The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-05-06
PEOPLE DID NOT
ASK FOR REVISION
SAYS CUMM|NS
Senator Predicts Campaign for
Lower Duties. Ii Bill Be-
comes a Law.

WASHINGTON, May 6.-Senator
Cummins today delivered his speech on
the tariff. 1t dealt largely with the
duties proposed in the pending bill on
| the iron ore and steel schedule, and had
been looked forward to with interest.
Predicting that a failure to pass a
tariff bill providing lower duties IN
imports would provoke a political con-
test for another revision of the tariff,
Senator Cummins, of Iowa, said in
part:
1.-The bill now before us, which, 1t
may be assumed, presents the views of
the finance committee respecting the
revision of the tariff" said Mr.. Cum
Minis. ''will not be accepted by those
who have favored a revision of the
tariff as either a fulfllment of the party
pledge or as a settlement of the con-
.%troversy. If this bill, or anything sub
stantially like it, becomes a law, | pre-
dict that a campaign for lower duties
Will begin the moment the extraordi-
nary session of Congress adjo1rns, and
will continue with increasing zeal until
the JouSl1tDI eIttItu Ill Liz SOull VI
the public conscience is also entered in
the journals of Congress. 1t gives me
no pleasure to utter this prophecy, for
l have earnestly hoped that the re-
vision now in progress would end the
dispute for years to come, n that the
business of the country would enjoy the
peace' and tranquility which is impos-
sibre during the existence of a move
ment to materially change duties upon
imports.
1T is idle, worse than idle, to specu-
late upon the technical meaning of Sthe
words and phrases employed in the last
Republican platform upon this subject.
The declaration there found has a his
tory, and that history is familiar to
every member of the Senate.
Who insisted upon tariff revision?
1t was not the manufacturer; 1t was
not the lumberman; 1t was not the coal
man; 1t was not the iron and steel
man.; it was not the glass man; 1t was
not the cotton or the wooden man; 1t
was not the oil man. During the whole
agitation l never heard-you never
heard-a demand from these people
that the tariff must be revised. The
tifl0Aid NoiilC lioth tliO9t -
that the duties upon many articles and
commodities were too high; from those
who believed that they were paying too
much for the things they had to buy,
and that excessive import duties.
coupled with other conditions, were
enabling a favored few to reap in
ordinate profits, and therefore they
wanted. as one of the steps leading to
the remedy which they sought, a sub
stantial reduction of these duties. 1t is
not necessary at this moment to inquire
how many people so believed, or in
what part of the country they lived
The people, he said, have seen the
forces of competition gradually weak
en- i'm the larger fields of industry
through concentration, combinations,
agreements and ''all the other modern
mechanism which an ingenious age has
discovered Continuing he said:
III we fail now to substantially re-
duce the duties upon the important
schedules we but postpone the justict
! due to the people, a justice which
thanks to the genius of our Snstitu-
tions, they have the power to enforce
and which in the fullness Of time they
will enforce"