Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1910 — INDIANA UP IN ARMS [ARTICLE]

INDIANA UP IN ARMS

Senator Beveridge, the Insurgent, Indorsed THE ALDRICH LAW IGNORED “The Coming Battle,” Says Beveridge, “1» Between the Rights of the People and the Power of the Pillagers”—A Telling Exposure of Deceptive Schedules and Sham Reductions. Indiana has raised its potent voice against the Payne-Aldrich tariff. The Republicans of that state have en-i thusiastically indorsed the action of Senator Beveridge, who opposed the bill through thick and thin. They have adopted a platform which, while it advocates a protective tariff “measured by the difference between the Cost of production here and abroad,"’ significantly Ignores the Payne-Aldrich law altogether. Senator Beveridge in appealing for support did not soften In any way his antagonism to the bill, but loudly proclaimed it. In fact, he made it the head and front of his offending. The following extracts from his speech illustrate what the Indiana senator thinks of “the best tariff bill we ever had.” After President Taft’s magnanimous defense of the Payne-Aldrich law it is singular that Mr. Beveridge should have mentioned him so conspicuously as a co-insurgent on the tariff question. Senator Beveridge said: “Like President Taft, I wanted free iron ore, of which we have the greatest deposits on earth and which the steel trust chiefly controls. I could not stand for the duty that was passed, and I cannot stand for it now. “Like President Taft, I wanted on the free list many raw materials that needed no protection. Yet only one was so treated. 1 could not stand for the duties on these articles, and I cannot stand for them now.

“Like President Taft, I wanted the ancient woolen schedule reduced. It gives to the woolen trust unfair control and raises the prices and reduces the weight of the people’s clothing. I stood against this schedule when the bill was -passed, and I stand against it now. '

“I could not stand for the duty on lumber when the tariff bill was passed, and I cannot stand for it now.

“I stood against the Increase of the duty on cotton goods, and I stand against it now. “The reduction of the tariff on refined sugar is a deception, because it cannot affect the price. Yet that is one of the boasted reductions we hear of.

“These are examples of increases. I was against them then, and I am against them now. “From few, if any, of the decreases do the people get the slightest benefit “Extortion is not protection. “The coming battle is not so much between political parties as such as between the rights of the people and the powers of pillagers. “I believe that the reasonable prosperity of the few dozen American citizens should depend upon the common prosperity of all American citizens. “Swollen and dangerous fortunes are not necessary to good wages to the workingman, fair salaries to the clerk or commercial traveler or honest prices to the farmer.

“We want no Lord North or King George, no Bourbon or Romanoff methods in American dife, whether in government or laws, whether in enacting a tariff or managing a party. “A political party is not a group of politicians, each with his following, combining to win the spoils of place and power. Such an organization is not a party. It is a band of brigands, and its appeals in the name of the party are mere attempts, to beguile and defraud the voter for Rs selfish purposes. Such organizations and men are the tools and agents of lawless interests which know no party, attempt to use all parties and practice only the policies of profit. “I was for a just law. That Could have been written, and it shall yet be written. 1 “I could not stand for the obsolete and infamous sugar schedule, which no man in Indiana can read and understand, but which the sugar trust can read and understand, yet efforts to change that schedule were opposed by Democratic votes. We reduced the tariff on refined sugar 5 cents a hundred pounds—one-twentieth of 1 cent, a half of 1 mill, a pound—which was worse than no reduction because it cannot possibly affect the price and therefore is a deception. Yet that is one of the boasted reductions we hear of. “It is said that the law has made reductions on articles entering into the consumption of the people to the value of $5,000,000,000, yet those articles are made up of such things as lumber, agricultural implements, meat and food products, petroleum and its products, of all of which we are the greatest exporters in the world; steel rails and coal, which we export; barbed wire, monopolized by the steel trust; nails, manufactured and sold by an interna* tional trust as complete as the international tobacco monopoly; yarns and threads, the raw materials for textiles, OD~. WlliclL. icxlikis... when... finished for the people’s, use, the tariff was increased; sugar, which was not reduced in fact, but only in • pretense.” ’ “I’m licked,7 said Boss Aldridge when he heard thqt he was defeated by a majority of nearly G,OOO ' For once at least the Rochester political boss spoke the truth.