The National tribune., 1908-12-17

day and az much mote the following
week. He managed te cover most Of
those organizations. too 10
Hundreds Of LsttcsA
Then those reports hre clattered up
with hundreds of letters beginning
after this fashion:
"Gentlemen: In behalf ofethe farm.
aDear Sir: supposing thap the tariff
on vanillin will also be considered dur
ing the present session, we beg to call
your attention to the Following: We
are manufacturers of vanilffn and at
present have over $50.000 Invested for
the production of this article alone, so
that"
"Dear Sir: The Manufacturing Chem
lists Association of the United States,
an association of the manufacturing
chemists of this country, and list of
meeting at Philadelphia on Nov. 16,
1908, unanimously passed the follow
ing resolution"
And SO those letters go, thousands
of them. Every fellow has his own
little AK to grind, and he's going to
grind it regardless of his neighbor's
dull hoe, II he can.
Is the tariff local issue? These
letters go far to prove 1t.
This Committee on Ways and Means
will have before 1t most of the money
kings of the country before it gets
thru these hearings. Congress has
given it power to summon before II
anybody whom it wishes to hear, and
the power to punish the man who re-
fuses to respond to the summons. This
power was granted to the Ways and
Means Committee last week. 1t never
has had the power to order anybody
before it up to now with any expecta-
ton that it's summons would bring the
man. Mr.. Archbold, Mr.. Carnegie, and
a dozen others are ordered to appear
and they must talk under oath.
~ No Easy Job.
People talk of tariff revision as tho
| it could be accomplished by next week,
or at the latest the week after. Like
ordering a cord of wood. or load OF
coal, or buying a pound of butter, you
state what you want, you say the price
you want to pay, and then you expect
| the goods to be delivered on time. prop
erly packed, and labeled glass. handle
with care
Tariff revision means an overturnine
Of schedules on million articles OF
ic6mmerce. 1t means readjusting OF
values on everything that we wear, eat
live under or over: everything that we
enjoy as art; everything that enters into
our lives to make them livable; our
| homes to make them habitable; our
country to make it great and glorious
The smallest concern which makes
an article in this country must be pro-
teeted from the cheap manufacture
cheap labor, cheap material, cheap
transportation of that same article
made in a foreign country, just as sure
| ly as we protect the great steel cor
porations, or they will think they have
been Disseminated against. If the
small concern is protected to prOhibi-
| ton of the foreign article, and the big
concern Is not protected at all, ther
| there again Is cry of discrimination
| from the big concern whose ramifica-
tions reach into millions of homes
mayhap, and pay wages to hundred!
OF thousands Of people who will be
| hopelessly ruined by lower wages or
unprotected manufactures
Gentlemen of the Jury: Tariff revision
is no picnic for the men who must make
the schedules, nor is ii a Summer holf'
day for the manufacturers corpor
ations whose carefully builded bushes.
has grown up about conditions and en-
vironments which protected 1t as {
sea wall protects from the. eneroach-
| ment of the eating ocean waves. Take
| the walls away and leave no protection
at all. and the fair 1builded sea city
crumbles imperceptibiy, but positively
and surely. 1is- ~
Tariff revision must come-up o,
down as the day dernandsA-but 1t mus
come safely and saneiy.