The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-03

Senator CumminS, (Progess1Ve) was chosen temporary chairman of the Iowa Republican State convention, in session at Des Moines today (Aug. 3 delivered a lengthy speech before the body, extracts from which are as fol- lows:
 It is not my purpose to define at this point just what the issue between republicans has been. and is, not only in Iowa, but throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is sufficient for the present to say that it relates wholly to those questions which concern the control, regulation and restriction of the pow CTS and practices of combined or concentrated wealth. Or, to phrase it again,-to the undue .and dispro- portionate share which corporate cap- ital is able to wiring from the prodts of industry, and the injustice 1t is able to inflict upon helpless 1ndivtd- uals and defenseless communities.
 In dealing with these problems the members of our party have ranged themselves along the whole stretch of economic thought and government al action-from the hopeless and re- treating reactionary to the extreme and visionary radical. The rear div
 
 varying shades of political doctrine, has come to be known as the stand patters: while the other, with some diversity of opinion upon specific questions, marches forward under the name of the progressives.
 It is probably true that some or the progressives want to go, too fast and do too much. It Is certainly true that there are many of the standpat- ters who want either to go back or to do nothing at all. Assuming that the divisions of the party are equally honest, 1t is obvious that the contest between them is not trivial, although it is to be hoped that it is but tem- porary.~
 I recur in this unparalleled situ- ation to the calm and optimistic phil osophy of Abraham Lincoln, who, in the epochal debate of 1858, after quot ing the maxim "A house divided against itself cannot stand" said:
 sI believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the un- pect the house to fall, but I do ex- pect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other"
 It is even so with the republican party. It cannot endure permanently half progressive and half standpat. do not expect to see it either defeated or dissolved, but 1t must speedily be- come all progressive or all standpat.
 I cannot permit myself to doubt that the party of Lincoln, of Grant, of Blaine, of Garfield, of Mckinley and of Roosevelt will rise triumphant ly above the clouds of it's civil war and be in the future, as it has been in the past, the best hope of man. kind, the progressive party, not only of the nation but of the world.
 I understand perfectly that there are some short-visioned men amongst us who will continue either to be- vail or denounce individual indepen- dence, and who will deplore free crit icism of party leaders and party acts, believing that to be independent of an assumed leadership and to give expressfon to honest censure of d party measure is to destroy party unity, and to invite democratic vic tory. Such men disparage both the and the patriotism of the people.
 So long as there was full and free competition in our own country 1t mattered little how excessive the tariff duties were, because the rivalry among domestic producers could be depended upon to bring prices to fair American level. We did not, tnereIOre, SerlouSly CoHcefH oui soAvSS about a scientific adjustment of the tariff Our manufacturers were pro- tected against competition from abroad and our consumers were pro- tected by the natural laws of business at home If the duties were higher than they should have been, and un- doubtedly they were in many in stances, there was no complaint for no injury resulted to the great body of the people who bought and used duti- able commodities.
 As time passed on, however, there appeared a new factor in the indus trial and commercial life of the Uni- ted States, and the era of consolida- ton and monopoly began. With business of all kinds rushed into close union, and scattered capital was drawn into the strong embrace of trusts and consultations.
 Safe from the competition Of other countries, 1t became the chief object of our manufacturers to destroy G G1m- petition in their own country. They accomplished their purpose so effec- tuaIly that years ago in nearly every important field of production prices ceased to be the result of the time honored laws of trade, and the power of determining profits fell into the hands either of monopoly or an master in protected in dustry.
 Then came a demand for a revision of the tariff. It originated in the ne- cessities of the people, and was founded upon the fundamental in stinct for justice. Deprived or the home had furnished them, the people knew, without reasoning upon 1t, that they had right to an intelli- gent readjustment of the tariff. They felt the duties should be so modified that the continued insistence upon un- fair prices would expose our manufac- turers to the correction of foreign 
 It was then that the standpatter the name which he now bears, and his campaign cry was Let we'll enough a1one.' The movement, however, was irresistible and the re- publican national convention of 1908 responding, not only with unanim1ty but with enthusiasm to the progress siye sentiment of the rank and file of the party, not only pledged the incoming congress to a revision of the tariff, but defined the doctrine of protection with a care and precision unknown to any former platform. It solemnly prescribed a rule with which to measure import duties. to the end that both producer and consumer, both capital and labor, might share in our prosperity. You remember it we'll. but nevertheless I quote it:
 "In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best main tained by the imposition of such du-