The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-05
58L ARGUMENT
 f LAT GILLETTE aolan Senator Drives Home
 acts on Tariff
 8.e.I MAKES EXCUSES
Eaf 'etss -esents Facts to the Sen That New Tariff VI ]. Higher and
 .as -t.tar
CT.

Was 1H Senator LaFole, aauai ad his three dayA l sched- ule at 4.30 . az4 When he resumed h. ea every fair minded mind wh E owed the de- bate admitted that mnts had been driven home which W, DC extremely diff fcult for the organization to confute. Throughout the entire controversy over the tariff no clear and lucia explanation has been submitted by the finance com- mittee. At the very inception of discus sion over a month ago Senator Deliver, during his great speech on the cotton schedule, when tie desks about him re- sembled dry goods store, declared that schedule to be the most tretcherous ana subtle in the entire bill.
 No answer has vet been made to his argument, and now that the whole sched- ule has been laid bare in such an able fashion by MT. LaFollette. it seems cer- tainly incumbent upon MT. Aldrich to elucdate it. Since the opening of debate over the schedule itself. the only defense offered by MT. Aldrich and his man Friday"-Senator Smoot-has been a vague and general denial of the claim that the reclassifieation of items in the cotton schedule does not raise but on the other hand lowers the Dingley rates Their claim has been that the schedules as now drafted really represent de- crease of about per cent from the Ding ley rates. This claim was surely punc- tured by MT. LaFollette during his three days speech and unless the finance com mittee can show that the figures sub mitted by MT. LaFollette are wholly wrong then the cotton schedule may have hard sledding when lAe vote occurs.
 Senator William Alden Smith, after hearing Mr.. LaFoIettes argument de- clared that if ii oe's sbe shown to his satisfaction that ti.s teal effect of the rates proposed by M Aldrich is to raise the duties on cotton goods, that he will vote against that increase. Senator Gal finger has intimated that he is In approx imately a similar frame of mind. This is the result of the power of the argument which MT. LaF'ollette has been making.
 It was doubtless the ablest speech MT. LaFollette has delivered since his entry into tho Senate. Ard one of the best of the whole tariff debate. The cotton schedule is extremely complicated, and it's intricacies are great deal clearer since he began his speech. The effect his argument was making had about as much as anything else to do with the ruffled temper of many of the "elder statesmen" group yesterday.
 That the cost of mercerization was less in this country than in England was as- serted by MT. EaFolette, who added that the hours of labor in England are gen orally less than in the United States During the last b years, he said, under the improved systems of manufacture In this country, the cost of production of cotton goods has decreased so that he contended that there was no excuse for an increase of duty.
 While Mir. LaFolette reverted to the question of profits of New England cot ton mills, Mir Tillman interposed to say that although South Carolina was next to Massachusetts in the number of it's spin des, manufacturing S00000 of the ,0O0,00O bales of cotton 1t raised, the mill owners there desired no increase of duty on cot ton goods.
 Senator Gallinger added that New Hampshire mills did not want the Ding ley duties increased, and that he under stood the chairman of the committee on finance said that they had not been.
 At 4:53 o'clock MT. LaFollette concluued his speech, after having held the floor continuously for nearly six hours.