The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-08
BEN CARTER WRITES ON
POLITICAL SITUATION

Washington August 7.-(SpeclaL)-
When l think back over the later years
of my actual residence in Alabama ano
recall myself as but little over 30 years
old, 1 have a conviction that some
body was always encouraging me II
those days to speak my mind stridentlS
on the big political questions. 1t can
not be denied that 1 made noise-lr
the newspapers, in the courthouse, III
conventions, on the curbstone-to ar
immodest extent that not even young
person would have dared II somebody
had not seemed to hear what he was
saying. Now, If loquacity is a habit
so, 1t seems, does the egging of Other
people to talk become a habit. 9th
erwise why do 1 still have invitations
something back to the home papers
on politics of the moment?
If it were proposed that l give The
Age Herald a Washington view Of the
political situation 1 should decline the
footless undertaking. 1t is a provert
that Washington hes no opinion worth
any practical MANS considering. Gov
eminent clerks hardly go nome, Oh an
average, once In two years; their talk
Is of local issues and leaders that. were
alive when they got their first appoint
ments, and which are now dead, all
of the Issues and most of the men
Congressman spend almost a half OF
their time in Washington. When we
listen to their talk we merely learn
what they think the country is think
ing. First-hand information of the
workings of the public mind is the only
Kind that a live newspaper can be
supposed to want. My business, as 1t
happened, has taken me very often to
Chicago and st. Louis, and sometimes
TO ST. Paul and Detroit Tor severa,
years back, and what l offer to The
Ase-Herald's readers is my experience
acquired on those travels
Some three years ago l fancied that
l had made a discovery all my own
in these middle western states, viz;
that, outside the republican machine
and the few whom high protection
enriched, the Dingley tariff bill hardly
had a friend. 1 observed with much
interest that merchants, farmers, city
business men of all classes, indeed
everybody 1 would talk with on the
trains who had no peculiar stake in
the tariff, was convinced that its rates
were unjustly high. The republican
leaders did not fail to take the hint.
In their national platform of 1908 they
put something that the country at large
construed as promising a revision
downward of the customs duties. In
fact, after Taft's election they were
not slow in passing a new tariff bill
But of what sort? The protestations
of the organization republicans that
the rates of the Payne tariff are on
the whole lower than those of the
Dingiey tariff would apprise the man
from Mars that the people of the Unit
ed States believe that the new rates
are the higher. Other conditions, too,
have conspired to make the people re-
sentful of republican lawmaking. Only
a few weeks ago a thousand or so car
cases of Australian mutton were land
ed in New York-an initial venture IN
a business which has reached enormous
proportions in England. This meat was
below the ruling prices of American
Sheep but not mothers son in eth
er house of Congress ventured to move
a new increase of the duty In the name
of the sheep industry of Ohio and Mon
tana and Wyoming. If this had hap
pened four years ago the Aldriches and
Cannons and Paynes and Dicks and
Heyburns would have howled for a
higher duty. Notwithstanding the ex-
orbitant protection of the Dfngley bill
there are not as many sheep in this
country as there were 10 years ago
How many there will be 10 years from
this day, If protection shall still be
of the prohibitive order. God only
knows) AS 1t is, no republican oracle
is now heard to say that a cheap lamb
chop makes a cheap man.
If it were true that Aldrich and Payne
have reduced tariff taxation and that the
republican administration in Congress
is guiltless of all tho impositions against
which the consumer cries out. it Is moth
ing to the point. The people at large
believe that this Aldrich-Payne contri-
vance is a tariff for extortion," but
especially that II there were no high