The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-30
AMERICAN TARIFF LAY
XW-.Ths WiIson BiN
By Frsdssic ]. Hsskin.

which night sessions were held, the eul was taken up and amended. ~ is curious fact that the most remASkable feature of the measure was onered ss an amendment by Repre- sentative McMillin of Tennessee. just three days before the House finally voted on the whole bill It was tn. in come tax provision. Very few of the Republicans voted for the income tas amendment or against 1t, but ssorstiy rsjoiced at its passage. on the as- sumption that thus overloaded. the measure could never pass through the needles eye of Legislative enactment.
 February l. 1s0t was . red letter day in the House end of the Capitol. Ex- Speaker Reed was leading the opposi- tion. and Speaker Crisp took the floor in support of the measure. which was to be passed that day after three hours of debate. These two giadiatoYs each had an inning of an hour and a half. and they knew that at the end of their fray the vote would be taken. Reed led off in a speech that was a re- markable combination of logic. humor. biting wit and satire. At one point hs attacked Bourke Cochran, who had di- lated on the low wages of labor. by reading another speech from the New
 
 the opposite position. Cochran had said something about the survival of the superior. and Reed replied that if the strong bull of Bashan and . salt water smeI were cast into the Allan tic Ocean he would take his chances with the smelt.
 When Reed finished speaking, Speak CT Crisp called Representative Hatch to the chair and took the floor to ans wer Reed. He was appiauded perhaps even more than Mir. Reed had been. The galleries were packed. the floor and the cioak-rooms were nlled to overnowing. William L. wilson made the final speech in behalf of the bill and the colleagues of the West vir- ginian took him on their shoulders and bore him in triumph around the hall of the House. It was one of the most remarkable proceedings ever witnessed there. Modest and retiring in his de- meanor. Wilson was as baahful as a school girl and showed great smbar- rassment while thus being carried around.
 one of the most remarkable speeches delivered in the course of the House debate was delivered by William Jen- nlnss Bryan. on the nineteenth of Jan uary. If anyone thinks he was a beardless youth gaining his first tri- umph at the Chicago convention. let him read the Congressional Record of the date mentioned. Washington knew him. The House was acquaint- cd with his powers. and he was accord ed unusual honors. He was given un- limited time in which to deliver his speech. and so great was the demand to hear him that visitors were admitted to the floor of the House itself, priv ile6e seldom granted to any speaker. MT. Bryan said little that was new, for such thing has long since become next to impossible. But he presented which characterized his great Chicago speech two years later.
 When one reads the debates of that year he cannot help wondering at the difference of opinion that can grow up over a single phase of the vast tarifr question. The Democrats declared that the Mckinley tar.ff had enhanced the price of everything, and that its bene- ficiarfes were using the wall construct ed by that law to extort higher prices from the people. In support of this they presented long lists Of articles that were sold higher at home than abroad. The Republicans answered by presenting equally long lists of articles
 
 less than the tariff on them. The tar in on wire nails was two cents, yet they were selling for ] 2-s cents a pound. The tariff on lead pencils was sixty cents . gross. while the whole sale price was forty-five cents. And so 1t continued. The Democrats re- joined that 1t was the claim of the tar in people that they wanted duties which would make up the difference in the cost of labor. and that the average total cost of labor entering into the finish ed products of the American was only fifteen per cent of their aggregate value. while the duties levied were three times as much. In other words, they sought to show that the duties levied were on m average three times as great as the whole labor cost. and probably ten times as much as the difference of cost between European and American labor. And so the light went on. leaving the people to pay their money and take cir choice.
 1909. by Frederic J. Has,
 kin.) romorrow--American Tariff Laws. LvII-The wiison-Gorman Law.