Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1902 — DOLIVER TALKS TO REPUBLICANS [ARTICLE]

DOLIVER TALKS TO REPUBLICANS

Expounds the lowa Idea Before the National League of Clubs. FREE TRADE NOT THOUGHT OF Declares Party That Passed Tariff Bill Is Amply Able to Place It In a Position Where It Will Be in Touch With Current Needs. Chicago, 111., special: “Don’t worry about strife In the Republican party on account of the tariff,” was the advice of Senator J. P. Dolllver of lowa to the National Republican league. He, first of lowans to touch the question away from home since Speaker Henderson threw the limelight on it, tackled the “lowa idea” and Henderson's fling at it as free trade in this fashion: No Need of Alarm. “Our brethren of the opposition have been busy for months reading one another out of the party, but so far as I know the Republican party has not appointed any custodian of the ark of the covenant with authority to purge the roll call of the Republican millions of the United States, so nobody need feel alarmed even if a friendly debate grows up within the party and Ideas make their appearance from lowa or Illinois or Wisconsin or Connecticut. Nobody is going to be hurt by them. If there is anything in them they will make their own way, if not they will be easily managed. Explains lowa Idea. "Let us look at the lowa idea for a minute, and I select that only because I am more familiar with it and because circumstances have arisen to give it universal advertisement It has been presented to the country as the sudden impulse of dissatisfied mis-chief-makers within the Republican party. On the other hand, it reflects the mature judgment of a man whose wisdom has never failed the Republican party in the forty years of his continuous public service. Let me read what Senator Allison said a year ago, clearly interpreting the lowa platform: Quotes Allison. “ ‘So that it must be said that the policy of protection is firmly imbedded in our system, and it is not likely to be changed. Ido not mean to say that our duties and our rates of duty upon imported articles are not to be changed. These duties and rates of duty ought to be changed from time to time, as conditions change in our country and in the countries to which we must look for an expanding and increasing market abroad, and also for the benefit of consumers of these products in our country, so that if monopolies are created they can be checked and reasonable prices only exacted. Our experience in the past has shown changes in rates of duty to be necessary, and they have been frequently made.’ Protect Protection. “Our people appreciate the objections to a wholesale revision of the act of 1897. There are no free traders in their ranks. Their purpose is to protect the protective tariff. Nobody pretends that the present law is perfect. Its friends know its defects better than its enemies. The purpose of the Republican platform in lowa was to give the defenders of the protective system an answer good and sufficient when conscientious and thoughtful citizens, aware of the rapid transformation goington in the world’s commercial life, ask the party which made the law of 1897 to take the responsibility of keeping it jn touch with the progress of American business.” Home Competition. Touching the trusts, Senator Dolliver argued that the protective principle finds its justification, not in its encouragement of infant industries or in its effect upon American wages, but, as laid down by Hamilton and Interpreted by Blaine, finds its justification in barring out foreign competition so that competition at home may prevent monopoly by the capitalist, assure good wages to the laborer and defend the consumer against extortion. From that starting point, he argued and cited to show that the law of competition at home is already working to put the trust monrnolies out of business.