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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (July 9, 1909)
: i The Commoner ti i m WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR VOL. 9, NO. 26 Lincoln, Nebraska, July 9, 1909 Whole Number 442 Free Raw Material On another page will be found a letter writ ten by Senator Bailey, of Texas, to Governor Beckham of Kentucky. Governor Beckham' paper contained a criticism of Senator Bailey's position, and as the senator has taken the trouble to write a somewhat lengthy defense of his position It may fairly be accepted as & basis for discussion. If ho had offered it as an individual position it would have had only such weight as one would desire to attach to the sen ator's individual opinion, but he makes his posi tion a matter of general discussion when he says: "My vote against placing Iron ore on the free list was based upon the ancient creed of he democratic party, which requires all manu facturers to pay a duty on their raw material as long as a duty is levied on the finished product." The senator admits that the doctrine of free raw material was adopted as a part of the dem ocratic policy on the tariff question from 1892 to 1894, but insists that it was a wide departure f'from our ancient and well established position." He also understands that some of his votes have been contrary to the specific demands of the last democratic national platfornu ' The senator contends that he has never ut tered a single sentence, or cast a vote, that will warrant anyone- in supposing that he has any toleration for the doctrine of protection, fend yet in theory1 letter In .which this pxo-i testation appeysnedr the conclusionrha ' eays: "But I shallrieVer agree' todlscrlminate, even withta purely revenue duties, against the lumber inill and in favor of the factory." If that sentence means anything, it means that he insists that the lumber mill shall have its ehare of whatever incidental protection a purely revenue duty may give. .' The issue raised by Senator Bailey is an ex ceedingly important one and the very fact that it is raised by a man of his ability, makes it necessary that those who are opposed to it shall present the arguments on the other side. Sen ator Bailey would regard It as a political sin to favor a high tariff on an article produced in his own state and a low tariff on an article produced somewhere else but consumed in his state, but it so happens that the policy which he now presents as the "ancient creed" of the party is the only policy which gives "protection" to industries of his state. Eastern Texas has a considerable saw mill industry and he declares that he is not willing to discriminate against the saw mill in favor of the factory; in western Texas there are a number of sheep growers who want a tariff on wool and a number of cattle raisers CONTENTS FREE RAW MATERIAL! GOVERNOR JOHNSON'S VETO RESIGNATION OR PUNISHMENT DO YOUR WORK AT THE POLLS UNITED STATES COURT VS. NEBRASKA EDUCATIONAL SERIES GREAT CROPS BY SCIENTIFIC CULTURE THE TARIFF IN THE SENATE PRACTICAL TARIFF TALKS TAFT'S SERVICE TO ALDRICH A QUESTION OF EVIDENCE LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE THE JOHN E. LAMB" INTERVIEW HOME DEPARTMENT WHETHER COMMON OR NOT ' NEWS OF THE WEEK who want a tariff on hidos. Lumber, wool and hides are three of the Important raw materials. A tariff on manufactured products can not bo said to protect Texas because Texas is not to any great extent a manufacturing state. Tho position taken by Mr. Balloy enables him to defend a duty on wool, a duty on hides and a duty on lumber as a matter of principle rather than as a matter of favor. In tho case of hides and lumber the duties are so low as to bo rep resented as revenue duties, but the tariff on wool is higher. The main difficulty with Senator Bailey's position is that It rests upon tho same fallacy that all other protective arguments do, namely, that it overlooks tho fact that tho persons who PAY a tariff tax must necessarily largely outnumber those who receive tho benefit of it, and it also overlooks the fact that a burden placed upon the manufacturer is always trans ferred to tho consumer through the operations of a compensatory duty. If Senator Bailey was in a position to frame a tariff law all by himself he would probably put a revenue duty of, say, ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five per cent on hides and leather and then put a similar duty on shoes made from the leather, and ho would treat wool and tho manufacture of wool, and lumber and the manufacture of lumber in the same way. Ho would defend it as a revenue duty but It would give incidental protection on hides, wool and lumber. But Senator Bailey must confer with -others tin the framing of a tariff bljl, and experience tias shown that the manufacturers are always abj&tp secure a compensatory duty whenever a 1 duty Is imposed upon tho raw material used in manufacturing, and it Is not likely that this condition can be changed soon. As tho tariff on raw material is transferred to tho consumer, a vote in favor of a tariff on raw material is, In effect, a vote to increase tho tax upon tho consumer and, as comparatively few are bene fited by the tax on raw material, as compared with the number burdened by tho tariff on tho manufactured article, a tariff on raw material can not be defended on the ground that it is a benefit to a majority of the people. The only people benefited by a tariff on raw material are the people engaged In the production of the raw material, and tho fact that they happen to live in the western states is no