Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1909-08-27

The work of the extra session is
finished The tariff has been revised.
The public is keen to know the result.
In Judging the true character of the
Payne A ldrich law it is we'll for us to
remember who forced tariff revision
and why.
Who raised the question of tariff
revision in the beginning? Who
petitioned Congress session after ses-
sion for five long years? Who finally
compelled candidates and political
conventions to declare for revision?
1t was not the Steel Trust, the
Sugar Trusts, the Coal Trusts, the
Lumber Trusts, the Woolen Trusts,
the Cotton Trusts, the Harvester
Trust. The trust were opposed to
any change. Strong in combined
power, they had suppressed all COM
petition. They ruled the market,
raised prices by agreement, eXacted
profits. at. will The Dingley law
served their purpose admirably.
They opposed revision. The trusts
oSoSu paw. OchSI may hoU
known just what the trusts wanted
but Congress did just what the trusts
wanted. 1t refused to revise the
tariff. Congress stood pat.
But the consumer in every state,
who paid higher and higher prices
for poorer and poorer articles, de-
manded tariff revision. The small
manufacturers, dependent upon the
trusts for raw material in the form of
bar iron and steel and lumber and
coal, oppressed by steady advancing
charges, were compelled to join with
the consumers for revision of the
tariff. The retail merchants every
where obliged to put prices up by
trust-made merchandise, month by
month, and face complaining Gus
toners, gave their united support to
the consumers for revision.
The demand for revision was press
ed session after session. Tariff revi-
sion became a general cry. The stand
pat Congress had to yield. Revision
had to come It was a consumers
victory.
Was it? Let us see What was
tariff revision for? What did it really
mean?
1t was not to increase duties.
Surely that would be atrocious. It
was not to re-enact the Dingley rates.
1t would be absurd to call an extra
session to re-enact the Dingley tariff.
Manifestly victory for revision which
the consumers won from the Stand
pat Congress was tariff revision
which would secure release from
the Dingley rates, under which
the cost of living had in
creased anywhere from forty to
sixty per cent. The revision which
the consumer demanded and suppos-.
ed he was to receive was revision to
tighten his burdens, to make it easier
to maintain modest home and add
some comforts to the hard life of the
wage Garner.
Plainly, then, tariff revision meant
downward revision. But how much
and what kind of downward revision?
Not a cunning, deceitful, downward
revision, applied to articles rarely if
ever purchased by the mass of people.
Not a sleight-of-hand reduction on
articles of general use, so shrewdly
measured as to enable the trust to
continue to charge exorbitant prices.
Downward revision meant honest
downward revision, producing the
result for which the consumer sought
revision. 1t meant reducing the
rates on articles entering into general
domestic use enough to insure foreign
competition as an effective check
not against production in this country,
but against the intolerable and extor-
tionate greed of those who criminally
combine to control the markets of /,
80, ,0OO, 900 people.
That was the kind of revision which
the changed industrial conditions de-
manded: the kind OF revision !
the people understood they |
were to get; the kind of revision
the Republican party promised; the
kind of revision the Republican candi-
date for President pledged again and
again during the campaign. Not
lower rates on raw material for the |
benefit OF trusts; not lower rates on
articles the average man never pur-
chases at all; not cheese pairing reduc-
tions on articles OF common use. so |
skillfully adjusted as to prevent the |
slightest reduction in price, but
genuine, honest, effective tariff reduc-
tion on articles entering into general
consumption which In the aggregate
make up the burden of the cost of
living.
The kind of revision demanded,
promised, accepted, voted for and de-
creed at the polls has not been even
partially complied with In so far as
the price Of any article of common
use is effected, by the rates fixed in
the Payne-Aldrich tariff law, the
cost will be increased to the consumer.
Mark this statement. The character
of this legislation is not to be deter