The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-09
MONDAY, MAY 9, 1904.
ALDRICH'S STATE
 , MEMT

Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island is the accredited spokesman of the Republican Party on all matters affecting the tarif1 He is understood to have grown rich since he has been in the Senate Many lucky strokes of fortune might have come his way during his service there andi espe- ciaily while he was serving as a mem- ber of the conference committees. He is chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance and as such always heads the conference committee of the Senate when questions of taxation are at issue between the two houses. What could be simpler than to place his money, say, in stock of the American Tobacco Company or the American Sugar Refining Company or to sell the same when he was in a position to know whether the findings of the con- ference committee would be favorable or unfavorable to the interests involved? :? We are merely indicating the tempta- tions to make money he has had chance to resist. For aught that we know his great wealth is the result of his saving habits and that he has saved thousands out of his salary and after placing these savings at interest, they have mounted into the hundreds of thousands and mill lions.
 The Senator not long since took occas- sion to predict the issue for the coming campaign would be the tariff and he has stated precisely how in his opinion the issue would be presented to the peo- pie. No living American could state the issue from the protectionist standpoint mere clearly. It is worth while to know just how he states it. In the address we refer to. he puts it this way:
 In the tariff, the difference is between these who believe in the policy of afford ing legislative protection to American in- dustries and labor and those who, under one pretext or another. oppose this pol icy. between those who believe that mcdifications of protective duties should be by friends of the system as fast as changing conditions warrant, and those who. on the other hand. believe that the structure should be destroyed or mutt lated at once by direct or indirect as- sGults.
 We believe that protective duties are imposed for the purpose of giving oppor- tunities for the successful prosecution of industries requiring the profitable em- IneSe duties thus levied do not encourage or create monopolies or trusts, or combna- tons, which are an incident of our in dustrial development and in nowise affect ed by the imposition of tariff rates while our opponents would sacrifice industries and prevent the employment of labor by the reduction or abolition of duties upon the pretext that this course would destroy trusts.
 The Republicans will make some decla- retion against trusts as matter of ccrrse. Senator Aldrich will insist ard hs will be a persuasive and potent voice at Chicago, that the tariff in no wise shelters trusts. He does not believe this; nobody believes it. Yet it will be hal Iced from every Republican stump in the United States during the coming cam paign. In fact the Republicans being for a tariff that avowedly restricts competi- ton ought to support trusts that have as the one purpose of their being still furth- e. to diminish and cut off free buying and selling in the markets
 The really significant point in AIdrich's ortgiving though is what he says about labor. Once more labor is to be appealed to- is to be wheedled and befuddled if possible with the notion its welfare is wrapped up in paying higher price for every article labor consumes in order to get steady employment. Once more the Republicans will ask the Iaboring man to believe that there is not a good living for honest hands in the United States. that honest hands are threatened with a deluge of cheap goods from Europe. etc, etc. Will labor once more have wool pulled over its eyes by Senator Aldrich and the designing manufacturers whose natural voice and spokesman he is?