The Minneapolis journal., 1902-09-16
HIGH PRICES
AND THE TARIFF
Question of Revision, Now Becoming
= Acute-President's Position
Towards It.
"A Conference. at Oyster Bay To-day
With Some of the Leading
Senators.
Discomfort at High Prices Is Being
Felt Even in Connecticut and
Rhode Island.
IsMate York Sun Spectdk Scrvtoe

Oyster Bay, l.. l., Sept. 16.-Walter
wellman, in his dispatch from this place
to the Chicago Record-Herald regarding
the PRESIDENT S conference with the lead1ng
senators as to whether. in his speeches
on his western tour he shall encourage or
repress the tariff-revision agitation, when
is becoming the most acute phase OF
national politics, says that the president
finds that the demand for taking the
tariff from trust-mode goods Is more pro-
nounced than is the support for his own
trust legislation proposition. He has
learned that the people look upon the
former as something that can be at
tanned Immediately if congress Will only
act while the latter is far in the future,
Senator Platt Of Connecticut was not
able to attend the conference to-day, as
he was present at the Connecticut repub-
Ncan convention, and presiding over it's
deliberations. Connecticut is one Of the
most ultra protection states in the union,
and yet in Connecticut the demand for
some tariff reduction is so strong that 1t
! is possible that the convention may adopt
u tariff plank similar to the Iowa idea
Senator Platt is one Of the high pro-
tectionists of the old guard. 1t was he
who would not permit Cuban reciprocity
to go through the senate last spring be-
cause the only way in which it could have
been passed was by sacrificing the pro-
'tection on refined sugar. 1t was matter
of principle with Senator Platt, but now
the finds the pressure of public opinion
80 strong in his own state that he is
9orced to acquesce in a platform which
voices the popular wish. The senator S
business is to see that the language used
in the platform is kept within proper
bounds.
President Roosevelt is said by those
who have talked with him to be discon-
oerted over the rise of tariff talk during
loof for1y fhc no
OF the situation is that the antagonism
to trusts is almost wholly responsible for
this talk. The discomfort with high prices
Is spreading fast among the laboring peo-
;ple. Not so much Of it is heard among the
farmers, but Senators Platt, Hanna and
Aldrich have all admitted to the writer
that the feeling Is becoming intense
among the wage earners of the cities
For some reason or other the working
people connect the Pennsylvania coal
strike with the trust question and the
tariff question. and among republican
leaders it is not denied that the party
Is likely to suffer the loss of some con-
gressmen in the Industrial centers The
longer the anthracite strike continues the
worse 1t is going to be-
Senator Aldrich has admitted that even
in little Rhode Island the discomfort
among the wage earners and the desire
to take the tariff off trust-made goods
Ale 91lOlls eHouSH 10 menace republican
success. This is something new in Rhode
Island, and Senator Aldrich's alarm has
added to President Roosevelts anxiety.
OF the senators who will advise with
the president, two, Allison and Spooner
are supposed to be in favor Of some re-
vision of tariff before the next presidential
campaign, while Hanna. Lodge and AID
rich have hitherto violently opposed it.
Whether or not the president will get any
comfort from these advisors and form
definite plans as to what he shall tell
the people Of the west on his talking tour
next week subsequent events will have tc
determine.