Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1909-06-17
WARNS REPUBLICAN COLLEAGUES
OF DANGER In TARIFF BILL.
Iowa Senator DenOunCeS AldriCh Bill
and Warns Republican Party That
1t Will Be Held Responsible for a
WantOn Violation OF pre-cIeCtiO
Pledges.


nothing to fear fro mthe fireside of
nothing to fear from the fireside of
hand, it finds there its most disinter-
ested advocates and it's most impair
tial judges. For half century our
people have defended it with with
no direct concern of any large sig
nificance in any of it's schedules and
no purpose to serve except the gen.
eral prosperity of the American peo-
pie.
What | have said of Iowa is true,
in an important sense, of the upper
Mississippi Valley, and | cannot help
thinking that there is radical de-
feet in that party leadership which
dsmsses the voice of that great
community fearlessly expressed in
cal sneer about the weakness of pub
lie men who are governed by tempo
rary political eXigencies. For it ought
not to be forgotten that what we are
doing here must be submitted to the
! American people-a jury of unnum-
bered millions, already impanelled,
with this case under consideration
1t is not the same jury which passed
upon the tariff act of 1897; it is the
| life, as the late Senator Hoar sug-
gests in his 'Autobiogra of SevGn-
ty Years" that within this period The
whole field of American industry has
undergone a revolution. The indie
pendent workshops of American labor
stand no longer as they appeared in
| the magnificent vision of Alexander
! Hamilton when he laid down the doc
I. zine that the competition of do
nlestic producers would guard the
community against all the evils Of eX-
tortion. The inspiring retrospect of
Mr.. Blaine in his "Twenty Years in
Congress- in which he recounted the
| triumphs of the protective doctrine
in the perfect fulfiment of Hamil-
tons prediction, already needs good
deal of revision to bring the narra-
tive up to date.
In 1897, when the Dingley tariff
law was enacted, the consolidation Of
our industrial system into great COZ
l.orations had not fairly begun. The
business men who appeared before
the Ways and Means Committee OF
the House were an anxious COM
pany; they spoke for silent factories
and the dead ashes Of furnaces with.
out fire and chimneys without smoke
They represented unemployed labor
and idle capital; they belonged to
the old industrial regime, now al
most obsolete in nearly all great de-
partemnts of production, and they re-
ceived the treatment which they
would receive now freely at my hands
if l had the power to give it to
them. 1t is a grim failure to com.
prehend what old DR.. johnson used
to call 1.-The sad vicissitudes OF
things" when the leaders of politi-
cal party summon their followers tC
practically re-enact the tariff of 1897
under the conditions which prevail
today, and when men are derided be-
cause, having helped to frame that
law, they seek to have it re-exam-
ined in the light of present-day ex-
perience.
Is it possible that a man, because
he voted for the Allison tin-plate rate
of 1889 and heard poor Mckinley de-
dicate the first tin-plate mill in
American, can be convicted in this
chamber of treachery to the protect.
ive-tariff system if he desires that
schedule re-examined, after seeing
the feeble enterprise of 1890 grown
within a single decade to the full
measure of this market place, organ.
lied into great corporations, overcap-
italzed into speculative trust, and
at length unloaded on the United
States Steel Company, with rake
off to the promoters sufficient to buy
the Rock Island system? If a tran.
saction like that has made no i'm
preston upon the mind Of Congress
expose no secret in saying that ii
has made a very profound impression
on the thought and purposes of the
American people.
! l repeat, therefore, what said the
other day, the duty of this Congress
is to reduce the margin of protec-
tion provided in the Dingley rates