The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-07-14
THE BROKEN DYKE.
The Story of Nation Beaten I'm It's
Fight For Free Lumber.

dixie, last the torrent. There Won
have the story of a nation beaten in
its fight for free lumber. The quib-
bling tariff plank of the Chicago
platform is the leak which gave the
Hood right Of way. The break in the
dixie came when the Senate took
vote which was interpreted as fore
casting retention of the Dingley
rates. But during the weeks between
the Gath of May and the 23rd of June.
the waters had been silently gnaw-
ing, and seething in darkness had
risen higher and higher. Tariff hoo
dcoism was trying it's strength. And
when the Senate suddenly boosted
the schedules on several of the chief
Timber products the barrier fell with
a crash and Niagara poured in. But
the spasmodic on-rush was cal
culated spasm. 1t had been foreseen
had been planned for and tentatively
essayed, long before. The May vote
against free lumber was a mere dress
rehearsal. The action of the 23rd Of
June was the climax of the drama.
No more illogical, no more unjust, no
more daring elimination has marked
the vast spectacular production OF
Revision Upward"
Were the National Monthly to state
N
tions in an arithmetic, all the argu-
| incnts for free lumber, we should
consume the whole editorial space Of
this magazine. But here are a few
plain facts. The timber supply of the
| country is swiftly diminishing. The
prices are intolerable. A great build
ing season is upon US. All sorts of
substitutes. like concrete, are being
exploited for construction purposes.
Railroad buildings and repairs are
formidably handicapped by the diff
Guilty of procuring ties. and any rail-
| way manager can tell a remarkable
| story of the attempts of American in
vention to devise substitutes for the
timber tie. The Republicans are yell
ing for ship subsidy, and economic
| experts Of all parties or of no party
are deploring the decline of our mer-
chant marine. Yet the forests with
which Perry built his ships on Lake
Erie, and which fitted out our vast
peace naval establishment before the
| Civil War, are groaning and falling
under the ak. So tremendous is the
demand for lumber that at this mo-
ment spectators are planning to go
to the regions near the Georgian Bay
and to other points in Canada, buy up
timber tracts, ship the lumber into
the United States, PAY THE TAR
IFF and yet heap up fortunes which
In few years will make them mill
lionaries. If these exploiters can pay
the tax and yet make money, how
enormous must be the profit in the
business. Who finally pays the bill?
The consumer.
| And the consumer is numbered by
tens of millions
| He means, not only the farmer who
! builds a frame house, but the man
who can't afford to build but must
rail new shingles on an old roof or
get wet. He means the city man who
| wants to own his own hme; the city
| fa1 hn int 70
construct houses for other people to
buy or RAT. He means everyone who
must have lumber, from a Henry III.
| Rogers puzzled to find a permanent
supply for that Virginia railroad of
his to the housewife who asks her
husband for an extension table. Is
| destruction of the American mer-
| chant marine is our own folly, fault
| and fraud, and conscientious enough
to admit that the way to rehabilitate
1t is not to sail Yankee ships under
foreign flags nor to rob the treasury
by q subsidy steal? That man, too,
is one of the consumers who is plum
dered by the lumber tariff
Who is protected? Nobody who
needs the protection.
The brOad--ax Of the timber ta~ff
manipulators has struck slashing
blow at a whole nation. Or, to change
the metaphor, the treachery to the
- int x.,h;o
those OF the people who in some form
or other must use lumber, is one of
the titanic branches OF the upas tree
OF Republican reputation OF Repub-
lican pledges.-National Monthly.