The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-03
It's All Right Now, Says!
 Cabot Lodge.
At Meeting in Boston Administra- tion Spokesmen Decry the Idea of Revision of the Ding
 ley Schedules.

Boston. April 7.-Elihu Root Secretary of War and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts were guests of honor and the principal speakers tonight at the dinner of the Home Market Club, the representative Republican organization of New England. MT. Root spoke on the procity and of the charges made against the American soldiers in the Philippines.
 Gov. John l.. Bates spoke briefly in greeting the guests. He was followed by Secretary Root. who launched at once into the subject of the tariff, saying in part:
 T remerber hearing MT. Tilden say that II you put hundred men in a room and make any proposition whatever to them, some one of the hundred would
 Reducing this saying to it's lowest de- gree of one in hundred. we must look for at least eight hundred thousand among the people of the United States in whose eyes everything that is done is wrong. and whatever is being done ought wise. This useful but trying class of our fellow citizens has recently turned its at tention to the existing protective tariff system of the United States. If we had been a free trade country they would have been protectionists. As we have long been protectionist country they are free traders.
 the Democratic Party who desire a change in administration and the two demand what they call a revision of the protective tariff. but which they really mean to be destruction of the protect i've tariff. Along with them go to some extent certain good and true men who urge real revision of the tariff, which they believe will make it a better protect i've tariff than it is now. I am going to assume, first. that the principle of pro- lection should be maintained. I am not going to argue the question of protec- ton and free trade. The second adminis- tfAtian Cleveland n1 ntnI forgotten as yet that the question needs to be argued in this country now.
 Next. assume it to be true that the people of the United States are now en- toying a period of extraordinary and un- exampled prosperity and I am sure that we do not want that prosperity to end. If through original error or changes of con- dition the provisions of the tariff law work i'll to the country, then at the prop CT time and in the proper way a sensible people will change the law. If a law is working well as a whole. common sense requires that we should endure some faults. even though they be serious, rath- CT than destroy the general good effect by constant tinkering.
 "A revision of the tariff is a great and difficult task. not to be undertaken ex- cept for grave and serious reason. Four teen million voters, represented by 36S Congressmen and 90 Senators, cannot change tariff laws without discussion and delay. Again you cannot get rid of trusts by revising the tariff unless you are ready to reduce the duties in the classes of manufacture in which the so-called trusts are engaged, that Is to say, in all the par ticular kinds of manufacture to such an extent as to put an end to all American manufacture. If duties are lowered below the point of adequate protection, the in- dependent manufacturer will go to the wall first. It is impossible that reduction of duties should wipe out trusts except as it wipes out American manufacture. When that happens you will have sub stitut@ the foreign thusts for domes- tic trusts and the prosperity of foreign workmen for the prosperity of American workmen. A third thing to be remember ed is that out of no possible revision is anybody likely to get the kind of tariff law he wants.
 The question is whether there ara really existing evils to be cured as great a the evils to be endured from the long and difficult process of revision.
 'In determining when and how that process shall be undertaken. two cardinal rules should be observed: First it