The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-04-06

IRE not the only items that ars eaasina
trouble to good Mr.. Payne The cat
tle]neh of the west are ready to do q
little rough riding over the free hides
section of the bill: the steel men have
started the anvil chorus against the
cut on their products; France is pre-
| pairing for Il war on our maximum
and minimum tariff: Manila has let
out Il yell because of our limit on her
| sugar and tobacco; the states that
have an Inheritance tax object to the
| same pot; tobacco growers are making
smoke over the treatment of their
product: southern cotton planters are
letting out a shrill whoop about tho
cutting Of cheaper grades of cotton
| goods. while Champ Clark feels it his
bounden and pleasant duty to rip up
| the bill generally to the extent permit
| ted by somewhat versatile. volublc.
! vigorous and vitriolic vocabulary
The hardest shedding the Payne bill!
| will have is IN the senate. where AID
| rich. Hale. Lodge and other high
priests Of the stand patters are throw
ing ashes on the track. The things
the senate will do to the measure will
be painful and plenty. The president
is now calling Aldrich into consulta-
ton to get him to temper the blow. but
Aldrich knows his masters crib and
knows that crib is not the White
House. What the bill will look like
when it returns from the senate butch
ers not even the widest imagination
can picture. but the general opinion is
that it will suffer change greater
even than did its renowned father
when he lost his whiskers
What Was Done to the Wilson Bill.
William L. Wilson once got up Il fine
tariff bill in the house. but by the time
Arthur Pue German and some Ut his
senatorial friends had finished with it
the only thing that poor Wilson rtsog-
nized about his bill was it's name Ev-
erything else except the enacting
clause had had things done to it. Pres
ident Cleveland was so incensed at the
changes that he would not sign the
measure, but let it become a law with
out his signature 1t is to be hoped
that President Taft will find no such
bantling left upon his doorstep
A revision Of the American tariff is |
always an important thing for the en-
tire commercial world, to say nothing |
of the world Of politics. The present
revision is even more noteworthy In |
that 1t constitutes the first big policy |
of new administration. The prepara-
lions for the event went forward many |
months. Mr.. Payne's committee had |
innumerable meetings in Washington,
which were livened up by such famous
humOrists rs Andrew Carnegie, who
said i'll effect that the tariff might as
we'll be abolished since he already had
his. Why Mark Twain was not called
Is not apparent.
The ancient, honorable and perennial
nature Of the tariff is indicated by Mr..
Payne himself when he says:
Our tariff system Of today. viewed
entirely apart from any political as
pect it may have and solely as we'll
economic policy Of the gov
is the outgrowth Of over Ii
hundred years Of experience. The tar
III question WAS agitated in the United
States long before the adoption of the
federal constitution
The word tariff is supposed to
have been derived from the name OF
the town Tarifa. Spain, where vessels
passing were compelled to pay tribute.
Punsters have said that it comes
from terrific, but the tariff costs too
much money to be treated with levity.
However innocent the word was in its
infancy, 1t has grown hardened i'm sin
It has also been hardened by the pro
anity hurled at it by travellers and
importers. The tariff has been sworn
1T In all languages and from the most
remote ages. AS custom houses are sit
lated on the frontier. the nations
blessed with tariff-and cursed for it
have been literally ringed with blue
What the Tariff Is Good For.
Port duties have not only caused
picturesque and diffuse blasphemy, but I
ave swelled the ranks of the Ananias I
hub. What traveller ever failed to liz ,
bout the contents of his baggage to ,
he inQuisitfve custom house officials, ,
md what traveller who did lie ever :
allied to get caught at it when the O
ustom house officials tumbled his be- ,
ongings all over the premises? There
only one good thing about the sys- :
EN-, and that Is having ones bags :
Mastered all over with aristocratic !
ooking foreign labels When a man =
an sport stickers of all kinds and =
ICES OH his suit case it let's the world -
now that he has been somewhere. Il
The tariff we have with us always.
he first political speech 1 ever heard
'as on the tariff. The last l listened
D a few months ago had the tariff as
8 chief theme. Presidents have come Il