Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-05-28

ed their attitude toward a politician was
whether he would wear American-fnade
clothes. Similar societies sprang up in
other states, and the politician who OPP
posed them had hard sailing afterward.
Even presidents of the United States
found 1t advisable, If not necessary, that
they become members. About this time
the petition and memorial to congress
was freely brought into requisition, and
that body might we'll have concluded
that the world was on fire for protec-
ton if they had judged by the number
of long papers presented, whose breadth
has long since been squeezed out of
them by their Incorporation in the big
volumes of THE American State Pa
pers' At one point Philadelphia high
tariff society took a Virginia low tariff
association to task for advocating free
trade, and the argumentative fur few
for many weeks
Then as now, the tatriff was largely a
local issue, and when the southerner had
something to protect, he labored for pro-
lection as assiduously as any other man.
The propogandists knew this full well,
and always sought to take advantage of
the. situation. This sort of crusade did
not suit the free trade advocates of that
day, and many of them took the propa-
gandists severely to task for it. OF
their work in 1920 one member said:
Their unfounded and infiammatory
statements have pervaded every part of
the union. Each member of the pres
ent congress has been deluged with
enough stuff to fill two large volumes"
The high tariff publicity campaign
which resulted in the passage of the bill
of denominations, was the greatest that
had yet been undertaken. The country
was fairly deluged with protection liter
allure. Hezekiah Niles and Matthew Ca
rey had come onto the stage of action,
and they trained their most powerful
guns on the free trader. Niles had start
ed his Register in Baltimore years be-
fore, but is was now coming into its
own. A man perfectly sincere in his
convictions, with no selfish interest in
termixed Herewith, he made the Amer
lean System" the passion of his life.
He made Niles Register the recognized
authority on all tariff matters. and ac-
CURED an influence perhaps never be-
fore or since enjoyed by any tariff writ
err.
Matthew Carey went at 1t in a different
way. He was the greatest pamphleteer
protection has ever had. In one of his
later pamphlets he states that he had
"AAbNSA anu PuOAlSucO Ily-cCNCn DOOhlcbS
on protection, aggregating some 2,29E
pages, besides many essays, circulars, me-
MORALS and newspaper articles. He charG-
ed the manufacturers whom he had
helped by his work with being ungrateful
and when they refused to pay him $3.50 for
expenses incurred he published the letters
of gratitude they had written him along
side of their answers to his requests for
compensation.
From the days of Carey and Niles down
to the present time the output of litera-
ture in favor of protection has never been
allowed to fall OFF. The manufacturers Of
the country contribute literally to the
propaganda, and in addition to this use
their Own instrumentalities to reach the
public. At the present time a leading
manufacturer of automobiles is sending
broadcast to the press liberal supply Of
high tariff literature, and others are fol-
lowing his example.
When one looks over the list of publica-
lions dealing directly and indirectly with
the tariff as shown by the indices of the
library of congress, he is astounded by
their vast number. They range all the
way up from a ten-page pamphlet to a
six-hundred-page book, and from that up
to a ten-volurne set. Nearly all of this lit
erature is controversial, and most Of II
bears the mark of partisan and the politi-
clan, rather than that of the student and
the historian. In all the vast array there
are not over half a dozen books whose
statements are not more or less tinged
by partisan bias. The protection ltera-
ture bears a proportion of more than
two-to-one as compared with the free
trade literature.
The propaganda has justified its exist
ence many times over to those RESPONSE
BILE for it. Representing as 1t does the
most incessant and complete missionary
effort ever made by any political party in
any country, 1t has also yielded fruits be-
yond the richest dreams of avarice.
Whether the doctrine of protection is
right or wrong, it has been hammered so
deeply into the minds of the people that
at the present time it seems not to be d
question of protection or free trade, but
of the degree OF protection. The propa-
gandists have taught the nation to forget
the old idea that protection should be a
temporary thing and to regard it as per-
manent principle.-(Copyri 1909, by
Frederick ]. Haskin.)