Arizona republican., 1909-07-17
FULFILLING
 IF PROMISE Much More Important Than a
 Political Life TAFT ID THE POLITICIANS
The Tariff, He Gives It Out, Is to Be Revised For the Good of the Whole Coun- try and Not With Respect to Any District.

Washington, D. C., July 16.-The White House was stormed today by a delegation of twenty-three republican congressman, who spent an hour and a half with the president telling him that their political lives depended on the protection of raw material. Later an official statement was made at the White House as follows:
 MT Young of Michigan opposed free ore; MT. Mondell opposed free coal and reciprocity with Canada, and free hides. each on the ground that the policy would injure the interests in his state. and discussion was participated in by other representatives who urged that the doctrine of free raw materials was not republican doctrine.
 The president replied that he was not committed to the principle of free raw material. but that he was commit ted to the principle of a downward re- vision of the tariff and he was obliged to look at the matter not from the standpoint of any particular district, but from the standpoint of the whole country, and also from the standpoint of the responsibility of the entire re- publican party.
 He said the question in each case was a question of fact. to be deter mined by evidence as to whether a rate was excessive, so that a doWnward re- vision, or the putting of the article on the free list, would not injure the in dustry.
 He said that he had reached this aF he r.1a i1af he understood to be the principle of protection and justification, namely that after an industry was protected by a duty equal to the difference be- tween cost of production abroad and the cost of production in this country, including a fair profit, the energy and enterprise of American business men and capitalists, the effectiveness of American labor, the ingenuity of American inventors. and the impulse of competition behind a tariff wall would reduce the cost of production, and with such reduction the tariff rate would become unnecessarily high and ought to be reduced.
 ''The president said he felt strongly the call for downward revision within the limitations of the protective prin- ciple. and that he hoped to be able to be able to respond to the call as he heard it, in the interests of the party as well as of the country"
 The presidents statement created a sensation tonight among senators and representatives. MT Aldrich made no direct comment upon it, but said the conferees had decided to let MT Taft deal with the schedules upon which they could not agree, it being up to the president to secure the votes nec- essary to pass the meaure in the form in which it would be reported out of conference as a result of his mediation between the house and senate con ferees.
 Speaker Cannon declared that the statement contained nothing 10 which any good republican could object
 Senator Bristow of Kansas. one of the senate progressives, said: "The statement vastly strengthens the hands of the progressives."
 Mir Taft up to this time had not permitted himself to be quoted in con nection with the tariff struggle. His frame of mind was indicated in his New Haven speech on June 30, however, in which he warned the republican party