Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1901 — DELIBERATE ACTION. [ARTICLE]

DELIBERATE ACTION.

PRESIDENT NOT DISPOSED TO RUSH RECIPROCITY. Practical Details and Results to Be Carefully Considered Fefore Any of the Kasson Treaties Are Resubmitted to the Senate for Ratification. Free Trade and other newspapers which so glibly misinterpret the late President’s attitude with regard to foreign trade extension and who so confidently count upon President Roosevelt to make good their ministerpretation, would do well to pattern after the intelligent reasonableness of the following statement by the Washington correspondent of the New York Times: “There will be no precipitate action by the President on the subject of reciprocity. The agitation on this subject in sdme of the newspapers, witn assertions bolstered up by quotations from Mr. Roosevelt’s public assurances, whether intended to help the cause of reciprocity or to prejudice it, has no warrant further than that intended in the promise of the President to adhere to the policies of McKinley. The subject is a large and complicated oue, and not even Mr. McKinley, after years of experience, was prepared to say just what the details of a reciprocity treaty with a foreign country should be. A reciprocity policy cannot be defined in any but the most general terms by the Executive, and with the legislative branch must rest the task of providing the details.” It is well and truly said that the subject of reciprocity is “a large and complicated one”—so large and so complicated that not even President McKinley, with his wealth of practical knowledge in tariff matters, could or did claim to have mastered it. Unlike that rather numerous brood of quick thinkers who imagine they have solved the intricate problem after having given It a cursory glance, and who don't trouble themselves about the working details, Mr. McKinley considered it to be his duty to go into the reciprocity question deeply and thoroughly. He had previously turned the matter over to hands and heads which he supposed were competent, only to find out that they were bunglers and botchers. So, in the last few months of his life he had devoted himself studiously to the examination of reciprocity, alike on general principles and in detailed workings. The result of his painstaking investigation was the Buffalo speech, in which he declared for the enlargement of our foreign trade through a scheme of reciprocal concessions such as should not curtail domestic production. In bis judgment, reciprocity that should increase the imports of articles “which we ourselves produce” was not reciprocity at all; it was free trade in disguise. It was this deep-seated conviction which animated the statement by President McKinley to a close and confidential friend, in Washington, on the afternoon of June C, 1901, to the effect that he (the President) favored only that plan of reciprocity sanctioned by the Republican national platform of 1900— namely, reciprocity “in articles which we do not ourselves produce,” and that he was opposed to any scheme of trade extension that would take from a single American workman his job. There is precisely where William McKinley stood at the end of the first week in June, at a time when the quick thinkers had him all thought out as ready to abandon protection, and that is where he stood when at Buffalo in the first week of September he made- his last great speech. Hence, we say, the over-night theorists would do well to think again once or twice before they attribute to the dead President and to his successor in office views and purposes regarding reciprocity not entertained by either Mr. McKinley or Mr. Roosevelt. The policy of McKinley is to be continued absolutely unbroken by Roosevelt. The country has this pledge recorded, as It were, over McKinley’s coffin. Of its conscientious fulfillment by President Roosevelt there is no possible doubt. There will be, as the Times’ Washington correspondent states, “no precipitate action by the President on the subject of reciprocity.”—American Economist. A Queition of “Sugar.” The consumption of sugar last year in the United States averaged about fiftyseven pounds for each Inhabitant, which at 6% cents a pound would cost $3.42 apiece, or $16.10 for a family of five persons. If the duty were removed and the sugar trust allowed the people to get the benefit' thereof, the saving would be $1.14 for each person, or $5.70 for a family of five, for a whole year. There is neither certainty nor probability that the savings would be as great as that, but there is almost a certainty that whatever reduction should be alllowed would be made for the purpose of breaking down the domestic beet sugar Industry, which is now the source of wages and income to 1,600,000 perlons. Would the saving secured by removing the duty on raw sugar pay for endangering the life of so Important an American Industry and one which In a few years promises to supply all the sugar needed and at lower prices than ever before known? What Intelligent mau would consent to be bribed with $5.70 to bring about a possible disaster to so useful and beneficial a business. Mischief for Idle Honda. When men or women have plenty of serious work to do they don’t potter with trifles. It Is the idle who make mountains of molehills. If the Demo

cratlc party had any great or true aim for the real good of the country It would not bother Itself and harass the voters over such a petty and utterly useless Issue as the repeal of duties which, it claims, are outgrown and therefore inoperative. Its patron saint for such enterprises is Don Quixote. The party can only make Itself respectable by tackling the main question and fighting protection squarely on. its merits. In doing so it may expose Its blindness to a thousand obvious facts and its obtuseness to sound reason, but it does thereby escape contempt. Wastes an I Living:. The old stock argument of the free traders used tq be when, in spite of their squirming, they were brought face to face with the fact that wages were higher in this country than abroad, that, although wages were higher, the cost of living was higher, too, and that, therefore, workmen In this country were at no advantage, and that free trade, while it would lower wages, would at the same time lower the cost of living. This argument has fallen somewhat into “innocuous desuetude” of late, yet occasionally it stalks abroad, like Banquo’s ghost. It Is interesting, therefore, to note that Mr. Jacob Weidmann, a prominent silk dyer of Paterson, N. J., states that, while the wages of the workmen employed in his mill at Paterson are from two to four times as large as the wages paid to similar labor in Switzerland, which is Mr. Weldmann’s native country, the cost of living is less. In Switzerland a good silk dyer Is paid $4 per week; in this country the poorest dyers get $9 per week. The best dyers in Switzerland are paid from $5 to $8 per week, while in this country the best dyers earn from sls to S3O per week. These are actual figures given by a man who knows. There is no guesswork about them, neither is there any guesswork about Mr. Weldmann’s statement concerning the comparative cost of living, for, as he states, some of the men employed In his mills who have come to this country from abroad have kept records, and have found that they can live more cheaply in this country. When free trade is forced to meet facts it always gets the worst of things. The German Tariff. All the commercial barriers that could be raised against other lands would not enable Germany to raise all her breadstuffs. During the year ending June 30, 1899, Germany imported from the United States 290,710,196 pounds of hog products alone, much greater than we sold to any other nation except the United Kingdom. It is a safe assumption, therefore, that the tariff law that Is now before the Federal Council and which will be passed for the agrarians is not the same schedule of impost duties that will go into effect on January 1, 1904.—Chicago Record-Herald. Blind Prejudice. “No nation can get rich by taxing Itself,” said the anti-tariff folks year after year. “Down with the tariff taxes.” And now that we have got rich in spite of their theories they will want to “down” the tariff. It looks more like a case of blind prejudice than of sane reasoning. Why? Let the tariff remain on steel rails. It does not affect their price, they being already as low as in free trade England. Why cause an industrial disturbance? What I» Best. That kind of a tariff law is best that causes the most and the best wages in the country.