Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1901-11-28
rEMpoRIzING ON THE TARIFF.


It is undoubtedly true. as stated In
substance by a Washington corre-
spondent, that leading republicans
er or later meet the popular demand
for tariff revision or suffer defeat
at the polls, says the Chicago Chron-
icle.
The IaboriouS exercise OF their in
genuity in devising methods of tenn
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 a show of activity
in negotiating reciprocity treaties.
This is supposed to be a safe thing,
because it takes a t~wo-thirds vote of
the senate to ratify a 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 h
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 must
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 h
people will cease their clamor and pa
tiently submit to any mou of
tariff extortion; that they will cheer
fully pay two prices to American pro-
ducers, provided foreigners have to
pay two prices for the same articles
or GO 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-
tifcally." and report in two or three
y~earsand from time to time thereafter,
recommending the lowering now of
n duty and again of another. and
SO on ad infinitum.
This is a beautiful mode of tenn
PORTING. If the people a be made
to believe hat the commission is
really doing something and that con-
gress will treat its scientific" rec
concentrations with more han a
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 a very
large and thorny one. The people will
not be fooled a minute by a ''seien-
tific," expert" "nonpartisan" COM
mission nominated by a protection
ist president and confirmed by a 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 it would be nom
partisan only in having two or three
carefully chosen Pennsylvania and
Louisiana protectionist democrats in
its makeup.
Such a commission would no more
be able to settle the tariff question
than a 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. It is NOR
ally as well as economically wrong,
Just as slavery was wrong-moraIly
and every other way. The only way
to settle it finally is to dig it up by
the roots and cast it out utterly and
forever. All temporizing and pallia-
tive schemes viii fail, because they
will leave the wrong unredressed.
the multiform evil unremedied.