The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1901-11-29

Republicans Exercising Their fnge-
suity 10 Hang On 10
Monopoly.

III 10 Undoubtedly tA"Vs az oe~Ns~ -
substance by q Washington CORE
spondent, that leading republicans
perceive that their party must soon
er or later meet the popular demtnd
for tariff revision or suffer defeat
at the polls, says the Chicago Chron-
iclc.
The laborious exercise of their in
genuity in devising methods Of TEN
porting is sufficient proof that they
perceive the danger. The problem
with them is how TO seem to satisfy
the popular demand without sacrific-
ing monopoly.
There are three principal solutions
of this problem offered. One is the
treaty solution. The tariff victims
are expected to be satisfied for the
time being with show of activity
in negotiating reciprocity treaties.
This is supposed to be safe thing,
because il takes two-thirds vote OF
the senate to ratify treaty, and
the day when two-thirds of that body
will be opposed TO the tariff system
of monopoly is believed to be far dis
tant.
A second solution is known as the
Babcock solution. Mr.. Babcock him.
self explains that he is as muchin favor
of protection as any republican is.
But he maintains that the party mus.
yield to the popular demand so far
as not to arm our protected classes
with power to extort higher prices
from Americans than from foreign
ers for the same goods. He believes
that If this concession is made the
people will cease their clamor and pa
tiently submit to any amount Of
tariff extortion; that they will cheer
fully pay two prices TO American pro-
pay two prices for the same articles
or 60 without.
The third solution or mode of saw
ing the tariff monopolists is the COM
mission solution. Senator Aldrich,
Senator Spooner and other republican
statesmen would have a standing
commission of "nonpartisan experts"
to study" the whole subject "scien-
tifically," and report in two or three
years and from time TO time thereafter.
recommending the lowering now Of
one duty and again of another. and
so on ad infnitum.
This is beautiful mode Of tenn
porting. II the people can be made
to believe that the commission is
really doing something and that con-
gress will treat its scientific" rec
concentrations with more than q
waste-paper degree of respect, they
can be held still for 10 or 20 years.
and perhaps forever.
But the if in the way is very
large and thorny one. The people will
not be fooled a minute by "scien-
tific," expert" 'nonpartisan" COM
mission nominated by protection
list president and confirmed by pro-
tectionist senate. They will under
stand perfectly that a commission so
constituted would be expert and
scientific in nothing but the business
of getting the most for the tariff mo-
nopolists and pulling the wool over
the eyes Of the public They will
understand that il would be non
partisan only in having two or three
carefully chosen Pennsylvania and
Louisiana protectionist democrats in
its makeup.
Such n commission would no more
be able to settle the tariff question
than commission made up Of four
southern Shareholders and three care
fully selected northern doughfaces
would have been able to settle the
slavery question in 1856.
The whole system of tariff protec-
ton is radically unjust. 1t is NOR
ally as well as economically wrong,
just as slavery was wrong-morally
and every other way. The only way
TO settle it finally is to dig il up by
the roots and cast il out utterly and
forever. All temporizing and pallia-
tive schemes viii fail. because they
will leave the wrong unredressed,
the multiform evil unremedied.