The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-18

MON1A4, JAN U A-
 tives of the Sea Island growers of that
 state, for the purpose of asking your hon. orable body to incorporate in the bill re- vising the present tarin schedules, which l you will soon frame, provision plae-
 ing a duty on all Egyptian, West ln-
 dian and other long staple cotton im-
 ported into the United States from any
 foreign country whatsoever.
 First, I submit. Mr. Chairman, with i out any wise discussing or even infringing
 on the relative virtues of protective
 tariff and tariff for revenue,' that 1 the recent election and other elections l preceding it have, in my opinion, forever 1 established as a part of our system of government the indirect scheme of taxa
 tion. viz, the levy and collection of cus-
 toms duties on articles imported into this country from foreign lands.
 l This being true, I am firmly of the 1 opinion that this matter ought to be re- moved from the domain of partisan poli-
 tics and be hereafter treated as busl-
 ness proposition and a commission or
 other proper tribunal created to deal 1 with it'
 1 Asks for Protection. l When, later on, MT. Hatcher of Florida appeared, the chairman said: Are you 1 in favor of making up tariff bill that would guard against possible consequences i in the future, so that if you see cotton
 or other article abroad that you think is ] liable to compete with an article raised i here or manufactured here that you will i be willing to go ahead and put on suf- l ficient protection in order to be sure to l protect it?'
 MT. Hatcher-"Yes."
 1 The Chaiiman-"I do not refer to cotton especially. but anything else" MT. Hatcher-"Yes; I really do. I am democratic protectionst." Daughter and applause.)
 ] The chairman-"You are real protec- i tionist?'
 i MT. Hatcher-"Yes."
 And so will every other southern man i be whose economic interests require pro- l lection. Will Colonel Watterson call these ] practical men from the south who are
 striving to protect their material inter :, ests from destruction, dreamers of the ] clolster, writers of plays that will not ] stand the test of the stage? Is the new 1 south, which is growing rich through the
 rapid development of her manufacturing ] and mining interests, to sacrifice them be- l cause perchance, a half-century ago her statesmen advocated a different policy when she was almost exclusively an agri-
 cultural community? Certainly, so far
 as practical politics is concerned, the l south has never been a Don Quixote. Commercial Expansion On. 1 The south stands in a special relation 1 to the territorial expansion that followed
 the close of the Spanish-American war, l and to the commercial expansion that now l includes the Antilles and the states of l Central and South America. In 1899 the
 imports from Latin-America were s154,-
 495,SS4; the exports, S97, ,391, ,s9S-total, S251,- i SS7,732. In 1907 the imports were $316. 496,-
 576; the exports. $237, $40, ,676-total, $554,
 337,252-an annual increase of s9O2, 449 520.
 No true southern heart can fail to be l gladdened by the sight at Mobile and l New Orleans of the wharves crowded as they are with steamships bearing among
 other things tropical fruits from the lands to the south oi us. Often on busy day
 the trains necessary at Mobile to trans
 port such products to the west, if placed
 end to end, would be a mile long.
 To that growing prosperity by sea the
 building of the Panama canal is giving marked impetus. When that new water
 way is opened up to the far east for southern products peculiarly adapted to Oriental markets the south will enter upon a fresh stage of progress whose possibil- ities can scarcely be estimated. Jefferson's fondest dream was of that kind of a ter ritorial and trade expansion. On October 24, 1923, he wrote to Monroe:
 q candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our l system of states. The control which, with
 Florida Point, this island would give us l over the Gulf of Mexico and the coun- 1 tries .and isthmus bordering on 1t, as
 well as those whose waters flow into it,
 would fill up the measure of our political
 well being'
 Can Become Richest Section. Thus guided by the beacon light set up 1 by Jefferson the south will not be blind enough to turn her back upon a trade expansion which, when it reaches the far east will make her the richest section of the union.
 In the judicial order the south has tri- umphed and now dominates the construc- tion of the constitution through the gen ius of John Marshall. He 1t was who really created the existing Jurisdiction of the supreme court of the United States, which alone makes possible the adminis- tration of our existing system of inter- state commerce, and the crushing warfare
 now carried on by the nation against | trusts and monopolies.
 1 The democratic party has lost the con-
 fidence of the country because it is not i in sympathy with the new national spirit i which demands, first. that the constitution l shall be construed according to the ideas
 of Marshall; second, that our territorial
 and trade expansion, including the acqui- 1 sition of territory not contiguous, shall
 advance along the broad and far-reach-
 ing lines as defined by Jefferson.
 Two Great Parties Needed. l In the Review article in which I have maintained that the solid south is a na- l tional calamity, and as such should be
 dissolved, I was careful to say:
 Such a charge should have no effect
 whatever upon the corporate existence l of the two great parties upon which, as opposing forces. the health of our politi-
 cal life depends. Every patriotic Ameri-
 can, regardless of politics. should rejoice l to know that the unity of the democratic 1 party has been re-established, because without two such organizations represen- l tative government cannot go on in the normal way. The time has ar rived when every southern man, without
 being menaced by the banished specter of the negro question, must be permitted 1 to be in the south as is every man in 1 the north, a democratic or republican, ac-
 cording as his real convictions lead him
 one way or the other"
 Must Face Real Issue. l What southerner of the ancient regime l who is proud of his intellectual independ- 1 ence, Is willing to continue, without a req | son, in state of mental servitude that
 denies to him the right to listen to all