The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-05-19
SAYS TARIFF IS
NOT THE CAUSE
Michigan Congressman Attributes
High Cost Of Living to Other
Reasons
PLEADS FOR A SIMPLE LIFE
Representative Hamilton Urges Es-
tablishment of Permanent Tariff
Board to Investigate Conditions
in Other Lands

Washington, May 19. - A tariff
speech, snappy with opigram, brist-
ling with aphorism, preaching the doc
trine OF the simple life as the bulwark
of civilization and protection as the
producer of prosperity, was delivered
In the House today by Representative
Hamilton, of Michigan. 1t pictured
nine months of increasing revenues
and announcement of American In
dustry under the Payne bill. 1t drew
on the legitimate spoils of trade and
the policies and declarations of for
elgn statecraft as the justification OF
the protection policy. 1t attributed the
high cost of living to increased gold
production, to demand crowding sup
ply, to extravaganza Of feverished
generation and to almost everything
else but the tariff.
Mr.. Hamilton Is chairman of the ter
ritories committee of the House and his
speech is likely to figure conspicuously
in the next republican national cam
paign propaganda. He favored the Gre
alton of bureau in the Department of
Commerce and Labor to permanently
carry on the work now being done by
the tariff board. supplementing it with
n corps OF forign speaking experts the
reports OF whose investigation of sell
| ing prices and labor costs at home and
abroad would furnish a standard of
measure of conflicting claims I'm the
| framing of a tariff law.
| He contended that the tariff plank
| in the republican platform provided
| both upward and downward limits and
that 'by so much as you raise duties
above the difference i'm cost of pro-
duction at home and abroad, after due
allowance for the foreign custom OF
selling goods cheaper abroad than AT
home, by so much you permit domestic
monopolies to overchance domestic
consumers"
"A few years ago" said Mr.. Hamil-
ton. "boys wore out their fathers old
clothes made over, according to a
neighborhood pattern; now they have
to have store clothes and socks 70
match their neckties and a college yell
man was considered well off If nc
kept a horse and buggy; now he has
TO have an automobile If he has tc
mortgage the place to get 1t. The
acreage business man does business
with telephone at one ear steno'
grapher at each elbow, telegraph
Office next door. a wireless station
within cash reach an automobile a
the door and before many years M
will want flying machine to avoi'
the crush in the street below
"we now have 100000 factories. EN-
| ployink 100000 people. keeping TIM
to the demands of 90,000,000 folks. Th'
! protection policy has built up an an
: nual factory output of $4,000 OOOO,OOO
paying out $4,000. 100000 in wages am
? has kept the machinery of protection
. in motion until it has developed I
horsepower equivalent to 100000
] men. The country never was NOR
prosperous.
I "The farmer has been caricature
, by cheap city humorists, prayed on d.
grasshoppers, locusts and money shark
| and misled by predatory politicians
: Now he has come into his own and
G am glad of 1t. He Is one OF the sai
= est. soundest, cleanest elements in on
= civilization. The city would nav
dried up rotted or exploded but 10
the country that came into town ia
before yesterday Too much of tn
country has been coming into tow
s though The farmer Is receiving oni
n fair price but middlemen are charg
n ing too much for handling and tryin
; 10 attribute the responsibility to IN
= farmer The time has gone by howeve
n when thrifty gentlemen can take to
: of the farmer and out of the consume
n and fool both at the same time"
h Mr.. Hamilton charged the chea
@ politician with singing one song in IN
q citv and another. OF different tnn
a. i'm the country. re described the si'
e uation as filled with contradiction
: everybody pickering to locate u
a blame for high prices. "Bills, resolt
v tions. Investigations. commission
lboycotts, anti-meat societies, anu-ee
societies. anti-food trust and vegeta
ian organizations are rampant ana
the midst of II the democratic gentle
is men. after time honored custom, a
diligently trying to convert disconte'
10 into votes.
IS We arc getting farther away fro
in the old fundamental human relation
r that sustain and console folks.
10 are always going separately althoul
= we jostlc one another on the sidewal
I'd II Is an age of steam engin'sm. We r.
es the machine and the machine runs I
The talk on the street today becom
n the law tomorrow. Politics mea
&c parties. parties the people and parti
have to have leaders and ohief prie'