Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-03
TARIFF DISTINCTIONS

n A sound and sensible discussion
of the tariff question as it relates
Il to the citrus industry in South
ern California, William D. stephens
compressed the thing into a nutshell
with the following paragraph:
California hitherto has been
placed in an unfortunate position.
A cent on oranges and q cent and a
half on lemons represents nothing
but the merest justice, nothing but
what our growers had an absolute
right to demand of congress. And
yet, in order to secure such just pro-
lection, such necessary protection,
its representatives have allied them
selves with Cannonism and Aid
richism, and voted to impose heavy
and unnecessary burdens upon the
people to fatten trusts and monop-
olies.
There has been disposition on the
part of the stand-pat organs of Cali
fornia of late to try to brand all oppo-
nents of the Payne-Aldrich tariff as
free traders who would not scruple to
ruin any California industry for the
sake of a political advantage. That
this is absurd and untrue Mr.. stephens
shows in few words. Nobody objects
to the use of the tariff for the legiti-
mate protection of an industry-like
that of citrus fruits-but millions in
this country are obiecting to the per-
version of that tariff for the benefit
of the country's trust monopolies.
When Mr.. McLachlan seeks to defend
his alliance with Cannonism and Aid
richism he will do SO by pointing out
for Southern California products. This
is a specious sort of argument that
now deceives comparatively few people
Mr. McLachlan seeks to make you be-
lieve that in order TO get duty on
oranges and lemons and to secure ap-
propriations for public buildings and
works in his district he had to become
an assistant pirate with Aldrich, Can
non and their kind to loot you in a
hundred ways, as, for example, through
Aldrich's rubber trust with its prohib-
itive tariff on baby's teething rings,
the invalids water bottle and the bust
ness mans automobile tires.
In other words, the Cannon kind of
congressman ask you to believe that
it was TO your advantage to be given
dimes and filched of dollars. The time
has come, however when the pinch of
extortion by the trusts that are bull
warked behind the Aldrich-Cannon
tariff has made the people see what
a jug-handled proposition tho tariff
law is. Processing to be means of
raising wages and shutting out cheap
labor competition, it is in reality a
means for the trusts to shut out COM
petition and pay what wages they
please.
When the Cannon kind of congress
man tells the fruit grower what a fine
thing the tariff law is, let him tell why
it was necessary for the insurgents to
put up such a bitter fight in order to
secure a railroad bill that would save
shippers from the greed of the rail-
roads. The citrus fruit grower knows
how the roads tried to grab all the ben
efits of the increased duties, yet the
Cannon and Aldrich- -bOssed congress
defeated the provision in the railroad
bill for the physical valuation of rail-
road properties, which would do more
to give the interstate commerce COM
mission a basis on which to compel
fair treatment of the shipper than any
other single thing. AS Mr.. Stephens
says:
In my iudgmen congress has but
half done its work when it gives
the orange grower a cent a pound
protection and the lemon grower
half a cent more To complete that
work. to insure the growers getting
and keeping what the tariff rightly
gives, it is necessary that the eX-
tortions of the railroads shall be
restricted
In a word, Mr.. Stephens favors
rational protection for the industries
of Southern california and all parts
of the country. More than that, il
they are fair, they will not ask ol
want. But much more than that the
vast monopolies of the past decade
have demanded and secured through
those who blindly followed Cannon
and Aldrich. This distinction IN tariff
making is now coming to be under
stood generally, and it is nowhere
clearer. than in Southern California
Any tariff board, making a set OF
schedules on a scientific plan, would
give to the citrus industry all that Il
now has, while it would not give &c
the trusts the power they now enjoy
bv shutting out all competition, tC
bleed the public on a hundred articles
of daily and necessary use.