Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-10-20
Protectionist organs Lament.

1t is rather strange that the Bulletin
Of the American Iron and Steel Asso-
citation should be the first to discover
there is free trade element in the
Republican party" Such a good au-
thority upon the tariff policies within
the Republican party can hardly be
mistaken, yet it is singular how well
the secret has been kept. There are,
1t is true, some tariff reformers in the
Republican ranks such as the Iowa
Idea" men, who were led by Gov. Cum
minis, and who now appear to be with
out leader, but they are not free trad
ers, they merely had somehow absorbed
the idea that the tariff shelters the
trusts. Then there was band of Min
nesota Republicans who wanted reel
procity with Canada, but their demand
appears to have dwindled since the
Flour Milling Trust has been allowed
to import Canadian wheat in bond and
ship it abroad after its conversion into
-four, without paying duty on the same.
Those Minnesota Republicans were
surely not free traders. Then we have
Just heard the demand for tariff reduc-
ton from the American Manufacture
ers Association, who mainly want
cheaper iron and steel, but even the
most radical Of them are not free trad
ers. OF course, we must bear in mind
that the Bulletin Is devoted to the in
terest of the Steel Trust, and it's vision
Of the gulf between tariff revision and
free trade may be thus vastly dimin-
ished. 1t says that while Taft's candi-
dacy was engineered by President
Roosevelt" it is ''elninently true that
1t was acceptable to and was supported
by the free trade element in the Repub-
lean party.
The Bulletin would undoubtedly like
the tariff to be let alone, or else revised
higher, and this may have warped its
ideas about what the free trade" ele-
ment in the Republican party intends
to do. If the Bulletin and the interest
back of it will stand to its guns and
await events, it will find, if the Repub-
lican party should be successful in
electing President and Congress, that
Its free trade bogey will prove to he
nothing but a Pigment of its own edi-
tors brain, caused probably by think
Ing too much about the enormous pru-fs
that the tariff compels the people to
pay its friends, the trusts, which would
be abolished under real tariff reforu.
The situation is certainly exasperat-
Ing from the viewpoint of the Bull
letin. for it fears that Taft is not
sound on the tariff issue and it eyi-
IDENTITY grieves over lie fact of the "un-
satisfactory record Ct the new leader
of the Republican party"
This protection organ finally resolves
that the best must be made of a Dad
situation" and the only thing that can
be done is to 'see to it that the mem
bers of Congress to be elected this year
are pledged TO resist all reductions IN
duties that would carry with them
sharper foreign competition, less work
at home and lower wages for American
working men"
That's il, see that Uncle Joe and the
other standpat statesmen are elected
again to Congress and rely upon their
Interpretation of the ambiguous tariff
plank Of the Republican platform, that
q maximum tariff and a reasonable
profit" for the trusts. means TO revise
the tariff higher There is food for re-
Election for Democrats in the reliance
OF the Trust organ upon electfng a
standpat Congress, which should urge
them and all who felt they are being
plundered by the tariff protected trusts
70 see % 1t that the members Of Con