Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1908 — H. E. MILES ON TARIFF [ARTICLE]

H. E. MILES ON TARIFF

Courageous Statement by Republican Manufacturer. DINGLEYISM IN TRUE LIGHT. Quotations From Recent Articles by Chairman Miles of Manufacturers’ Association—A Powerful ArYaignment of Unjuet Tariff Burdens Now Resting Upon ths Peopls. Mr. H. E. Miles, of Racine, Wls., Is a Vice-President and Director of the National Association of Manufacturers, and Chairman of the Association’s Committee on the Tariff. In the September, 1908, number of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Mr. Miles writes on the subject, “Tariff Making—Fact and Theory.” He has also issued a pamphlet known as the “Payne" pamphlet, in which he considers certain “remarkable statements of Hon. Sereno E. Payne, Chairman Ways- and Means Committee.” Mr. Mlles is, to use his own words, “a protectionist, a manufacturer and a Republican.” Some idea of bis convictions on the injustice of our tariff system and the need for radical revision downward, can be obtained from the following brief quotations. In the “Annals” article Mr. Miles says: Tariff Horas Traders.

“I asked an Important member of the Ways and Means Committee of the House upon what underlying principle of measurement the rates rest. He could conceive of none. Another member of the Committee bit his lips and walked away. He is personally responsible for a schedule that costs the American people from one to two million dollars per week. The first member then said. ‘Why, Mlles, if any one down In my district wants anything, I get it for him, and I get all I can, and that’s all there is to it.’ Anti so it Is. Were that man to try to be specific, he could not justify a single schedule with any exactness. He Is only a tariff horse trader, and resists any attempt to make'him otherwise." Graft In Borax Schedule. “I Went with certain data to the man probably most responsible of all for the present tariff situation. Said he. ’Do you think we don’t know? Take Senator ,of , for Instance. He held up the Dingley bill till we gave him and bls pals a wholly unwarranted tariff on borax worth to them over $5,000,000 In money. We had to have his vote!’

“And so it is that Nevada borax, the most easily mined and the best deposits in tbe world, is ‘protected’ against Inferior foreign deposits, and that the retail price of borax in England is cents a pound, while in the United States it Is 2% cents plus the 5 cents duty, or 7’i cents. This senator quickly sold the mines to an English syndicate for $12,000,000. What he sold was Incidentally the mines, and in principal part, the right to tax the American people, by act of Congress, 5 cents per pound, or 200 per cent on its borax over and above a fair price.” Billion* For ths Steel Trust.

"This mnn (the congressman quoted on borax* knows that when the Dingley bIH was passed the cost of the manufacture of steel rails was sl2 per ton In Pittsburg and sl6 in England; ocean freight was. and is, about $3.50, making $19.50 the English cost delivered In New York, or 63 per cent above the Pittsburg cost. Imagine any congressman being so foolish or so daring as to* attempt to explain why, with this 63 per cent of ‘natural protection.’, $7.84 per ton, or 65 per cent, more protection was given by Congress. The granting of a tariff like this! is a farming ont of the taxing power for private considerations and to private interests. “Not long after the passage of this bill steelmakers, guided by Wai) Street promoters, put abont one billion dollars of water into one corporation, and partly, at least, by the powers given to them in that tariff by Congress and the President, they have transfused the wealth of the people Into that watered stock. In an amount not less than $1,000,000 per week, until it has become a most substantial property. Lesser concerns have taken as much more. Sales prices have been doubled.' Seeking relief from abroad, ‘domestic users have found the government of the United States practically preventing relief through Importations at onefourth lower prices, although these lower prices were being gladly met by our makers iu neutral markets, and very profitably. “Americans owning factories both .in the United States and in Canada are buying Pittsburg steel cheaper for their Canadian factories, and are supplying foreign markets from Canadian factories formerly supplied from the United States. Leading political manipulators, sometimes called statesmen, and even protectionists, knowingly made all this possible In the name of protection to American Industries and labor. “Or consider pig Ifon. The wage cost at the furnace of converting the raw materials there assembled into pig iron is, as stated by Mr. Schwab. 41.1 cents per ton of pig produced. Indeed, Mr. Schwab says that this covers, at the furnace, also maintenance and overhead expenses. This seems almost incredible, but for more than a generation our steel men have taxed the belief of the manufacturing world by the actual fatHs of their accomplishments. Certainly pig, like all other steel and Iron products. Is produced cheaper In thia country than anywhere else on earth. Mr. Gary fairly conceded this to a congressional comndt-

