Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1910 — FIGHT FOR FREE HIDES [ARTICLE]

FIGHT FOR FREE HIDES

Fierce Struggle of the Interests to Retain the Duty. HOW PROTECTION WORKS. Once Foreign Competition Io Shut Off the Next Step le to Monopolize the Trade—Methode Pursued by the Protected Trusts. A most illuminating phase of the effort of various interests to retain in the Payne tariff bill special favors granted them by the Dingley bill was the struggle for free hides, which only culminated in victory after President Taft had declared that he would not sign the bill If the duty of 15 per cent on bides was retained. The story as told by Mr. C. H. Jones at the recent dinner of the Massachusetts Reform club demonstrated bow hopeless is the lot of the unorganized consumer when such powerful interests as he represented could scarcely get a hearing. The circumstances are as follows: Up to the passage of the Dingley bill hides were admitted free. In that year, with the avowed purpose of enabling the farmers to get a higher price for hides, a 15 per cent duty was placed on them. As a matter of fact, few farmers have hides to sell. Cattle are bought on the hoof, and the price of meat determines the price they bring, so the butcher gets the hide for next to nothing. But the butchers in this case were the four great companies composing the beef trust, who divided among themselves the United States both as to buying and selling cattle; hence the tariff of 15 per cent on hides was a clear gift to them, for the United States does not produce enough bides to supply its own demand, and hence foreign hides have to be imported. And it is well to note that no tariff on hides, however high, can encourage our farmers to raise enough hides, for cattle are raised for meat and not for their hides. If the duty on hides had simply meant higher prices to the American consumer it would be exacted still, and the citizen unwise enough to grumble would be told that the extra price was what he had to pay for living in a “free country.” Fortunately It threatened the very life of some great organized interests, and a titanic struggle ensued, which resulted temporarily at least in the defeat of the meat trust. This conflict between Interests is typical because it shows in a concrete manner how “protectionism" really works. It is at first Invoked as a means of shutting off foreign competition. When this desirable end is accomplished. then the "protected” manufacturer seeks to stifle home competition. What he is really after is to shut off all competition. He can often do this only by combination, which is costly—chiefly, however, to the public—or by driving his rivals out of the market by underselling them, which is also very costly, or by getting special favors in the tariff bill, which, though Costly, In many ways costs less than either of the other methods. Now, the meat trust saw an opportunity to absorb by means of the duty on hides the tanning and leather business of the United States and ultimately the shoe business, in addition to the egg and poultry business, which it was in a fair way to control by means of special railroad favors which it enjoyed. The 15 per cent duty which the Dingley bill imposed on hides made it possible for the meat trust to get a full price for hides and yet supply its own tanneries with their raw material for 15 per cent less than any competitor could secure his supplies. Such competition must in the long run ruin the Independent tanners, and so when tariff revision was undertaken they realized that it was their one chance for their lives. An energetic committee went to work on the ways and means committee of the bouse of representatives and convinced that body that the tariff should come off bides. When the house bill was reported to the senate, hides were od the free list In the senate, however, opposition immediately manifested Itself. Senator after senator who protested that so far as be was concerned, he favpred free hides declared that the duty would have to stay because other states demanded it The committee representing the tanning Interests was denied a hearing by the finance committee on the ground that the matter had been disposed of and it would only take Up the time of the committee to no purpose. Then a canvass of the senate was made, and a majority of the senators declared In favor of free hides, but when the vote came the duty of 15 per cent was put back on hides by a vote of 47 to 80. Almost in despair at this outcome of a bravely fought struggle, the tanners!

representatives made a last appeal to President Taft to save them from falling into the voracious Jaws of the meat trust, which they had for yean struggled to escape, but which must inevitably swallow them if given a new lease of power by the Payne bill. After considering the matter Presitent Taft took their view and Insisted on hides being put on the free list, but so powerful were the Interests demanding the duty that twenty-two senators waited on the president, practically to threaten him that if be insisted they would resign. Such a dreadful calamity did not supervene because of the wiser second thought of the excited gentlemen, but the threat was made, and it must be said that President Taft faced it with complacency. Perhaps he suspected that ft was only the senators’ last protestation of loyalty to the source from which < campaign expenses bad flown with unstinted liberality. Possibly he realized that if these springs were dried up by putting hides on the free list these gentlemen would not be so willing to test the attitude of their constituents. The battle for free hides was won and the shoe manufacturing Interests saved from absorption, for a time at least. But the lesson of the whole story to the consumer Is that If the powerful Interests represented by the United States Leather company and the tanning concerns have so hard a struggle to get Justice at the hands of the bought and paid for representatives of the protection monopolies, what chance has the consumer?

It would seem, Indeed, as if the men who condemn the tariff as a method of raising money for government expenses are in the right. Protection must be fought both In theory and In practice. It has turned congress Into a stock exchange, If not a bucket shop. It cannot be reformed, but must be cast out root and branch If we want salvation. JOHN J. MURPHY.