pAG34 Gfo tlcbraslso, Independent ziay 25,
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Current Comment on Leaamg lopics
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TAFT RAISES. A STORM
As predicted by The Independent last week
Secretary Taft's decision that Panama canal sup
plies shall be secured wherever they can be
bought cheapest In the markets of the world has
aroused a storm of protest Already the "stand
patters" have begun to growl ominously. Writ
ing in the Chicago Record-Herald, Walter Well
man describes the situation thus:
No one should understand that the de
termination of the executive committee is
to buy all its ships, machinery and materials
in foreign countries. Probably the great bulk
of all purchases will be made in the United
States. But the decision of the committee is ;
that it will buy where it can buy cheapest. If
it can get the lowest prices in the United
States, it will purchase here; if foreign man
ufacturers and dealers underbid American
sellers the contracts will go abroad. On the
face of it this looks like nothing more than
good business policy. But it does not please
the high tariffites at all. They look upon it
as rank heresy. They perceive, as everyone,
perceives, that it raises the whole tariff ques
tion, and raises it in a manner calculated to
give far more comfort to democrats and in
dependents and tariff reformers than to those
who have helped push up the walls and who
v,oi7Q mndfl cTciiTsinn nf foreign trade in any
form an article of party faith. It will be a
long time before the Panama commission, the ;
administration and the country hears the last
of the storm brewed by this important de
cision. "For generations we have been teach-
ing that it is better to buy at homeeven if
we have to pay a little higher prices, be
cause that is for the general good," said
' one member of congress. "That Is the very
essence of the protection doctrine. Yet here
comes" the government and says it is not
willing .to abide by the practice of the coun
try. It will break down , the rule to which
it is at least morally a party, and will buy
abroad whatever it can buy . there cheaper
than at home. In other words, you and I can't
go into the world's market and buy where we
can buy cheapest. The tariff prevents us. '
But the government, having no duty to pay
on what - it imports into the isthmus, an
nounces its intention to go into the world's
markets and save all . the money it can. A
fine example indeed for a government to set
In a protection country! What are wc com
ing to, anyway?" One prominent high-tariff
senator, expressing his amazement, said . he
would have to withhold comment until he
had seen the official indorsement of Secretary
Taft upon the commission's action. He could
hardly credit 'ie statement that the com
mission proposed to purchase a considerable
. amount of supplies abroad, discriminating
against American goods. Another senator
who ranks high in the republican party, said
he would regard the action as highly unfor
tunate and certain to bring the republicans
face to face with the tariff issue in its keen
est form. He' said it would give the demo
cratic party just the weapon it most badly
needed in its fight against the protective
tariff system. Even if most of the supplies
and machinery be purchased in this country
at the lowest possible or export prices, the
high tariff people argue that the damage is
already done. The action of the government
serves as confirmation strong as holy writ of
the cry which the democrats and the tariff
reformers who are not democrats set up in
last year's presidential campaign. Volumin
ous pages were devoted to meeting this argu-text-book
were devoted to meeting this argu
ment of the enemy that American manufac
turers deliberately sell abroad cheaper than
they sell at home, and that home consumers
are entitled to at least as much consideration
as foreign consumers. At that time it was
not expected the Roosevelt administration
Itself, in whose behalf all those ingenious
arguments were compiled, would be the first
to establish the truth of the democratic posi
tion. When congress meets again the high
tariffites say the democrats will be sure to
make the most of the apportunity which this
canal affair has thrown their way, and they
are at a loss to know how to meet the looked
for onslaught Apparently events are con
spiring to bring the tariff question very much
to the front during the coming winter.
. Secretary Taft's decision is, of course, the
subject of the editorial comment In all the leading
papers of the country. Here are some of the
opinions expressed:
Has President Roosevelt resolved, late
but firmly, to become the Richard Cobden of
the Dingley act?. Certainly Cobden, match
less popular orator that he was, and strong
in the perfect sincerity of his purpose, never
v dealt the British corn laws a more terrible
blow than that Mr. Roosevelt has dealt the
Dingley law. It is time for the beneficiaries of
the high tariff to take heed about their pro
tected interests, for this is a very leviathan
of tariff reform that the president has un
loosed. It is more than reform it is rebel
lion, the most astonishing ever recorded in
the chronicles of the world, the rebellion of
a government against its own laws. It is re-;
pudiation. It is virtual nullification. It is a
destructive assault by the most powerful force
upon the citadel of protection. Does any
body suppose that a tariff policy which is
too extortionate and outrageous for the gov
ernment business will long be put up with -by
those who carry on private business?
