Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-10-06

Ah'I INC ldIlil lldilh VI Tue Itcpuo-
hcan party entirely suits the American
Economist, the subsidized organ of the
Protective Tariff League, should quiet
all fears of machine Republicans that
if their party is successful it will re-
wise the tariff by reducing the present
high rates of duty. Far from it. In
fact, the Economist most encourages
the hearts of the trusts and combines
and protected monopolists, who sub
scribe so literally to Republican cam
paign funds and incidentally keep the
wolf from the Economist door, by the
frank avowal that those predatory cor
porations may still be certain of 1.-The
fullest measure of protection"
Those Republicans who have been
fondly Imagining that their party would
revise the tariff, so that the trusts
could no longer have a monopoly and
charge double prices for their products,
must now confess that the stand pat
tiers have them at their mercy, for the
Economist says:
Advocates of the tariff revision
downward will find not word or sylla-
Bile in this tariff plank that tends to
furnish them the slightest crumb Of
comfort. There is no promise in the
platform of tariff revision downward;
on the contrary, the scope and purpose
of the tariff plank is to continue the
fullest measure of protection to all In
dustries in the United States, and that
the proposed revision of the schedules
shall maintain the standard Of protec
ton in every feature Of the new law"
The Economist did, it Is true, for
time look askance at Mr.. Taft; 1t fear
ed he was infested with the virus of
revising the tariff downward, in fact, it
denounced him as a tariff tinkerer, but
now the Economist declares
''To those who believe that the NOM
ination of William Howard Taft of
Ohio would be pledge of the party
to a downward revision of the tariff,
the platform is a complete and unqual-
flied answer. If Taft has at any time
gone too far in his advocacy of tariff
tinkering he has not been able to carry
the Republican party with him.
There may be a good many Repub-
lican voters who will hardly be salts
fed with the evident intention of the
Republican leaders to again deceive
them by nominating a candidate who
has squinted towards revising the tariff
downward and tying his hands with
absolute platform pledges 'tO continue
the fullest measure of protection"
But the President of the United
States can only recommend to Congress
such legislation as he thinks desirable,
and the House of Representatives has
the exclusive right to originate all rev.
enue measures, such as tariff taxes and
the like. The stand-patters evidently
rely upon again controlling q majority
Of the representatives of the people and
thus perpetuate the machine that Can
non and the other leaders In Congress
has built up.
No tariff reform measure can get
+ favorable hearing as long as the stand
patters control the Committee on Ways
and Means. Therefore, those voters
who think that the tariff should be re-
vised can only hope to see a reform
measure passed, if Cannon and Payne
and Dalzell and Sherman, and their
followers are not able to organize the
lower house Of Congress. If the Re
publicans have a majority of the next
House of Representatives, the same old
Stand-pat machine-known as the "hog
combine'-will surely stand by the Re
publican national platform, which vir-
tually declares that the tariff must be
revised higher, by creating a maximum
scale of duties much greater than the
present plundering rates, which will be
continued as the minimum rates, with
perhaps some slight amendments to suit
some favored interest.
1t is already certain that an enor-
nous campaign fund has been promised
to elect the Republican ticket in return
for the platform promises that the
Economist and its stand-pat supporters
are so joyous over.
But there must be some Republicans
and also a number of Independent
voters who feel they are being robbed
by the tariff protecting the trusts, who
will hardly endorse this double headed
plan to again deceive them.
The only way to ensure tariff reform
is to elect Democrats to Congress, for
it is apparent the Republican party is
welded to its policy Of protecting the
trusts.