The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-30
GUESS AGAIN.

1t occurs to the Topeka Daily Cap
ital that the State Journal holds to an
attitude on the new tariff law which is
decidedly inconsistent with the one it
| assumed during the final stages of the
tariff legislation at the special session
of congress. The Capital notes that the
State Journal now believes with Presi-
dent Taft that the new tariff law is
the best one which has ever been
placed on the statute books. Then the
Capital proceeds to recall, and quote
an editorial which appeared in these
columns on July u. The Capital in
sists that this editorial urged Presi-
dent Taft to veto the tariff bill.
Had the Capital been disposed to be
fair it would have construed this edi-
torial of July II just as it was written
and not interpreted it to suit any of its
peculiar fancies. This editorial dis
tinctly urged President Taft to veto
the tariff bill if it should come to him
in the form it had passed the senate.
But the form in which it passed the
senate and the form it assumed when
it was enacted into law, after the three
weeks labor on the part of the con-
ferees, was different in divers and es-
sential particulars.
If the Capital had continued in its
search of the State Journal files of last
summer it would have found a dispatch
from Washington under the date of
July II which conveyed the information
that President Taft would undoubtedly
veto the tariff bill if the conferees did
not materially change it's provisions
from those adopted by the senate and
make it much more of a tariff revision
downward. The conferees did this very
thing, as the Capital ought to know,
and in discussing the tariff bill as 1t
was finally passed by congress and
signed by the president, the State Jour
nal under date of August said, edi
torially, among other things: That
the new tariff law will be satisfactory
to the most ardent tariff revisionists Is
not to he thought for a moment. Even
President Taft admits that it does not
| go far enough in its revisions down
ward. That it is a better law for the
whole people than even the most
| optimistic of them had reason to ex-
| pect after Mr.. Aldrich and his me
! toos' got through with their work, al
most goes without saying. The moral
effects of the revision secured by
| Mr.. Taft will be great. 1t means
that the day of outrageous tariff pro-
lection has been passed. There will
be no more high and higher tariff re-
visions in this country in the future.
All of them in the years to come will
be of the downward variety until finally
a tariff law is finally worked out which
will afford all necessary protection to
American industries and labor and at
the same time relieve the consumers of
the country of many of the financial
burdens now placed upon them"
That was the position the Journal
took on the tariff law a day or so after
it passed congress and was signed by
the president. 1t holds the same at
titude today and the Capital must be
sore put to it in its faultfinding cam
paign against the way in which the
State Journal is conducted in each Of
its several departments, if it has the
effrontery to still insist that the atti-
tude of the State Journal on tariff mat
tiers has undergone a change just be-
cause the State Journal urged the
veto of the bill as it passed the senate,
and before the conferees and Mr.. Taft
| took a hand in framing up a much
more satisfactory measure.