Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-19
Representative Wilson Submits the
Views Of the Majority.
THE QUESTION OF DUTIES DISCUSSED.
How the Committee Progressed in
80 Tariff Reform.
THE BILL EFENDED.

Inc american people, a1ter the 1ulieSt
and most thorough debate ever given by
any people to their fiscal policy. have de-
hberately and rightly decided that the ex-
listing tariff Is wrong in principle and
grievously unjust in operation.
Such Is the opening paragraph of the
majority report submitted by the demo-
cratic members of the ways and means
committee today to the full committee.
The report was written by Chairman Will
son. 1t was laid by him before his demo-
cratic associates last night, and received
their cordial approval
\ Tariff for Revenue.
Continuing. the report says: They have
decided, as free men must always decide,
that the power of taxation has no lawful
or constitutional exercise except for provid-
ing revenue for the support of government.
Every departure from this principle is a
departure from the fundamental principles
of popular institutions and inevitably works
out gross inequality in the citizenship Of
a country. For more than thirty years we
have levied the largest part of our federal
taxes in violation of this vital truth, until
We have reached in the existing tariff an
extreme and voluminous system of class
taxation, to which history may be chal-
lenged to furnish any parallel. So many
private enterprises have been taken into
partnership with the government; so many
private interests now share in the preroga-
tive of taxating 70.OOO.OoO of people. that
any attempt to dissolve this Illegal union
Is. necessarily encountered by an opposi-
ton that rallies behind it the intolerance
of monopoly, the power of concentrated
wealth, the inertia of fixed habits and the
honest errors of a generation of false teach
ing.
The Proposed Bill.
The bill on which the committee has ex-
pended much patient and anxious labor Is
not offered as complete response to the
mandate of the American people. 1t no
more processes to be purged of all protec-
ton than to be free of all error in it's COM
pick and manifold details. However we
may deny the existence OF any legislative
pledge or of the right of any Congress to
make such pledge for the continuance Of
duties that carry with them more or less
acknowledged protection. We must recog-
niZe that great interests do exist, whose
existence and prosperity it is no part of
our reform either to imperil or to curtail.
We believe, and we have the warrant or
our own past experience for believing. that
reduction of duties will not injure, but give
more abundant life to all our great manu-
featuring industries, however much they
may dread the change. In dealing with the
tariff question, with every other long
standing abuse that has interviewer itself
with our social or industrial system, the
legislator must always remember that In
having In itself the principle OF growth.
History of Tariff Legislation.
A glance at the tariff legislation OF our
own country ought to satisfy every intel
ligent student that protection has always
shown Its falsity as a system of economy
by it's absolute failure to insure healthy
and stable prosperity to manufactures. 1t
teaches men to depend on artificial help. on
laws taxing their countrymen for prosperity
in business, rather than upon their own
skill and effort. 1t throws business out Of
its natural channels into artificial channels
where there must always be huctuation and
uncertainty, and 1t makes a tariff system
the foot ball of party politics and the sta
bility OF large business interests the stake
of every popular election. None have recog-
niZed this truth more fully than the wiser
men who from time to time have engaged
in the so-called protected Industries. Years
ago Mr.. Edward Everett stated in ora
ton at Lowell that the sagacious men who
founded the manufactures of New England
were never friends of a high tariff policy.
Honorable Amasa Walker, a former men,
Der of this House from Massachusetts and
one of our foremost writers on economic
questions, declared 1t to be within his own
personal knowledge that when the proposal
was made to impose the protective tariff
of 1915 the leading manufacturers of Rhode
Island, among whom was Mr.. Slater, the
father of cotton spinning in this country,
met at the counting room Of one of their
number and after deliberate consultation
came unanimously to, the conclusion that
they had rather be let alone; their business
had grown up naturally and succeeded we'll,
and they felt confident of it's continued
prosperity. If let alone by government.
They argued that by laying a protective
tariff their business would be thrown out
of it's natural channels and subjected to
fluctuation and uncertainty. But, as usual
the clamor of selfish and less far-sghted
men and the ambition of Lawmakers to
usurp the place of Providence prevailed.
The country entered on a protective policy,
with the unfailing result that government
help begot a violent demand for more gov
eminent help. The moderate tariff of 1916
rapidly grew into the tariff of abomina-
TONS that carried the country to the verge
of civil discord and provoked a natural re-
vulsion. Protection has run a like course
since 1861. When Congress began to repeal
war burdens and to relieve manufacturers
of the internal taxes. which they had used
to secure compromising duties on like for
eign products, there arose demand
throughout the country. without respect to
party, for a reduction of the war tariff. I'm
able to resist this demand the protected
industries baffled and thwarted any reduc-
ton of consequence until 1872, when they
defeated House bill that did make a sub
stantial reduction, by substituting Senate
bill which carried horizontal cut of 10 per
cent. AS soon, however, as the election OF
1874 gave the next House to the democratic
party that bill was repealed by the outgo-
ing republicans and rates restored to what
they were before 1872.
An Increase of Protection.
And although the demand for tariff reform
and for reduction of taxes has ever since
been a burning and growing one in the
country, the protected industries have ex-
acted and received from every republican
Congress elected since 1874 an increase of
their protection, occasionally permitting
the repeal or the lessening of tax that
was paid into the treasury. in order to keep
away from or to increase duties levied for
their benefit. Protection left to its natural
momentum never stops short of prohibition
and prohibitory walls are always needing
to be built higher or to be patched and
and never can give stability and satisfac-
ton to its own beneficiaries. Even If it's
victims are too weak or too scattered to
agitate for it's decrease, those beneficiarIes
are sure to agitate for an increase. When
the reform tariff of 1916 was before Con-
gress the air was full of prophecies that it
would destroy our manufacturing Industries.
throw labor out of employment, or compel
II to work at pauper wages. and dwarf and
arrest the prosperous growth of the coun-
try. Every RepreS entative of four great
manufacturing states of New England
voted against it, with gloomy forebodings of
its blighting effect The rate of duties pro-
vided in that tariff was much lower than
those of the bill we here offer. What was
the result? Instead of paralyZing the in
dustries and pauperizing the labor of New
England or the rest of the country the
tariff of 1916 gave immense vigor to man