Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1915 — Tariff Commission Needed. [ARTICLE]

Tariff Commission Needed.

The Tariff Commission League, the headquarters of which are in Chicago, demands that tariff tinkering cease and that all schedules be based upon facts obtained from a thorough investigation, thus removing that most important essential from the realm of politics. This is not new, for the last special congress under the Taft administration provided for a commission in the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill, but it was not clothed with sufficient powers to satisfy those who advanced the commission plans and men like Albert J. Beveridge refused to support the measure. Last year Beveridge in his campaign urged the adoption of a commission and there were few to oppose it in the republican party. It is generally accepted by republicans as well as progressives as the only method of guaranteeing security to business. The present democratic tariff is not satisfactory, the Payne-Aldrich bill was not satisfactory, the McKinley tariff was not wholly satisfactory and the WilsonGorman tariff was almost wholly unsatisfactory. To change either resolved itself into a log-rolling of complete change and partisans without scientific investigation and influenced by selfish interests made new tariffs that were not what the people needed. A commission wih power to alter single schedules whenever conditions warranted would furnish stable business conditions tnd take tariff out of politics. It is sure to come and being right should come. The Republican believes it would have been a fact by this time had ‘those who opposed the Payne-Aldrich tariff provision for a tariff board given it full endorsement and had the succeeding congress, which was democrttic, acted upon the advices furnished it by the tariff board. A commission at this time would be of great benefit in adjusting the intercourse of the nations and the republican party can do much toward a complete reunion of the party by embodying in its national platform next year a pldege for a tariff commission.