Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1909 — TARIFF LEGISLATION NECESSARILY SLOW. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF LEGISLATION NECESSARILY SLOW.

Congress Can Not Handle the Question in a Few Weeks and Satisfy All Demands. The newspapers of the country, large and small, are offering the special tariff congress suggestions as to how to hasten through the Job and restore business conditions and at the same time appease all the diversified interests. Some of the large newspapers have actually treated the tariff question as a thing that might be settled in a few days, by simply removing the duty from a few things and" letting it go at that.” The Republican has never believed that the tariff now in force has been responsible to a very great extent for the business stagnation of the past few months and we have never believed that the demand for tariff reduction or downward revision was well balanced. Every one knows or should know that the greater part of our federal revenue for the maintenance Of the expenses of government comes from the collection of import duties and that congress must not overlook the requirements of the federal treasury in making a new tariff. It has been demonstrated within the past twenty years that the manufacturing industries of this country and the employment of almost all the workmen depend upon the adjustment of a tariff so that American products do not enter into competition with the cheaper labor products of foreign countries. It was demonstrated that the vitally wrong schedules of the Wilson tariff had the effect of closing down our factories, throwing the factory hands out of employment, lessening the demand for everything raised or made in this country and causing a panic that brought wages to $1 a day and the price of corn and oats to 13 and 15 cents a bushel. And yet a special session of the national legislature labored for many months in the passage of the Wilson-Gorman bill, and left the halls of congress thinking that an ideal bill had been passed that fulfilled all the pledges of democracy. Business was not restored until the election of William McKinley in 1896 and the convention Of a congress that passed the Dingley tariff measure, whose schedules haveheld out with but meagre corrections for the past dozen years, during Which time the country has had an era of marked prosperity in every branch. The federal government has prospered, the manufacturer has prospered, the factory employe has prospered, the farmer has prospered, and almost every person who set put diligently to conquer the problems of life has been rewarded with ae-

cumulation and success. To be sure, during these years shrewd and unscrupulous men have formed combinations that endeavored to and did secure for themselves unfair advantages. These combinations have been termed trusts and have to some extent created hardships. Efforts have been made to control and subdue them, but with only mediocre success. And yet various corporations have been prosecuted and punished for violations of the anti-trust law. To attack these combinations and not injure business is impossible, and the direct cause of the tightening up b£ business conditions during the fall of 1907 was the determination of the Wall street crowd to give a setback to the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. The tariff was but little to blame. Here and there were pries from the consumers that the prices of some articles were top high and it was asked that the tariff be removed. From other sections where the articles were raised or manufactured came the cry to retain the tariff. The demand for revision grew for the past four years, and both parties made a promise to their constituents last year to revise it if placed in power. The people did not Nish to trust revision to the crowd that had passed the Wilson tariff measure and returned a republican house and senate. The special session is the result The consumer has been invited in Innumerable ways to give his opinion

on the tariff question and he no sooner leaves* the committee room with an appeal for a reduction of certain schedules than the agriculturalist or the manufacturer puts in an appearance and pleads for a retention of the tariff. What can congress do? It is by no means an easy matter to adjudicate all of the differences and it is absolutely an impossibility to please every one. The congressman is in the same position that a baseball umpire is, the witnesses see things with their self-interested eyes, and he must judge it without regard to the selfishness of any who have testified.* The writer believes that a tariff commission With power to raise or* lower the schedules whenever it saw fit would be the best means of handling the tariff. It should be nonpartisan, its members appointed for life and it should give constant attention to the tariff question. Congress is doing the very best thing under the present conditions. The question must needs take much time and the republican members should not be induced to make unreasonable reductions and thus separate from the policy of protection that has made the past twelve years the best in the history of the country. We are not of the opinion that the present tariff needs no alterations. It does. But they are not so numerous or so serious that the action should be taken without the most exhaustive research as to the ultimate effect. We do not want the factories closed nor the price of farm products reduced nor the factory employees discharged. Former Congressman Charles B. Landis, of the Delphi Journal, discusses the tariff question in a humerous but very sensible vein, and the article is here reproduced: They are still “revising the tariff” down in Washington. There were a lot of people who contended for years that the matter of “revising the tariff” was a “before breakfast” affair, that all that was necessary was to revise it—that was all—and anybody could do that in a

very short time. Well, they have been at it now for two months and seem to have just begun. '> This tariff proposition is as broad as the nation, and as diverse and complex as the interests of latitude and longitude and the products of all the zones combined. There is no question that presents so many sides and no problem upon the solution of which so many theories can be advanced. And the country is beginning to appreciate the fact. And, as the discussion proceeds, ninety millions of people are at last awakening, too, to the appreciation of the fact that, after all, we are all .protectionists protectionists for what we personally produce and free traders for what the other fellow turns out. And the sum total of the' result each and every one desires to attain in the way of legislation is a law that will give a higher price for what he has to sell and a lower price for what he has to buy. This is the whole proposition in a nutshell. And the framing of such a law is a job, a great big job, one that has staggered the best minds in all history. And, coupled with the undertaking, here in the United States, is the stubborn fact that whatever sort of a bill is passed must be so arranged as to bring in the greater part of the enormous revenue essential to paying the running expenses of the government. And, as we are now spending at the rate of one billion dollars every year, it will be seen at a glance that this feature is by no means an insignificant one. Well, as I said before, they are at the work down In Washington and they are not getting along as rapidly as a six-cylinder automobile on the high gear. There is a breaking over party lines that is terrifying. For instance “free lumber” was one of the demands in the Democratic platform and many Democratic senators and representatives fairly fell over one another to vote for a high tariff on lumber. They simply laughed at the party declaration, when reminded of it, and made deals and dickers with Republican senators interested in other features of the bill that caused hair to stand on end. Think of Tilman and Bailey coming to the rescue of the steel trust and voting for tariff on iron ore! But that is exactly what they did to get help on schedules in which their states were interested. And when the bill is finally passed

how much more satisfactory tn general will it be than the present law?. It will simply shift the yell, that is all. Some fellows who have been hollering for twelve years will be satisfied and some fellows who have been satisfied for twelve years will be hollering. And, in the meantime business will have been hung up on the high hooks for from eighteen months to two years. And there are a few gentlemen in the United States who can say, “I told you so.”