>e, which, however, for some 1 reason, failed to act upon the information. “In utter disregard of the principle •f protection Congress, under the influence of John Dalzell and in the name of the principle thus set at naught, put a duty of $4.00 per ton on pig iron—a duty about ten times the total wage cost of production at the furnace.” Textile Schedule Peet Belief. | “The; next greatest Industry after iron and steel Is textiles, with an output, as I remember, of about $800,000,000 per annum. The provisions of the textile schedule pass all belief. No industry more clearly deserves and requires protection. No industry has less need devious and unfair rates and methods. The output of all the woolen mills of Massachusetts by a recent census, is of the yearly value of $200,000,000. The wages in the mills total $50,000,000, or 25 per cent of the output. Wages are there 60 per cent higher than Britain, which would make tne British rate 16 per cent of the output on the basis of American values. The difference in wage cost is therefore 9 per cent. It would seem that twice this 9 per cent, or 18 per cent, would be moderately protective, and three times, or 27 per cent, almost liberally protective, with some allowance possibly, to the wool grower. But the rates run from 75 per cent to 165 per cent, as measured by the money actually paid In at the custom houses. This latter figure, however, marks only the point of legislative prohibition, beyond which the rates mount to 200 per cent and upward. There is neither honesty nor common sense in this schedule, unless the evidence of extreme manipulation on the part of the manufacturers is to be so considered.” Honor Among Glass Men. “Reference may also be made with propriety to pressed glass, wldch is made so cheaply in the United States that It Is exported to places of foreign manufacture and there sold at better than American prices. The leaders In that industry were Invited by Mr. McKinley to write their own schedules for the McKinley bill, ‘and to make them fair.’ This was; and is, quite the common practice. The committee of glass men. thus placed upon honor, put pressed glass on the free list. But it appeared in the law finally at 65 per cent duty. Evidently greedier men secured the change, and with the proof of their unfairness already before Congress.” Millions For Corruption. “The present political methods of tariff making offer special inducements and opportunities for the corrupt use of corporate influence. Having millions of possible profits at stake in the fixing of a tariff rate, it is no wonder that the trusts and other special interests will spend large sums to influence elections and to control the actions of members of Congress. A congressman, who represents one of the most important manufacturing sections of the United States, said to me, ‘My people would. I believe, spend $25,000,000 to keep the tariff right where It is.’ ” A National Scandal. “That numerous men prominent In public life have been corrupted by money spent to control the tariff, is a fact of which there is conclusive proof. Our tariff schedules and the methods followed in working them out constitute a national scandal.”

Tariff Invites Monopoly. “Congress might almost as w’ell decide that there shall be no compete don as to give, as it now does, to shrewd American business men rates that arc practically prohibitive of imports upon billions of dollars’ worth of the requirements of the people. In my own business, for Instance, a protection of 15 per cent to 25 per cent is qecessary, but Congress gave us. under an omnibus clause, 45 per “cent. In doing this it permitted, if it did not invite us, to consolidate, and to add to our sales prices about 20 per cent and treble our profits, possibly quadruple them. At any rate the strong arm of the government will not permit of foreign competition, and so by our elimination of domestic competition, the people can be put wholly at our mercy to the extent of the excess duty. And this is what has happened with most of the necessities of life” Guarantee of “Reasonable Profits” Is k Class Favoritism. "The plank (in Republican platform) reads: ‘The true principle of protection Is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries.* “The government does not guarantee profits to the wheat grower, good incomes to clerks and clergymen, nor steady employment to labor. Is it to guarantee profits to trust’s only? This clause would not help those wlw> manufacture and sell finder old-fashioned competition, for competition keeps their profits at the minimum or destroys profits. But when trusts have only foreign competition to fear and the government gives them a duty which brings their costs on a imrity with Europe and Asia it gives them full and fair protection, trusts though they are. When it adds to such protection a guarantee of profits also, it practices the worst sort of class favoritism. and in a quarter where it is least of all pardonable. This sort of •protection’ is equal to a guarantee of stocks, bonds and Income at the expense of the people.” ' “Dicker" With Sugar Trust. The following quotations' are taken from the “Payne” pamphlet: “The entire cost of converting bests Into sugar, ‘lncluding the cost of the beets and all other material used in the operation, together with 'the cost of all labor involved,* 18 only 46% pier cent of the wholesale price of the