The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-09-12


er competitors would be ruined. and
the wageworkers would starve, while
II would not pay the farmer TO haul his
produce TO market. The evils connect
ed with the trusts can be reached only
by rational effort, step by step, along
the lines taken by congress and the
executive during the past three years.
If a tariff law is passed under which
the country prospers, as the country
has prospered under the present. tariff
law, then all classes will share in the
prosperity. If a tariff law is passed
aimed at preventing the prosperity OF
some of our people, IL is as certain as
anything can be that this aim Will be
achieved only by cutting down the
prosperity of all of our people.
Malicious Peryersion.
VI course, IT our opponents are not
sincere in their proposal to abolish the
system of a protective tariff, there is
10 use IN arguing the matter at all,
save Dy pointing out again that If on
one great issue they do not mean what
they say, 1t is hardly safe to trust them
on any other issue. But If they are
sincere IN this matter, then their adj
vent 70 power would mean domestic
misfortune and misery as widespread
and tar-reaching as that which we saw
ten years ago. When they speak OF
protection as robbery" they of course
must mean that it is immoral TO enact
tariff designed (as is the present pro-;
tect1ve tariff) TO secure 10 the Ameri-
can WagewOrker the benefit of the high
standard of living which we desire TO
see kept up in this country. Now TO
speak of the tariff in this sense as
robbery, thereby giving it a moral
relation, is not merely rhetorical; it Is
on its face false. The question of what
tariff is best for our peoplesis primarily
one OF eXpediency, TO be determined not
on abstract academic grounds, but IN
the light of experience. Itsis a matter
of business; for fundamentally ours is
a business people-manufacture mer-
chants, farmers, wageworkers, profess
sional men, all alike. Our experience
as people in the past has certainly not
shown us that we could afford in THIS
matter to follow those professional
counselors who have confined them
selves to study in the closet; for the
! actual working of the tariff has en-
phatically contradicted their theories.
From time to time schedules must UNI
doubleday be rearranged and readjusted
TO meet the shifting needs of the coun-
try; but this can with safety be done
only by those who are committed to the
root and destroy that system would be
to insure the prostration of business,
the closing of factories, the impoverish-
ment Of the farmer, the ruin Of the
! capitalist and the starvation of the
wageworker. Yet if protection is in
! deed robbery" and il our opponents
| really believe what they say, then it
! is precisely to the destruction and up
roofing of the tariff, and therefore of
| cur business and industry, that they
| are pledged. When our opponents last
| obtained power it was on a platform
] declaring a protective tariff ''uncon-
| stitutionaP": and the effort to put this
declaration into practice was one of the
| causes of the general national prostra-
! ton lasting from 1893 to 1897. If a pro-
| teCtfve tariff is either "unconstitution-
! al or robbery then il is just as I'M
! constitutional, just as much robbery, TO
revise it down. still leaving it protect
| i've, as il would be 10 enact IL. In
other words, our opponents have COM
mitted themselves to the destruction or
/ the protective principle In the tarii,
using words which if honestly used for
/ bid them from permitting this principle
| to obtain in even the smallest degree.
Why Pledges Are Broken.
| Our opponents assert that they believe
Z
/ in reciprocity. Their action on the most
! important reciprocity treaty recently
negotiated-that with Cuba--dOes not
bear out this assertion. Moreover, there
can be no reciprocity unless there is a
substantial tariff; free trade and reci-
procity are not compatible. We are on
| record as favoring arrangements for
reciprocal trade relations with other
/ countries. these arrangements to be on
a foh Ia ha oF 70 ~ n
! the contracting parties. The Republj-
/ can party stands pledged to every wise
and consistent method of increasing the
I foreign commerce Of the country. That
| il has kept its pledge is proven by the
! fact that while the domestic trade of
! this country exceeds in volume the en-
/ tire export and import trade of all the
nations of the world, the United States
/ has in addition secured more than an
eighth of the export trade of the world,
! standing first among the nations in this
! respect. The United States has ex-
ported during the last seven years
| nearly 10000, 600, 600 dollars worth OF
| goods-on an average half as much
again annually as during the previous
| four years, when many Of our people
were consuming nothing but neces-
/ saries, and some of them a scanty sup
( ply even of these.
More of the Personal Pronoun.
/ Two years ago. in speaking at Lo-
ganSport, Ind, l said;
The one consideration which must
: never be omitted in a tariff change is
the imperative need of preserving the
| American standard of living for the
American workingman. The tariff rate
must never fall below that which will
protect the American workingman by
allowing for the difference between the
I general labor cost here and abroad so
| as at least to equaliZe the conditions
arising from the difference in the stand
ard Of labor here and abroad-a diff
ference which it should be our aim to
foster in so far as it represents the
needs Of better educated. better paid.
! better fed, and better clothed working
men Of higher type than any to be
! found in a foreign country. At all
hazards, and no matter what else is
sought for or accomplished by changes
/ of the tariff, the American worklngman
must be protected in his standard of
wages, that is, in his standard OF living.
and musts be secured the fullest oppor-
tunity OF employment. Our laws should
/ in no event afford advantage TO foreign
I industries over American industries.
| They should in no event do less than
equaiize the difference in conditions at
home and abroad"
Robber Barons Upheld.
1t is matter of regret that the pro-
! tective tariff policy which. during the
/ last forty odd years, has become part
! of the very fiber of the country, is not
now accepted as definitely established.
/ Surely we have a right to say that it
! has passed beyond the domain of theory
and a right 10 expect that not only its
] original advocates, but those who at
| one time distrusted il on theoretic