Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-29
PROTECTED DESTRUCTION


vince the student that it is in effect
II not in intention an act for the pro-
motion Of trust monopolies and for
other purposes, the chief one apparently
being that of deluding the American
public into belief that its real aim and
object are the protection of our native
producers and manufacturers against
Injurious competition on the part of
the "pauper labor of Europe" Asia,
Africa and Oceanica. Now. although
the fact has been persistently and
clearly placed before the public for
years. ever since the Civil war the
tariff has been and still remains pro-
hibitive, sometimes destructive, and not
merely protective as to many of its
most important features and burden
some and oppressive to all American
consumers in a wholly unnecessary
way, yet SO successful have been its
advocates and beneficiaries in conceal
ing its and their own disingenuousness
and hypocrisy that, even today, a vast
number of well meaning and honest
people. especially in the Republican
party, will rise upon their posterior
pedals and roar with pain at the very
suggestion of the least revision. Un-
fortunately it has BEEN too much the
habit of American citizens to allow
politicians and those who interestedly
control them financially to do all the
public thinking on economic as we'll as
political questions and to take what
ever prize packages these leaders find
it convenient and profitable to hand out
as pure gospel truth to be believed and
sworn by to the bitter end. 1t is easy
enough to say that the public ought
to know better, but it does not, gen
orally speaking, and it is as hard as
the extraction of birds teeth to get it
to sit up and take notice.
There can be no doubt that all decent
people resent the monopoly of the GRIM
inal trusts headed by captains of in
dustry whom President Roosevelt has
described as "wealthe malefactors," :"
and want to see their power and GRIM
inal opportunities abolished 1t ought
to be plain that this never can be ac-
complished without revision of the
tariff law which is perhaps the most ef-
ficient of their means of loot Under
pressure of the dire necessities of the
Civil war time, in 1864 the high water
mark of customs imposts was reached
when the average tax on dutiable i'm
ports amounted to .76 per cent. For
years following peace there was little
if any reduction, although the need for
excessive rates, intended only as
temporary expedient, had ceased to
exist. In 1906, forty-two years after
the war, the average tariff on imports
was still as high as 44.16 per cent,
reduction of less than per cent. No
wonder the protected industries have
waxed fat and kick when revision is
mentioned
Where the tariff goes beyond the
point of reasonable protection, l. e., say
the difference between cost of produc-
tion abroad and at home, there are
obvious reasons for reduction in the
interest of our own consumers Where,
as will be shown. that it does in one
direction. the tariff not only is not
legitimately protective. but is both
pohibitive commercially and in opera
tion viciously destructive of national
resources the crying need for reform
is too patent to require discussion.
Reference is made to the timber and
lumber schedule of the Dingley act.
misbegotten offspring of the paper
trust and the lumber barons. The
country repeatedly has been warned
by the forestry division of the interior
department and by other expert au-
thority that the annual cut of timber
in the United States, plus the annual
destruction by fire, of necessity must
exhaust the supply of standing timber
within measurable period, now placed
at from thirty to thirty-fve years. To
anyone who has the remotest regard
for the future of the country this con-
dition is disheartening, but the fact
remains, and it is the more deplorable
since an intelligent system of forestry
conservation, administration and ex-
ploitation, like that which obtains in
Prussia, could have saved this mag
nificent resource and asset intact and
yet supplied all the lumber needed for
our industries for all time. But. bar
ring miracles, our timber resources ap-
pear to be doomed. One miracle might
ultimately save the situation if it could
be worked, by the declaration of a long
closed season for American trees and
general and systematic reforestration
by the federal and all the state gov
ernments; but that is too much to
expect. AS the matter stands, what is
left of our once splendid continental
forest is disappearing before the selfish,
brutal greed of the paper trust and a
combination of sawmill men, who want
to realize prohibitive gain out of the
last stick before they will allow us
to draw supplies from the almost virgin
and nearly illimitable forests of Canada.
The International Paper company,
which controls about 70 per cent of the
production of paper used by news