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Th Commoner
VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1)
The Commoner. Some of the Mysteries of Tariff Making
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BAILEY TALKS HIGIIT OUT IN MEETING
Tho following press dispatch, was doubtless
particularly gratifying to those American citi
zens who realize the extent of tho lawlessness
of tho trust magnates:
Washington, D. C., May 13. Referring direct
ly to tho United States Steel corporation, and
charging that organization" with violating tho
anti-trust laws of the country, Senator Bailey
today, in addressing the senate on the tariff bill,
declared that if the officers of the law do their
duty the stool trust would be dissolved, and said
that he expected eventually to see this done.
He added that if the present administration fails
in its duty in that respect, the people of tho
country would choose other officials to represent
them, and he declared his firm belief that the
officers of the steel corporation would be either
imprisoned or made fugitives from justice.
"Just put one of these malefactors of great
wealth in the penitentiary and you will see the
anti-trust law enforced without further viola
tions," said Mr. Bailey. "Send one of these men
who may be found violating either the interstate
commerce law or the anti-trust law to the pen
itentiary and you will stop these violations by
others. You can not do it with flues, because
when a1 court fines a trust the trust fines tho
people, and as long as tho punishment is meas
ured in dollars and cents they will continue to
violate the law Men will take the chanci of
pecun ary loss in tho hope of realizing a greater
pecuniary gain. Send one of them to the Sen
itoiitiary and it will work like magic
Tho millionaire," continued Mr. Bailey, who
was receiving the rapt attention of the senators
on both sides of the chamber, "values one Sine
moro than his fortune, and that is his Hberty
He does not love justice. Ho does not love that
peace of mind for which others struggle But
ho loves his liberty." "ubbj. mui
Mr. Bailey said that he expected the United
eharged with the MmtotoA f
to conform to their demands. I have im nhtt
faith that the American people will call Into
their service another set of men from J
party. The stalwarts of tSdayou a became
the insurgents of that day and the insurgent
of this generation would bo the stalwarts of the
r;heeGSfei0cnan g? to " " ' -nt
A Republican Senator Points Out Some of the Absurdities
of the Republican Party's "Sacred Policies"
Following aro extracts from the speech de
livered in the United States senate by Senator
Dolliver (Rep.) of Iowa:
Tho protective tariff system has nothing to
fear from the fireside of the Iowa homestead.
On tho other hand, it finds there its most disin
terested advocates and its most impartial judges.
For half a century our, people have defended it
with their votes on every election day, with no
direct concern of any large significance in any
of its schedules and no purpose to serve except
the general prosperity of the American people.
What I have said of Iowa is true, in an im
portant sense, of tho upper Mississippi valley,
and I can not help thinking that there i.a radi
cal defect in that party leadership which dis
misses the voice of that great community, fear
lessly expressed in both houses of congress, with
a cynical sneer about the weakness of public
men who are governed by temporary political
exigencies. For it ought not to be forgotten
that what we are doing here must be submitted
lo the American people a jury of unnumbered
millions, already impanelled, with this case un
der consideration. It is not the same jury which
passed upon the tariff act of 1897; It is the
most momentous fact in our national life, as
tho late Senator Hoar suggests in his "Auto
biography of Seventy Years," that within this
period the whole field of American industry has
undergone a revolution. The independent work
shops of American labor stand no longer as they
appeared in the magnificent vision of Alexander
Hamilton when he laid down the doctrine that
the competition of domestic producers would
guard the community against all the evils of ex
tortion. The inspiring retrospect of Mr. Blaine
in his "Twenty Years of Congress," in which he
recounted the triumphs of the protective doctrine
in the perfect fulfilment of Hamilton's predic
tion, already needs a good deal of revision to
bring tho narrative up to date.
Tho Situation in 1807
In 1897, when the Dingley tariff law wa3
enacted, the consolidation of our Industrial sys
tem into great corporations had not fairly be
gun. The business men who appeared before
the ways and means committee of the house were
an anxious company; they spoke for silent fac
tories and the dead ashes of furnaces without
fire and chimneys without smoke. They repre
sented unemployed labor and idle capital; they
belonged to the old industrial regime, now al
most obsolete in nearly all great departments
of production, and they received the treatment
which they would receive now freely at my hands
if I had tho power to give it to them. It is a
grim failure to comprehend what old Dr. John
son used to call "the sad vicissitudes of things"
when the leaders of a political party summon
their followers to practically re-enact the tariff
of 1897 under the conditions which prevail co
day, and when men are derided because, having
helped to frame that law, they seek to have it
re-examined in the light of present-day expe
rience. Is it possible that a man, because he voted
for the Allison tin-plate rate of 1889 and heard
poor McKinley dedicate tho first tin-plate mill
in America, can be convicted in this chamber of
treachery to the protective tariff system if he
desires that schedule re-examined, after seeing
the feeble enterprise of 1890 grown within a
single decade to the full measure of this market
place, organized into great corporations, over
capitalized into a speculative trust, and a''
length unloaded on the United States Steel com
pany, with a rake-off to the promoters sufficient
t buJ te R Island system? If a transaction
like that has made no impression upon the mind
of congress, I expose no secret in saying that
It has made a very profound Impression on he
thought and purposes of the American people'.
