JUNE 0, 1913
The Commoner.
The Democratic Tariff Bill
Secretary of Commerce Redfield has written
for the Wichita (Kan.) Beacon the following
interesting article concerning the democratic
tariff bill:
The plain people the average man will be
benefited by the Underwood tariff bill by the
removal of taxation from the ordinary articles
of food and use.
I have always felt that the republican party
took too serious a view of the Canadian hen. I
have no doubt she is a very efficient bird, but I
have never been willing to admit so great a
superiority for the Canadian hen over the
American hen as to require that the product of
the former be taxed to protect the latter.
I have never seen any tables to show that tho
Canadian hen laid so many more eggs a' day as
to make the American hen afraid of her.
Yet for some unexplained reason, we have
carried a duty on eggs for many years, as though
there was something portentious about the egg
laying abilities of the hen across tho border.
Now that duty is cut from 6 cents to 2 cents,
and although that does not mean a great earth
quake of prosperity all at once at least removes
a tax from a very common article of food.
That does not mean that our markets will bo
flooded with Canadian ,eggs, for the simple
reason that the eggs are not there to do tho
flooding. It will not affect tho farmer at all,
but it may affect favorably the retail price of
eggs In the great centers of population. And
so with other food products made free or
reduced.
On the other hand, the farmer is particularly
benefited by the putting on the free list of many
articles of manufacture which he has to use.
These articles are selling in large quantities
abroad, so there is no longer any excuse for
taxing the American consumer to protect tho
concerns that make them.
So far as the removal of the tax can directly
reduce the price, tho farmer should be benefited
thereby. In fact, the feature of the bill if one
may distinguish one feature from another is
the large addition to the free list of articles of
common consumption by all people.
A few of the more prominent are agricultural
implements, bagging, binding twine, typewrit
ers, sewing machines, machines for construction
and maintenance of roads, coal, fertilizer, hoop
iron, nails, spikes and staples, horse and ox
shoes, oils, rails, barbed wire, wire fencing, and
in general the articles of commonest use.
So far, therefore, as the removal of unneces
sary tariff taxes can affect the retail prices of
ordinary commodities, the bill is a step in tho
direction of reducing the cost of living.
I say a step, because there are a great many
factors in the cost of living which the tariff bill
does not touch and is not intended to touch.
For example, one of the gratest elements in
the cost of living, and one which bears most
heavily on the producers, is the cost of distri
bution. A barrel of potatoes may cost the con
sumer several times what the farmer gets for
it merely because of the cost of distribution,
which is often much more serious than the tariff
rate. It Is said to cost a quarter of a cent to
transport a pound of coffee from Rio Janeiro to
New York, while it costs 2 cents to take it from
the retail grocer to the house nearby.
The tariff bill can not touch, and Is not ex
pected to touch, this particular excessive ele
ment of cost.
Furthermore, everybody knows that in rail
Toad transportation the waste at terminals is
several times greater than the cost of hauling
the freight. We still continue to handle our
package freight box by box in the old fashioned
way, one at a time, so that out of every dollar
wo pay for freight, more than half Is because
of medieval handling methods and not for
transportation Itself.
In the same way, perhaps the most serious
single element of tax on the community is that
made by bad roads. It frequently costs a far
mer a dollar a ton-mile to get his goods from
the farm to the railroad station, because tho
roads are bad, but from the station to the city
iwhere they are sold It costs but three-fourths of
a cent a ton-mile.
I mention these things to show that the tariff
bill Is no cure-all. It Is a stop towards remov
ing obstacles which prevent the freer exchange
of products of the farm, tho mill and the mine,
but no intelligent man expects It to be more than
a step.
What, then, Is the principal benefit arising
from the tariff bill? To my thinking It Is a
moral and a mental benefit. It will provent,
because It promotes competition, tho taking of
our people Into the power of great combinations,
or of great business enterprises, whether or not
they are combinations. It opens tho door suffi
ciently wide to give a' man a chanco to buy of
somebody at a fair price, and It prohibits Ameri
can industries charging an unfair prico. It does
away with tho existence of a favored class of
producers who have special privileges at tho
hands of the state which the rest of us do not
have.
Wo would look with amusoment or wrath,
according to our state of mind on legislation
to provide incomes for doctors or foes for
lawyers! We have never got to tho point whero
we thought it a proper subject of legislation to
provide work for plumbers or carpenters, but
there has been a group among us for whom It
has been thought proper that tho government
should provide profits; wo have had an arrange
ment whereby certain manufacturers should bo
taken caro of so that they could do business ad
vantageously to themselves.
This was On tho theory that they would divide
with their workingraen, but tho workingmen
tell another story about that division. Every
body who thinks, knows that tho talk of tho
tariff making wages high is a Joke. Perhaps
it is moro just to say it is a tragedy.
The fact is that the great worsted industry,
for example, with its enormous protection,
running up, in cases, to moro than 100 per cent,
has been paying very low wages (while other
industries, with far less protection, havo been
paying higher wages.
I have seen tho products of American fac
tories shops whero wages wore good and tariff
duties comparatively low sold all over tho
world, but the history of tho wool and worsted
industry has been to cry ever for more and moro
duty and ever to keep the wages and tho work
ers down.
Every sensible man can see this simple thing,
namely, that when we are selling many forms
of manufactured goods abroad at the rate of
$5,000,000 every working day (as wo aro) it
is a little bit hard to arguo that wo need pro
tection against tho people with whom wo aro
thus competing on their own ground. It
strikes mo as a good deal of a sham for anyone
to claim that when wo are meeting competition
in other lands wo can't take caro of ourselves
at home.
