The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-04-27
PRESIDENT DRIVEN
TO HIGH TARIFF
Vast Enginery of Extreme
ProtectiOnistS to PromuI-
gate Their Gospel.
Special to The Globe.


WASHINGTON, D. c., April &c. -
There is great rejoicing in the office
| of the American Protective Tariff
league, in New York. 1t has COM
PEELED President Roosevelt to change
front on the question of tariff revision
and it is now Boosting of its achieve
ment. 1t is no eXaggeration to say that
| the most powerful instrument in this
country today for the molding of pub
| lie sentiment is the organization of
manufacturers which bear that name.
The American Protective Tariff league
defeated the Cuban reciprocity legis-
| lation of the first session of the Fiji
| ty-seVenth congress, emasculated the
| Cuban reciprocity treaty ratified at the
last session and will attempt at the
next session to further negative that
treaty. 1t has thus far prevented the
ratlhcatIon of the reciprocity treaties
| negotiated by Mr.. KasSon. 1t has COM
| batted the Iowa idea" so successfully
| that President Roosevelt. who started
| out with declaration that he would
! stand pat on the Mckinley policies
| which included reciprocity, has now
concluded to stand pat" with the high
| tariff faction of his party. This league
has membership of 1000, including
| some OF the most prominent manu-
| facturers of iron, steel, cotton goods
| Woolen goods, hosiery, gloves, varnish
v.
The 1000 members pay in years when
| important elections are on, mini
mum annual assessment of $100 each
| This minimum fund of 100000 each
| is swelled by additional contributions
as the occasion demands. The object of
| the American Tariff league is to create
| sentiment in this country favorable to
the maintenance of the protective tar
| iff and to prevent the abatement of ex-
lstlng tariff rates. 1t is the personifi-
cation of the stand pat" idea. 1t op-
poses the crossing of a t, the dotting
| OF an l, or the changing of a punctu-
alton mark in the existing tariff law.
The league effects its purposes and ac-
composites its object of molding public
sentiment by working upon the read
erS of the country through the MASTER
ful system of newspaper syndicates.
1t boasts that the combined circuIa-
ton per week of the newspapers using
the editorials and other matter sent
out by the league was 100000 APP
proximately that represents 24OO0, 600
readers per week All this matter is
sent out in Stereotyped form and free
to the papers desiring to use it.
Besides this the league publishes
weekly paper called the American
Economist, which is sent out to all the
leading papers of the country and has
circulation of more than 1000 per
week. 1t voices the most intelligent
thought on the tariff question from
the standpoint of protection, and its
sophistries are reproduced as editorials
in many of the leading papers Of the
nation.
From the above can be gathered an
idea of the immense engine used by
the protective tariff interests of the
country to keep the people fooled and
oelleVlng that they are getting some
benefit from the system of protection
II the people were getting the ben
eft and not the special interests, does
any sane man suppose those interests
would contribute 100000 a year to
keep up the protection wall? Is not
this sufficient evidence to the people of
the country that they are being bled
and robbed by this set of men and spe-
cial interests putting up the money to
keep them hoodwinked by making them
| believe that protection is helping them
and the country? What more do they
want?
The Democratic party panders to
| no special interests whose profits are
| made by robbing the people and there
fore it has no propaganda and no
money to establish one by which it's
ideas of good government can be con-
| stantly pounded into the people. If
the Democratic party could have had
even 1000 papers for the past ten years
| exposing the fallacies of high protec-
ton, the farmers of the country, who
| suffer most from this one-sided game,
would today be almost unanimous in
| their opposition to protection. We
have no fountain of wealth hlched
| from the pockets of the people from
which to draw and therefore the peo-
| pie do not get the truth. They get
| only the honeyed sophistries from an
organized band of public plunderers
and go on letting well enough alone"
until the band is bursting with Doodle.
| When the members are gorged and
| get to quarreling among themselves as
| they are now doing then the people
will begin to get a glimpse of the truth
| 1t remains to be seen how much longer
the people will stand for this sort Of
| thing and be beguiled by this Amer
| lean Protective Tariff league. 1t got
them to pass the Mckinley and Ding
/ ley bills with which to abstract money
! from their pockets, it defeated the Gu
ban reciprocity measure and now it has
scared the president of the United