Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-01
FAVORS LUMBER
ADMITTED FREE
SENATOR M'CUMBER SPEAKS
ON TARIFF MEASURE
Says He Is Protectionist, but Does
Not Believe In Duty on Coal,
Iron and Such
Products

WASHINGTON, April 30.-An ex-
tended speech by Senator McCumber,
favoring free lumber occupied several
hours in the senate today. His remarks
provoked an extended controversy
among advocates of a tariff on lumber.
Mr.. McCumber said while he was a
thorough protectionist he would not
agree to a tariff on products such as
coal, iron ore, lumber and oil, that are
being exhausted and cannot be re-
placed.
Senator Aldrich reported from the
committee on finance additional amend
ments to the bill and the senate adopted
a motion made by him that until fur
ther notice the senate shall meet at IL
o'clock daily.
Mr.. McCumber presented a statistical
estimate to show that the coal of the
United States at the present rate of
consumption would last 100 years, iron
ore fifty years, lumber thirty years, and
oil from twenty to fifty years, and
maintained that the best way to con-
serve these supplies would be to per-
nit free importation of such products.
He argued the United States can COM
pete in open markets. of the world for
steel rails and other steel manufac-
lures, "yet Carnegie and Schwab and
Corey and Gary and that crowd have
influence enough to have high rates of
duty retained"
Mr.. McCumber replied that he would
be glad to vote with Mr.. Tillman on any
schedule the rates of which Mr.. Tillman
could prove were higher than was nee
essary to protect the difference in labor
cost in America and abroad.
II deny that there is any one policy
that can make one-half of the Ameri-
can people rich and the other half
poor" said Mr. McCumber, suggesting
that Mr.. Tillman would agree that
there is no way of feeding a pig so
that one side would be lean and the
other side fat.
The senator from South Carolina, he
said, seemed to have an idea that no
one could be honest but himself
Mr.. Tillman took exception to this
and asked: Does hog ever get
grown?"
The senator from North Dakota re-
fused to answer this question directly,
and provoked another colloquy, in
which Mr.. McCumber referred to Mr..
Tillman as a cornfield lawyer.
The senate finance committees sub
stitute for the Payne tariff bills maxi
mum and minimum provision was re-
ported to the senate today by Senator
Aldrich, chairman of the committee. 1t
puts in effect, after March 81, 1910, a
maximum provision for an additional
25 per cent ad valorem on all of the
rates of the senate bill, and then gives
to the president the power to apply by
proclamation the minimum rates to any
country or section of a country. 1t
provides for a duty of cents on coffee
and 10 cents on imported tea from
countries to which the maximum rates
are applied. The section also gives the
president the power to employ a tariff
commission for the purpose of gather
ing information only.
The senate's retaliatory provision is
practically reversal OF that originally
placed in the Payne bill. Instead of the
maximum rates applying automatically
against a country which discriminates
in its tariff laws against the United
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