Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1905-05-25
Washington Letter.
IRON OUR REG ULAR CoRREsPol

Washington Letter.
(FRoM OUR REG ULAR CoRREsPoNDENT)
Saturday, May 20. 1905.
President Roosevelt has inaugurated
a policy, which he terms "the most IA
vored nation treatment for ourselves
and which both his friends and his op
ponents characterize as the sensation of
his entire administration. The policy
consists of demand that American
manufacturers who wish to sell supplies
to the government to be used IN the
construction of the Panama Canal shall
make to this government prices equally
as low as they would make to foreign
nation, or individual. The President
takes the ground that had France COM
pleted the canal, American manufact-
urers would have been only too glad
to have made. to her their lowest
prices, whereas, because their own gov
eminent is conducting the great enter
prise they were prepared to extort the
highest domestic prices. That the
Presidents assumption was right in the
latter instance is obvious from the I'M
comfortable, if impotent, wrath of the
very manufacturers who expected to
sell The greatest amount of material to
the Canal Commission.
The Presidents determination to
compel American manufacturers to
make to their own government as low
prices as they would accord to foreign
ers, took the form of an order to the
Panama Canal Commission to make
their purchases OF machinery and sup
plies wherever they could be bought
cheapest. 1t had been found that the
Steel Trust was demanding $33 ton
for steel rails, of which a quantity is
needed to relay and double track the
Panama Railway. And while the
Trust was demanding this exhol 6itant
price from the United States it was sell
ing quantities Of the same rails in Lon
don for 500 a ton, and paying approx
mately So ton freight. Moreover, the
attention of the President was called to
the fact that Charles Schwab, former
president of the Trust has publically
declared that the cost of these rails to
the Trust is only $l2 ton.
Another instance of eytortion was
learned of in the case Of two ships which
the Commission had been trying TO buy,
American shipbuilders demanded for
the two vessels, 81 100000, whereas,
foreign shipbuilders were prepared to
furnish identical ships for $4,000.
The President instructed the Commls-
sion to buy the ships abroad, but later
ordered that foreign ships be chartered,
not bought.
There is, however, broader policy
involved than the simple purchase for
the Panama Canal. The President has
been for some time convinced that GER
tain trusts were charging American
consumers too high prices. And that
the trusts are regularly selling abroad,
at a profit, for from one third to one
half the price they charge the American
consumer. He appreciates that they
are enabled to do this as II result Of
tariff schedules which are too high and
that when, last fall. he urged Congress
to take steps to readjust the tariff to
changed conditions, the trusts exerted
their powerful influence to defeat his
policy. II have no objection to good
fat protected hogs all over the country"
the President is reported to have said
recently, "but l will not stand for the
protected hog that has got his hind feet
in the trough And again. he is quot
ed as saying, certain protected indus
tries are charging prices out of all pro-
portion to the wages they pay their
workmen. 1t is not just. 1t is not a
square deal for every man and I will
put stop to it if the people will stand
by me-"
Of course the Presidents course has
driven the stand patters almost dis
tracted. Just now they admit that he
has defeated them just at time when
they thought they had defeated him.
They believe that the exposition of the
difference in prices charged by Amerl-
can manufacturers for the same goods
here and abroad, which has occasioned
the Presidents course will result in a
demand for tariff revision from the PEG
pie which Congress dare not disregard.
Many prominent Republicans insist
that the President has created an issue
which will split his party wide open,
that his insistence on a square deal for
all the people will never be countenan
ced by the protected industries which
have in the past contributed SO gener-
ously to Republican campaign funds,