When we can sell steel abroad at the rate of
$1,000,000 a day as wo are doing, why do wo
need a duty on the products of the steel mill?
When the Argentine farmer buys American wire
cheaper or better than ho can get It from Eng
land or Germany, why should tho American
farmer pay a higher prico because of a duty
to protect the American maker of that wire?
The core of the whole thing comes to this:
We want to get back our industrial self-respect.
We have been trained in a school of industrial
cowardice. We have been educated to a belief
many of us in our own inability to do things
as they ought to be done; that for some reason
we are weaker than the rest of tho world and
have to have a wall built around us, to shut us
in, and the effect has been debauching morally.
Wo have almost come to believe that the govern
ment existed in large part to see that wo did
well in business.
CALLING A BLUFF
E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fe Rail
road company, Is another eminent patriot who
is highly incensed by the promise of the Wilson
administration to Investigate wage reductions
in protected Industries which are ascribed to
tariff reductions.
"Tho Investigation of wages Is not the gor
ernment's business," says Mr. Ripley. "The
question of the relation of the employer to the
employee is one that must bo settled among
themselves."
We assume that Mr. Ripley excepts all those
cases in which the railroads aro concerned,
either in tho matter of raising rates or In pre
venting a strike. Then the Investigation of
wages is decidedly the government's business,
and nobody is moro Insistent on that point than
tho railroads.
In the midst of all tho clamor that has been
raised by protected industry and its allies over
the Underwood and Redfield statements, there
Is one significant fact that deserves attention.
No gjore threats are made of wage reductions in
case tho Underwood bill becomes a law. The
chairman. of tho whys and means commlttco Is
assailed, tho secretary of commorco Is assailod,
the president Is assailed, tho government is plc
tured ns a ruthless despotism about to invado
tho sanctity of prlvato business, but the calamity-howling
about wages has coascd.
Tho gentlemen who woro all going out of
business If tho govornmont rofused longor to
support them In tho luxury to which they havo
been nccuBtomcd aro no longer trying to bull
dozo tho senate by thrcntoning to compel their
employees to mako good tho subsidy that thoy
now extort from the public as a wholo. Tholr
bluff has been called. Even tho members of tho
national association of manufacturers seem to
think that there may be somo hopo for tho na
tion, provided all citizens "who bollove in God,
In flag and In country" rally against tho Indus
trial workers of the world.
Had Mr. Taft four years ago takon up tho
policy that Mr. Wilson has adopted, and re
fused to bo bulldozed by protected industries
and protected politicians, ho might still bo presi
dent of the United States. New York World.
PEACE PLAN PRAISED
Tho Now York Sun prints tho following from
its Derne, Switzerland, correspondent: The
conference of French and German deputies for
tho purpose of preventing constant increase of
armaments and of bringing tho two countries
into closer and moro friendly relations opened
horo recently.
Tho conference adopted a resolution repudiat
ing tho excitement produced by tho Chauvinists
and the culpable speculation In armor on each
side of tho frontier. Tho conferonco pledged
Itself to Incessant activity in dissipating mis
understanding between tho two couhtrlos. The
resolution also thanked the dologatcs from Alsace-Lorraine
for tholr noble work in facilitat
ing a rapprochment between tho two countries
in tho common work of civilization.
This action was in reference to tho vote of
tho Alsace-Lorraino councils that thoro should
bo no cause for war between Franco and Ger
many and that every offort should bo made to
reduco war expenses.
Tho conferenco also adopted a resolution to
tho effect that "this congress warmly supports
tho proposition of William Jennings Bryan, tho
American secretary of state, in regard to arbi
tration, and demands that all conflicts which
may ariso betwoen France and Germany which
can not be regulated by diplomatic measures
shall bo referred to tho arbitration of Tho
Hnguo tribunal." Tho resolution declared also
that tho conferenco considers that a rapproch
ment between Franco and Germany will facili
tate an understanding between tho two great
European groups and will prepare tho way for
a durablo peace.
Tho congress decided that tho present com
mlttco shall bo mado a permanent one. It is
to bo completed by co-operation In both coun
tries and will meet at certain regular intervals
and on special occasions if circumstances re
quire it.
A NEW MAGAZINE
Tho Commoner Is glad to bring to tho atten
tion of its readers a new publication to ue
known as "Pulitzer's Magazine." It will be
owned and edited by Walter Pulitzer, son of the
lato Joseph Pulitzer, who established the first
penny newspaper in tho United States.
Mr. Pulitzer's magazine is to bo a "conserva
tive" paper and, to uso his own language, will
devoto some of its pages, at least, to "raking;
tho muckrakers." This does not, it Is true, give
a very definite idea of tho purpose and scope of
tho magazine because the phrase "muckraker"
is a conclusion rather than a description. When
a man Is called a muckraker, tho phraso is com
plimentary or otherwise according to tho view
point of tho man who uses the phraso. The
ultra-conservative regard all criticism as par
taking of the nature of muckraking and view
with abhorrence any attack upon existing con
ditions, however indefensible, or upon those
who defend them, however questionable their
methods. If Mr. Pulitzer Intends to answer such
criticism as is unjust and to defend such in
stitutions as aro deserving of confidence and
support, his magazine will accomplish a useful
purpose. If, on tho other hand, it Is to be a
thick and thin exponent of that which IS rather
than that which OUGHT TO BE, he will find
that the field is already crowded. We shall
await the publication; only an examination of
the issues of the magazine will enable us to
know its trend and thus to judge of its merits.
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