The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-08-21
IMMEDIATE PHASE.
next year

| Politics seems to be slowly but sure
ly developing towards a situation in
which the tariff and trust issue will
! play prominent part, if not the fore
most A year ago the argument for
revision possessed no less of the
logic of truth than now; nor was
there any lack of fact of national eX-
there any lack of facts or national ex-
perience to support it. But the ques-
ton had nothing of its present vitali-
ty. Recent developments have so H.
Illuminated national and individual ne
cessities as to impress the revision
plea upon the popular mind with
something of the force of conviction.
Unless the denials of stand-pat or
gans are to be received without ques-
ton, the demand for another and diff
ferent tariff, for a more honest tariff,
is growing in popular will and inten-
ton; the tariff issue is being impell-
ed forward.
The tariff ISSUE" as it lives in the
minds of the people as a whole today
is perhaps impossible of definition,
but certain it is that there is implied
the desire for change The extent
of the change is matter of difference
| between the old and plainly announc-
ed democratic doctrine and the doc
trine of Iowaism, in it's broader sig
nificance. the latter doctrine less pre-
cisely expressed, but extending far
enough certainly to denounce the
more patent ills and inquitfes of the
present schedule and system.
Democratic and republicans alike
recognize that it is with a present
evil they have to deal-a condition.
Facing the common condition.
the will be occupied not so
much with theory or conflict
ing theories. Recognizing the
evil to be reality, revisionists will
be revisionists first and partisans af-
forwards.
Those glazing incidents Of the year
which have Illuminated the extent
and operation of the tariff have
shown the tariff to be a measure prac-
tically dictated by it's beneficiaries
themselves-the trusts. The people
have had their attention. signally di-
rected to proofs that trust-owned law
makers, armed with suggestion from
their clients, prepared a piece of class
legislation in behalf Of the concerns
which have mOnOpOlized many of the
country's natural resources and most
of it's manufacturing facilities:; that
it was legislation of the trusts. by the
erusts, for the trusts Not only was
it class legislation-it was designed
to eXtOrt from the masses. the wage
eaTners and cOnSumers-WhOm the
lawmakers were supposed to repre-
sent. 1t represented both robbery
and betrayal, and no terms less bald
AMI hard suffice to describe it. 1t is
the venal aspect of the tariff sche-
dulles which the years revelations
nave emphasized, and it is as a great
public i'll, rather than as a gross politi-
cal error, thai the tariff is naturally
presented to the people. AS this
| phase CT the question grows, partisan
Or "pOlitical' distinctions among the
| people themselves tend to become eff
faced. They are concerned first with
the tariffs immediate aspect; with
distractions and theories and doe
trines and political affiliations later.
So far as the DingIey bill is con-
cerned there should be no dividing
difference between the republican re-
visionist and the democrat. The So
called republican and the so-called
democrat have faced many public
evils together, shoulder to shoulder.
The republican politicians have made
AMI are making it virtually impossible
for the revisionist to cast his weight
for his own party-the party has set
itself against him. In framing it's pol
icy and formulating it's plan for az
tack upon fostered monopoly the dem
ocratic party should include a specific
iaDDoa1 to the renuhlican reviSioniSt