Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-02
PROTECTION-GRAFT

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between protection and graft.
u One is merged into the other.
Desire to graft animates the strenuous
advocates of protection, and an indus
try that looks to protection rather than
its own competitive merits to encour-
age and foster it sooner or later be-
comes CRATER. From the unhappy
economic plight into which protection
has plunged this nation it will not be
extricated by any half-hearted Repub-
lican tariff tinkering-a patch here and
cobble there till the schedules look
like crazyquilts. Tariff loot has
reached the sum of five billion dol
lars. That is the amount which has
been taken out of the pockets of the
pouches of the rapacious barons may
be filled!
Conditions of distress, financial pam
ic, lack of employment, increase in
number of working children, decrease
in number of school children, increase
of percentage of illiteracy, and in the
greater cities PHYSICAL DECLINE,
MARKED BY AN ENORMOUS IN
CREASE IN THE NUMBER OF
CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM
BODILY AILMENTS, DEFECTS AND
WEAKNESSES, are all attributable to
cause. They are not accidental. The
cause is the selfish disregard of the
best interests of the people by the
worst interests of the nation, the rob-
bers who hoisted a black flag and did
an unchecked piratical business, play
ing havoc with the workers, the Gre
ators of wealth, and injuring the con-
sumers. Between producer and con-
sumner stands the brigand, clad cap a
pie in his black suit of protection mail.
There can be no true prosperity for
this nation while he is honored and
aided and abetted; while the products
of the toiler are made spoil for the en-
richment of men who may have been
honest industrial producers at the be-
ginnings of their careers. but have in
many instances degenerated into de-
pendents upon artificial conditions pro-
duced for them by protection policies
adopted governmentally in return ''for
value received" The transaction from
beginning to end is too disgustingly
mercenary to merit the title state
craft" Pah! To think that such petit
Jogging schemers should have been al
lowed to bubble themselves into power
by a systematic course of maladroit
which would have made Ma
blush and Satan shudder with
shame! A writer in Current Literature
attacks the subject in a fearless way
that commands attention and invites
respect. We quote from his article
entitled "A Loud Call for Tariff Re-
vision:
Writing in American Industries. II.
E. Miles. chairman of the tariff COM
mittee of the association, says that
for the first time in our generation
fact that protection must in fact ac-
cord with its underlying principle or
rule of measurement-to wit, each and
every tariff rate must measure the
difference in the cost of production here
and abroad of an article protected
This single principle, actually applied,
will, of itself, Mr.. Miles thinks, revo-
tariff making and correct the
Infinite iniquities' of tariff legislation.
Where differences in cost of produc-
tion here and in Europe are from moth
ing to thirty per cent, he says further,
THE TARIFF RATES RUN FROM
SIXTY TO TWO HUNDRED PER
CENT. Tl.is, be it remembered, comes
from a man who speaks for protected
manufacturers. we wish 10 record
ourselves as being protectionists OF
the old ORDER he says elsewhere,
standing true to the original principles
of that party of which we are the lineaI |
and loyal descendants But the pres
ent tariff, he asserts in unequivocal
language, DOES NOT PROTECT; IT
PROHIBITS AND DEFRAUDS
I'm truth, no free trader ever used
more severe terms in describing the
Dingley tariff than this representative
Of 5000 protected manufacturers used
In an article several months ago in the
North American Review. He does not
find that the real principle of protec-
tion. as given above, has ever been
applied by our tariff legislators. Most |