Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-06

ticles to the point where foreign compe-
titfon may enter the American market
whenever trusts and combines seeking
monopoly had raised their prices to the
American consumer above just and rea-
sonable profit. thus using American law
as a shelter to protect them in eXtortion
upon the American people while they
charge them prices higher than those
charged foreigners for identical articles
Suppose that an actual condition of that
sort had been. shown. as IL has been.
would anybody advocating anything i
have Indicated with a view to meeting
that condition have obtained any hearing
from that convention?
Tariff Revision.
The platform then goes on to say that
these alterations cannot be safely COM
mitted to any other hands than the re-
publican party What has been the mat
ter with the hands of the republican
party since 1884, or for the last four
years? Even If 1t were admitted that tar
III changes ought to be made by the
friends of the Ubiquitous Determinations
and extortfons of the present law, rather
than by the friends of the general inter-
ests and commonweal (Which is the same
ought to be made by the republican party.
why has not that party already made any
OF them? 1t has been in full power In the
senate, overwhelmingly in power in the
House and unanimously and strenuously
| In power in the White House. Who is
there that does not know that this VERDI
age was inserted into the republican plat
form with the view OF enabling the iowa
idea men and the Wisconsin idea men to
go back home and say they have gotten
something. and thereby save their faces
as the Chinese say. Who believes for a
minute that the party which has refused
every tarin alteration thus far proposed
intends to recognize any sort of 'condi-
tlons: or any sort of demand or any
rn0fs II,
question? Who does not know that the
only way a public interest can make any
demand for any alteration effective is by
putting the democratic party in power?
Tariffs and Their Sequences.
OF course this platform had to con-
| tain the usual historical untruth, to wit,
that a democratic tariff has always been
Followed by business adversity-a republic
can tariff by business prosperity Design
Ing and ignorant men have repeated that
| so often that am afraid there really are
good many people who believe it. and yet
II Is pad history again. The great panic
OF 1873, II 1t was caused by any tariff law
at an. was necessarily caused by the then
| existing tariff law, which is the first one
| ever passed by the republican party 1t
was passed as a war measure. Speaker
cannon, In his address to the republican
| convention, said that when the republican
party came into power it REQUIRED to the
tarln policy of George Washington This
| Is short sentence and In 1t there are only
TWO mistakes. one Of which consists in the
nigh tariff man.
The tariff in vogue in Washingtons day
would be denounced as rampant free
| trade today. The second mistake consists
| IN the assertion that the republican party
mad 'recurred' to that policy. The plat
| FORM upon which it went into power in
1861 contained not one hint of an Intention
| TO raise the tariff duties Even the wings
had become perfectly satisfied with the
Walker tariff of 1916, and the amendments
| to 1t passed in 1857, and the republicans
as wen as the wings recognized that the
| country heretofore had had unprecedented
| prosperity under that law, which was a
democratic tariff law, being a tariff for
| revenue only. As eminent republican
| historical fact in black and white
FROM 1901 down to the outbreak of the
| civil war the country was nine-tenths of
| tne time under democratic ascendancy with
| democratic tariff legislation, and nine
| tenths of that time our people were pros
porous beyond all precedent as compared
| with other peoples upon the surface of the
| earth contemporaneous with them or prior
| to their time. What the republican plat
| form calls a democratic traiff law based
| on Tree trade principles referring to the
tar1n OF 1ss4-the so-called Wilson-Gor-
| man bills, was the farthest removed from
free trade of any tariff law that has ever
| existed IN this country. except the one
which bore the name of Mckinley and the
Dingiey. But even this was a tariff law
| which followed adversely instead of pre-
| ceding. Besides all that statistics show
| that our imports were not increased under
| that act-hence Its operation did not hurt
| US by Inducing undue foreign competition.
| But the New York Times of June % exposes
this repeated attempt to falsify history so
| well that l will read 1t under the heading
a question of Fact-The Author of the
Republican Platform. Presumably Senator
| Lodge, Who May Have Had the Assistance
welt, Makes the Following Statement:
| democratic tariff has always been
IolioWed by business adversely. a republican
| tarln by business prosperity" A keen
| french observer remarks that man who
| repeats a statement often enough will gain
| credence for it, even from himself The
entirely unfeunded and absurd declaration
| In the republican platform so fully meets
| these conditions that 1t is to be Inferred
| that the distinguished gentlemen we have
named are victims of the spell of repeti-
| ton IT either of them had paused for five
| minutes, just long enough to remember
| how many republican and democratic tar
! IFS there have been in history he would
have saved his party from committing itself
| in this formal manner to gross misrepre-
| sentation of the facts
!" The republican party came into power
| in 1851; this clearly fixes the period in
which comparison between the republican
| and democratic tariffs and their conse-
| quences must be made. Since that date
| there have been half a dozen times of great
| depression in business which were accom-
| panied by enough excitement of the public
| mind to be called panics. The first occur
red in the spring of 1851 and was due
wholly to the impending contest with seces-
| sion. The second occurred in 1857. when
| the number of failures ran up to 2,7S0 and
| the liabilities of failed concerns to $96. $685.
OOO In 1873 there was third depression
which has become memorable in our his
| tory, when the failures reached 5.1s3 and
| the liabilities the then unprecedented
amount of sos, 400. 800. In five years later
there was fourth interval of stagnation
and disturbance when the number of fail
ures nearly doubled and the liabilities again
increased this time to 1924. 3S3, 132. In 1884
| the fifth depression caused the record of
failures to reach almost the same figures.
Finally in 1893 we had the appalling total
of failures at L. $40 and the total of la
bilities at $346 779. $50.
Here are five periods Of panic Of which
the record is entirely complete and all but
the earliest Of which are within the mem
DRY of a very large number of experienced
business men. Every one of them oc-
Cured under a republican tariff. Not one
of them followed a democratic tariff. for
hat q