justification for the tax, because there Is scarcely a western state In which a majority of tho people are en gaged In the production of any raw material that can be protected by a tariff. If a majority of the American people were in a position to bo benefited by a tax on raw material, it might he argued with more justioe that a' tax on raw material would, to some extent, off-set the tax which they have to pay on account of the tariff on manufactured articles, but as comparatively few produce a raw material, the prlco of which can be increased by a tariff, the attempt to help them by a tax upon raw material results In Increasing their burdens. For every farmer benefited by a tariff on hides or on wool many formers are burdened because of the tariff on these ' raw materials, therefore a tariff on these articles can not be said to benefit the farmers. As has been shown in former editorials, the tariff collected on raw material Is but a small part of the Increased price collected on domestic raw material by domestic producers through the operations of tho tariff. From a purely revenue standpoint, therefore, the argument falls. It betrays a confusion of Ideas to defend as a REVENUE tariff a tariff which enables the protected Interests to collect MANY dollars for EACH dollar colle'cted by the treasury de partment. The steel trust, for Instance, will be able to collect from twenty to thirty times as much from the people on domestic Iron ore as the government will collect through tho tariff on Imported iron ore. But there is another objection to Senator Bailey's position which can not be overlooked by thoso who aro seeking to rollovo the pcopls from tho Iniquities of a high tariff, namely, that every attempt to extend tho benefits of protection oven Incidental protection IN CREASES THE NUMBER OF THOSE WHO FEEL A PECUNIARY Interest in tho protective system. In tho Fifty-second congress an at tempt was mado to put wool upon tho froo list. Tho advocates of a high tariff becamo vory much alarmed and warned tho manufacturers that if they dared to favor freo wool In the hope of getting cheaper raw material they would risk tho overthrow of tho ontiro system of protection by alienating the wool growers. Tho warning was a logical one and it was effective. Tho beneficiaries of protection must "hang together or they will hang separately." If there wore no other reason for putting hides, lumber, wool and other raw material on the freo liBt, a sufficient reason would bo found In tho fact that It would decrease the number of persons who find a pecuniary interest in sup porting tho policy of protection. Tho sooner wo can get the wool growers, tho producers of hides, the producers of lumber, the producers of Iron oro and other producers of raw material out from behind tho protection breast-works, tho sooner wo may hope for effective tariff reform. Senator Warren, of Wyoming, In discussing tho duty on hides said recently that tho policy of freo raw material would, it adopted, bo th doath knell of the protective system and Ben?" ator Carter on tho same day warned tho eastern. . Republicans that tho farmors would not bo wlU?tf ""Mng to buy in a protected, market it they had4 - to sell in a free trade markdt, Surely the dem ocrats ought to be willing to have tho "death'' knell of protection" sounded; surely they ought ' tp be anxious to have the farmers admitted t'o tho ranks of tho tariff reformers. If Senator Bailey, Instead of desiring reduction, desired to maintain the high tariff, ho could not possibly find a more effective way to strengthen the high tariff system than by lacreasing the number of those who look to it for benefits, avowed or Incidental. According to his estimate the' tariff on lumber will yield a. revenue of some- , thing less than one and three quarter millions a year, and the tariff on iron oro, according to tho estimate furnished by others, will yield a revenue of about one quarter of a million loss than two millions would bo derived from these two items and yet the democrats who voted for a tariff on lumber and Iron ore have in jured the consumers to the extent of many, many millions, for their votes aro being used and will be used to offset the criticism of tho republican leaders. Tho democrats who havo voted for tariff on lumber, iron ore and other raw materials havo paralyzed their usefulness, as tariff reformers. By voting to retain rates which a number of prominent republicans want ed to reduce, they have given the republicans a club which will bo used against our party in the coming campaign. It Is "sparing at the spigot and wasting at tho bung-hole" to haggle over the little revenue derived from tho tariff on raw material when the attempt to retain this revenue makes it more difficult, If not Im possible, to lessen the tariff burdens that tho people aro bearing-. Senator Bailey is a great lawyer and ono is astonished to find that ho attempts to justify the refusal to put lumber on tho freo list on the ground that lumber constitutes but TWENTY PER CENT of the cost of building a house and that there is a thirty-six per cent duty on other material used in house building. Lumber constitutes a larger proportion of the cost of barns and fences, but it is neither logical or reasonable to say that we will refuse a SMALL reduction on lumber merely because we can not get a reduction on other things. The proposition, as Mr Bailey states It, is that if wo can not MAKE the protectionists reduce the THIRTY-SIX PER CENT tariff on EIGHTY PER CENT of the material entering into home building, we will not ALLOW them to reduce feiW !- iwrtw ' .'irteytsfa. iJ. j -h-