Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-08-17
CUMMINS SPEAKS
ON RECIPROCITY

(Continued from First Page.)
ready secured and retaliation would
be the weapon with which to punish
any country that refused to deal fair
ly with us. At the most, we would
need treaties in very few instances to
provide for unusual and extraordinary
conditions.
"Our present schedules, however, are,
In the main, intended to be prohibit
tive, If American products are sold at
Q fair and reasonable profit. It is only
when, thru combination or unusual de-
mand, the home manufacturer lifts the
price into the region of robbery, that
his foreign competitor can enter at
all.
No Conflict With Protection.
''There is no conflict and can be
none, between protection and reciproc-
ity, if we abandon the selfish interest
Of a particular producer or class of
producers, and ascend to the higher
standpoint from which we may view
the common welfare. The only JUS
ttfication for interference with abso-
Lutte free trade is, first, to provide a
revenue, and second, to diversity and
increase the products of the country;
and it is just as essential and just as
beneficial to our producers to preserve
and enlarge their markets abroad as 1t
is to preserve and enlarge their mar
kets at home.
1.-The folly Of maintaining tariff
schedule that will enable us to sell one
thousand dollars of manufactured
merchandise in our own markets, but
which will prevent the sale of ten
thousands dollars of manufactured OIL
agricultural products in foreign mar
kets, is so striking that it can only be
explained upon the hypothesis that we
have surrendered to a senseless fear
of disturbing; commercial tranquility.
~Tranquility Is very desirable, but to be
lasting it must be founded on Industrial
Justice.
Prohibitive Duties Not Needed.
Protection is not designed to mar
row the fiel6! Of American labor, ana
any duty that has the effect of lessen
ing the domestic output is not in har-
mony with the policy out Of which it
springs. The theory Of the modern
standpatter appears to be that there
shall be prohibitive duty laid upon
the imports Of everything that we can,
by hot-house methods, produce, and
then IL any nation resents this embargo
upon trade, high craftsmanship re-
quires us to punish that nation by
raising the prohibitive duty stfllfhigher.
It seems to me that the doctrine of
protection does not demand prohibi-
tive duty on anything, nor does it de-
mand an eQualizing duty upon every
thing.
Farmer Needs More Markets.
.'Gratifyinf; as the development of
our manufacture interests has been,
1t is still true that agriculture is the
dominant factor in our commerce. With
very trivial exceptions, the protective
tariff has moi: directly benefited the ag-
riculturalists of the United States, but
It has Indirectly very greatly aided
them in the creation of a demand for
their products. The fertility of our
soil is so superior, and the area of us
able land so vast, that we could easily
multiply our agricultural products if
markets could be found for their dis
position. The duty to find for these
pfOducers the best and widest mar
kdts is as high and as sacred as the
n1ty to protect our manufacturers
dainst foreign invasion. And yet, all
Enough we have built up the most
complete and drastic system of ex-
clusion ever known In the history of
the world, we have not line or a let
ter, in law or treaty, which has for its
object the protection or the enlarge
ment of the markets that the farmer
is seeking. We are already excluded
inlRreat measure from France; we are
about to be shut out Of Germany; and
when it is proposed to consider wheth-
or there be not some fair and just way
TO avoid the disaster, the leaders of the
standpatters, with one acclaim cry out;.
IL Germany does this thing, we will
expel her from our shores by the en-
actment Of still higher retaliatory
tariffs May / ask, in all humility,
how this battle Of tariffs will help our
farmers? What they want is the con-
tinuance Of their market in Germany,
and while we may avenge the national
honor as viewed by certain leading
statesmen, by excluding German I'M
ports. under what treaty of peace will
the producers Of our meats and bread
st,1ffs be Unidentified or reimbursed for
the cost OF the war? The subtle sug-
restion that this session of congress
As too short or that one too busy; that
this session is too near an election, Or
that one to remote, should no longer be
accented. There is just one time to
herin a righteous reform, and that IS
now.
sour initial demand must be for con-
sideration. 1T is impossible to discuss
here, or IN any general meeting, the
exact revision of the tariff that
,should take place or the terms OF any
treaty to be proposed to a foreign ma
4ion: but it is possible to either change
the minds of the leaders of the present
congress SO that the subject may be
taken up and dealt with. fairly, OF TO
change the membership of congress,
and fill It's seats with men who are IN
svmpathy with the cause we are en-
deavoring to promote, and who will not
he dominated by the advocates OF
few special interests, nor be frighten-
"a nv the threat that if single duty
he changed the whole fabric OF pro-
lection will be DESTROYED.
Some are ExeIusionists.
..r~he demand we make is not new
The men who today are the opponents
of the standpat theory OF government
are not protectionists; they are exclu-
e;onists. They have no title to the
leadership of the party OF protection