The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-05-03
COST OF PRODUCTION
Deceptive Plank In Indiana Re-
 publican Platform
THE VOTERS HOODWINKED

Plausible Declaration Conceals a Mis- chievous Failacy-False Theory O Economy Exposed-The Right Prin cipe Made Clear.
 we believe in a protective tariff measured by the difference betweeI the cost of production here ant abroad" These words are taken iron the Indiana Republican platform adopted a couple of weeks ago. The Republican national platform o, 1904 said, '@Fhe measure of protection should always at least equal the diff ference in the cost of production al home and abroad"
 And the platform of 1908 affirmed substantially the same thing. It said ''The true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition o1 such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad t@ Now, all these declarations of pFin ciple look very plausible, but they conceal mischievous fallacy all the same
 They contradict the elementary fact that foreign nations can make some things cheaper than we can and that we cannot afford to spend our time in making for ourselves such goods as we can get more cheaply from those nations.
 You would not think it economy fo, a merchant earning $500 a week to be doing washing which he can get tht ChinamaD to do for a dollar a week, would you? And yet many sane peo' pie think it economy for high grade American labor to be employed on jobs that are unworthy of 1t and are only fit for. the foreign "pauper," to give him his classical title.
 5, The right principle is to keep Ameri- can labor employed in lines of produc- tion where 1t will reap the largest product and to buy everything else that we need from the foreigner, pay ing him back with the goods that we produce. That is true economy and common sense.
 The other principle, the one we are adopting now, is to keep producing everything thing we are fit ta produce and the thing we are not fit to produce-and then to charge the re sulting deficiency to the account of the poor American consumer.
 However, we are fit to produce a great many things more cheaply than the foreigner To look at the tariff schedules it would seem that we can produce next to nothing. We have plenty of coal, plenty of iron, plenty of technical skill and intelligence and plenty of land and of everything that a nation can expect. Ought we not, then, to be able to undersen the for eigner with his obsolete ways and his impoverished territory? We ought, and we are. There is no need for a tariff so far as protection to labor is concerned, but there is a need for a tariff to protect monopoly. That is just what the tariff is for and what it does.
 ''The difference between the cost of production at home and abroadv, Be- fore the tariff was made did it's fram- CTS dSCcTLdLn WAdL lAdL CdSC was? They did not. They rejected the idea as absurd. They went ahead and put up the schedules to suit the appetites of the tariff gluttons and not the interests of the consumers.
 When Senator Owen of Oklahoma asked Senator Aldrich why the diff ference in cost of production had not been compiled as a basis for framing the tariff Aldrich's answer was that 'he would have a clerk compile for him a list of publications relating to the tariff, but would be unable to fur nish him with the intelligence to di- gest them"
 That is bow the tariff framers met the honest demand of those who want ed the party pledge to be literally kept. The machine politicians had no inten- tion to keep this pledge when they made it. And they had the best of all reasons for their action. A true in vestigation Of the relative cost of pro- duction would have shown that the tariff was not necessary, and they did not want this damning fact to be brought out.
 Thus have the voters been deceived. and thus they may be deceived again if they are not watchful.
 THOMAS SCANLON.