New York Times.
The Panama canal commission can "not
be too severely censured for its decision to
buy supplies where it -can secure them
cheapest, whether in the United States or
in Europe. Doesn't the commission under
stand that this is an un-American procedure?
Isn't It familiar with President McKinley's
assertion that a cheap coat makes a cheap
man, and does it want to build a cheap canal
with the consequent deterioration of the
American, people? However, there is no oc
casion to worry. The fifty men whom the
Wall Street Journal calls the senate of
American finance are not likely to stand such
an imposition. It will be strange if their In
fluence is not effectively exerted at the next
session of congress to stop this preposterous
attempt of the Panama commission to safe
guard the people's money and to build the
canal as cheaply as possible. Kansas City
Star. - - .
If the American people, who are paying
for this canal, pay their money for its con
struction to Americans they virtually pay it
back to themselves. The hundred million
dollars paid abroad would be taken from the
people of the United States, who are paying
for the canal. The government can obtain
reasonable bids . at home by refusing to ac
cept them if they are excessive as it dii in
the case of warships. It ought to spend the
money for the construction of the canal at
home. If necessary congress ought r. com
pel this plan. New York Press.
am
In at least two important particulars the
government has long been committed to the
very policy now formally announced. In
purchasing the unfinished canal from the
French company it purchased millions of dol
lars worth of foreign machinery and other
supplies. Having done that at the beginning,
it would seem to be logical for it to continue
so doing whenever it is to its material ad
vantage to do so. Again, the principal of em
ploying alien labor has been well established.
Natives of Panama, imported workmen from
Jamaica and other non-Americans are em
ployed and are tor' be employed. This is
necessary, since it would probably be impos
sible to get labor in this country to. do the"
work. If, then, we are to employ foreign
workmen, there would seem to be no reason
why they should not use foreign machinery.
New York Tribune.
Richard Weightman, the Washington corres
pondent of the Chicago Tribune, points out the
danger of a bankrupt treasury if the present high
tariff policy is continued:.
But there is one brooding possibility
which touches even the hardiest financier
with terror, and that is the possibility of a
bankrupt treasury. Some twenty years ago,
John Jay Knox, then controller of the cur
rency, said to me that he feared, the worst
from Mr. Cleveland's election, since it might
usher in a policy of tariff reform. He went on
to explain that a serious reduction in certain
schedules would so stimulate importations
as to fill the national vaults to bursting and
then he added that, under a representative
form of government, nothing was worse for
any nation than a swollen public treasury.
In the first place, the hoarding of countless
millions would mean a dangerous depletion
of the circulating medium. In the next place,
the possession of those idle millions inevi
tably would bring about' an era of lavish;
wasteful, and corrupt public expenditure, de
bauching congress and demoralizing the peo-
. pie. Now we have - the other horn of the "
. dilemma. Protection has been carried so far
that our national revenues are attenuated to
the point of peril. With our vast schemes of
expansion, our ambitious enterprises in for
eign lands, our constantly increasing civil
list, and all the rest of it, we have out
grown, the resources of our income, and on
top of the uneasiness caused by this condi
tion comes the president's declaration ror
such it virtually is that the same system
which is starving the public treasury is also
operating for the oppression and spoilation .
of the private citizen. . No other deduction is
considered as rational or even permissible
here in Washington, and thinking men are
treating it with special gravity. Naturally,
if the president and his trusted advisers find
the prices of material excessive in this coun
try, and at the first opportunity practice
economy by making purchases abroad, the
inference must be that the masses are vic
tims of corporate rapacity. This has long
been the contention of the tariff reformers.
Now it receives an indorsement which can
. not well be explained away.
RAILROAD REGULATION
Governor Cummins of Iowa, has declared
himself unrequivocally for government regulation
of railway rates. In his opinion the people are
confronted by a principle so wide and deep that
it involves possession by the railroads of a
power more potential than that of congress itself,
greater than the taxing power and probably
greater than any other power that can be wielded
in our country Testifying before the " senate
committee on interstate commerce, Governor
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Cummins said:
"If there had been in my mind a linger- .
ing doubt about the wisdom of conferring
the proposed authority upon the commis
sion, the statements which have been made
before your committee by men connected
with the railway companies would have dis
pelled it completely. Over and over again