Tho Special Duty of Congress
I repeat, therefore, what I said the other day.
that tho duty of this congress Is to reduce the
margin of protection provided in tho Dingley
rates wherever it can be done without substan
tial injury to tho productive enterprises of this
market place. It is our special duty to take un
those schedules which represent the largest in
vestments of protected capital and at least take
out of them the rates that are now everywhere
known to be extravagant and unnecessary, which
rise so far above the level of our real industrial
needs as to bring the policy of protection into
ridicule without doing anybody any sort of good.
I recognize the peculiar preparation of the sen
ator from Rhode Island for that work. He has
already successfully applied sound principles to
some of the excesses of the iron and steel sched
ule. I do not know that he has gone far enough,
but he certainly has gone in the right direction.
He has failed, in my judgment, in those sched
ules which relate to the textile industries, and
it becomes the duty of somebody not helplessly
preoccupied with local interests to bring this
failure to the attention of the senate and of
the American people. I need not add that in
doing so I shall speak with perfect good will
for those who differ from me and with perfect
charity to those whoe unconscious political
bigotry makes it hard for them to recognize,
even in the senate chamber, those rights of free
opinion without which our deliberations are a
humbug and a fraud.
A Scale of Duties Twenty Years Old
Turning now to the duties on yarns and woven
and knit fabrics of wool, I desire to call the
attention of the senate to the abuses which
have grown into the schedules, many of them
without the knowledge or consent of the finance
committee of the senate. I spoke the other day
about the difficulty of understanding these
schedules and alluded to evidence now at every
body's hand that they were so complex and un
intelligible that only one man on the committee
was able to comprehend them. My friend from
Rhode Island was instantly on his feet to say
that it was not the woolen schedule but the
duty on tops that bewildered the late Senator
Allison and the late Senator Piatt of Connecti
cut, two trained and alert students of our prac
tical affairs, whose names do not suffer by com
parison with the greatest statesmen who -have
illustrated the intellectual dignity of American
public life. In the name of sense, If these men
could not understand the top question, what
excuse is there for seeking to belittle the efforts
of others who in trying to serve their own day,
and generation are engaged in exposing the
trickeries that in the course of a half centurw
have found hiding places throughout the woolen
schedules?
The chief .fault to be found with this schedule
of the pending bill lies in the fact that it adopts
ai,BCe f utleB twenty years old without tho
slightest effort to readjust them so as to miti
gate the Inequalities which they have imposed
upon more than one department of .the Woolen
industry in the United States.
Another Joker
I desire now to speak of some of tjie morbid
and abnormal influences which have gone out
from schedule K to vitiate the tariff system of
the United States. The high rates imposed
0oUJ?0Ut; schedule have been peculiarly
attractive to laborers in other departments oi!
the textile vineyard, and it Is easy to trace tho
XnlT8 fgr.e ln'mo than one schedule
fraDmnd to protect these Industries. Manufactur
er J? ? ST feXtiie deDartments have been per
?l fIU their ef?rts t0 get tne advantage oft
S nnSnJ?-on ro?1Sn g00ds Malers of silks,
of cottons and of furs, not satisfied with the
own rates, have sought shelter among the slip
pery provisions of the wool tariff. We have al
pn?fnyST?o,n !lW SPitably the manufacturers of
cotton have beenreceived. It takes only a slight
ijfwfw11 ofie sIlk schedules to see how
tton&X. pnts itself Int0 P"1
ton?1t0n2SiVlnUrerB of fur Stents, not con
aocnr,?J a0fUll aept tne modest 35 per cent
accorded them by the present law, have been
J1" h the increase of their rato
t dn f i Cent provided they contain no wool.
or It fiT7h;tller t1 are entitled to that
h JiiZJX d0 know tnat ey ought not to
in ?i i?i n accunt the presence of wool
Sm ovii grt0P elswhere in the garment to
tion ?n i,i r1?6 Wo1 BChedle, where, in addi-
w T per cent ad valorem, they will
SSESi SgUS tcoPenflatory of 44 cents per
SJnf ? JS WteIght of tue wnole garment. Tho
root of this abuse lies in schedule K, where-
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