Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1906 — POLITICAL COMMENT [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT

In the Name of Common Sense. The United States now leads all the countries in the world as an exporting nation, and yet we have been told since the beginning of tariff discussions that a protective tariff country must necessarily be isolated and excluded from the markets of the world. Isn’t it time that even the most obdurate of free-traders should acknowledge that they have been in error and that their most cehrished dogmas are fallacies? Is it not also time for the American people to learn to exercise a little self-control in the presence of conditions which are temporarily not just to our liking? As we said, this time last year some of our people were in a perfect frenzy because our exports in agricultural products had decreased. Farmers’ conventions passed resolutions in favor of ruinous policies and our faithful statesmen at Washington were denounced as public enemies simply because they were too sensible and too patriotic to allow themselves to be stampeded by clamor. Never before InTbe history of our country has a protective tariff law been so thoroughly vindicated as has the Dingley tariff law. If on the day of the enactment of that statute some en-

thusiastic friend of protection had predicted upon the floor of Congress or elsewhere that in less than a decade under the operation of that law the United States would become the greatest export nation in the world, and that the total volume of our exports and imports would excee?&2,SOO,OOdJOOO he would have been looked upon as a dreamer or a lunatic. Why In the name of common sense should we not be satisfied with such marvelous achievements? Why should any sensible person be demanding a “change?"—Cedar Rapids Republican. Now I>lk the Canal. The action of the Senate on Thursday settled the question of the kind of a canal to be made at Panama. It Is to be a lock canal, In part lifting ships over, Instead of letting them go straight through, the backbone of the Isthmus. It may be remarked In passing that the use of the term "sea level” In connection with any kind of a canal which can be made at Panama Is a mlsrepre- . sentation. It gives the average man the idea of a water way something like the straits of Mackinac. The truth is that any canal at Panama must have locks, owing to the great differences in the Atlantic and Pacific tidal levels. Now that the type of canal has been fixed, It Is in order for the. distinguished gentlemen at Washington and their agents at Panama to proceed to dig the canal. For more than a year these gentlemen have been active in making promises to dig a canal—to-morrow—and In offering excuses for not doing to-day what they said yesterday they would < do. The American people have become utterly weary of this sort of nonsense. They -do ... not expect the canal to be dug In a mlnute. They know it must be the work of years. But they are tired of proclamations

about what is going to be done and of reports of “progress” which to be no progress at all because stbiie-,-bpdy fprjgot something which it was his duty to remember and provide for in advance. The land title has been secured. The kind of canal has been decided on. The money is provided or will be as needhave not yet been made, let them now be made. Let ais have no more excuses about “unfprseen difficulties.” Let them be foreseen and provided for. ’ The people are tired of excuses. Now dig the- canal.-—Chicago Inter Ocean, Amerlranfana Winn. A victory for Americanism and the American policy of favoring the American market as against foreign competitors, has been gained in the passage by the Senate and House of Representatives of the following joint resolution: “That purchases of material and equipment for use in the construction of the Panama Canal shall be restricted to articles of domestic production and manufacture from the lowest responsible bidder, unless the President shall In any case deem the bids or tenders

therefor to be extortionate or unreasonable.” There is no reason to suppose for a moment that any American producer Intends or wishes to rob the govern inent by asking a higher price for ©anal materials and supplies than the prices current for such articles in the United States. The goyernmeut has no right to ask a lower price. In the construction of a public work to be paid for with American dollars contributed directly by American labor and industries, there should be nc thought of using anything but American materials. Both houses of Congress have so ordered by an emphatic vote. The only surprising thing about It Is that there should have been a single vote against a proposition so manifestly fair, so reasonable and so patriotic.—American Economist

Secret" Subsidies. The Paris correspondent of the London Times, writing of tlerman ex panslon in Australasia through the aid of their mercantile marine, says: They have pffere<| such low freight charges that it would be Impossible for them to make troth ends meet were It not for the secret subsidy from the German government. It is a matter for thought whether the German government eonlines its secret subsidies to its merchant marina Reciprocity and tariff revision id ths United States hold out such glittering prizes that they might well come in for a share in the disbursement of German coin.