Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1910 — THE TARIFF COMMISSION IDEA. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF COMMISSION IDEA.

One of the most remarkable phenomena of our recent political history is the swift and sudden growth in popularity of the tariff commission idea. Jonah’s

gourd is simply “not in it.” Men who once blasphemed the commission are now among its most ardent supporters. Not long ago the Hon. James E. W atson, of this state, insisted that he was the legitimate patentee. Though, his claims to priority can, we think,.,be successfully disputed, we can see no reason why any one should be much concerned to make a fight. There would never have been even such a tariff board as we have, had it not, been tor the pressure of the insurgents for a real commission. The board was a concession to insurgent sentiment, designed to placate those who were opposed to the Payne bill. Even after the board was created Senator Hale insisted that it was in no sense a commission, and said that, under the law, the President would have no right to use it to get information concerning the cost of production abroad.

But we have our commission —-i-such as it is—and. every one is happy. When the sundry civil bill was before the house —the bill creating the commission, and apropriating 5250,000 for it —Mr. Clark, of Missouri, said that the first section of the bill should be entitled “a motion to, postpone the verdict of the people on the Payne-Aldrich-Smoot tariff bill to a more convenient season —more convenient to the staildpat leaders.” Certainly no season for considering it could be more inconvenient than the present. And if the commission scheme shall serve to prevent -such consideration it will be used for that purpose. The favor with which it fs meeting from such men as Mr. Watson indicates that there is a function that it can perform. Is the function the one suggested by Mr. Clark? The commission or board, it should be remembered, is not an agent of congress, but of the President. It is not required to report to congress. It makes its report to the President, who may or may not give its findings to congress or to the public as he sees fit. There are many who think that the facts should go to congress in the first instance, as any tariff bill that is passed must' be passed by congress.

But we have our tariff "cortimission.’’ And the law creating it is hailed as a triumph of statesmanship by representatives of that very element which strove so valiantly to kill it when it was before congress. Even the Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, that prince of tariff reformers, s is now convinced that the commission is a delight and a joy. Men who once denounced it as a vital confession that the tariff bill, which was the result of months of labor, is seriously defective, are now welcoming the commission as a sort of lifeboat, which is to carrv them safely through the breakers. When Cannon approves. what more can any one ask? Any one disposed to make merry over our politics could 'have rare fun over this sudden reversal of form. What is there in the tariff commission idea, which was not in it a year ago last March? It has no excellence now that it did not have then. It had no defectthen which it does not have now. ft is the same law. the same commission. Are we to conclude that certain gentlemen who then opposed it bitterly" now see in U the only bridge—to change the figure—across a yawning chasm which has just npw become prcceptible to them? Is the scheme to rally, not in defense of the tariff law. but in defense of the commsision, as a postponetnent of “the verdict of the people on the Payne-Aldric'h-Smoot tariff bill to a more convenient season?"

We do not know. But one thing we think we do know, and that that the people are dissatisfied With the Payne law, that they earnestly desire relief from the present burden of taxation, and of tax-raised prices. They are not interested in the conjHiission, but in lower taxes. They know that the wool, cotton, steel and sugar schedules are atrocious. Will they be IflHed info satisfaction or indifference by the Siren song of the standpatters in glorification of the- tariff commission? Is their capacity for being fooled and hoodwinked unexhausted? It is a little strange to enact a tariff law supposed to be the sum of all wisdom—for was it not the work of such “experts” as Aldrich, Smoot, Lodge, Cannon, Payne and Littauer? —and at the same time to provide ' a scheme for improving the unimprovable and reforming the unreforrpable. But it is evident that the standpatters are going to get

a good deal of comfort and consolation out of the despised commission. for it is clear that they regard it as the best sort of politics. Is it anything more than that?- —Indianapolis News. ? Congressman "yA. Crumpacker ’used to pose as the great and good friend of one, Teddy Roosevelt. In these . days of Insurgency when the , aforesaid Teddy went whooping by after having driven Chum Sunny Jim Sherman under the bed with a fence paling, the silence of the sage of Valparaiso sounds as loud as the falling of a thousand bricks. Never again can the sage applaud ysuch boisterous punishment for Stand Patters.

A friend was in the office chatting over things in general, when we questioned him on the outlook for the election of John B. Peterson to congress this fall, and discovered that there was at least one well-informed and intelligent democrat who 'had ft ”ed to sense the conflict, and did not know that for the first time singe the 10th district has been organized that there is more than a hope of electing a man of the people to congress. One the one hand we have Mr. Peterson, alert, active, congenial and in touch with the people. On the other hand Crumpacker has never been so thoroughly out of touch. A standpatter of the Aldrich. Hale and Cannon type, his attitude is so hostile to. the progressive republicans that he has threatened retaliation if a progressive speaker is sent into his' district. His dependence on the omnipotent power of ’his good friends, the trusts, has ma le him arrogant in district appointments. and as a speaker, he freezes his audiences instantly, seems almost unbelievable that every democrat and progressive republican in the district is not busy spreading tiie news that "this is the year we make .a change.” Possibly the Democrat has been a little derlict in the matter itself, but from now on we» hope to keep in' the lead, and that there will not be a man in the county who is not alive to the fact that the democratic candidate for congress is a good man and a live wire.