Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1909-03-01
THE SPOILSMONGERS
The Protective TARIFF LEAGUE
MOVING ON WASHINGTON.
manufacturers Association DenOun.
CeS the American Tariff League
and It's Works. II Is Largely Re.
SpOnSjbIe for the Graft Tariff
Schedules in the DingIey Biu.

While the combinations of spoils-
mongers are insisting upon letting
we'll enough alone" and preparing to
move their lobby agents on Washing
ton to set in motion every maneuver
to balk the tariff revision to which
both parties are pledged, the conven-
tion at Indianapolis affords a gratify-
ing indication of the sentiments of
the manufacturers of the. country.
The convention has opened it's pro-
ceedings, under the most favorable
auspices, with a demand that there
shall be no delay in the proposed
work of tariff revision. What was of
peculiar significance in the session of
Tuesday was the hearty greeting
which the convention gave Mr.. J. w.
Van Cleave's vigorous denunciation
Of the American Protective Tariff
League and its works.
For years this combination of tariff
beneficiaries has undertaken with no
small success to dominate the politics
of the country. 1t has dictated the
platform of the Republican National
Conventions, and when the election
was over it has obtained cabinet
places and foreign missions for its
leading members. Its lobby agents
wrote into the Dingley act the iniqui-
fo hr;
manufactures, tinplate and sugar.
Since the election it has begun an
agitation to drive President ELECT
Taft from his pledge to convene an
extra session of congress. At the
same time it has been untiring in it's
misrepresentation of Secretary
Roots agreement with Germany,
which has averted a commercial war;
fare against this country.
At last, amid the approving plaud-
its of the National Association of
Manufacturers, it is proposed to put
this hoary old league humbug out of
business. Since the manufacturers
of the country, through their nation
al association, unite with the consum-
ers in the movement for tariff reform
the league has no longer reason for
existence and may as we'll put up its
shutters and discharge Wilbur F.
FWakeman. While the manufacture
ers demand substantial reduction of
the exorbitant duties on crude and
half-finished materials of industry as
an essential condition of business
prosperity, the league opposes any
change of these duties, and for this
reason 1t has ceased to represent the
men who are assembled at Indian
apolis.
Another condition demanded by
the Indianapolis convention is that
the work of tariff revision shall pro-
ceed without further delay. Without
this action the industrial depression
under which the country has been
suffering for more than a year would
be prolonged indefinitely, to the in
creasing distress of working people.
OF course the manufacturers and all
others interested in this economic
clause are too we'll aware of the in
fluence of the trusts upon congress
to indulge sanguine hopes of a salts
factory revision of the tariff by it's
"friends;" but the sooner the revi-
sion the better. Should the spolia-
tory combinations prevail against
such revision there will remain an ap-
peal to the people in the next elec-
tions for congress against the pledge
breaking party and its recreant rep
resentatives.