ Well then pay me for the ginger snaps.’ ‘But I never ate your ginger snaps,’ was the quick answer. The storekeeper grudgingly admitted that bill had told the truth, but added he had lost something, somehow, in the deal, So it is…with the tariff. Somebody loses; but I do not know as yet just who it is.”
John Wesley Hill, Abraham Lincoln – Man of God, p. 328.