Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1910 — ANTI-TARIFF FEELING. [ARTICLE]

ANTI-TARIFF FEELING.

Poll of 3,000 Republican Newspapers. ONLY A THIRD FAVOR LAW. Tariff and Cost of Living the Only Two Things Talked About—Leading Republican Paper Calls Payne-Aldrich Law "a Dishonorable Deception.” President Taft has complaining keenly that the newspapers are against him. And so they are, but that Is because of his unfortunate indorsement of the Payne-Aldrich tariff law. Mr. Taft regards the new tariff law as a substantial fulfillment of the party pledges. The country regards it, on the other hand, as a shameful betrayal No need to go to the Democratic papers for this verdict. The Republican press is in revolt. The Chicago Tribune recently took a poll of Republican and independent newspapers in twenty-six states west of the Allegheny mountains, and the replies received were nearly four to one against the tariff law. The question asked was, “Do you indorse the Aldrich-Cannon tariff?’ No less than 3,498 Republican editors answered this question and 604 independents. The voting was: FOR THE LAW. Republican 812 Independent 27 Total 839 AGAINST THE LAW. Republican 2.656 Independent 577 Total 3,263 This is an extraordinary result. When the Republican press is so strongly arrayed against the mischievous law what are we to think of the opinion df the rest of the country? If it were possible by a referendum to ask every voter the same question as Was addressed to the editors, how long would the law last? The tariff iniquity is maintained because men vote for parties not for measures, but in this instance the inquity is too strong even for party loyalty. On all sides we hear of the dissatisfaction with the tariff and its offspring, high prices. “So far as I have been able to observe,” said a senator to the Washington correspondent of the New York Evening Post, “the people of this country are just now Interested in but two things. One of them is the cost of living, and the other is the effect of the new tariff law. It is perfectly plain to me that the new schedules adopted last summer are not giving general satisfaction. * * * I have had no Inquiries to amount to anything this winter on any other subject.” The St. Paul Pioneer Press, the leading Republican organ of Minnesota, comes out boldly with a declaration that “the tariff is now a moral, not an economic, issue," and gives vent to the popular indignation in these ringing words: "No amount of defense or explanation by the president or any one else will convince the American people that the pledges of the Republican platform have been kept. The tariff law. when all defense of it has been weighed, remains as a dishonorable deception, and the American people reeent being deceived. They are convinced that the tariff was framed In the interests of men who make money out of it. They feel that the question is now more of a moral than an economic issue and that it cannot be settled until it is settled right.” We are evidently on the eve of stirring times in party history. It is, however, a hopeful sign wheu press and people are beginning to think for themselves and to throw the party bandages from off their eye 6.