Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1905 — TARIFF REFORM DEMANDED. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF REFORM DEMANDED.

Comblaatlon of Ropablicans aad Trust, in the Way. Just as the Democrats hare claimed, tbe protective tariff, which protects the trusts and combines und not the people, has about rained our export trade. The Nesv York Merchants’ association has discovered this and is urging that congress adopt reciprocity to save them. A letter just sent out by the association to B.COO loading business men of the country declares that important changes are about to be made, or have been" made, in the tariff systems of nearly all of continental Europe, and unless some favorable agreements can “be arranged between each of these nations and the United States tbe Merchants’ association fears a disastrous effect upon the export trade of the United States. As the protected interests are all powerful with the Republican leaders .'and Speaker Cannon is a stand patter, which indicates nonaction by congress,; the only hope for relief lies in the election of a Democratic congress next year, for there is not much hope that the coming congress will do anything to help the merchants or the people who pay the tariff tax. Reciprocity cannot be accomplished without mutual concessions on the part of the two parties to a treaty. Each country must sacrifice some of the protection on some of its products. That is what prevents the* ratification of reciprocity treaties by the United States senate, for each of the protected industries does not intend to be the one to be sacrificed on the altar of its country if It can help it. As some Republican United States senator or a number of them are special representatives of trusts or combines that have lodgment in the state they represent, they object to any reciprocity treaty that reduces the protection of their clients, and by hanging together they have prevented the ratification of the treaties. This state of affairs can hardly be remedied until the people elect representatives and the state legislatures elect senators who will represent the people’s interests instead of the Interests of the protected trusts. The two senators from New York are protectionists and represent special Interests, and the New York Merchants’ association, however influential and Important the Interests It represents, will find itself secretly defeated by the interests that would suffer If a reciprocity treaty should be ratified. Protection has fostered special interests, commonly called trusts, and these trusts have seen to It that tbe Republican leaders have been protected in return. The railroad corporations, tbe banks and trust companies, the insurance corporations and the industrial trusts are nearly all controlled by the same Interests, and the Republican party as represented in congress represents those allied interests more than it does the people. To unhorse the trusts and combines there must first be established reciprocity between the congress and the people, and that cannot be until the Republicans are defeated.