Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1912 — PEOPLE KNOW BETTER [ARTICLE]

PEOPLE KNOW BETTER

IDLE TO DENY TARIFF MAKES PRICES ARTIFICIALLY HIGH. Protectionists Must Either Admit the Fact or Acknowledge That Their Pet Idea Is a Delusion and a Fraud. No special inquiry by the state department through its consular officers In Europe was. needed to prove that there has been a marked increase in orioes of necessaries of life throughout the world. It was a matter of 1 common knowledge. Neither will Mr. Taft’s remarks in a special .message to 1 congress about the high cost of living in Europe and the universal rest- , lessness under this condition reconcile the American people to conditions in | their own country. They are con- . vinced that the prices of many articles of ‘ daily consumption in the United States are unnecessarily and i aritiicially high, and they demand relief.

High protectionists had already preempted the general statements repeat- | ed by Mr. Taft for use in opposing the reduction of tariff duties. Senator j Lodge did it a year ago and others have imitated him, They say that I because the cost of living is high abroad, the tariff does not account for the high cost of living in the United States. But if high duties do not help to keep up prices the tariff is a delusion and a fraud. It does not accomplish what it was intended for, and is not needed. It is sheer impudence for the foes of tariff revision to say that the Payne-Aldrich rates do not contribute to the high cost of living when the beneficiaries of schedule K, ! the cotton-mill Interests, the iron and steel manufacturers and the beet sugar people flock to Washington to | tXomplain that lower duties will affect the prices of their products. | Tariff schedules that represent exj cessive and unjust taxation upon consumption and extravagance in government expenditures are two causes that I operate directly against lower cost of i living. The remedies for both abuses are in the hands of the government. | To revise the tariff, to reduce taxation and to practice economy in national j expenditures will be to take a long | step in the’direction of affording the consumers relief.. It is true that the cost of living has Increased of late years the world over. But for the administration or congress to make that a pretext for adhering to unsound and wasteful methods of government is to defy common sense.