The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-04-15
WASHINGTON
From our Regular Correspondent.

Washington, ID. c., Apr. Ia, 1909.
The Republicans are getting
themselves into pretty snarl over
their alleged tariff revision. APP
parently President Taft and some
other members of the party delrded
themselves with the belief that the
tariff could be revised BY its
friends but the attempt has served
only to demonstrate the accuracy
of the Democratic contention that
the Republican party is the crea-
ture of trusts and special interests,
that its members are behoden to
them for their election to Congress,
and however insistent may be the
demands of the voters or the walls
OF the consumers, they dare not
disobey their masters. Were the
tariff system what it purports to
be, simply method of encouraging
infant industries to a point where
they can stand alone, the claim that
the tariff law should be revised by
its friends would be logical and
consistent, but whatever may have
been the Fundamental theory of the
protective sy5tem, as administered
by the party in power it has be-
come simply a method Of enhanc-
ing the profits and perpetrating the
monopolies ofits benefciaries whom
return for the favors conferred upon
them send men to Congress to car
~ out their wishes when ever a re-
vision is undertaken. The truth
of these assertions is becoming APP
parent TO Mr.. Taft aud other the
oretical advocates of that fuuda.
mental policy of the Republican
party. Already the President is
beginning to realize that in the
near future he will be confronted
with the dilemma of vetoing the
Aldrich Payne bill because it is in
no sense revision downwards"
or of signing bill which in no es-
sential makes good the pledges of
his party, as expressed in the plat
form on which he was nominated
and elected.
*..*
Behind the closing doors of the |
Finance Committee Senator AL
drich and his colleagues are gradu-
ally but surely eliminating from
the Payne bill every feature which |
could, by any stretch of the imagi- |
nation, be regarded as in the in
terest of the consumer. Republi-
can senators on the Finance Com
mittee complain bitterly of the sell
fishness of the protected interests.
They say frankly that these men
are so insistent on the maximum of
protection that they demand rates
which must prove the destruction
of kindred industries. The tanners
OF hides insist upon duties which
the makers of boots and shoes de-
clare will prove their ruin. The
steel trust insists upon duties on
bar steel which make it impossible
for the manufacturers of tools to
turn out their products at profit.
but, why do you heed these in
ordinate demands? your cores
pondent asked a Republican men,
Der of the Finance Committee.
The reply was as illuminating as it
was frank. "They are our friends,
said the Senator "and we cannot
incur their enmity".
*,s*
Whether the next House of Rep
resentatives is Republican or Dem
ocratic depends entirely upon
whether it is possible to deceive
majority of the people all the time.
The Republican candidates for re-
election will go on the stump and
point to the magnificent reduction
of fve-one-h -hundredths of a cent
they have made in the duty on raw
sugar. Of course they will say
nothing of the fact that as long as |
they left the duty on refined sugar
intact the reduction pro6ted only |
the sugar trust. They will point
to the increased duty on gloves and
hosiery as evidence of the solici-
tude of their party for the girls and
women working in the knitting fac
tories and numbering several hun
dred thousand, but they will say
nothing of the consumers compell-
ed to pay higher prices or wear
thinner gloves and stockings and
numbering several millions. If the
voters think, instead of permitting
the Republican politicians to do
their thinking for them November
1910. there will be Democratic
majority in the next House Of Rep.
resentatives.
"a